"Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up
to Samaria, and besieged it three years."[520]

Shalmaneser died before Samaria was captured, and may have been
assassinated. The next Assyrian monarch, Sargon II (722-705 B.C.), was
not related to either of his two predecessors. He is referred to by
Isaiah,[521] and is the Arkeanos of Ptolemy. He was the Assyrian
monarch who deported the "Lost Ten Tribes".

"In the ninth year of Hoshea" (and the first of Sargon) "the king of
Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed
them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of
the Medes."[522] In all, according to Sargon's record, "27,290 people
dwelling in the midst of it (Samaria) I carried off".

They (the Israelites) left all the commandments of the Lord their
God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a
grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven (the stars), and
served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to
pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and
sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke
him to anger. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and
removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe
of Judah only. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon,
and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from
Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of
the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in
the cities thereof.... And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth,
and the men of Cuth (Cuthah) made Nergal, and the men of Hamath
made Ashima, and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the
Sepharites burnt their children in fire to Adram-melech and
Anam-melech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

A number of the new settlers were slain by lions, and the king of
Assyria ordered that a Samaritan priest should be sent to "teach them
the manner of the God of the land". This man was evidently an orthodox
Hebrew, for he taught them "how they should fear the Lord.... So they
feared the Lord", but also "served their own gods ... their graven
images".[523]

There is no evidence to suggest that the "Ten Lost Tribes", "regarding
whom so many nonsensical theories have been formed", were not
ultimately absorbed by the peoples among whom they settled between
Mesopotam