Sennacherib’s Prism

Assyrian kings wrote their annals on clay prisms and cylinders. The best known for readers of the Bible is a six-sided prism of baked clay, about 38 centimeters high, with the final edition of King Sennacherib’s annals, dated 691 BC. One copy, the Taylor Prism, was acquired at Nineveh in 1830 and is now in the British Museum; another is at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Carved reliefs from Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh, also in the British Museum, show his siege of the Judean city of Lachish.

The prism tells of his campaign of 701 BC. Sennacherib says that “Hezekiah the Jew” did not submit, so he besieged and took 46 of his strong cities, carried off 200,150 people and shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem “like a caged bird”. Hezekiah then sent him a great tribute, with 30 talents of gold — the same amount of gold as in 2 Kings 18:14, though the prism gives 800 talents of silver against the Bible’s 300. The prism does not say that Jerusalem was taken. The Bible ends the story with a disaster in the Assyrian camp and Sennacherib’s return home (2 Kings 19:35–36).