When the conqueror died in 727 BC, Israel rebelled, but the new Assyrian king Sargon II besieged Samaria the capital for three years and then swallowed Israel, deporting 27,000 of its people to Assyria. Ten of the Twelve Tribes, who had lived in the northern kingdom, almost vanish from history.17 The modern Jews are descended from the last two tribes who survived as the Kingdom of Judah.
