event · E0451
Chicago Prism מנסרת סנחריב — מנסרת שיקגו
A well-preserved hexagonal baked-clay prism carrying the final edition of Sancheriv's annals, purchased in Baghdad in 1919 by James Henry Breasted for the newly founded Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago — today the ISAC Museum, where it is OIM A2793. Written in 689 BCE, its text is nearly identical to the Taylor Prism in the British Museum (Taylor Prism), and a third sibling is in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem: three official copies of the same royal record, including the third campaign against Chizkiyahu's Judah. Its publication by Daniel David Luckenbill (OIP 2, 1924) is still the standard English edition of the annals.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- מנסרת סנחריב — מנסרת שיקגו
- Also known as
- Sennacherib Prism (Chicago), Oriental Institute Prism, OIM A2793
- Era
- bible
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 3225 AM — placed at the prism's composition on the atlas's schematic royal chronology (Chizkiyahu's accession 3199 AM ↔ 715 BCE, per E0350); the campaign it records fell in 701 BCE, c. 3213 AM.
- Academic
- prism dated 689 BCE; its annals run through Sancheriv's eighth campaign
- Date range
- prism written 689 BCE — a duplicate copy of Sancheriv's annals, sibling of the Taylor Prism
- Precision
- approximate
IV. What
- Events
- Taylor Prism
Why it matters
The story of this object is the object itself. The Taylor Prism (Taylor Prism) tells Assyria's side of 701 BCE; the Chicago Prism is the proof that such a text was no one-off — it is a second official copy, written two years later, agreeing with its London sibling almost word for word, with a third copy in Jerusalem. Duplicate prisms from duplicate foundation deposits show that the annals tradition was stable, mass-produced state record, not a single scribe's flourish — which is exactly what makes its famous silences (see Taylor Prism) speak so loudly. It is also a piece of the history of American Assyriology: bought in Baghdad by Breasted in the Oriental Institute's first year, it became the anchor of the collection now known as ISAC.
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| The prism was purchased for the Oriental Institute by its founder James Henry Breasted from a Baghdad antiquities dealer in 1919, is attributed to Nineveh (no recorded findspot), and is OIM A2793 in the ISAC Museum (Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, formerly the Oriental Institute), University of Chicago. Luckenbill's The Annals of Sennacherib (OIP 2, 1924) published it and remains the standard edition. | archaeology external | ★★★★★ | |
| Written in 689 BCE, the prism carries the final annalistic edition of Sancheriv's campaigns in text nearly identical to the Taylor Prism of 691 BCE (Taylor Prism), and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem holds a third near-complete sibling. Three matching official copies, deposited in different structures, demonstrate the stability of the Assyrian annals tradition: what the king's record said, it said consistently — including its account of the 701 BCE campaign against Judah. | archaeology external | ★★★★★ | |
| The third campaign in its text is the invasion of Judah that Melachim II 18–19 narrates from inside besieged Yerushalayim — Chizkiyahu shut up "like a bird in a cage," tribute claimed, the city's capture never claimed. That story, and what its negative space means, is told at the Taylor Prism (Taylor Prism); this entry only certifies that the Chicago copy tells it identically. | biblical archaeology external | ★★★★★ | |
| The atlas places the prism at its composition, 689 BCE — c. 3225 AM when hung from the atlas's schematic chronology for Chizkiyahu (accession 3199 AM ↔ 715 BCE, per Taylor Prism) — two years after its Taylor sibling, a decade after the campaign both record. Below the Persian-period seam the two chronologies diverge; the placement is schematic arithmetic, not a traditional dating claim.
Same convention as Taylor Prism; the two prisms sit two years apart on the same schematic scale.
|
tradition reconstruction | ★★☆☆☆ |
Referenced by: Taylor Prism