99 A NEW HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FALL OF SAMARIA I. Summary of the Two-Conquest Model The proponents of the two-conquest model propose that Shalmaneser V besieged Samaria in 725 BCE and imprisoned Hoshea, the king of Israel. After a three year siege, in the autumn of 722 BCE, Shalmaneser V eventually con- quered the ancient city of Israel but died shortly after the conquest. Due to the sudden death of the king, the Assyrian army had to withdraw quickly back to Assyria. Sargon II ascended the throne of Assyria on the twelfth day of the month Tebet (December) in 722 BCE 5. The hasty departure of the besieging Assyrian army left open the possibility of Yaubi’di’s regaining military power in Hamath. Yaubi’di together with the cities of Damascus, Simirra, Arpad, Hadrach, and Samaria constituted an alliance against Assyria. Hannun of Gaza and Re’e, turtānu of Egypt also joined this military alliance 6. H. Tadmor assumes that when Sargon II came to the throne, a domestic cri- sis regarding corvée service broke out in the city of Assur. In order to pacify the citizens of Assur, Sargon II granted them certain privileges such as freedom from corvée service, as mentioned in the Assur Charter, the earliest inscription of Sargon 7. After resolving this internal conflict, most likely, Sargon II was de- feated by the combined forces of Humbanigash of Elam and Marduk-apla-id- dina II (Merodach-Baladan) of Babylon at Der 8 in his second regnal year (720 BCE). Then, he turned his attention to the Levant area in the West (“against the Hatti” according to the Eponym Chronicle). He also laid his hands on Yaubi’di near Qarqar and recaptured the rebellious cites including Samaria, deporting 27,290 captives in the same year 9. He further ravaged Gaza and defeated an Egyptian army, taking into exile 9,033 soldiers. II. Criticism of the Two-Conquest Model Although the two-conquest model plausibly explains the historical events, it entails some difficulties. First, as Na’aman clearly points out, it is widely recognized that the Assyrian army had destroyed the non-sub- 5 See the Babylonian Chronicle I i. 31. 6 See the Khorsabad Annals and the Great Display Inscription. 7 TADMOR, “Campaigns”, 37. 8 The Babylonian Chronicles I i. 33-35. The Khorsabad Annals describe an opposing story that Sargon experienced a great victory at Der. This, ho- wever, reflects the bombastic, propagandistic characteristic of the Assyrian annals. After this battle, Sargon turned his attention to the West and did not engage the Elamites until 710 BCE. 9 In the Khorsabad Annals (II. 10-23), Sargon II ravaged Samaria in his first and second regnal years. TADMOR, “Campaigns”, 37, suggests that ravaging Sa- maria in his first regnal year is “entirely unjustified” and that this unjustified claim derives from an ideological motive rather than from the real historical fact.