The period from the mid-eighth to the sixth centuries BCE saw a major upheaval of an unprecedented dimension throughout the western part of the ancient Near East. The implementation of a deportation policy of the Neo-Assyrian and later the Babylonian empire resulted in a deep-structural change of the socio-ethnic component of the entire region, including the Land of Israel. This deportation policy saw exiles arrive to the Assyrian and Babylonian urban centers and, on the other hand, the settlement of newcomers from the fringes of the empire to Israel and Judah.

The kings of the early Neo-Assyrian empire deported peoples from around the mid- to upper Euphrates, but this circle was greatly widened with the ascent of the Sargonids. The explicit accentuation of imperialist policies saw the deportation of Phoenicians, Samarians, Philistines, Arabians, Babylonians, Neo-Hittites, Arameans, Elamites, Iranian peoples, and Egyptians to the Jezireh, the Assyrian heartland, Babylonia, and the Zagros region.

Peoples deported to Israel, Judah, and Philistia included population groups from as far as the Babylonian alluvium, Susiana, and the Iranian Plateau. This policy was continued during the early Neo-Babylonian empire and, with less intensity, the Achaemenid period. Although data are scanty, due to the lack of historical sources, it is clear that newcomers were settled in both Israel and Babylonia. The Babylonian cities, such as Babylon, Borsippa, and Nippur, were populated by foreigners who formed, at times, their own social institutions; and the Babylonian countryside was dispersed with villages named after non-local groups. The newcomers not only included deportees but also itinerant tradesmen and immobilized workmen traveling all across the imperial continuum of the ancient Near East.

The actual scope of the deportations viz., the number of deportees and new population groups, is still under scholarly dispute. Likewise, the impact that these deportations had had on the economy and the social life of the land is a matter of contention. It is obvious, regardless of the scale of the deportations and the implantation of new population groups, that these extreme measures were crucial factors in the formation and forging of Jewish ethnic identity in Judah, and later in Babylonia, and were the background against what eventually resulted in the formulation and editing of the Bible in this period.

It is against this background that the research of the population of new-comers and deportees is to be understood.

Studies of this period have concentrated on basically two different, yet complementing forms of written evidence: 1) historical sources such as the Assyrian Annals, the Babylonian Chronicles, and the Bible, and 2) documentary evidence consisting of cuneiform tablets from the Assyrian, Babylonian, and later Persian urban centers.
Our data base concentrates on the cuneiform documentary sources.

The relevant New Assyrian materials include documents arriving from the Assyrian centers (such as Kuyunjik/Nineveh, Nimrud/Kalhu, Assur, Balawat/Imgur-Enlil) and the periphery (e.g., Tall Sheikh-Hamad/Dur-katlimmu). The Babylonian and Achaemenid documentation arrives from Sippar, Babylon, Borsippa, Nippur, Uruk, Ur, and smaller sites, notably Al-Yahudu. The documentation from the Land of Israel itself is scanty (not more than a few cuneiform documents).