ISIS smashed what may have been earliest depiction of Jerusalem

The slab depicts an elaborate city wall with a palace-like building behind it. A figure stands atop the building, bearing an object aloft.

By Dinah Bucholz, Jewish Breaking News

The palace of Sennacherib (Sancherev in Hebrew) in ancient Nineveh (modern Mosul, Iraq) has yielded a treasure trove of historical artifacts, including stunning bas-relief depictions of battle scenes that decorated his opulent throne room and records of his exploits.

Some of these depictions and records match up with the biblical account of his invasion of Judea. In both accounts, he destroyed the ancient cities of Lachish and Gath.

In his own account, he boasts that he trapped King Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage” but does not mention destroying Jerusalem, as was the tradition among conquerors—to record their victories and omit their defeats.

According to the biblical account, he surrounded Jerusalem, but God sent an angel to kill 185,000 of his troops, after which the army retreated.

ISIS captured Mosul in 2014, and the group destroyed many of the stone slabs in the palace in 2016 as part of a campaign to erase pre-Islamic history.

These carvings allowed archaeologists to compare biblical accounts with Assyrian accounts, but that ability is now forever gone. However, photos of some of the bas-relief depictions remain, and recent research reveals that Slab 28 may have displayed a carving of Jerusalem.

Previously, it was thought that the oldest representation of the ancient Judean city dated from the sixth century CE, in a colorful mosaic from the floor of a Byzantine-era church in Jordan called the Madaba Map. But this latest finding predates the mosaic by 1,200 years.

The study, published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies by University of South Africa researcher Stephen Compton, lays to rest the theory that the stone slab depicts the siege of the ancient Philistine city of Eltekeh.

“This is a unique image of the Assyrian army leaving a foreign city and leaving it intact, and it fits with both Sennacherib’s account of what happened in Jerusalem and the Bible,” Compton said.

Sennacherib’s throne room, at 167 feet long, was the largest room in the palace and displayed 33 stone slabs covered in bas-relief carvings.

The king reigned from 705 to 681 BCE and waged his campaign against Jerusalem in 701 BCE. British archaeologists began digging at the site in the mid-19th century and moved the best-preserved slabs to England.

They are still on display at the British Museum today.

In 1990, photographer John Malcolm Russell photographed Slab 28, which was later destroyed by ISIS.

Another archaeologist, Christoph Uehlinger, studied the slab before it was destroyed, and he also believed it might have depicted Jerusalem but did not present definitive research on the subject.

The slab depicts an elaborate city wall with a palace-like building behind it. A figure stands atop the building, bearing an object aloft.

Compton believes the city wall is the wall of Jerusalem, the building is the king’s palace, and the figure atop is King Hezekiah.

The most obvious clue is that the city wall is pictured intact in the bas-relief.

“Usually, Assyrian carvings show cities burning, being looted, and people being dragged away,” Compton explained. “But this one shows the city intact.”

This fits with both the biblical account and the annals of the Assyrian king.

In the biblical account, the Israelites paid a large tribute to Assyria; when the Assyrian army besieged Jerusalem despite the tribute, Hezekiah prayed for deliverance, and an angel killed 185,000 soldiers, leading the army to retreat and return to Nineveh.

Sennacherib, true to form, does not admit that his army was defeated. He simply wrote, “I trapped Hezekiah in his royal city, Jerusalem, like a bird in a cage,” and failed to mention what happened to the city.

He does not mention the destruction of Jerusalem, a glaring omission that speaks volumes.

Another clue is the depiction of a single figure who appears important.

“He is holding a standard, which is a symbol of royalty,” Compton said. “Normally, you’d see many defenders in a city, shooting arrows. Here, there’s only one figure, and he looks important.”

Compton also examined the building style, which he said in this depiction fits the architectural style of Jerusalem at that time period.

The carving also shows the Temple Mount in the foreground with the City of David behind it, as it would appear if the Assyrian army approached from the north as recorded.