Where in the world is the physical city of Babylon? The ancient city of Babylon is located a few miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, on the banks of the Euphrates river. Today it is in leveled ruins. While the physical Babylon is in Iraq, the prophetic Babylon of the New Testament book of Revelation is Rome, Italy. The ca. 400 years of history before the rise of the Babylonian Empire are especially important for us to analyze again, especially since we believe to be able to shed new light on the `Who was Who' of the time span referred to. Between 1000 to 600 BC we have the illustrious kings and era of the Solomonic age - the alter egos of ...

During his days Egypt had no heir to the native royal line of kings to receive the crown. Foreigners reigned in Egypt, though modern historians did not recognize the connections due to a faulty chronology.

But the end of the 18th dynasty also brings a degree of uncertainty on how history proceeded from that point on. To be sure, Mesopotamia was still under the rule of the Syrian / Assyrian kings who were to be an ever present scourge to their neighbors for over another 200 years. Velikovsky opted for the 22nd Dynasty to have followed on the heels of Ay. We are talking here about the years from after ca. 810 BC. The Glasgow school is opting for Horemheb to be the link between the 18th and the 19th dynasties. How are we to decide? So far we have presented at this website that the 22nd Dynasty followed the 18th. Until evidence to the contrary comes along, we shall defend that view, for we believe that Ramses II is firmly tied to the time of Nebuchadnezzar.

Following the demise of the 18th Dynasty, the 22nd Dynasty rulers had several times contact with Assyrian troops. Soon after the 22nd Dynasty kings began their largely benign rule in Egypt, we read:

Then Jehoahaz (ca. 814-798) sought the Lord's favor, and the Lord listened to him, for he saw how severly (Hazael, 841-795 BC) the king of Aram was oppressing Israel. And the Lord gave Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians, and they dwelt in their tents."

This `savior' could only have been the king of Egypt. At that time it was a king of the Libyan Dynasty. In conventional view the succession of Assyrian kings usually follows strictly the way modern scholars have arranged the information put together from the limmu lists and eponym data. (a partial list)

Velikovsky having identified Burraburiash as Shalmaneser III the TAP problem, having to do with Eriba Adad vs. Ashur-nadin-ahhe, has been discussed by Damien Mackey. The limmu lists present Eriba Adad as the father of Ashur Uballit while the El Amarna Letters name his father as Ashur-nadin-ahhe. Thus the TAP problem.

Basically, in revised view, the long limmu lists do not all represent primary rulers. Most of the names represent sons, i.e. princes, in waiting. Thus the over extension of Assyrian history is a result of modern interpretations of Assyrian data to accommodate the conventional dates for the kings of Egypt.

The years we discuss now are from about 625-610 BC leading up to the Fall of Niniveh in 606 BC.

It appears that Nabopolassar was a Chaldean who rose from being a general of the Assyrian army, ruled over Babylon as Shakkanak for a number of years in nominal dependency to Niniveh. He came to prominence after the death of Kandalanu, the Babylonian name of Assurbanipal, after the latter's death in 626 BC.

The years following the reign of Nabopolassar (629-607 BC) were occupied by his princely sons Nergilissar (607-? BC) and Nebukadnezar who rose from army commander to become the famous monarch who gave the city of Babylon its proverbial greatness. His father was instrumental in bringing the old Assyrian Empire to its end, but he did not see the destruction of Niniveh (606 BC). After the untimely death of his brother, Nebukadnezzar (607-569 BC) usurped his short regnal period and rose to be King. The hanging gardens, probably installed on top of pillared balconies and rooftops, astonished the ancients. The prophetic book of Daniel goes back to the time of this king who made Babylon into one of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World. But before this came about the following needs to be told:

The War Annals of Mursilis II (629-607 BC)

Among the texts found at the Hittite/Chaldean capital `Boghazkoi' in Central Turkey were two versions of the War annals of their king Mursilis II. One of these versions contains the account between his 1st and 9th or 10th regnal year, the other, much more detailed, is found in fragments, the sequence of which is not always apparent. With the help of the 10 year annals these fragments were put in order with a degree of uncertainty. They present the same period of time rather differently from version one and contain in addition the annals from his 20th to 22nd year. No written history was found between his 11th to 19th years.

"... When the Assyrian comes, you will battle with him. ... As soon as tidings were brought about the arrival of the Egyptian troops, I moved against them. ... and I shall come and battle against them. ... I moved toward Harrana; my army reached Harrana and I joined the army there. ..." [BM 21901]

The most important fact we learn from these annals is that Mursilis battled against a coalition of the king of Assyria and the king of Egypt.

In revised view Mursilis/Nabopolassar and Seti the Great of the 19th Dynasty were contemporaries and it was Seti who supported the Assyrians against Babylon.

Assyria
The contemporaries of Psammetichus/ Seti the Great during his lengthy reign (665-609 BC) in revised view, were Assurbanipal (668-627 BC) and Assuruballit II (627 to the destruction of Niniveh in 612 BC) in Assyria.

Judah
In Judah they were Manasseh (696-642 BC), Amon (642-640) and Josiah 640-609 BC).

Babylon
In the realm of the Hittite/Chaldeans/Babylonians they were Suppiluliumas II, grandfather of Mursilis (no years stated but they paralleled Seti's time till about 635 BC. From about 629-607 BC there was Mursilis/Nabopolassar.

Seti became king in the year Assurbanipal destroyed Egyptian temples in 665 BC, 2 years before the end of the Ethiopian Dynasty in Egypt (663 BC). So why would an Egyptian king support the Assyrians after such events? We just saw that for over 60 years Egypt had been ruled by the nonnative Ethiopian kings. During this time Egypt had suffered a lot from Assyrian advances into Egypt. Economically the nation was still functioning since Assyrian wrath usually effected only their religious institutions. In 663 BC Assurbanipal also conquered Thebes.

"Are you better than populous `No', that was situated among the rivers, that had water round about it, and whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?" Nahum 3:8

During the first 2 years of his reign it appears that Seti fought the Shasu Bedouins and later the Libyans but his more ambitious campaigns led him north along the Phoenician coast in support of his Assyrian allies. Seti's religious views led him to commit human sacrifices before his idols, and in particular the god Amon, in a display of stark pagan atrocities. These were the days of the wicked kings of Manasseh and Amon in Judah when the acceptable worship of God had seemingly been forgotten. It is of some importance to see how revised chronology puts the flavor of the times together so we may understand coequal situations existed in the whole region at the same time. Please notice that the influence of Amon worship was so great in the days of Seti that even a king of Judah took that name.

And so we read about Manasseh:

"In both courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom." [2.Chronicles 33:5, 6]

"So Manasseh slept with his fathers ... and Amon his son reigned in his stead." [2.Chronicles 33:20]

Egyptian texts state:

"The heart of his majesty was glad on account of it. Lo, as for the good god, he rejoices to begin battle, he is delighted to enter into it, his heart is satisfied at seeing blood, he cuts off the heads of the rebellious-hearted, he loves an hour of battle more than a day of rejoicing. His majesty slays them at one time. He leaves not a limb among them, and he that escapes his hand as a living captive, is carried off to Egypt." [0400]

While Manasseh's influence in the beginning was evil in the sight of the Lord, he later mended his ways and humbled himself before God.

"And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him: and he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication ... Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God." [2.Chronicles 33:12,13]

It was under Nebuchadnezzar that this king was willing to put three young Hebrew captives, who were Sabbath (Babylonian:`Sapattu') keepers, to death and in the effort saw some of his own personal die just because they refused to worship the golden image he had made of himself. [Daniel 3; PSBA, Feb 1904, p. 51-56.]

The Chiastic Structure in Daniel

One of the famous incidents in the Book of Daniel is the one we find in chapter 6 where Daniel runs afoul of the other mighty men close to the Persian king and they conspire to get rid of Daniel by inducing the king to make a new decree which they knew, Daniel would not obey, and thus had to be condemned to death. The method of execution were lions, the very beast which represented the previous empire of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian Empire.

The king had signed this new law into effect and as soon as they came before him to push their complaint against Daniel, he recognized that the men had tricked him and that he must follow the letter of the law and condemn his Prime Minister Daniel. The scheme was not only an attack on Daniel but on the king himself. Unlike these mighty man in the Persian government circles, Daniel was innocent of any wrong doing and God shut the lions mouth. Next day the king finds Daniel still alive. The law had been obeyed and the sentence carried out. The victim survived and could now be freed and his accusers suffer the death they had planned for the man Daniel. The king had lost his right hand man but God turned the scheme into favor before the king whose regard of Daniel and his God was lifted as no other man before and after him ever experienced. The wicked plan achieved the opposite the princes of the kingdom had hoped to achieve.

The important elements in this account, that of the caring king, the scheming mighty men, the roaring lions and the death sentence with subsequent delivery are again reflected in a chiastic like structure in the following Messianic chapter 7 of the book. In this chapter the animal representations of the kingdoms are spoken of and how the terrible beast which stomped out the residue of the Lord on earth, but its cruel scheming was turned against it by the `Son of man' who would redeem his people and make an end of the wicked scheming of the beast powers.

Centuries later, Jesus would very frequently call himself the `Son of man', a phrase found here and starting from Numbers 23:19 and throughout the Old Testament Bible and many times in Ezekiel.

The Conquest of Tyre

Tyre was probably the greatest maritime city of antiquity. It was the city of the Phoenicians who became famous for their trading expeditions, some time before and around the time of Solomon. And so it is that a Tyrian silver coin was found in the ancient Ammonite city of Khirbet al-Hajjar located several miles SWW of Amman, Jordan. The coin was heavily corroded probably by copper impurities. The obverse shows a partially obstructed man on a hard to recognize foreground of a ship or something similar, the reverse side shows a bird of prey, probably an owl, in front of a shepherd's crook.[0500] Built on a rocky island promitory the people of Tyre felt safe for many years. The fate of the city became the subject of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel predicting its demise. [Ezekiel 26:3-5; active ca. 590-570 BC] During the recent one or two centuries visitors to the site just found a barren offshore rock with ruins. And so authors of the previous century wrote:

"There is nothing here, certainly, of that which led Joshua to call it `the strong city' more than 3000 years ago [Joshua 19:29], - nothing of that mighty metropolis which baffled the proud Nebuchadnezzar and all his power for 13 years, until `every head' in his army `was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled', in the hard service against Tyrus [Ezekiel 29:18], - nothing in this wretched roadstead and empty harbor to remind one of the times when merry mariners did sing in her markets - no visible trace of those towering ramparts which so long resisted the utmost efforts of the great Alexander. All have vanished utterly like a troubled dream, and Tyre has sunk under the burden of prophecy ... As she is now, and has long been, Tyre is God's witness; but great, powerful, and populous, which would be the infidel's boast. This, however, she cannot be. Tyre will never rise from her dust again."[0600]

The Historicity of the Kings of Persia

Books on archaeology will state that the ancient city of Susa underwent an urban revolution parallel with Mesopotamia. They begin its history around 3000 BC at which time a number of changes are brought forward as evidence. These changes include: "the cylinder replaced the seal and modeling in the round became more widespread - as is shown by a lion-demon of the Susa C era, a small meerschaum object that gives a remarkable impression of strength."[0700]

At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, roughly corresponding to the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia, painted pottery reappeared - mainly polychrome, though sometimes monochrome, with black designs on a red background. The best example is the series of large polychrome jars decorated with a combination of geometrical designs and realistic figures. A similar kind of pottery was found at level IV of Giyan - large jars decorated with birds. [0800]

We recall that in Egypt it was found that, "He (Naville) gathers from this ... that the shape and even the material of the pots in Egypt, now as always, change, not with time, but with locality..."[0900] Therefore, when reading these reports we may do well keeping such precautions in mind and not make too much on assigned ages based on pottery styles and probably also other artifacts.

The Site of Susa

Of the 20 or so ziggurats known in Mesopotamia (which include 1) the one at Babylon, 2) the Etemenanki, 3) at Borsipar, 4) at Aqarquf, 5) at Ur, 5) at Assur, etc.), none is so well preserved or so impressive in its height of 82 feet as that of Choga-Zambil.[1000] Besides the ziggurat itself, the excavations have revealed a group of palaces and, in the sacred enclosure, eleven temples arranged in groups of 3 and 4. One of them was dedicated to Inshushinak, the god of Susa, others to Huban, Kirisha and Ishmekarab.[1100]

Based on inscriptions on bricks the ziggurat was built by the Elamite king `Untash-Huban' [1110]. The buildings are enclosed by an ellipsoidal wall (1300x875 yards) which follows the line of the hills. Within it is a smaller rectangular wall (330x440 yards). The square tower measuring 112 yards on each side of which 3 of the original 5 stories have been preserved. What they found reminded the archaeologists of Genesis 11:2-4:

"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar;"

the Shinar of the cuneiform texts, i.e., Babylonia -

"and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven."

The Achaemenid Period

The `Treasure of Ziwiyeh' was found near the town of Ziwiyeh, northern Kurdistan, in a bronze sarcophagus containing objects of a wide variety of styles. Among these were Assyrian decorative plaques of gold and ivory. Other ivory plaques - judged to be imitations of Assyrian objects from the time of Esarhaddon - were the product of local craftsmen. The most important items, plaques and statuettes with inlays, were considered to be Urartian while the details of the decoration on the breastplates are almost all Assyrian. Specifically Scythian objects included a large gold-studded silver dish, decorated with concentric circles of various Scythian motifs suggestive of dates in the 7th century BC. The general composition bears a fairly close resemblance to that of the shields of `Toprak Kale'. [1200]

The Archaeological Evidence of Persian Kings

The main building relating to the early Elamite/Persian period is known as the residence of Cyrus (559-529 BC), the Pasargadae, the "camp of the Persians" and later the tomb of Cyrus.

"It was indeed more of a camp than a true palace, a camp that extended for a mile and a half. When Cyrus established his residence there, Pasargadae `consisted of little more than a few royal buildings erected in a walled-in-park and surrounded - according to the time of year - by a greater or smaller number of tents and flocks. The artificial terrace dominating the enclosure had, however, been built by then, probably in the reign of Cambyses I. It is now called `Takht-i-Suleiman', i.e., the throne of Solomon."[1300]

"The excavations of 1949 and 1950 [1400] have cleared the monumental entrance. ... The doors opening on the long sides have not been preserved except for the embrasure of one: a pillar decorated with a bas-relief after which the whole ensemble has been named the "palace of the stele". This stele, which probably dates from the middle of the 6th century BC, is 9 feet high. It shows a protective winged genius dressed in the long Elamite garment and crowned with an Egyptian-style tiara. Until the 19th century, there was a trilingual (neo-Bablyonian, neo-Elamite and Old Persian) inscription:

"I, Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenid (built)."

The text has now disappeared, but copies preserved by travellers have survived.[1500]

As Pasargadae had become too small, Cyrus [1550] decided to transfer the capital to a more convenient site - that of Persepolis, below the Kuh-i-Rahmat, the `Mountain of Grace'. Its buildings were the work of Darius I, Xerxes I, and Artaxerxes I. This was the scene of the magnificent `New Year's Festival'.

That Persians and Greeks had contact in war seems to be born out by an engraved chalcedony gemstone found at Bolsena, Italy. It shows in fine carving a Persian horseman attacking a Greek soldier by stabbing him with his spear surprising the Greek soldier and ostensibly killing him. The style is `Greco-Persian', current in the southern states of Asia Minor in the late 5th and 4th centuries BC.[1600]

Cyrus had been (since 559 BC) a vassal-king of Persia until his capture of Babylon (in 539 BC) [1615]. Until the fall of Babylon [1620], Cyrus's position was that of being in the service of his over-lord-Suzerain, Darius-the-Mede [1630]; - even though Cyrus previously had become the supreme commanding general, in charge of both the Median and Persian armies. The great victory, however, won him a new position, that of co-regent of an enlarged Medo-Persian empire.

The conquest had elevated both Darius the Mede (Xenophon's Cyaxares II) and his nephew Cyrus from being mere provincial rulers over illiterate rural tribes to that of occupiers of new thrones in urban, ostentatious Babylon. Not surprisingly, the first year of control over a newly won Empire became a "first regnal year" for Darius the Mede [Daniel 9:9], and also a "first year" for Cyrus (as the Babylonian cuneiform texts testify).[1650]

The coregency, of two kings sharing royal power, turned out to be brief. "Upon his (Darius the Mede's) death, within about two years of the fall of Babylon [537 BC], Cyrus succeeded to the throne, and the beginning of his reign [536 BC] marked the completion of the seventy years ..."PK 556f.

The death of Darius is indicated within the Book of Daniel by the transitional shift of recording the first year of the Median Suzerain (Dan. 9:1) to that of the 3rd year of Cyrus (Dan. 10:1).

"In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem." Dan. 9:1-2.

"In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel ... and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long ..." Daniel 10:1

With the death of his co-ruler, Cyrus again was elevated. This time he took up the reigns of government as the only Sovereign. The year 536 BC marked now his first full-year as sole ruler of a newly won Empire.

Conclusion: Within his tumultuous career, Cyrus experienced three first years!

a) The first occasion was in 559 BC, when he had been enthroned as vassal-king of Persia.
b) Again, both he and Darius the Mede shared a first year as co-regents in 538 BC.
c) Finally, 536 BC came to mark Cyrus's first full-year as an independent, sole ruler with control over every segment of a newly won Empire. [1700]

In Daniel's time, three different captivity periods, each lasting for 70 years, were known:

When King Josiah of Judah was slain by the Egyptians in 609 BC (2.Kings 23:29; 2.Chr. 35:20-24), the Hebrew nation lost her last independent king. The Hebrew monarchs who followed on the throne remained vassal-sub-rulers under the subjugation and appointment of either an Egyptian Pharaoh or a Babylonian Suzerain. Seventy years after the death of "good king" Josiah, is the death of "bad king" Belshazar, in 539 BC. That was the year in which Cyrus, Yahweh's "anointed-one" (Isa. 45:1), - whom God had appointed before he was born (Isa. 45:4) --, became God's choice of King over His chosen people.

This period began with the conquest of Judah by Babylon in 605 BC. The 536 BC decree of the Persian King Cyrus, which set the Jewish exiles free (Isa. 45:13), is recorded no fewer than three times in Scripture (2.Chr. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4; 6:3-5). This is the well-known period referred to by Daniel in chapter 9:2 and in Jeremiah 25:11-12.

This 70-year period of the "Temple's Captivity" is referred to specifically in Zechariah 1:12, and indirectly in Haggai 1:2. When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in August, 586 BC, it lay in ruins until physically restored on March 12, 515 BC (Ezra 6:15-18). This period of desolation, until the Temple was rebuilt, adds up to 70 years according to the Jewish autumn reckoning, in which 516-515 BC, is the final 70th year.

The sound of unbridled joy seldom breaks the quiet of the British Museum's great Arched Room, which holds its collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, (according to conventional presuppositions) dating back 5,000 years. But Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.

Searching for Babylonian financial accounts among the tablets, Prof Jursa suddenly came across a name he half remembered, "Nabu-sharrussu-ukin", described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

Prof Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in Jeremiah 39:3, he found, spelled differently, the same name "Nebo-Sarsekim."

Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II's "chief officer" and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 586/7 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city.

The small tablet, the size of "a packet of 10 cigarettes" according to Irving Finkel, a British Museum expert, is a bill of receipt acknowledging Nabu-sharrussu-ukin's payment of 0.75 kg of gold to a temple in Babylon.

The tablet is dated to the 10th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 595BC, 12 years before the siege of Jerusalem.

Evidence from non-Biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure.

"This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find," Dr Finkel said yesterday. "If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power."

Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing and was commonly used in the Middle East between 3,200 BC (conv. dating) and the second century AD. It was created by pressing a wedge-shaped instrument, usually a cut reed, into moist clay.

The full translation of the tablet reads: (Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon."

The Successors of Nebuchadnezzar

One can hardly write about Nebuchadnezzar without making references to the biblical book of Daniel. Here the king exclaims:

"Is this not the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" Daniel 4:30 NIV

According to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is the proud builder of the new Babylon. But, even though frequent reference is made to Babylon in the writings of Herodotus, Cresius, Strabo, and Pliny, these writers are not known to refer to Nebuchadnezzar as the architect of the city.[1750] How are we to explain that?

Conversly, contemporary cuneiform documents from Nebuchadnezzar himself provide convincing information indicating the history recorded in the book of Daniel is reliable. For example, one record states, "Then build I [Nebuchadnezzer] the palace the seat of my royalty, the bond of the race of men, the dwelling of joy and rejoicing." [1800]

Professor J.A. Montgomery was led to conclude that in this striking instance, "the very language of the story [of Daniel] is reminiscent of the Akkadian." [1900]

The king's construction activities substantiated by much scientifically gathered material indicate that Daniel wrote his book during the time he lived in Babylon. There is even written evidence on Nebuchadnezzar's period of madness. The Assyriologist A.K. Grayson published in 1975 a fragmentary cuneiform text [BM 34113=sp 213], which mentions Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-Merodach, his son and successor on the throne of Babylon. Unfortunately the tablet is so fragmentary that only the content of one side (obverse) is translatable and even here are many uncertainties. However, in lines 2-4 Nebuchadnezzar is mentioned, and it is stated that "... his life appeared of no value to [him, ...]" and that "[h]e stood and [took] the good road to [...]." [2000] In lines 5-8 we read, "And (the) Babylon(ian) speaks bad counsel to Evil-Merodach [...] Then he gives an entirely different order but [...] He does not heed the word from his lips, the cour[tier(s) ...] He changed but did not block [...]." [2100]

Unfortunately no indisputable identification of the subject in lines 5-9 can be made. It is possible that the subject refers to Nebuchadnezzar, who gave his orders to his son Evil-Merodach which the latter does not heed because of the former's erratic behavior. If Nebuchadnezzar is the main actor in this text, then the phrases in some later lines such as "he does not show love to son or daughter [...] ... family and clan does not exist [...] ... his attention was not directed towards promoting welfare of Esagil [and Babylon]." [2200] can easily refer to the strange behavior of Nebuchadnezzar during his time of mental incapacity when he neglected his family, clan, the worship associated with the temple complex Esaglia, and the interest of Babylon in general. We suggest that the crown prince Evil-Merodach was forced to take over the government of his father Nebuchadnezzar during the time of his demise. Daniel 4:33 informs us that Nebuchadnezzar was later reinstated into full royal rulership. If our interpretation of the above cuneiform text is sound, we have here definite extra biblical and contemporary historical data that corroborates and supports the biblical story of Daniel 4. [2300]

Following the death of Nebuchadnezzar/Hattusilis, Nabonidus (556-538) and Belshazzar (coreign 550/549-538) were kings in Babylon up to the day when the Persians and Medes under Cyrus diverted the flow of the Euphrates River to gain entry through the city gates of Babylon, slew Belshazzar as he was feasting in his palace and established the Persian Empire. [2400] From this time we have a 4 inch long clay cylinder covered with cuneiform writing recording Cyrus' defeat of Nabonidus and the capture of Babylon. In this cylinder Cyrus describes a morally bankrupt Belshazzar. We read:

"A weakling has been installed as the [ruler] of his country ... He interrupted in a fiendish way the regular offerings ... The worship of Marduk, the king of the gods, he [chang]ed into abomination. ... I returned to these sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitations." [2500]

While the Babylonian Empire had been compared to `the head of gold' and a lion, the Persian was `the chest of silver' and a bear. The Babylonian Empire lasted for less than 100 years, the Persian for just over 200 years.

The war was carried on with uninterrupted success by the Medes and the Persians, until in the 18th year of Nabonidus (the 3rd year of Belshazar, about 538 BC), Cyrus laid siege to Babylon. The defenses of Babylon, of which Nebukadnezzar inscribed, "Thus I completely made strong the defenses of Babylon. May it last forever." [2900], were soon to be put to the test. The walls of Babylon were constructed, according to Herodotus, on the guidance of the Queen of Nebuchadnezzar, Nitocris. With the arrival of the armies of the Medo-Persian King Cyrus and the careless sense of security of the king within the city, a fatal combination of circumstances came together. They counted on their supplies calculated to last them 20 years and enough arable land to augment their sources for food within the city walls. They scoffed at Cyrus from the walls of their city but in years past already Jewish prophets had seen the destruction of this great city coming and even presented the name of the king who would carry it out, `Cyrus'. [Isaiah 13: 19-22] In their sense of security lay the source of danger. They thought of their wall as "Ina irat kigalli išidšu lû ušaršid e-bi-ih dan-num ebirti sît Samši lû ušashir", (`A mountain as big as) strong Ebih I made go all the way around the east bank'.[3000] Noticing the difficulties in taking the city by force, Cyrus resolved to try stratagem. Knowing of the approach of an annual Babylonian festival in which the whole city would be given to careless mirth and revelry he decided to carry out his purposes on that day. There was no entrance into the city unless he could find it underneath the gates where the Euphrates entered and exited the city.[3100] He divided up his army into three bodies the first of which diverted the water of the river into numerous channels creating a lake. The other two divisions were posted at the entrance and exit of the river by the city wall. As soon as they noticed the water level going down they got ready to find their way inside the exposed city. On each side of the river inside the city along its entire length were great walls equal in dimensions to the outer city wall. These river side walls had huge gates of brass, which, when closed and guarded, barred all entrance within. Had the gates been closed that night, the Persian soldiers would have marched in on the river bed and marched out the other side. But as Isaiah wrote, these gates had been left open that fateful night. According to the Book of Daniel, that night the mysterious words, "MN MN TQL PRSN" appeared on the wall. Calling in the wise men, they might have read at first, `Mina, mina, a shekel, and a half shekel', which did not make any sense, where `mene' means weight. Hoewever, the prophet Daniel knew what was meant. He read, "Mene, mene, tekel upharsin", `numbered, numbered, weighed and divided'. The play on words has to do with the word `PRSN' which means `divided' and comes mighty close to the Hebrew word for `Persians (paras)'. God had numbered or added up the crimes of the king and completed their tally, The period of Babylon's political might was coming to its end. According to the Babylonian Chronicles, it was the 16th day of the month of Tishri, October 12th, 539 BC.

Persian military first attacked the royal guards stationed in the vestibule of the palace of the king. Belshazzar soon became aware of the cause of the disturbance and died fighting for his life. According to a Greek report, Cyrus spared the life of Nabonidus after his surrender and gave him a residence in Carmania, a Persian province located along the north shore of the Persian Gulf. All in all the Babylonian Empire lasted from about 606-538 BC.

The Monumental Walls and Gates of Babylon

We read in the prophet Jeremiah words that he wrote in about 597 BC:

"... Babylon's thick walls will be leveled and her high gates set on fire, the peoples exhaust themselves for nothing, and the nation's labor is only fuel for the fire" [Jeremiah 51:58; NIV]

Many years ago the German Professor R. Koldewey described the then up to date results of the German team's excavations of Babylon which he published in 255 illustrations and plans: "Those who approached the capital of Babylon in the days of Nebuchadnezzar coming from the north, found themselves about there, where today the Nile-Canal flows, before the colossal fortified wall, which surrounded Babylon. It was a ca. 21 foot thick brick wall before which at a distance of ca. 36 feet stood a ca. 23 1/2 foot thick kiln baked brick wall paralleled by the ca. 10 foot thick wall of the canal. ... The space between the two walls had been filled with soil up to the top of the outer wall. ... This created a roadway sufficiently wide for one four horse chariot and even wide enough for two of these coming from opposite directions to pass each other. On top of this walled circle stood the upper stories of towers facing each other appearing like little dwellings. The towers are ca. 25 feet wide and ca. 132 feet apart from each other. Along the entire front line would have been about 90, and surrounding the city, if it formed a square, would have been 360 towers. How many the outer wall had, we don't know.'"

Ctesias quotes the number 250, "The extent of the walled subdivision for habitation puts Babylon for all times in first place. Nebuchadnezzar wrote in his inscriptions many times from this huge construction project. The main-inscription is the large `Stone Plate Inscription'." Column 7, Lines 22-55: "So that city sieges on Imgur-Bel, the wall of Babel, could not approach: what no other king had ever done before, 4000 cubits before the walls of the city, so that no one could approach, I erected a wall on the sides of Babylon in the east. I dug its foundations and built its slopes with clay and baked bricks. A mighty wall I built coming up on the banks of the river, her wide gates I installed and doors of Cedar Wood overlaid with copper I made. So that an enemy who purposed to do evil could not endanger the walls of Babylon I unleashed the floods of the oceans to surround the city. So that no one could breech the walls I made an earthen rampart before them and surrounded them with walls of baked brick. The ramparts I finished artfully and made Babylon into a fortified city." [3200]

Probably in his 1st year Cyrus had established a second capital at Susa, in the province of Elam, about 230 miles east from Babylon, on the banks of the River Choaspes, a branch of the Tigris. This new city provoked the pride of the Babylonians and in the 5th year of Darius Hystaspes, 517 BC, they rose in rebellion and brought upon themselves the full strength of the Persian Empire. Once more the city was taken by stratagem. Darius took away the brass city gates and demolished the walls from 200 cubits to 50 cubits. This was the beginning of its destruction. Now even roving hostile bands could ravage the city. Xerxes, on his return from Greece, plundered the temple of Belus of its great wealth, after that he laid the lofty structure in ruins. Alexander the Great tried to rebuilt it, but after employing 10,000 men for two months to clear away the ruins, he died and the work was suspended. In 294 BC Seleucus Nicator built the city of New Babylon (Opis) in the neighborhood of the old city named Seleucia, and took millions of bricks from the old city to build up the new one. Now almost exhausted of its people and resources, neglect and decay set in. Later the violence of Parthian princes accelerated its ruin even more. Towards the end of the 4th century BC it was used by the Persian kings as an enclosure for wild animals.

However, read this later account:

An Eyewitness Account of the City of Babylon

Apollonius, the sage of Tyana, who lived in the days of Nero, has left an account of Babylon as he saw it, as late as the 1st century of our era. At that time the Euphrates River still swept beneath its walls, dividing the city into halves, with great palaces at either side. He wrote:

"The palaces are roofed with bronze, and a glitter goes off from them; but the chambers of the women and of the men and the porticoes are adorned partly with silver, and partly with golden tapestries or curtains, and partly with solid gold in the form of pictures."

And of the king's judgment hall he wrote:

"The roof had been carried up in the form of a dome, to resemble in a manner the heavens, and that it was roofed with sapphire, a stone that is very blue and like heaven to the eye; and there were images of the gods, which they worship, fixed aloft, and looking like golden figures shining of the ether."[3300]

The view given us by Apollonius is perhaps the last glimpse we have of Babylon's passing glory. Even then for centuries the walls had been a quarry, from which stones were drawn for Babylon's rival, Seleucia, on the Tigris. And Strabo, the Greek geographer, who also wrote in the 1st century AD, had described Babylon as "in great part deserted", adding:

"No one would hesitate to apply to it what one of the comic writers said of Megalopolite, in Arcadia, `The great city is a great desert'."[3400]

Here is what the Englishman Mr. Layard found on his visit in 1845:

"Shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of the land. ... On all sides, fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed brick are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched soil, which, bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of Babylon a naked and a hideous waste. Owls [which are of a large grey kind, and often in flocks of nearly a hundred] start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the furrows." [3500]

Magnificence of Ancient Constructions

While we marvel about the still remaining edifices of Egypt, Baalbek, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome there are other peoples from around the world who have no less magnificent achievements to show. Among these are the ancient peoples of the South American Continent, North America, Europe and Asia. Outstanding ones are Cambodia's jungle splendor of Angkor Thom whose originators are long forgotten and yet their stone work surpasses or rivals that of ancient Egypt and Assyria.