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Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform: Nabû-naʾid, meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC.
- 25 May 556 BC – 13 October 539 BC
- Adad-guppi
Nabonidus, king of Babylonia from 556 until 539 bc, when Babylon fell to Cyrus, king of Persia. After a popular rising led by the priests of Marduk, chief god of the city, Nabonidus, who favoured the moon god Sin, made his son Belshazzar coregent and spent much of his reign in Arabia.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Reign
- The Persian Conquest
- Nabonidus' Death and Legacy
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In most ancient accounts, Nabonidus is depicted as a royal anomaly. He worshiped the moon god Sîn (mythology) beyond all the other gods, and paid special devotion to Sîn's temple in Harran, where his mother was a priestess. After successful campaigns in Edom and Cilicia (modern Turkey) early in his reign, he left Babylon, residing at the rich deser...
Various accounts survive describing the fall of Babylon during the reign of Nabonidus. According to the Cyrus cylinder, the people opened their gates for Cyrus and greeted him as a liberator. Herodotus says that Cyrus defeated the Babylonian army outside the city, after which he instituted a siege of city. When this took too long, he diverted the E...
Accounts by Berossus and others mention that Nabonidus' life was spared, and that he was allowed to retire in Carmania. This conforms with other accounts indicating that Cyrus the Greatwas known for sparing the lives of the kings whom he had defeated when it served his purposes. Nabonidus successor, Cyrus, brought an end to the Neo-Babylonian Empir...
Beard, Mary, and John A. North. Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World. London: Duckworth, 1990. ISBN 9780715622063.Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 556-539 B.C.E. Yale Near Eastern researches, 10. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. ISBN 9780300043143.—. Legal and Administrative Texts from the Reign of Nabonidus. Yale oriental series, v. 19. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. ISBN 9780300057706.Crawford, Harriet E. W. Regime Change in the Ancient Near East and Egypt: From Sargon of Agade to Saddam Hussein. Proceedings of the British Academy, 136. Oxford: Oxford University Press for The Br...All links retrieved November 2, 2018. 1. Nabonidus Cylinder from Sippar www.livius.org 2. Nabonidus Cylinder from Ur www.livius.org 3. Nabonidus Chronicle www.livius.org
The enigmatic Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus seemed destined for just such a fate after the Persian armies of Cyrus the Great marched through Babylon’s gates in October 539 B.C.
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Nabonidus was the only son of Nabu-balatṩu-iqbi, a “wise prince and governor,” at Harran and of Adda-guppi’, an influential votary of the gods Sin, Ningal, Nusgu and Sardarunna, who died in 547 b.c., aged 104, and was given a state funeral and public mourning.
Mar 4, 2024 · Who Was Nabonidus? Aside from being the world’s first archaeologist, Nabonidus is remembered for many other achievements, including the conquest of Arabia and an attempted large-scale religious reform to supplant Marduk as the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon.
Like his priestess mother, Nabonidus was a deeply religious man and a devotee of the moon-god Sin. The 2-foot-tall basalt stela shown is thought to depict Nabonidus, who wears a spiked helmet and raises his right hand towards symbols of Sin (circle with crescent), the sun-god Shamash (winged disk) and the love-war goddess Ishtar (a seven ...