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Reexamining Nebuchadnezzar II’s ‘Thirteen-Year’ Siege of Tyre in Phoenician Historiography

dc.contributor.authorDixon, Helen
dc.date.accessioned2023-08-16T15:48:43Z
dc.date.available2023-08-16T15:48:43Z
dc.date.issued2022-12-01
dc.descriptionThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licenseen_US
dc.description.abstractThis study reexamines a lynchpin of Neo-Babylonian Levantine Phoenician historiography: Nebuchadnezzar II’s purported thirteen-year siege of Tyre in the early sixth century bce. This detail about the length of the siege can be found only in Josephus’ (first century ce) writings, but this study’s new assessment of the (sixth-fifteenth century ce) manuscript evidence shows that the more commonly transmitted length of the siege was “three years and ten months.” Other manuscript variations further illustrate that there was little continuous cultural memory of the length of the event. When coupled with (a) other chronological problems in Josephus’ works, (b) a review of the complex Biblical, Mesopotamian, and Classical relevant literary sources, and (c) the lack of current evidence for any destruction levels or siegeworks at the site of Tyre, the case for insisting other sources be synchronized with this thirteen-year framework weakens. Shorter sieges or raids, blockades of the island or inland ports, and periodic Babylonian military presence to extract personnel and resources are all likely scenarios for Tyre and other Levantine sites during Nebuchadnezzar’s 43-year reign. Discarding a single “thirteen-year siege” as a reliable historical detail allows scholars of the Neo-Babylonian period in the central coastal Levant to shift their attention to more interesting questions, including exploring the causes and impacts of the evident changes in Tyre’s seaward and inland trading patterns in the sixth-fifth centuries.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipECU Open Access Publishing Funden_US
dc.identifier.citationDixon, H. (2022). Reexamining Nebuchadnezzar II’s ‘Thirteen-Year’ Siege of Tyre in Phoenician Historiography. Journal of Ancient History, 10(2), 165–199. https://doi.org/10.1515/jah-2022-0007en_US
dc.identifier.doi10.1515/jah-2022-0007
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10342/13108
dc.relation.urihttps://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jah-2022-0007/htmlen_US
dc.subjectNeo-Babylonian Perioden_US
dc.subjectLevanten_US
dc.subjectNebuchadnezzar IIen_US
dc.subjectTyreen_US
dc.subjectPhoeniciaen_US
dc.titleReexamining Nebuchadnezzar II’s ‘Thirteen-Year’ Siege of Tyre in Phoenician Historiographyen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
ecu.journal.issue2en_US
ecu.journal.nameJournal of Ancient Historyen_US
ecu.journal.volume10en_US

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