Archaeological discovery backs up epic battle from 2,700 years ago documented in the Bible

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The Blaze

Archaeologist believes he has located two lost ancient cities.

Paul Sacca
June 23, 2024

An archaeological discovery has seemingly corroborated an epic battle that took place some 2,700 years ago and is documented in the Bible.

King Sennacherib's Assyrian troops attempted a siege of Jerusalem approximately 2,700 years ago. King Hezekiah of Judah allegedly prayed for a miracle to save the city from being captured.

As per the Bible, an "angel of the Lord" descended on the invading Assyrian troops attempting to besiege Jerusalem. The "angel of the Lord" allegedly "struck down" 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in a single night. Sennacherib – the king of Assyria – realized the devastation and was forced into a military retreat. The "angel of the Lord" allegedly prevented an Assyrian conquest of Jerusalem, according to accounts detailed in 2 Kings 19:35 and Isaiah 37:36.

2 Kings 19:35:

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"And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."

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Compton wrote a peer-reviewed paper titled "The Trail of Sennacherib’s Siege Camps," which was recently published in the journal Near Eastern Archaeology. In the paper, Compton mapped out the likely locations for the ancient Assyrian military camps, from around 700 B.C.

Compton utilized aerial photographs of Lachish from World War II, landscape images, satellite imagery, onsite surveys, ancient pottery, and archaeological data to create a virtual map of Sennacherib's camps.

After Sennacherib's invasion of Lachish, the ruins near the city were abandoned for approximately 2,600 years. The ancient Arabic name for the ruins was "Khirbet al Mudawwara," meaning "The Ruins of the Camp of the Invading Ruler." Based on the discovery of pottery sherds from a period of prehistory known as the Chalcolithic, Compton suspects that the ruins were an Assyrian military camp used for the invasion and then abandoned after the city was conquered.

There was similar ruins north of Jerusalem, which was on a hill that was known in Arabic as "Jebel el Mudawwara," or "The Mountain of the Camp of the Invading Ruler."

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