Topic: Babylon (2)

• PersonNabonidus

  Nabonidus (Akkadian Nabû-naʾid, "the god Nabu is exalted"; r. 556–539 BCE) was the sixth and last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire, and the man whose fall handed the ancient Near East's richest and oldest kingdom to Cyrus. His importance to Achaemenid history lies not in anything he did to Persia…

• SourceThe Cyrus Cylinder

  A barrel-shaped clay cylinder inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform, buried in the foundations of Babylon's city wall after Cyrus II took the city in 539 BCE. In the traditional idiom of a Mesopotamian building inscription it makes the god Marduk choose Cyrus, condemns the deposed Nabonidus, and…