Resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the context of "Assyrian captivity"

The Israelites, also known as the Children of Israel, were an ancient Semitic-speaking people who emerged in Canaan during the Iron Age. They were a Hebrew people that spoke an archaic Hebrew language commonly called Biblical Hebrew through association with the Hebrew Bible. In biblical myth, the population was divided into the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The group went on to form the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanite populations and other peoples of the ancient Near East. The Israelite religion revolved around Yahweh, who was an ancient Semitic god with less significance in the broader Canaanite religion. Around 720 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, triggering the Assyrian captivity; and around 586 BCE, the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, triggering the Babylonian captivity. While most of Israel's population was irreversibly dispossessed as a result of Assyrian resettlement policy, Judah's population was rehabilitated by the Achaemenid Empire following the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE.

The Ten Lost Tribes were those from the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel after it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE. They were the following: Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Manasseh, and Ephraim – all but Judah and Benjamin, both of which were based in the neighbouring Kingdom of Judah, and therefore survived until the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Alongside Judah and Benjamin was part of the Tribe of Levi, which was not allowed land tenure, but received dedicated cities. The exile of Israel's population, known as the Assyrian captivity, was an instance of the long-standing resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire implemented in many subjugated territories.

The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that "there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers." In the 7th and 8th centuries CE, the return of the Ten Lost Tribes was associated with the concept of the coming of the Hebrew Messiah. Claims of descent from the "lost tribes" have been proposed in relation to many groups, and some Abrahamic religions espouse a messianic view that Israel's tribes will return.

Assyrian continuity is the study of continuity between the modern Assyrian people, a recognised Semitic indigenous ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority in Western Asia (particularly in Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and in the Assyrian diaspora) and the people of Ancient Mesopotamia in general and ancient Assyria in particular. Assyrian continuity and Ancient Mesopotamian heritage is a key part of the identity of the modern Assyrian people. No archaeological, genetic, linguistic, anthropological, or written historical evidence exists of the original Assyrian and Mesopotamian population being exterminated, removed, bred out, or replaced in the aftermath of the fall of the Assyrian Empire. Modern contemporary scholarship "almost unilaterally" supports Assyrian continuity, recognizing the modern Assyrians (and Mandaeans) as the ethnic, historical, and genetic descendants of the East Assyrian-speaking population of Bronze Age and Iron Age Assyria specifically, and (alongside the Mandeans) of Mesopotamia in general, which were composed of both the old native Assyrian population and of neighboring settlers in the Assyrian heartland.

Due to an initial long-standing shortage of historical sources beyond the Bible and a handful of inaccurate and contradictory works by a few later classical European authors, many "Western" historians prior to the early 19th century believed Assyrians (and Babylonians) to have been completely annihilated, although this was never the view in the region of Mesopotamia itself or surrounding regions in West Asia, where the name of the land continued to be applied until the mid 7th century AD, and Assyrian people have continued to be referenced as such through to the present day.