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Military camp used by the Assyrian male monarch Sennacherib , whose exploit of position beleaguering to Lachish and Jerusalem are detail in the Hebrew Bible , have finally been identified , a scholar says .
At the time of the beleaguering , which both occurred around 701 B.C. , theAssyrianscontrolled a rapidly grow empire that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea .
This Assyrian relief shows the camp used by the Assyrians during the siege of Lachish.
The siege at Lachish and Jerusalem are refer frequently in the Hebrew Bible and purportedly cease at Jerusalem when " the Angel Falls of the Lord go out and put to last a hundred and eighty - five thousand in the Assyrian coterie " ( 2 Kings 19:35 ) . But ancient Assyrian inscriptions tell a unlike story , claiming that Hezekiah , the Billie Jean King ofJudah , pay a large amount of tribute to get the Assyrians to leave .
Lachish siege
At the British Museum in London , there is a relief depicting the military blockade of Lachish , and it shows the Assyrian coterie . Stephen Compton , an independent learner who specializes in Near Eastern Archaeology , compare this relief to picture from the other to mid-20th 100 which show Lachish . He key a web site northwards of Lachish with an oval mould bodily structure with wall that he thinks may have been the Assyrians ' camp .
Compton noted that Assyrian camps run to be oval . The Arabic name of the proposed camp site is " Khirbet al Mudawwara , " and during the Middle Ages , the parole " Mudawwara " could mean a place where a grand Turk rank a military camp . This suggests that mass who lived at the site in later times knew that the ancient Assyrians had used it as a camp , Compton take down in an clause published in the June issue of the journalNear Eastern Archaeology .
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This photo shows Ammunition Hill, that is, Jebel el Mudawwara. The remains of Jordanian trenches are still visible.
to boot , an archeological survey conducted in the early twentieth hundred found the remains of pottery shards whose trend escort to around the fourth dimension that Sennacherib lay siege to Lachish , Compton note . He told Live Science he has sent a copy of his composition to archaeologist who are forge at the Lachish site and he hopes that succeeding excavation will molt light on whether the Assyrian camp is located there .
Jerusalem camp
In the case of the Jerusalem camp , Compton used old aerial photograph and 19th - C archaeological excavation phonograph record to survey the landscape painting . He noted that in 1881 to 1882 , the Palestine Exploration Fund ( PEF ) found walls at a internet site called Jebel el Mudawwara , turn up north of the Temple Mount . ThePalestine Exploration Fundis a non - profit organization that facilitates enquiry in the part .
The nineteenth - century archeologist thought it was a Romanist refugee camp , but the excavation records suggest that the camp is oval . " Romanist [ military camps ] were rectangular , whereas the picture designate that this was roughly ellipse , consistent with an Assyrian summer camp , " Compton wrote . Additionally , the name " Mudawwara " — a name associated with military camps — is used by nineteenth - hundred sources to describe the site .
If this is the place where Sennacherib set up camp to lay siege to Jerusalem , it could also be Nob , a site that once held theTabernacle , a portable asylum retrace by Moses , Compton said . The Hebrew Bible claims that the Tabernacle was set up at Nob and that Nob was where Sennacherib halted to attack Jerusalem .
This aerial photo taken in 1925 shows Jebel el Mudawwara. Located north of Jerusalem, it is proposed as the site where the Assyrians built their camp during the siege of Jerusalem.
The site ’s twentieth - one C history may make it more difficult to transmit new digging there . In the thirties , the British construct an ammo storage installation at the web site , and it became known as " Ammunition Hill . " In 1948 , the Jordanian United States Army put soldier on the site and built a series of trench and munition . And in 1967 , there was a blooming conflict between the Israelis and Jordanian troops that resulted in Israeli troops take the Alfred Hawthorne . Today , a museum and memorial site are located there .
Scholars react
learner who were not involve with the research had motley thought of the findings . Some note that the estimate that the Khirbet al Mudawwara site at Lachish is an Assyrian refugee camp is plausible . " The display case of Lachish is the most interesting,“Israel Finkelstein , a professor emeritus of archeology at Tel Aviv University , told Live Science in an email . The " next matter to do is to go over the suspect site in the field , " Finkelstein said .
Eckart Frahm , a prof of Assyriology at Yale University , said that it ’s possible that Khirbet al Mudawwara was an Assyrian siege camp .
Others are dubious , however . David Ussishkin , a professor emeritus of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who has carry broad work at Lachish , tell Live Science he thinks the siege camp was to the southwest of Lachish .
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Meanwhile , the idea of Jebel el Mudawwara as the siege ingroup for Jerusalem got a negative response . Frahm said Assyrian lettering paint a picture that while Sennacherib blockaded Jerusalem , he did n’t strain to take it by storming it or through the usage of siege locomotive engine . Assyrian inscription say Sennacherib progress " bastioned structures " to embarrass Jerusalem rather than to fabricate a single pack , Frahm order .
Frahm also differ with the meaning of the Arabic word"mudawwara , " saying it does n’t necessarily look up to a plaza where a grand Turk would place their tent . " The introductory meaning of Arabic ' mudawwara , ' if I am not very much mistaken , is ' round place ' — and in my horizon , the many dissimilar al - Mudawwaras discussed by the writer all just indicate the plumpness of the structure the condition describe , " Frahm said .
The sources note that further investigations will be needed . Mordechai Cogan , prof emeritus of biblical history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , told Live Science that the landscape painting where the site are locate may make them idealistic for Assyrian military encampments but also said that new archeologic excavations are necessary .
