Sargon II's Prisms are two Assyrian tablet inscriptions describing

Sargon II Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is general ...

's (722 to 705 BC) campaigns, discovered in Nineveh in the

Library of Ashurbanipal The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BC, including texts in vari ...

. The Prisms today are in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. An excerpt of the text as translated by Luckenbill as below:

"... Philistia, Judah, Edom, Moab ...".

Known fragments

Prism A

* K. 1668b + DT6: four columns, with 15, 42, 48 and 19 lines File:Sargon's Prism A (fragment diagram).png, Diagram for the reconstruction of Prism A File:Sargon's Prism A fragments.png, Prism A fragments

Prism B fragments

* (A) K. 1668a + K. 1671: two columns, with 64 and 63 lines * (B) K. 1672: two columns, with 9 and 8 linesCatalogue of the cuneiform tablets in the Kouyunjik collection of the British museum
p.327-9 * (H) K. 1669: one column, 34 lines, in 2 sections File:Sargon's Prism B fragments.png, Prism B fragments

Text

Here is some of the text from journal article : Inscribed Prisms of Sargon II from Nimrud (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4199590) Sargon, great king, mighty king....king of Sumer and Akkad. Favourite of the great gods; upon me the gods Assur, Nabu and Marduk Bestowed a kingdom without peer and promoted the favourable calling of my name to the highest place. who took care of Sippar, Nippur, Babylon, and Brosippa, talents of gold 730 talents shekel (of silver?) for the work upon Esarra the shrine of the god Assur I (laid out?) and make it shine like the light of day. With 16 ta(lents of) bright (gold).... (The man of Sa)maria who with a king (hostile to) me had consorted together not to do service and not to bring tribute and they did battle in the strength of the great gods, my lords I clashed with them 7280 people with (their) chariots and the gods their trust, as a spoil I counted, 200 chariots as my royal muster. I mustered from among them the rest of them I caused to take their dwelling in the midst of Assyria The city of Samaria I restored and greater than before I caused it to become. People of lands conquered by my two hands I brought within it; my officer as prefect over them I placed, and together with the people of Assyria I counted them The people of the land of Musur and the Arabians I caused the blaze of Ashur my lord to overwhelm them...

External links

The Prism in the British Museum

The Assyrian Eponym Canon
George Smith, 1875, page 129 * Catalogue of the cuneiform tablets https://archive.org/details/catalogueofcunei00brituoft * * http://www.isaiah666.com/sargon_annals.pdf Palestine * *

References