One of the most interesting figures in the bible is King Hezekiah—reformer, builder, and entirely historical, attested to in a passel of extra-biblical sources. New sources have been excavated over the last few weeks.

Archaeologists place Hezekiah’s reign as stretching from 715 (or ’16) to 686 BC. Hezekiah was king of the southern of the two Jewish kingdoms—Judea, corresponding to central Israel and the southern lobe of the West Bank. He dramatically expanded Jerusalem’s power and its population, and helped reunite the 12 tribes, despite their being spread over his kingdom and the Kingdom of Israel to the north. He refused to continue playing tribute to Assyria, so Assyria’s King Sennacherib invaded, and laid siege to Jerusalem. The siege is discussed in a number of ancient sources; an ancient Assyrian tablet recording Assyria’s campaign in Ethiopia says this about it: “As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities … and conquered them … Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage.”