Murderer of Sennacherib, yet Again
The Case against Esarhaddon
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3969411 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andrew Knapp (0000-0003-4822-5623, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 140 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2021-09-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289 |
| Publisher | American Oriental Society (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0165 |
| OpenAlex | W3017555968 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Who was responsible for the murder of Sennacherib? This question fascinated Assyriologists for most of the twentieth century, until a new interpretation of an obscure, fragmentary letter convinced many that a disenfranchised elder son of Sennacherib, Urad-Mullissu, had hatched the conspiracy. Since the (re)publication of this text in 1980 by Simo Parpola, near consensus has developed about these events. In this paper I reexamine the issue and revive the theory that Esarhaddon, Sennacherib's son and successor, may have been behind the assassination, rather than his elder brother. I do not question the coherence of Parpola's interpretation, but I suggest that the field may place undue confidence in a single broken, decontextualized letter. More importantly, the evidence implicating Esarhaddon is ample. I extend six arguments that point toward Esarhaddon's guilt, most of which are derived from Esarhaddon's own account of events in his famous Nineveh A inscription. I do not propose that we can establish Esarhaddon's guilt conclusively at this remove, but I conclude that the weight of this evidence equals, if not surpasses, that which points to a plot concocted by Urad-Mullissu
Art · Brother · Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy · Field (mathematics · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Plot (graphics · Political science · Statistics · Successor cardinal · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Near East History · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |