Setting the Record Straight for the Chronology of Sargon II/Sennacherib



For full article, see:
http://kinghezekiahiaofjudah.blog.com/2011/12/27/damien-f-mackey-assesses-his-thesis-after-5-years/

In the process of this thesis I told of the startling development of an initial thought that there must have been a far more substantial than believed (that is, for those who do allow for it) co-regency between Sargon II and Sennacherib. As I plumbed the depth of this perceived co-regency, I came to realize that it was bottomless, that the major regnal year events of Sargon II could be aligned, in the same order, right the way though, with the recorded campaigns of Sennacherib. This forced me in the end to the highly controversial conclusion that Sargon II, the supposed father of Sennacherib, was Sennacherib himself. And so I posed (I, p. 166):

A Question By Way of Summary

What are the chances of two successive kings having, in such perfect chronological sequence - over a span of some two decades - the same campaigns against the same enemies; even allowing for a certain sameness amongst Assyrian kings due to their heavy use of repetitive, formulaïc language?

1. Merodach-baladan (Sargon). Merodach-baladan (Sennacherib).

2. Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sargon). Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sennacherib).

3. Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sargon). Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sennacherib)

4. Merodach-baladan and Elam (Sargon). Merodach-baladan and Elam (Sennacherib).

5. (Not fully preserved) (Sargon). (Not fully preserved) (Sennacherib).

6. Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sargon). Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sennacherib).

7. Elam (Sargon). Elam (Sennacherib).

Since then, this part of my thesis has been published by the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (UK), as “Sargon and Sennacherib” C&C Workshop 2010:1 (February 2010),

http://www.sis-group.org.uk/workshop.htm

and these 7 points have received their proper notational references.

I was able to show, for one, that a crucial Assyrian document pertaining to the supposed succeeding by Sennacherib of his father Sargon II had been doctored by the early Assyriologists, Winckler and co., who presumed to add the name “Sargon” to where they thought it must originally have been (I, p. 137).

How many other ancient texts have been thus doctored to conform to a preconceived idea?

Undoubtedly, this identification of Sargon II with Sennacherib was one of the major discoveries of the thesis. It enabled for the traditional chronology of king Hezekiah to be retained. It solved outright the Tang-I Var difficulty and problems associated with clashes between the reigns of Sargon II and Sennacherib. It also accorded with the testimony of the ancient text of the Book of Tobit, that Sennacherib had succeeded Shalmaneser, with no mention there of Sargon (Tobit 1:15). Finally, it paved the way for a resolution of the history in the Book of Judith, the subject of Volume 2 of my thesis, especially the problem of the Assyrian king, there called “Nebuchadnezzar”, who seemed to be like a composite of Sargon II and Sennacherib. He was in fact ‘both’, as I came to conclude.

I shall come back to this “Nebuchadnezzar”, who has further implications for a revision of chronology.

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