The Cyrus Cylinder

The Great Persian Edict from Babylon

Irving Finkel

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780857733498
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

Some historical artfacts are destined forever to alter how the ancient world is perceived. The unerathing in today's Iraq (in 1879) of a clay cylinder-shaped decree from Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia, stands in the same traditin of game changing discoveries from antiquity as Hammurabi's famous law code or the intact tom of the boy-king Tutankhamun. For the Cyrus Cylinder contains in microcosm the whole history of its period. Inscribed with an account of the conquest of Babylon in 539 BC by the Persian king, it records an event which launched one of the greatest imperial adventures in history. It describes Cyrus' capture and deposition of Nabondius, last native Babylonian ruler (represented by the Cylinder text as an oppressor of his own people), and proclaims the Persian, aided by the god Marduk, as a liberator. His annexation of Babylon was to become the platform upon which the Achaemenid military machine built its later vast imperium. But the Cylinder is more than an ancient exercise in propaganda.
It has been celebrated as the world's first declaration of human rights, and an international symbl of religious tolerance, setting out the decree from which Cyrus freed the Jews in Babylon: an event recorded by Isaiah. Few other objects from antiquity are invested with so many hopes for the future. This important volume is the first to discuss the Cylinder and its remarkable history. Written by internationally respected authorities from the British Museum, it offers a fresh consideration of its subject in the light of new discoveries. Included here is a complete new translation of the Cylinder inscription using recently identified but previously unpublished sources. Archive materials have allowed a fresh investigation of the circumstances of the original nineteenth-century find by Hormuzd Rassam, and a reappraisal of the mysterious 'Chinese bone' forgeries. The book also discusses the extraordinary and evolving history of Cyrus' timeless message: a message that continues powerfully to resonate.

1

The Cyrus Cylinder: the Babylonian perspective

IRVING FINKEL

The Cyrus Cylinder in translation

THIS book begins with a translation into English of the Babylonian text of the Cyrus Cylinder (figures 1–2). The translation has been made directly from a study of the original document in the British Museum, and incorporates new words or parts of words that are provided by the two recently discovered duplicating tablet fragments. The result is that the following translation is as full and up to date a rendering of the Cyrus proclamation as can at present be made. As is discussed below, the new evidence from the tablet fragments includes the name of the Babylonian scribe who was responsible for copying out the tablet. The line of text that gives this information is translated at the end.

Translation of the Cyrus Cylinder

1 [When … Mar]duk, king of the whole of heaven and earth, the …… who, in his …, lays waste his ……

2 [………………………………………………………………] broad? in intelligence, …… who inspects (?) the wor]ld quarters (regions)

3 [………………………………………………………] his [first]born (=Belshazzar), a low person, was put in charge of his country,

4 but [………………………………………………………………………] he set [a (…) counter]feit over them.

5 He ma[de] a counterfeit of Esagil, [and …………] … for Ur and the rest of the cult-cities.

6 Rites inappropriate to them, [impure] fo[od-offerings …………………………………………………] disrespectful […] were daily gabbled, and, as an insult,

7 he brought the daily offerings to a halt; he inter[fered with the rites and] instituted [……] within the sanctuaries. In his mind, reverential fear of Marduk, king of the gods, came to an end.

8 He did yet more evil to his city every day; … his [people ………………], he brought ruin on them all by a yoke without relief.

9 Enlil-of-the-gods became extremely angry at their complaints, and […] their territory. The gods who lived within them left their shrines,

10 angry that he had made (them) enter into Shuanna (Babylon). Ex[alted Marduk, Enlil-of-the-Go]ds, relented. He changed his mind about all the settlements whose sanctuaries were in ruins,

11 and the population of the land of Sumer and Akkad who had become like corpses, and took pity on them. He inspected and checked all the countries,

12 seeking for the upright king of his choice. He took the hand of Cyrus, king of the city of Anshan, and called him by his name, proclaiming him aloud for the kingship over all of everything.

13 He made the land of Guti and all the Median troops prostrate themselves at his feet, while he shepherded in justice and righteousness the black-headed people

14 whom he had put under his care. Marduk, the great lord, who nurtures his people, saw with pleasure his fine deeds and true heart,

15 and ordered that he should go to Babylon. He had him take the road to Tintir (Babylon), and, like a friend and companion, he walked at his side.

16 His vast troops whose number, like the water in a river, could not be counted, were marching fully armed at his side.

17 He had him enter without fighting or battle right into Shuanna; he saved his city Babylon from hardship. He handed over to him Nabonidus, the king who did not fear him.

18 All the people of Tintir, of all Sumer and Akkad, nobles and governors, bowed down before him and kissed his feet, rejoicing over his kingship and their faces shone.

19 The lord through whose help all were rescued from death and who saved them all from distress and hardship, they blessed him sweetly and praised his name.

20 I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world,

21 son of Cambyses, the great king, king of the city of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, the great king, ki[ng of the ci]ty of Anshan, descendant of Teispes, the great king, king of the city of Anshan,

22 the perpetual seed of kingship, whose reign Bel (Marduk) and Nabu love, and with whose kingship, to their joy, they concern themselves. When I went as harbinger of peace i[nt]o Babylon

23 I founded my sovereign residence within the palace amid celebration and rejoicing. Marduk, the great lord, bestowed on me as my destiny the great magnanimity of one who loves Babylon, and I every day sought him out in awe.

24 My vast troops were marching peaceably in Babylon, and the whole of [Sumer] and Akkad had nothing to fear.

25 I sought the safety of the city of Babylon and all its sanctuaries. As for the population of Babylon […, w]ho as if without div[ine intention] had endured a yoke not decreed for them,

26 I soothed their weariness; I freed them from their bonds(?). Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced at [my good] deeds,

27 and he pronounced a sweet blessing over me, Cyrus, the king who fears him, and over Cambyses, the son [my] issue, [and over] my all my troops,

28 that we might live happily in his presence, in well-being. At his exalted command, all kings who sit on thrones,

29 from every quarter, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, those who inhabit [remote distric]ts (and) the kings of the land of Amurru who live in tents, all of them,

30 brought their weighty tribute into Shuanna, and kissed my feet. From [Shuanna] I sent back to their places to the city of Ashur and Susa,

31 Akkad, the land of Eshnunna, the city of Zamban, the city of Meturnu, Der, as far as the border of the land of Guti – the sanctuaries across the river Tigris – whose shrines had earlier become dilapidated,

32 the gods who lived therein, and made permanent sanctuaries for them. I collected together all of their people and returned them to their settlements,

33 and the gods of the land of Sumer and Akkad which Nabonidus – to the fury of the lord of the gods – had brought into Shuanna, at the command of Marduk, the great lord,

34 I returned them unharmed to their cells, in the sanctuaries that make them happy. May all the gods that I returned to their sanctuaries,

35 every day before Bel and Nabu, ask for a long life for me, and mention my good deeds, and say to Marduk, my lord, this: ‘Cyrus, the king who fears you, and Cambyses his son,

36 may they be the provisioners of our shrines until distant (?) days, and the population of Babylon call blessings on my kingship. I have enabled all the lands to live in peace.’

37 Every day I increased by [… ge]ese, two ducks and ten pigeons the [former offerings] of geese, ducks and pigeons.

38 I strove to strengthen the defences of the wall Imgur-Enlil, the great wall of Babylon,

39 and [I completed] the quay of baked brick on the bank of the moat which an earlier king had bu[ilt but not com]pleted its work.

40 [I …… which did not surround the city] outside, which no earlier king had built, his workforce, the levee [from his land, in/int]o Shuanna.

41 [……………………………………………………………… with bitum]en and baked brick I built anew, and [completed] its [work].

42 [……………………………………………………] great [doors of cedar wood] with bronze cladding,

43 [and I installed] all their doors, threshold slabs and door fittings with copper parts. [……………………]. I saw within it an inscription of Ashurbanipal, a king who preceded me;

44 […………………………………………] in its place. May Marduk, the great lord, present to me as a gift a long life and the fullness of age,

45 [a secure throne and an enduring rei]gn, [and may I …… in] your heart forever.

The scribal note from the tablet:

[Written and check]ed [from a…]; (this) tablet (is) of

Qīšti-Marduk, son of […].

1 An early photograph of the Cyrus Cylinder, as it appeared in Hormuzd Rassam’s book Asshur and the Land of Nimrod (1897), plate opposite p. 268.

2 The Cyrus Cylinder today.

TABLE 1.1 Names of gods, people and places mentioned in the Cyrus Cylinder inscription, in order of appearance

Marduk		The city god of Babylon and the patron of the Neo-Babylonian kings of Babylon
Belshazzar		The firstborn son of Nabonidus, the last native king of Babylon (556–539 BC), who acted as regent for his father during his absence in Teima in Arabia
Esagil		The great temple dedicated to Marduk in Babylon, south of the ziggurat tower complex Etemenanki
Enlil		The second most powerful of the ancient gods of Mesopotamia, whose place was usurped by Marduk
Shuanna		A name for the city of Babylon, here standing for the whole city but in fact that name of the southernmost quarter
Sumer and Akkad		The old names for southern Mesopotamia, later Babylonia
Tintir		The old Sumerian name for the city of Babylon
Anshan		Ancient Elamite city, modern Tal-e Malyan, northwest of Shiraz in southern Iran
Guti		The name for the inhabitants of the area between the Zagros Mountains and the River Tigris, referring specifically to Iranians, including the Medes and their companions
Nabu		The god of writing, son of Marduk and his wife Zarpanitu
Amurru		The west land
Ashur		One of the old Assyrian capital cities in the north of Iraq, on the upper reaches of the River Tigris
Susa		Elamite capital city in southwest Iran
Eshnunna		Central Babylonian city on the Diyala river in Iraq
Zamban		A city in the northeast
Meturnu		A city located roughly between Zamban and Eshnunna
Der		An ancient city located east of the Tigris river on the border between Sumer and Elam
Tigris		The river that with the Euphrates defined ancient Mesopotamia, the ‘land between the rivers’
Imgur-Enlil		The famous Inner Wall of the city of Babylon
Ashurbanipal		The last great king of Assyria (685–627 BC), warrior-librarian, who undertook restoration work in Babylon and left an account of it buried for the future that Cyrus later discovered

The localities (with the exception of Susa) are mentioned in connection with the res...

Table of contents

• Author’s biography
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• Preface – JONATHAN TUBB
• Introduction – IRVING FINKEL
• CHAPTER 1: The Cyrus Cylinder: the Babylonian perspective – IRVING FINKEL
• CHAPTER 2: The Cyrus Cylinder: discovery – JONATHAN TAYLOR
• CHAPTER 3: The Cyrus Cylinder: display and replica – ST JOHN SIMPSON
• CHAPTER 4: The Cyrus Cylinder: the creation of an icon and its loan to Tehran – JOHN CURTIS
• CHAPTER 5: The Cyrus Cylinder: a Persian perspective – SHAHROKH RAZMJOU
• Afterword – IRVING FINKEL
• APPENDIX: Transliteration of the Cyrus Cylinder text– IRVING FINKEL
• REFERENCES