A Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and the Assyrian Civil War of 681 BC
May 2025 | Vol. 13.5
By Christopher Jones
On the twentieth day of the month of Tebet (January 22, 680 BC according to the Julian calendar), the Assyrian king Sennacherib was set upon by several of his sons and stabbed to death somewhere within the main citadel of the royal city of Nineveh. It was one of the most dramatic events in all of ancient history: The great king who had besieged Jerusalem and destroyed Babylon was dead. He was killed by the people he should have been able to trust the most, in the place where he should have been the most safe. The immediate result was a civil war, as his youngest son and designated heir Esarhaddon fought against his assassin brothers to secure the throne. In the long term, the assassination marks the beginning of the end, the first of many conflicts over royal succession that would help destroy the empire from within.
Fig. 1. The Flight of Adrammelech, a depiction of Sennacherib’s assassination from Dalziel’s Bible Gallery: Illustrations from the Old Testament (1881). Public Domain.
For centuries, the assassination of Sennacherib was known only through brief mentions given in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38) as well as fragments of the Greco-Babylonian historian Berossus. The periodic discovery of new sources has allowed our understanding to grow. Some of the most important sources about the assassination include Esarhaddon’s Nineveh A inscription, where he gives his own account of his rise to power, a broken letter sent to Esarhaddon by investigators working in the aftermath of the assassination, and other letters sent to Esarhaddon by scholars and officials which mention various events surrounding the assassination.
I set out to use these resources to better understand the assassination and its aftermath. I wanted to answer three major questions: Where was Esarhaddon located when the assassination took place? How did Urad-Mullissu plan to seize the throne? And why did Esarhaddon win?
Sennacherib’s first choice to succeed him was likely his oldest son Assur-nadin-shumi, but the crown prince was abducted and murdered during an Elamite invasion of Babylonia in 694 BC. Sennacherib then designated his son Urad-Mullissu as heir. However, in 683 or 682 he changed his mind and for unclear reasons appointed his youngest son Esarhaddon as crown prince instead.
According to Esarhaddon’s Nineveh A inscription, “Persecution and jealousy fell over my brothers, and they forsook the gods.” Their words even “alienated the well-meaning heart of my father from me.” Esarhaddon then departed Nineveh. He does not say where he went, but simply credits the gods with ensuring that he was “in a secret place away from the evil deeds” and “kept safe for exercising kingship,”
Esarhaddon tells us nothing about why he left Nineveh, nor does he credit his absence to any specific cause. Rather, he presents his departure as an act of divine providence which ensured that he was somewhere other than Nineveh when the assassination took place.
Where could he have been? Esarhaddon declines to name the location, only giving the clue that he had to march through Hanigalbat (an archaic term for the Jezireh region of Syria) on his way back to Nineveh. But two letters found at Nineveh offer some clues. Both letters were sent to Esarhaddon in the early years of his reign by persons who had supported him during the struggle for the throne and now wanted to call in a favor to get the king to intervene to solve their personal problems. They both mention that they had been with Esarhaddon when he was in “the tower” (Akkadian isītu) before or during the events of the civil war.
Where was “the tower”? We can exclude the city of Issete, as this was located in the Zagros Mountains east of Nineveh while Esarhaddon clearly advanced on the capital from the west. The most likely candidate is the city of Dur-Katlimmu on the Khabur river in modern Syria: several legal documents found by excavators there refer to the city by its Aramaic name of Magdalu, which also translates as “the tower.” Could “the tower” in Akkadian be a metonym for Dur-Katlimmu, and especially a reference to its fortified citadel which rose above the surrounding river valley?
Fig. 2. Aerial photograph of the site of Dur-Katlimmu (modern Tell Sheikh Hamad). Courtesy of Hartmut Kuehne, The Tell Sheikh Hamad Archive, Free University of Berlin.
Fig. 3. Reconstruction of Dur-Katlimmu as it appeared in the seventh century BC. Drawing by Hans Steuerwald. Courtesy of Hartmut Kuehne, The Tell Sheikh Hamad Archive, Free University of Berlin.
Excavations of the lower city at Dur-Katlimmu (Tell Sheikh Hamad) headed by Hartmut Kühne have shown that the city quadrupled in size during the 7th century BC. Legal documents found there frequently mention officials from the Crown Prince’s estate or contain a rare clause specifying that the crown prince would serve as the authority for enforcing contracts. Some of these documents pre-date Esarhaddon’s appointment as crown prince, while others date from the final decades of the empire. They attest to a longstanding relationship between Assyrian crown princes and Dur-Katlimmu.
Fig. 4. Plan of Dur-Katlimmu showing the excavated areas. Courtesy of Hartmut Kuehne, The Tell Sheikh Hamad Archive, Free University of Berlin.
Esarhaddon therefore was likely sent to Dur-Katlimmu because that was something that Assyrian crown princes did, possibly to gain experience in government and administration. Meanwhile, the disfavored son Urad-Mullissu plotted his revenge. Both Nineveh A and the Bible mention that multiple brothers took part in the plot. Sennacherib had at least twelve sons whose names are known, but it is not clear how many took part in the plot. A letter sent during Esarhaddon’s reign describes disposing of the property of the king’s brother Assur-ili-mubalissu, who appears to have fled. 2 Kings 19:37 names a second conspirator as “Sarezer.” While no son of Sennacherib of that name is known, the name may be a corruption the name of another son of Sennacherib such as Shamas-andullashu.
Why would Urad-Mullissu’s brothers join him in the plot, if only one of them could sit on the throne? There were many ways a king could reward his brothers for their loyalty. Sargon II (r. 722-705 BC) made his brother Sîn-ahu-uṣur one of the most powerful officials in the kingdom. Ashurbanipal (r. 669-631) elevated several of his brothers to important priesthoods in Assyria. The brothers likely controlled significant wealth and resources they could use to support Urad-Mullissu’s claim to the throne.
But in order to effectively seize control of the government, Urad-Mullissu also needed to recruit combat soldiers and government officials to his side. Clues as to whom Urad-Mullissu recruited into the plot are scattered around various documents from Nineveh. A letter sent to Esarhaddon’s son Ashurbanipal mentions a chariot driver named Šulmu-ereš and a chariot crewman named Dadi-ibni “who fled from the presence of your father in order not to be killed.” I began looking at the copious numbers of legal documents left behind by charioteers from professional military units stationed in Nineveh. Where there are dozens of chariot crewmen identifiable by name in legal documents dating from Sennacherib’s final years, none of them appear in documents dating to the reign of Esarhaddon. This was in sharp contrast to chariot crewmen in documents from Esarhaddon’s reign, who usually continued in their positions into the reign of Ashurbanipal. It seems that Sennacherib’s charioteers all disappear from the record. Were they killed in battle, executed, cashiered, or fled?
It makes sense that a crown prince plotting a coup would recruit professional military units stationed in the capital to participate in the plot. But recruiting participants to a plot is always risky: each new participant increases the risk that someone will betray the plot before it is ready. One letter from the Nineveh archives reveals how the entire plot was nearly exposed. It was written by two persons investigating the aftermath of the assassination, who reported back to Esarhaddon what they had uncovered:
…3 brothers, Babylonians…silversmiths in the house of [Urad-Mullissu], when they heard of the treaty of rebellion which […], one of them appealed to the king prior to the murder.
When Nabû-shumu-ishkun and Ṣil-[Assur] came, they questioned him saying “what is your appeal to the king about?” He (replied): “It is about Urad-Mullissu.”
They covered his face with his cloak and they made him stand before Urad-Mullissu, saying “see, your (audience) has been granted, speak with your mouth!” He spoke, saying “Your son Urad-Mullissu will kill you!” When they uncovered his face, Urad-Mullissu questioned him. They kil[led him] and his brothers. (Translation from Jones, “Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon’s Struggle for the Throne, 681–680 B.C.”, p. 348-353)
Fig. 5. Obverse of the Sennacherib Assassination Tablet, partially translated above. Tablet 1880-7-19, 28 + K. 21923 (SAA 23 128), now in the British Museum (London). Photo courtesy the British Museum; the original image has been cropped. ©The Trustees of the British Museum. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Of the two named conspirators in this dramatic text, Nabû-shumu-ishkun can be identified as Sennacherib’s personal chariot driver. Ṣil-[…] has often been misidentified as Ṣillaya, but I think a more likely candidate is Ṣil-Aššur, the governor of Nineveh whose two brothers were also professional soldiers stationed in Nineveh.
The assassins struck on the twentieth day of Tebet, or January 22 (as recorded in the Babylonian chronicles). According to 2 Kings 19:37, “while he was worshiping in the temple of Nisrok his god, his sons Adramelek (Urad-Mullissu) and Sarezer killed him with a sword.” The identity of the deity Nisrok has never been satisfactorily resolved, but it could be a corrupted epithet of the goddess Ishtar, who had a major temple in the citadel at Nineveh.
While they succeeded in killing the old monarch and seizing control of Nineveh, Urad-Mullissu and his brothers failed to secure control over the empire. Esarhaddon avoided assassination, gathered what scattered military units he could, and marched on Nineveh. Meanwhile, disunity seems to have ruled among the plotters. Esarhaddon’s Nineveh A inscription says that his brothers “butted each other like baby goats in the middle of Nineveh for the right to exercise kingship.”
Fig. 6. Map showing possible routes taken by Esarhaddon during his advance on Nineveh in the aftermath of the assassination. Map by Christopher W. Jones.
Esarhaddon’s advance was accompanied by a widespread propaganda campaign, orchestrated in part by his mother Naqia and other supporters, which proclaimed that Esarhaddon was the one true king favored by the gods and that his victory was therefore inevitable. The astrologer Bel-ušezib argued that a conjunction of Mercury and Saturn which he had observed the previous May predicted both Sennacherib’s assassination and Esarhaddon’s eventual victory. Prophets, many of them connected to the temple of Ishtar in Arbela, proclaimed that the gods supported Esarhaddon’s claim to the throne.
Fig. 7. Esarhaddon’s mother Naqia appears on a fragment of a bronze bowl alongside her husband Sennacherib. Louvre AO 20185. © 2005 GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux
It worked. According to Nineveh A, when Esarhaddon’s troops encountered forces loyal to his brothers during their march to Nineveh, a short battle ensued after which many of the opposing troops defected to Esarhaddon and proclaimed that he was the legitimate king. Even allowing for the exaggeration typical of royal inscriptions, Esarhaddon’s advance on Nineveh was very fast. By 2 Adar (March 4, 680 BC) it was all over. Esarhaddon arrived on the far bank of the Tigris opposite Nineveh. His brothers fled in advance of his arrival, heading into the mountains seeking sanctuary in Assyria’s rival Urartu.
Esarhaddon did not enter the city until March 10, possibly because the Tigris was swollen due to winter rains or possibly because he wanted his entry into the city to coincide with a certain festival of the god Nabû. What followed was a series of political purges, as Esarhaddon wrote that he “sought out every one of those criminal soldiers who evilly incited my brothers to exercise kingship over Assyria” and “exterminated their offspring.” Others such as Šulmu-ereš and Dadi-ibni fled abroad along with the defeated brothers.
Esarhaddon was able to take the throne, but he would never feel secure. The remainder of his reign was marked by a descent into paranoia and increased reliance on omen experts to identify potential disloyalty. When it came time to arrange for his own succession, Esarhaddon sought to avoid the fate of his father by appointing his younger son Ashurbanipal as king of Assyria, while making his elder son Shamash-shumu-ukin king over Babylon. This arrangement was formalized in a long document called the Succession Treaty, which enjoined all people of the empire to uphold the arrangement and report any actual or suspected disloyalty. Copies of the Succession Treaty were distributed around the empire, and every official swore to uphold it.
The treaty is permeated with fear that Urad-Mullissu or his descendants might press a claim to the throne. Numerous clauses promise not to support any of Esarhaddon’s brothers or other members of his father’s line, “whether those who are in Assyria or those who have fled to another country.” As it was, Urad-Mullissu and his line disappear from the historical record during Esarhaddon’s reign. Of their life in exile, nothing can be known for sure.
However, Esarhaddon’s novel succession arrangement, borne from fear of provoking a rebellion by his own sons, would not last. In 652, tensions between the brothers broke out into open war with the help of anti-Assyrian elements in Babylonia. The resulting war lasted six years, devastated Babylonia, and possibly bankrupted Assyria itself. Further internal conflict over succession coupled with additional rebellions in Babylonia would lead to the end of the empire and the destruction of Nineveh in 612 BC. But if the war between the brothers was the beginning of the end of the empire, then the origins of that event can be traced back to the assassination of Sennacherib thirty years earlier.
Christopher Jones is Assistant Professor of History at Union University. His article “Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon’s Struggle for the throne, 681-680 B.C.” was published in the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History in 2023.
How to cite this article:
Jones, C. 2025. “A Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and the Assyrian Civil War of 681 BC.” The Ancient Near East Today 13.5. Accessed at: https://anetoday.org/failed-coup-assassination-sennacherib/.
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