Tag Archives: Ashdod

Visualizing Isaiah 20: Sargon the king of Assyria

Posted on March 3, 2014 | 3 comments

For many years there was no reference to Sargon II (722-705 B.C.) in the available Assyrian records. Yet, the prophet Isaiah, writing at the time of the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom of Israel, mentions Sargon’s campaign against Ashdod.

In the year that the commander in chief, who was sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and captured it– (Isaiah 20:1 ESV)

The palace of Sargon was discovered by Emile Botta at Khorsabad in 1843. This was the period of “monumental” discoveries in archaeology. Both the British Museum and the Louvre have impressive artifacts from the palace of Sargon. The photo below shows Sargon (on the left) receiving one of  his ministers.

Sargon II received a minister. British Museum. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Sargon II receives a minister. British Museum. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

D. J. Wiseman explains the historical context of what happened at Ashdod.

In 716 bc Sargon sent his army commander (turtan; the *‘tartan’) to war against the Arabs in Sinai. This led to the reception of tribute from the pharaoh Shilkanni (Osorkon IV) of Egypt and from Samsi, queen of the Arabs. Despite these Assyrian successes, the people of Ashdod displaced their Assyrian-nominated ruler, Ahimetu, by a usurper Iadna (or Iamani) who initiated yet another Syro-Palestinian league against Assyria, doubtless relying on Egyptian help. In 712 bc the same turtan was sent to conquer Ashdod (Is. 20:1), which was reduced to the status of an Assyrian province. Since Azaqa (’Azeqah or Tell es-Zakariye) on the Judaean border near Lachish surrendered in this campaign, it will be seen how narrowly independent Judah escaped a further invasion. Iamani fled to Nubia for refuge, only to be extradited to Nineveh by the ruler Shabaka. (The New Bible Dictionary, 3rd edition)

One hundred twenty years after the discovery of Sargon’s palace, archaeologists working at Ashdod discovered fragments of a cuneiform stele of Sargon II at Ashdod. For more information about the discovery and a photograph of it see “Sargon II, Ashdod, and Isaiah 20:1” here.

This inscription tells of the building of Sargon's palace. Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

This inscription tells of the building of Sargon’s palace. Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

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Sargon II, Ashdod, and Isaiah 20:1

Posted on August 22, 2013 | 9 comments

Ashdod was located along an international highway known as the Way of the Sea, the Way of Philistia, or the Via Maris. This was the important route connecting Egypt and Assyria. We have already discussed, in the past few posts, that the Assyrian king Sargon II captured Ashdod in 712/11 B.C. The prophet Isaiah makes reference to this event in Isaiah 20:1.

 The LORD revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. (Isa 20:1 NET)

Sometime discoveries are made, but get little attention. A discovery at Tel Ashdod in 1963 falls into this category. Tel Ashdod was excavated from 1962 to 1972 under the direction of Moshe Dothan. David Noel Freedman wrote an article in Biblical Archaeologist (26:4, 1963)) about “The Second Season at Ancient Ashdod.” He describes the fragments of a stele of Sargon II.

Fragments of another stele, commemorating the victories of Sargon, were found at Ashdod during the current season, thus offering direct confirmation and vivid illustration of the biblical and Assyrian accounts. In all, three pieces of the stele were discovered. Enough can be made of their contents to show that the inscription duplicated in content if not precisely in wording other victory steles of the Assyrian king. By comparing the Ashdod stele with the others it will be possible to reconstruct the missing parts, one of which described the actual conquest of Ashdod. The inscription was carved in cuneiform signs characteristic of Sargon and his period, on all four sides of a slab of basalt which had been imported from a region north of Megiddo. It may have served as a pedestal for an obelisk, or a statue of the emperor. It must have been erected between the year of victory at Ashdod and the death of the king in 705 B.C., perhaps in 707 when a similar stele was set up in Cyprus. With the accession of Sennacherib in 704, most of the vessel countries revolted; Hezekiah of Judah and Sidqa of Ashkelon were the ringleaders in the west. They were able to liberate Ashdod from Assyrian control, and doubtless the event was observed by the destruction of Sargon’s victory stele, symbol of foreign oppression. These fragments of a monumental Assyrian inscription are the first ever found in Palestine.

The photos below were published in an article by Hayam Tadmor (“Philistia Under Assyrian Rule.” Biblical Archaeologist (29:3, 1966). Several years ago I used a digital camera to copy the photo. Sorry it is not better, but at least you can see the pieces. A photo of the piece in the middle below is also published in a BAR article (Jan-Feb, 2007) by H. Shanks on the “Assyrian Palace Discovered in Ashdod,” but the quality is about the same.
Fragment of the Sargon II inscription found at Ashdod.

Fragment of the Sargon II inscription found at Ashdod.

For several years the fragments were displayed in a case across from the replica of the Siege of Lachish in the Israel Museum. For the past years the fragments have not been on display. I made inquiry at the Museum earlier this year without any success. I wonder if the pieces have been moved to the Corine Maman Museum of Philistine Culture in Ashdod. Can anyone help with this?

This discovery is one of those that complement the biblical record. Sargon II (721–705 B.C.) is mentioned only once in the Bible — Isaiah 20:1. Isaiah says that the commanding general of Sargon II fought against Ashdod and captured it.

The photo below shows Sargon II (right) facing a person who is generally considered to be an Assyrian high dignitary. (See the discussion in Fant & Reddish, Lost Treasures of the Bible, 133-140.

Sargon II and an attendant. Displayed in Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Sargon II and an official. Displayed in Louvre. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Jack Finegan says of the reference to Sargon II in Isaiah 20:1,

… for a long time this was the only place in extant literature where his name was known.

The palace of Sargon II was discovered by Paul Emile Botta at Khorsabad in 1843. This relief comes from that palace, and is displayed in the Louvre. Other reliefs and artifacts from the palace are exhibited in the British Museum and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Written copies of Isaiah existed in what we know as the Dead Sea Scrolls nearly 2000 years before the discovery of Sargon’s palace and archive. Perhaps we should be slow to think of Isaiah and other biblical writers as being unhistorical. To say this in a positive way, this illustrates the historical trustworthiness of the Bible. That the only reference to Sargon is specifically linked to Ashdod is even more impressive.

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The Philistine city of Ashdod in the Bible

Posted on August 21, 2013 | 1 comment

Ashdod is mentioned in the Bible as one of five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis (1 Samuel 6:17). The city is mentioned earlier among the Canaanite cities in the Ebla tablets. Here is a brief survey of the events recorded in the Bible.

  • Some of the Anakim were left in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod after Israel entered the land (Joshua 11:22).
  • Ashdod was among some cities that remained under Philistine control even though it had been assigned to the tribe of Judah (Joshua 13:2-3; 15:46-47).
  • When Israel lost the Ark of the Covenant at Ebenezer, the Philistines brought it to Ashdod and placed it in the temple of Dagon (1 Samuel 5:1-8).
Representation of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness at Timna. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Representation of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness at Timna.

  • Uzziah, king of Judah (767-740/39 B.C.), made war against Ashdod. He broke down the wall of Ashdod and built cities in the area (2 Chronicles 26:6).
  • King Sargon II of Assyria captured Ashdod in 712/711 B.C. (Isaiah 20:1).
  • After the return from Babylon, Nehemiah faced problems because some of the Judeans had married women of Ashdod. Their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and could not speak the language of Judah (Nehemiah 13:23-24).
  • The prophets Jeremiah, Amos, Zephaniah, and Zechariah spoke against Ashdod (Jeremiah 25:20; Amos 1:8; 3:9; Zephaniah 2:4; Zechariah 9:6).
  • Ashdod was known as Azotus in New Testament times (Acts 8:40).

In the next post we hope to discuss Isaiah 20:1 and the archaeological discovery that complements this text.

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Massive Iron Age fortifications found at Ashdod-Yam

Posted on August 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

The American Friends of Tel Aviv University announced Monday the discovery of a massive fortification from the Iron Age.

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Researchers from Tel Aviv University have unearthed the remains of massive ancient fortifications built around an Iron-Age Assyrian harbor in present-day Israel.

At the heart of the well-preserved fortifications is a mud-brick wall up to more than 12 feet wide and 15 feet high. The wall is covered in layers of mud and sand that stretch for hundreds of feet on either side. When they were built in the eighth century B.C.E., the fortifications formed a daunting crescent-shaped defense for an inland area covering more than 17 acres.

The finding comes at the end of the first excavation season at the Ashdod-Yam archaeological dig in the contemporary Israeli coastal city of Ashdod, just south of Tel Aviv. Dr. Alexander Fantalkin of TAU’s Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures is leading the project on behalf of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology.

“The fortifications appear to protect an artificial harbor,” says Fantalkin. “If so, this would be a discovery of international significance, the first known harbor of this kind in our corner of the Levant.”

Building up and putting down. When the fortifications were built, the Assyrians ruled the southeastern part of the Mediterranean basin, including parts of Africa and the Middle East. Assyrian inscriptions reveal that at the end of the century, Yamani, the rebel king of Ashdod, led a rebellion against Sargon II, the king of the Assyrian Empire. The Kingdom of Judah, under King Hezekiah, rejected Yamani’s call to join the insurrection.

The Assyrians responded harshly to the rebellion, eventually destroying Philistine Ashdod. As a result, power shifted to the nearby area of Ashdod-Yam, where the TAU excavations are taking place. The fortifications seem to be related to these events, but it is not yet clear exactly how. They could have been built before or after the Ashdod rebellion was put down, either at the initiative of the locals or at the orders of the Assyrians.

“An amazing amount of time and energy was invested in building the wall and glacis [embankments],” says Fantalkin.

3D castles in the sand. More recent ruins — from the Hellenistic period, between the fourth and second centuries B.C.E. — were also found on top of the sand of the Iron Age fortifications. The buildings and walls were apparently built after the fortifications were abandoned and then probably destroyed by an earthquake in the second half of the second century B.C.E. Among the unusually well-preserved ruins were artifacts, including coins and weights.

The researchers employed a powerful new digital technique, photogrammetry, to create a 3D reconstruction of all the features of the excavation. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln provided the equipment. Dr. Philip Sapirstein, a postdoctoral fellow at TAU, served as a digital surveyor on the project.

The only archaeological work done previously at Ashdod-Yam was a series of exploratory digs led by late Israeli archaeologist Dr. Jacob Kaplan on behalf of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Museum of Antiquities between 1965 and 1968. Kaplan believed the Ashdod rebels built the fortifications in anticipation of an Assyrian attack, but Fantalkin says the construction appears too impressive to have been done under such circumstances.

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Broken columns lie scattered among the wild flowers on the sand dunes covering Ashdod-Yam. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Broken columns lie scattered among the wild flowers on the sand dunes covering Ashdod-Yam. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The Ashdod-Yam Excavations website is here.

HT: Joseph Lauer

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Visiting Ashdod-Yam — New Testament Azotus

Posted on August 20, 2013 | 1 comment

Back in May, my friend Dan and I visited the site of Ashdod-Yam. The site is located a little over 3 miles NW of Tel Ashdod. Tel Ashdod, the city mentioned in the Old Testament, is difficult to visit. My young friends, Trent and Rebekah, mentioned visiting Ashdod a few weeks ago. The site, “now a cow pasture,”  is enclosed by a highway and railroad track on one side and an industrial park on the other. Finding the right hole in the fence is not easy.

You can see a small photo of the excavated area at Tel Ashdod in Journal 118 of Hadashot Arkheologiyot here. Biblical Archaeological Review has a full page photo of the Assyrian palace excavated at Tel Ashdod. (See “Assyrian Palace Discovered in Ashdod.” BAR, Jan/Feb 2007.)

Sargon II took the city of Ashdod in 712/711 B.C., an event mentioned in Isaiah 20:1. By Roman times Ashdod consisted of two cities, the coastal town of Azotus Paralios and the inland town of Azotus Mesogeius. (There is too much history for inclusion here.)

The citadel at Ashdod-Yam with a view north toward the modern city of Ashdod. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The citadel, an early Islamic and Crusader fortress, at Ashdod-Yam with a view north. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Azotus is mentioned only once in the Bible. After the baptism of the man of Ethiopia, the evangelist Philip “found himself at Azotus.”

But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. (Acts 8:40 ESV)

Except for the fortress, the large site of Ashdod-Yam resembles sand dunes. A joint excavation conducted by the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University and the Institut für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft of the Leipzig University has just completed the current season. The excavation web site may may be accessed here.

Ashdod Yam. A view south toward Ashkelon. The large tel can be seen sloping down on the left of the photo. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Ashdod-Yam. A view south toward Ashkelon. The large tel can be seen sloping down on the left of the photo. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Below is a photo of the name of Azotos Paralios in the 6th century Madaba mosaic map.

Azotus Paralios is portrayed on the 6th century A.D. Madaba mosaic map. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Azotos Paralios is portrayed on the Madaba mosaic map. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

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