Esarhaddon's Conquest of Egypt (671 BC): Assyria on the Nile

Esarhaddon’s conquest of Egypt in 671 BC was the high point of Assyrian expansion. The Assyrian king led his army across the Sinai desert, defeated the forces of the Kushite pharaoh Taharqa in three battles and captured Memphis, Egypt’s ancient capital. For the first time an empire based in Mesopotamia ruled the Nile Valley, though only briefly: within about 15 years Egypt had slipped out of Assyrian control.

Two empires face to face

By the early 7th century BC the Neo-Assyrian Empire controlled Mesopotamia, Syria and most of the Levant. Its south-western frontier ran up to the border of Egypt, which was itself ruled by foreigners. Around 728 BC Piye’s conquest of Egypt had brought the kings of Kush, in what is now Sudan, to power along the Nile. They ruled as the 25th Dynasty.

The Kushite pharaohs encouraged resistance to Assyria among the small kingdoms of the Levant. In 701 BC an Egyptian and Kushite army fought Sennacherib at Eltekeh during his campaign against Judah. Taharqa, crowned in 690 BC, continued this policy, supporting rebellious cities such as Tyre.

Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC), Sennacherib’s son, came to the throne after his father’s murder and a short civil war. He secured the Levant first: he took the border town of Arza near the “Brook of Egypt” in 679 BC and destroyed the rebellious port of Sidon around 677 BC, executing its king Abdi-Milkutti.

A failed first attempt

Esarhaddon’s first invasion of Egypt ended in defeat. The Babylonian Chronicle records simply that in the king’s seventh year, on the fifth day of the month of Adar, the Assyrian army was defeated in Egypt. The date falls in early 673 BC, although the campaign is often given as 674 BC. Assyrian royal inscriptions, which never record defeats, pass over the episode in silence.

The campaign of 671 BC

In the spring of 671 BC Esarhaddon set out again. Crossing northern Sinai was the hardest part of the march, since the desert had little water. His inscriptions say that Arab rulers supplied camels to carry water for the army, and they describe the desert as a frightening land of snakes and strange creatures.

Once in Egypt, the Assyrians fought a series of battles as they advanced through the eastern Delta. The Babylonian Chronicle records three battles in the month of Tammuz (June–July), on the 3rd, 16th and 18th days, and the capture of Memphis on the 22nd. Esarhaddon’s own account claims that he defeated Taharqa repeatedly on the way and that the pharaoh was wounded several times by arrows.

Memphis fell after a short assault. Taharqa escaped south, but his queen, his crown prince Ushankhuru, other children and members of the court were captured. Esarhaddon took vast booty, including gold, silver, horses and cattle, and deported Egyptian specialists such as doctors, scribes, craftsmen and singers to Assyria.

Governing Egypt

Esarhaddon did not try to rule Egypt directly with Assyrian officials alone. Instead he confirmed or appointed local rulers in the cities of the Delta and the Nile Valley, binding them by oath, and placed Assyrian officers and garrisons beside them. Annals of his son Ashurbanipal later list about 20 such local kings, among them Necho I of Sais.

Esarhaddon took the title “king of the kings of Egypt, Upper Egypt and Kush”. He celebrated the victory with monuments across the empire, including stelae at Til Barsip in Syria, an inscription carved into the rock at Nahr el-Kalb in Lebanon, and the stele from Sam’al, modern Zincirli in southern Turkey.

The Zincirli stele, discovered by German excavators in 1888 and now in Berlin, shows the king towering over two small captives held on ropes. One kneels and has Kushite features; he is usually identified as Taharqa’s son Ushankhuru, though some scholars think he represents Taharqa himself. The other, standing, is probably a Levantine ruler such as the king of Tyre or Sidon.

A short-lived conquest

Assyrian rule in Egypt was fragile. Esarhaddon’s army soon withdrew, leaving the local rulers to balance between Assyria and Kush. In 669 BC Taharqa returned and retook Memphis. Esarhaddon marched to restore control but fell ill and died at Harran, in northern Mesopotamia, in late 669 BC.

His son Ashurbanipal sent an army that defeated Taharqa again in 667 BC. Some Delta rulers, including Necho, were caught plotting with the Kushites and sent to Nineveh, though Necho was later pardoned and returned to Sais. After Taharqa’s death in 664 BC, his successor Tantamani reconquered Egypt, and Necho probably died fighting him. Ashurbanipal responded with a campaign that drove Tantamani out and sacked the great city of Thebes in about 664–663 BC, carrying off its temple treasures.

The real winner was Necho’s son Psamtik I. Supported by Assyria at first, he used Greek and Carian mercenaries to unite Egypt under his control. By about 656 BC he ruled the whole country as founder of the 26th (Saite) Dynasty, and Assyria, busy elsewhere, did not intervene.

Key people

• Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC): king of Assyria, son of Sennacherib. He rebuilt Babylon, conquered Egypt and arranged a careful succession that divided power between his sons Ashurbanipal and Shamash-shum-ukin.
• Taharqa (r. 690–664 BC): Kushite pharaoh of the 25th Dynasty and a great builder in Egypt and Nubia, who resisted Assyria for most of his reign.
• Ushankhuru: Taharqa’s crown prince, captured at Memphis in 671 BC and taken to Assyria. Nothing certain is known of his later fate.
• Necho I: ruler of Sais in the western Delta under Assyrian overlordship and father of Psamtik I, founder of the 26th Dynasty.
• Ashurbanipal (r. 668–c. 631 BC): Esarhaddon’s son and successor, who reconquered Egypt twice and sacked Thebes.

An anxious conqueror

Esarhaddon is one of the best-documented Assyrian kings because hundreds of letters and reports from his scholars survive in the royal archives of Nineveh, later part of the collection known as the Library of Ashurbanipal. They show a ruler often ill and deeply concerned with omens. On several occasions, when eclipses seemed to threaten the king, a substitute king was placed on the throne for a time while Esarhaddon lived in seclusion.

This anxious figure was also a bold strategist. Having seen his father murdered and Babylon devastated, he tried to secure the empire through reconciliation in Babylonia, treaties binding his vassals to his chosen heirs, and a decisive blow against Egypt, the power that had encouraged rebellions in the west for decades.

Timeline

• c. 728 BC: Piye of Kush conquers Egypt, beginning Kushite rule.
• 690 BC: Taharqa is crowned pharaoh.
• 681 BC: Esarhaddon becomes king of Assyria.
• c. 677 BC: Esarhaddon destroys Sidon.
• 674 or 673 BC: First Assyrian invasion of Egypt is defeated.
• 671 BC, Tammuz (June–July): Three battles in Egypt; Memphis is captured.
• 669 BC: Taharqa retakes Memphis; Esarhaddon dies on the march to Egypt.
• 667 BC: Ashurbanipal’s army reconquers Egypt.
• c. 664–663 BC: Assyrians defeat Tantamani and sack Thebes.
• c. 656 BC: Psamtik I controls all Egypt as an independent king.

Why it matters

Esarhaddon’s invasion brought Assyria to the height of its territorial power, uniting Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt under one ruler for the first time. It also ended the long reign of the Kingdom of Kush over Egypt. Yet the empire had overreached: Egypt was too distant and too large to hold, and Assyria’s grip loosened within a generation.