Sargon II
King of Assyria (722-705 B.C) · Historical Figures · Lived 765 BC to 705 BC · aged 60
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Something wrong?An Assyrian king who ruled for seventeen years, conquered most of the known world, built a capital city named after himself - and then died in battle so far from home that his army couldn't recover the body. In ancient Mesopotamian belief, that meant his soul was condemned to wander forever.
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Photos 8
Sargon II sur un bas-relief de Dur Sharrukin conservé au Musée du Louvre
8th campaign Sargon Louvre AO5372
9-sided prism commemorating King Sargon II's founding of Dur-Sharrukin - Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07164
A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1 - Fig 22
A limestone statue depicting the head of the Assyrian King Sargon II, illegally smuggled into the United States
Alabaster bas-relief from Khorsabad, Iraq. Sargon II in his war chariot. Iraq Museum, Baghdad, Iraq
Assyrian attendants carrying the throne of Sargon II, part of a tributary scene from Khorsabad, Iraq. Iraq Museum
Assyrian eunuchs carrying Sargon II's throneFamily
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Sargon II probably seized the throne in 722 BC by overthrowing his brother Shalmaneser V, taking a regnal name borrowed from the legendary Sargon of Akkad. He led troops personally, expanded Assyrian territory across the Levant and Babylonia, weakened the rival kingdom of Urartu, and worked to integrate conquered peoples rather than simply subjugate them. From 717 to 707 he built a new capital, Dur-Sharrukin, and moved in the year before his death. In 705, campaigning in Anatolia, he was killed in battle against Tabal; the army never retrieved his body. His son Sennacherib, haunted by the idea that his father must have committed some unforgivable sin to deserve such a fate, distanced himself from Sargon's memory. The king was nearly erased from history until archaeologists unearthed the ruins of his city in the 1860s.
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