Bible Synapse
Ashurbanipal’s Prism C
Inscription · c. 647 BC · Assyria and Babylon · also called Prism C of Ashurbanipal, Ashurbanipal’s Cylinder C
See it on the map and timeline- Date
- c. 647 BC (the writing of this edition of the annals)
- Found
- Nineveh (Kuyunjik), Iraq. Fragments from the 19th-century British excavations at Nineveh. The main copy, K 1794 with several joining pieces, is in the British Museum.
- Now
- British Museum, London (K 1794 (BM 93007) and joins)
- Passages
- 2 Kings 21:1, 2 Chronicles 33:10–13
What it is
A ten-sided clay prism, now broken, with one edition of the annals of Ashurbanipal, Esarhaddon’s son, written soon after he took Babylon in 648 BC. Describing his first campaign against Taharqa, king of Egypt and Kush, he says that 22 kings of the coast, the islands and the mainland, his servants, brought him rich gifts, kissed his feet and went with his army by land and sea, with their troops and their boats. The list opens with Ba’alu of Tyre and Manasseh, king of Judah, and goes on with the kings of Edom, Moab, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron and others, and ten kings of Cyprus.
How it connects to the Bible
Kings says Manasseh “reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 21:1), and Chronicles adds that he was once taken captive by Assyrian commanders (2 Chronicles 33:11). The prism shows him, a generation after his father Hezekiah’s revolt, as a loyal vassal who sent forces with Assyria’s invasion of Egypt.