All the Merchants Are Silenced

The violent campaign of the Sennacherib in the late 8th century BCE changed the southern Levant. In the aftermath, some say the Assyrians created a centralized economy extending from cosmopolitan port of Ashkelon all the way into the deep recesses of the monastic Judean desert. Others see the economy of the time as a contribution of the local ways. Kin networks were reformed; agricultural and pastoral production was rebalanced and like continued on much as it had before.