Iraqi History · Chronicle VI of XII
Ancient Mesopotamia
Nebuchadnezzar's golden Babylon, the exile of Judah, and the coming of Cyrus.
Chaldean DynastyPolitical
The Chaldean chief Nabopolassar seizes Babylon, throws off the Assyrian yoke, and founds a new empire.
As Assyria weakened after Ashurbanipal's death, Nabopolassar rose from the Chaldean tribes of the south to claim the throne of Babylon. Allied with the Medes, he tore the heart out of the Assyrian Empire, destroying Nineveh in 612 BCE, and left his son a realm that inherited Assyria's western dominions.
Chaldean DynastyMilitary
As crown prince, Nebuchadnezzar smashes the Egyptian army at Carchemish, winning Syria and the Levant for Babylon.
At Carchemish on the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Egyptians who had marched north to prop up the last Assyrians. The victory handed Babylon the whole of Syria and Palestine and marked him as a general of genius — just before news of his father's death called him home to be crowned.
Chaldean DynastyPolitical
The greatest of Babylon's kings begins a reign of forty-three years that will make his city the wonder of the age.
Nebuchadnezzar II ruled the richest empire of his day, drawing tribute from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. A tireless campaigner and even more tireless builder, he poured the wealth of empire into Babylon, determined to make it the most magnificent city on earth — and largely succeeding.
Chaldean DynastyCultural
Nebuchadnezzar rebuilds Babylon with the glazed-blue Ishtar Gate, the great ziggurat Etemenanki, and gardens of legend.
The Ishtar Gate, faced with lapis-blue tiles and striding bulls and dragons, opened onto a Processional Way lined with lions. Above the city rose Etemenanki, the ziggurat remembered as the Tower of Babel, and — if the Greek writers are right — the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
Chaldean DynastyMilitary
Nebuchadnezzar captures Jerusalem, deposes its king, and carries off the first captives to Babylon.
When Judah wavered in its loyalty, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, took its young king Jehoiachin, and deported the court, craftsmen, and treasure — an event dated precisely by a Babylonian chronicle tablet. He set a puppet, Zedekiah, on the throne, but the peace would not hold for long.
Chaldean DynastyReligious
After a revolt, Nebuchadnezzar razes Jerusalem and its Temple and deports the people of Judah — the Babylonian Exile.
Zedekiah's rebellion brought catastrophe: the city was starved, stormed, and burned, and Solomon's Temple destroyed. The exile in Babylon became one of the formative events of Jewish history, shaping the Hebrew Bible and the faith that returned to rebuild the Temple two generations later under Persian rule.
Chaldean DynastyPolitical
The great king dies after forty-three years, and Babylon slides into a decade of coups and short-lived rulers.
None of Nebuchadnezzar's successors matched him. His son was murdered, and the throne changed hands amid intrigue until a courtier named Nabonidus seized power. The empire was still vast and rich, but its foundations were shakier than they looked, and a new power was rising on the Iranian plateau.
Chaldean DynastyCultural
Babylonian scholars keep meticulous records of the heavens, laying the foundations of mathematical astronomy.
For centuries the priests of Marduk logged the positions of the moon and planets night after night in 'astronomical diaries.' From this vast dataset they learned to predict eclipses and planetary cycles — knowledge later Greek astronomers built upon. Babylon's base-60 mathematics still divides our hours and degrees today.
Chaldean DynastyReligious
The devout, eccentric Nabonidus exalts the moon god Sin, withdraws to the Arabian oasis of Tayma, and alienates Babylon's priests.
Nabonidus promoted the moon god over Marduk and spent a decade far away at Tayma, leaving his son Belshazzar as regent. His neglect of Babylon's great New Year festival outraged the powerful priesthood of Marduk — a resentment the Persian Cyrus would exploit to present himself not as a conqueror but a liberator.
Fall of BabylonMilitary
The Persian king Cyrus the Great enters Babylon almost unopposed, ending Mesopotamian independence for over two thousand years.
After defeating the Babylonian army at Opis, Cyrus took the city without a battle; the Cyrus Cylinder proclaims that Marduk himself chose him to restore order. He let the exiled Judahites return home to rebuild their Temple. Babylon lived on as a great city, but never again as a capital of its own — the age of Mesopotamian empires was over.
2 more entries, to 539 BC
