Lachish was a flourishing Canaanite city in the second millenn | IELTS articles

Lachish was a flourishing Canaanite city in the second millennium BCE and had been the second most important city in the Kingdom of Judah. In 701 BCE Lachish was attacked by the Assyrian army, led by King Sennacherib.

Garfinkel's analysis provides a vivid account of the construction of the massive ramp that was built by the Assyrians so that they could haul battering rams up to hilltop city of Lachish, breach its walls, and totally захватить the city.

There have been several conflicting views on how the трудновыполнимую task of constructing the ramp was achieved. However, the rigorous method employed by Garfinkel and his team, including photogrammetric analysis of aerial photographs and creating a detailed digitally map of the relevant landscape, produced a practical model that accounts for all available information about that battle.

The Assyrians had a mighty and well-equipped army that, in the early eighth century BCE, rapidly подавили growing rebellion in the Southern Levant. In 721 BCE the Kingdom of Israel was conquered. Twenty years later, the Assyrian army attacked the Kingdom of Judah, laying siege to its most important city, Jerusalem, and launching a direct assault on its second most important city, Lachish. King Sennacherib himself went to Lachish to oversee its destruction, which began with his army building a ramp to reach the walls of the hilltop city.

According to Garfinkel, evidence at the site makes it clear that the ramp was made of small валунов, about 6.5 kg each. A major problem faced by the Assyrian army was the supply of such stones: about three million stones were needed. Where did these stones come from? Collecting natural field stones from the fields around the site would require a great deal of time and would slow the construction of the ramp. A better solution would be добывать the stones as close as possible to the far end of the ramp.

"At Lachish there is indeed an exposed cliff of the local bedrock exactly at the point where one would expect it to be," Garfinkel shared.

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