1861 illustration by Eugène Flandin of excavations of the ruins of Dur-Sharrukin, the Assyrian capital city founded by Sargon II
Sargon II ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 to 705 BC as one of its most successful kings. In his final military campaign, Sargon was killed in battle in the south-eastern Anatolian region Tabal and the Assyrian army was unable to retrieve his body, which meant that he could not undergo the traditional royal Assyrian burial. In ancient Mesopotamia, not being buried was believed to condemn the dead to becoming a hungry and restless ghost for eternity. As a result, the Assyrians believed that Sargon must have committed some grave sin in order to suffer this fate. His son and successor Sennacherib (r. 705–681), convinced of Sargon's sin, consequently spent much effort to distance himself from his father and to rid the empire from his work and imagery. Sennacherib's efforts led to Sargon only rarely being mentioned in later texts. When modern Assyriology took form in Western Europe in the 18th century, historians mainly followed the writings of classical Greco-Roman authors and the descriptions of Assyria in the Hebrew Bible for information. Given that Sargon is barely mentioned in either, he was consequently forgotten, the then prevalent historical reconstructions placing Sennacherib as the direct successor of Sargon's predecessor Shalmaneser V and identifying Sargon as an alternate name for one of the more well-known kings.
After centuries of Sargon being forgotten, there were important developments in Assyriology in the 19th century and the traditional reconstruction of Assyrian history became increasingly challenged in the scholarly community. In 1825, Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmüller was the first to recognize Sargon, based solely on the name's single appearance in the Bible, as a distinct king. Though there was some further scholarly support during the years that followed, the most significant developments came after the ruins of Sargon's ancient capital city, Dur-Sharrukin, were discovered by Paul-Émile Botta in 1843. Before the cuneiform inscriptions were deciphered in 1847 it was impossible to identify the builder of the city. In 1845, Isidore Löwenstern was the first to suggest Sargon as the builder; though Löwenstern's analysis had little scientific basis, his conclusion was by coincidence correct. Sargon was securely identified as the builder of Dur-Sharrukin by Adrien Prévost de Longpérier in 1847, after the inscriptions had been deciphered. Sargon was despite this not immediately recognized as a distinct king, with some still preferring to view him as the same person as one of the more well-established kings. Works published in the 1850s and 1860s, most prominently publications by Edward Hincks, Austen Henry Layard and George Smith, slowly turned Sargon into a textbook entity. In 1886, he received his own entry in the Ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica and by the beginning of the 20th century he was as well-accepted and recognized as any of the other great Neo-Assyrian kings.
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SargonII ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 to 705 BC as one of its most successful kings. In his final military campaign, Sargon was killed in battle...
the entu (high) priestess of the moon god Nanna (Sīn) in the Sumerian city-state of Ur in the reign of her father, Sargonof Akkad (r. c. 2334 – c. 2279...
great Semitic empire in the middle of the third millennium B.C. under their renowned leader, Sargonof Akkad. As some of these facts became known, the term...
of Assyria, ruling as kings of Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian Empire for just over a century from the ascent ofSargonII in 722 BC to the fall of Assyria...
palace of SargonII (721–705 BC) in the city of Khorsabad. The Game of Ur eventually acquired superstitious significance and the tablet of Itti-Marduk-balāṭu...
sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king SargonIIof the Neo-Assyrian Empire, rather than Sargonof Akkad. Ctesias, quoted by Diodorus Siculus and...
kingdom of Judah. Records of the Neo-Assyrian Empire also refer to Ekron, as Amqarrūna. The siege of Ekron in 712 BCE is depicted on one ofSargonII's wall...
those ofSargon, Moses, and Cyrus. The Syriac writer Theodore Bar Konai (c. AD 600) also mentions a king Gligmos, Gmigmos or Gamigos as the last of a line...
Might Be Giants, features Gilgamesh, along with Sargon, Hammurabi, and Ashurbanipal (other rulers of Mesopotamia). He Who Saw the Deep, an album by iLiKETRAiNS...
excavation of the palace of the Assyrian King SargonII in Khorsabad (formerly Nineveh), would become the first systematic excavation of the site. Thomas...
own children. The mention of "descendants of former royalty" might allude to the fact that Esarhaddon's grandfather SargonII had acquired the Assyrian...
(3): 394–419. JSTOR 43077969. Elayi, Josette (2017). SargonII, King of Assyria. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press. ISBN 978-1-62837-177-2....
and the campaigns ofSargonII. The main temple at Musasir was sacked, and the Urartian king Rusa I was crushingly defeated by SargonII at Lake Urmia. He...
were made vassals of Assyria under Shalmaneser III (858–823 BC), and fully incorporated into Assyria during the reign ofSargonII (722–705 BC). A large...
excavated the palace of Assyrian ruler SargonII, Austen Henry Layard unearthed the ruins of Babylon and Nimrud and discovered the Library of Ashurbanipal and...
excavated the palace of the Assyrian King SargonII in Khorsabad (formerly Nineveh), which was the first systematic excavation of the site. The expedition...
is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. c. 2600 BC). Surviving records became less fragmentary for following reigns and by the arrival ofSargon, it had become standard...
part of the collection's Archéologie series. That is to say, here the subject is the rediscoveryof Mesopotamian civilisation, the decipherment of cuneiform...
left by SargonII, the king of Assyria, In 714 BCE he invaded the city of Uhlu lying in the northwest of Uroomiye lake that lay in the territory of Urartu...
Gracewing. ISBN 9780852446331. Donabed, Sargon (2003). Remnants of Heroes: The Assyrian Experience : The Continuity of the Assyrian Heritage from Kharput to...
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