Assyrian Military Conquest


Many of the captives . . . I burned in a fire. Many I took alive; from some of these I cut off their hands to the wrist, from others I cut off their noses, ears, and fingers; I put out the eyes of many of the soldiers. . . . I burned their young men and women to death.

I fixed up a pile of corpses in from of the city's gate. I flayed the nobles, as many as had rebelled, and spread their skins out on the piles. . . . I flayed many within my land and spread their skins out on the walls.

At the command of the god Ashur, the great Lord, I rushed upon the enemy like the approach of a hurricane. . . . I transfixed the troops of the enemy with javelins and arrows. . . . I cut their throats like sheep. . . . My prancing steeds . . . plunged into their welling blood as into a river; the wheels of my battle chariot were bespattered with blood and filth. I filled the plain with corpses of their warriors . . .

Battle with Elamites (691 B.C.)


I tore out the tongues of those whose slanderous mouths had uttered blasphemies against my god Ashur and plotted against me, his god-fearing prince. . . . I fed their corpses, cut into small pieces, to dogs, pigs, . . . vultures, the birds of the sky and also to the fish of the ocean.

Treatment of Conquered Babylon


I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered them by means of well-stamped earth ramps, and battering rams . . . combined with the attack of foot soldiers, using mines, breeches as well as sapper work. I drove out of them 200,150 people. . .

Siege of Jerusalem (701 B.C.)


Ah! blood-stained city, steeped in deceit, full of pillage, never empty of prey! Hark to the crack of the whip, the rattle of wheels and stamping of horses, bounding chariots, chargers rearing, swords gleaming, flash of spears! The dead are past counting, their bodies lie in heaps, corpses innumerable, men stumbling over corpses -

Nahum 3: 1-3


Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; they prey departeth not; the noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is no end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses. . . .

Nahum 2-3