102 Nabonidus Chronicle

Museum Description: The Fall of a Dynasty

Room: 55/Case: 7/Number: ME 35382

Scripture: Isaiah 45:1

This is one of the four most important cuneiform tablets for Bible students, all four of which are in The British Museum.  They tell the story of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and their return 70 years later.  This is the second, the Nabonidus Chronicle, which reads in part “[Seventeenth year:] . . . in the month of Tashritu, when Cyrus attacked the army of Akkad …The 16th day, Gobryas, the governor of Gutium and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle.”  This tablet unfortunately is damaged and so does not give the year that Cyrus conquered Babylon, but remarkably gives us the precise day and month.  With other sources it is possible to say it was October 5, 539 B.C.E. It is also remarkable that it mentions Cyrus entered without a battle.  This agrees with the Bible, which even prophesied that the doors would be left open.