The Babylonian Chronicle on the fall of Samaria
Babylon's chronicle names Shalmaneser and the breaking of Samaria.
Named outside the BibleAncient writer6th–5th century BC copy
A one-line entry in the Babylonian Chronicle records that Shalmaneser V "broke" the city of Shamara'in — Samaria. 2 Kings has Shalmaneser besiege Samaria for three years before it falls.
He broke (destroyed) the city of Shamara'in.
- Found
- Babylonia — Nineteenth-century acquisitions
- Now held at
- British Museum, London
- Language
- Akkadian
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
The chronicle is terse and gives no detail beyond the event. Whether Shalmaneser V or his successor Sargon II completed the capture is a long-running question in Assyriology.
How historians use it
One of the sources used to reconstruct the end of the northern kingdom, alongside the Assyrian royal inscriptions.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975), ABC 1
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.