Human Conflict Project

All events · Antiquity

Assyrian Destruction of the Kingdom of Israel and Deportation from Samaria

c. 724–715 BCE · Middle East & North Africa

Displacement Territory Seized
Displaced
27,290
27,290 is Sargon II's own figure, inscribed in his annals at Khorsabad ('I besieged and conquered Samaria and led away as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it'); some copies give 27,280. It is a royal victory claim and applies to the city and its immediate district in a single operation, not to the kingdom as a whole. Archaeological survey shows that settlement in the Samarian highlands contracted sharply but did not cease, and scholars including Israel Finkelstein and Ido Koch conclude that most Israelites remained on the land while an elite and skilled stratum was removed. Earlier deportations by Tiglath-pileser III from Galilee and Gilead (c. 733–732) added an unquantified further number.
Share of the population affected
7.8%
of the population of the northern kingdom of Israel in the second half of the eighth century BCE, 730 BCE

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What happened

After a siege begun under Shalmaneser V, Samaria fell in about 722 BCE and the northern Israelite kingdom was annexed as the Assyrian province of Samerina. Sargon II's annals at Khorsabad claim the deportation of 27,290 of its inhabitants, the incorporation of fifty of their chariots into his army, and the resettlement of the province with populations brought from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim — a two-way exchange typical of Assyrian imperial practice and echoed in 2 Kings 17. Which king actually took the city is disputed, since the biblical account credits Shalmaneser V and the Assyrian annals credit Sargon II, who may have been claiming his predecessor's success or suppressing a later revolt in 720. Archaeological survey of the Samarian hills indicates severe but partial depopulation, and excavations at sites such as Tel Hadid have identified communities of deportees brought in from Mesopotamia. The later tradition of 'ten lost tribes' overstates what the evidence shows: a substantial Israelite population remained in place under Assyrian administration.

Parties

Shalmaneser V besieged and Sargon II claimed the capture of Samaria, ending the northern Israelite kingdom, deporting its population eastwards and settling deportees from Babylonia and Syria in its place

Disputed

Whether Shalmaneser V or Sargon II captured Samaria, and whether the 27,290 figure represents the city alone or a wider region, remain unresolved.

The denominator

There is no census. The figure rests on archaeological settlement survey: Broshi and Finkelstein calculated built-up area across excavated and surveyed sites and applied a density coefficient, giving roughly 350,000 for the kingdom of Israel against about 110,000 for Judah. Alternative coefficients yield figures between about 220,000 and 400,000.

The 27,290 figure is Sargon II's own inscriptional claim for deportees from Samaria and its district, not a count of everyone removed from the kingdom, and Assyrian royal inscriptions routinely round and inflate.

Where the baseline comes from

On the death toll

No death toll is recorded. The Assyrian and biblical accounts describe a siege, a capture and a deportation rather than a massacre, and the deportees' value to the empire lay in their survival; siege mortality at Samaria is unquantified.

Documented forms of violence

Forced LabourDenationalization

The Assyrian annals record the conscription of Samarian deportees into royal service and the dissolution of the kingdom into an Assyrian province, a policy of deliberate destruction of political identity described in the Assyriological literature.

Movements mapped

Countries touched, on present-day borders

Palestine, Syria, Iraq

Related entries

Sources

This entry rests only on reference, press or open-edited sources. Treat its figures as indicative and follow the links before relying on them.
← EarlierThe Neo-Assyrian Mass Deportation Programme Later →Sennacherib's Campaign in Judah