Sennacherib's Prism

Three nearly identical hexagonal clay prisms record the annals of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (705–681 BC) — the best-known is the Taylor Prism in the British Museum, found at Nineveh in 1830, with the Oriental Institute (Chicago) Prism and the Jerusalem Prism preserving the same text. The fourth campaign account is the prize. Sennacherib boasts of marching into Judah, taking 46 fortified cities, and shutting up Hezekiah the king "like a bird in a cage" in his royal city of Jerusalem. Then, conspicuously, the text stops short. Sennacherib does not record taking Jerusalem; he records receiving tribute and going home. The biblical account in 2Ki.18–19 and Isa.36–37 fills in the gap: an angel of the LORD struck the Assyrian camp, and Sennacherib withdrew. The two accounts disagree on the cause but agree on the outcome — Jerusalem survived. The Taylor Prism is one of the most-photographed objects in the British Museum and one of the most direct outside corroborations of an Old Testament event.