The Fall of Ashdod refers to the successful Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian assault on the city of Ashdod in Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 in c. 635 BC. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, pharaoh Psamtik I, besieged Ashdod for 29 years. Ashdod had lost most of its inhabitants during those long years of siege.

Background

Prior to the death of Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal |Ashur]] is creator of an heir"; 685 BC – c. 627 BC), also spelled Assurbanipal or Ashshurbanipal, was an Assyrian king, the son of Esarhaddon and the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire...

 sometime in 627 BC, the Assyrian Empire was engaged in almost constant warfare on multiple fronts, with nomadic tribesmen from the south, Chaldea

Chaldea

Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...

ns initiating uprisings, Elamites supporting such rebellions and Egyptians inciting further rebellion in the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

. In the face of these multiple threats the Assyrians under Ashurbanipal campaigned aggressively. Despite success, the Assyrians lost too many soldiers through years of deteriorating warfare. In an effort to increase Assyria's standing in the East, Ashurbanipal abandoned Egypt and concentrated on Elam

Fall of Elam

The Fall of Elam refers to the events leading up to and including the conquest of the Elamite Kingdom in western Persia. The Elamites were completely annihalated in 639 BC when their lands were finally ravaged beyond repair.-Background:...

. However, this left Egypt more or less unchecked, although it appears that Assyrian rule, at least at the de jure level, continued until 639 BC.

Capture of Ashdod

Despite the previous hostility between the two powers, it appears that the Assyrians and the Egyptians did not go to war. Indeed as late as 605 BC, the Egyptians were actively aiding the Assyrians in an attempt to help them survive. Moreover, the Ethiopian / Nubian rulers of Egypt were driven out by the native Coptic Egyptians sometime in c. 650; therefore the Assyrians and the native Egyptians made natural allies against Nubian domination. The capture of Ashdod may have been effectively reflect part of the transfer of power from the crumbling Assyrian Empire to the new Egyptian 26th Dynasty (Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt).