Two recently published barrel-shaped clay cylinders from Tell al-Uhaimir (ancient Kish), south of Baghdad, preserve a 50-plus-line Akkadian inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BCE), the infamous Babylonian king who destroyed the first Jerusalem Temple and sent much of Judah’s population into exile. Though found on the surface, the cylinders originally functioned as foundation deposits that were buried beneath the ziggurat at Kish. In the text, Nebuchadnezzar identifies himself as the divinely chosen heir of Nabopolassar and describes rebuilding and embellishing the ziggurat after its walls had fallen into disrepair. In Mesopotamian ideology, maintaining temples meant maintaining order itself. Invoking the […]
