This was done in two waves: first the elites were exiled in 597 B.C.E.
The most famous such expulsion was the deportation of the Judahites to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar. By isolating these groups within larger local populations, the Assyrian kings ensured loyalty to the state and minimized the likelihood of resistance among the common people, who were left without their traditional elite. Mass deportations and resettlement of conquered peoples served as a fundamental tool of statecraft, economic organization, and imperial control, in which rivals from the Assyrian core and the elite and craftsmen from defeated polities alike were grouped together and deported. This practice was devised, and largely used, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, especially during the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 B.C.E.) and the Sargonid kings, and later by the Neo-Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar (605–562 B.C.E.). Deportation of residents from rebellious vassal states was one of the ways Mesopotamian empires maintained control of their territory.
