Empty the Land · Episode 1 of 12 · 20 min
The Empire That Invented Mass Deportation
Twenty-seven centuries ago the Neo-Assyrian Empire made mass deportation a routine instrument of government, a way to build a state rather than only to punish. Scholars estimate roughly 4.4 million people were moved over some 250 years. Babylon copied the method on Judah and produced the West's founding literature of exile, while Persia allowed a return, the ancient world's great counter-example.
Who's who
- Tiglath-Pileser IIIAssyrian king who made deportation systematic, two-way policy
- Sargon IIAssyrian king who completed the deportations from Samaria
- SennacheribAssyrian king who besieged Lachish and claimed 200,150 Judean captives
- Nebuchadnezzar IIBabylonian king who deported Judah's elite and destroyed Jerusalem
- JehoiachinDeposed king of Judah, deported to Babylon in 597 BCE
- Cyrus II of PersiaConqueror of Babylon whose edict allowed exiles to return
- Bustenay OdedAssyriologist whose 1979 study underpins deportation estimates
- Karen RadnerAssyriologist who reconstructs the machinery of resettlement
Where it happens
- Nineveh, AssyriaAssyrian capital, with Kalhu a center of the deportation system
- Samaria, northern kingdom of IsraelFell in 722 BCE; its people never returned
- Lachish, JudahBesieged by Sennacherib; shown on palace reliefs
- Jerusalem, JudahTaken by Babylon in 597 and destroyed in 587/586 BCE
- Babylon, MesopotamiaWhere Judean exiles were settled
Timeline
- 745-727 BCETiglath-Pileser III makes mass deportation standard policy
- 722 BCESamaria falls; the 'ten lost tribes' are deported
- 701 BCESennacherib devastates Judah and besieges Lachish
- 597 BCENebuchadnezzar II deports King Jehoiachin and Judah's elite
- 587/586 BCEBabylon destroys Jerusalem and the First Temple
- 539-538 BCECyrus takes Babylon and authorizes the Judeans' return
Still debated
Only about 1.2 million deportees are numbered in the inscriptions, and the 4.4 million total is an extrapolation. Sennacherib's 200,150 is widely seen as inflated or formulaic, and biblical counts of the Babylonian exile do not agree.