Sep 16, 2024 - Dr. Christopher Jones, Assistant Professor of History, was recently honored as the 2024 winner of the Best First Article Award by the International Association for Assyriology. The awards committee unanimously chose Jones as the winner for his essay “Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon’s Struggle for the Throne, 681-680 B.C.”
Jones first became interested in Sennacherib’s assassination during his Master’s work at Wheaton College. His interest was piqued a second time while conducting research for his dissertation when he discovered a version of a letter about the assassination that contained an additional fragment unknown to most scholars. Jones initially planned to publish a short essay explaining the implications of the fragment, but he decided to focus his work on a more extensive essay after finding other letters related to the assassination. In his prize-winning article, Jones combines his analysis of extant documents with perspectives he gleaned from studies about modern coups d’etat. Those interested in Jones’s interpretation of Sennacherib’s assassination can find it in the November 2023 edition of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History.
Christopher Jones is in his second year on faculty at Union University. He teaches courses on world civilization, historiography, and ancient history for the Department of History. He is also the department’s faculty representative in the Justice Seminar that is part of the Honors Community curriculum.