The Length of Reigns of The Neobabylonian Kings

3
THE LENGTH OF REIGNS OF

THE NEO-BABYLONIAN KINGS
P EOPLE MAY believe the most peculiar ideas, not because there
is any evidence to show that they are true, but because there is
little or no evidence to show that they are false. For many centuries
people believed that the earth was flat, simply because this view could
not easily be tested and falsified. Many ideas that have been tied to
prophecies in the Bible also definitely belong to this category. These
clearly include some appended to Jesus’ statement about the “times of
the Gentiles” at Luke 21:24.
For example, the Bible nowhere explicitly states:
1) that Jesus, in speaking of these “Gentile times,” had in
mind the “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness
mentioned in the book of Daniel, chapter 4;
2) that these “seven times” were seven years;
3) that these “years” were not ordinary Babylonian calendar
years, but “prophetic years” of 360 days each, and there-
fore should be summed up as 2,520 days;
4) that these 2,520 days not only applied to the period of Nebu-
chadnezzar’s madness, but also would have a greater fulfillment;
5) that in this greater fulfillment days should be counted as
years, so that we get a period of 2,520 years; and
6) that this 2,520-year period started when Nebuchadnezzar,
in his 18th regnal year, desolated the city of Jerusalem.
None of these six assumptions can be verified by clear Biblical
statements. They are, in fact, nothing but a chain of guesses. Yet,
since the Bible does not discuss or even mention any of these
ideas, it nowhere explicitly says they are false either.
However, when it is further claimed (7) that Nebuchadnezzar’s
desolation of Jerusalem took place in 607 B.C.E., we have reached
a point in the train of thought that can be tested and falsified.
89
90 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
This is because the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian period

does not fall within the area of unverifiable assumptions.
As will be demonstrated in this and the subsequent chapter, the
length of the Neo-Babylonian period has been firmly established
today by at least seventeen different lines of evidence, fourteen
of which will be discussed in some detail in these two chapters.
In the previous chapter it was shown that the validity of the Watch
Tower Society’s prophetic interpretation of the 1914 date is intimately
connected with the length of the Neo-Babylonian period.1 That pe-
riod ended when Babylon was captured by the armies of the Persian
king Cyrus in 539 B.C.E., an acknowledged, reliable date.
In the first year of his reign over Babylon, Cyrus issued an edict
which permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles
36:22, 23; Ezra 1:1-4) According to the Watch Tower Society this
ended the seventy-year period mentioned at Jeremiah 25:11, 12;
29:10; Daniel 9:2, and 2 Chronicles 36:21.
If, as the Society maintains, the Jewish remnant returned to
Jerusalem in 537 B.C.E., the period of Babylonian domination
would have begun seventy years earlier, or in 607 B.C.E.2 And since the
1 The term “Neo-Babylonian” usually refers to the period that began with the reign of
Nabopolassar (dated to 625–605 B.C.E.) and ended with Nabonidus (555–539 B.C.E.).
It should be noticed, however, that many scholars use the term “Neo-Babylonian” of a
more extended period. The Assyrian Dictionary (eds. I. J. Gelb et al., Chicago: Oriental
Institute, 1956–), for example, starts the period in 1150 B.C.E. and ends it somewhere
in the fourth century B.C.E. In the present work the term is confined to the Babylonian
dynasty that began with Nabopolassar and ended with Nabonidus.
2 The first year of Cyrus extended from the spring (Nisanu 1) of 538 to the spring of 537
B.C.E. If Ezra followed the Jewish method of counting the accession-year as the first
year, he may have reckoned 539/38 as the first year of Cyrus. However that may be, the
evidence is that Cyrus issued his edict not long after the fall of Babylon. The so-called
Cyrus Cylinder shows that Cyrus, soon after the conquest of Babylon, issued a decree
that allowed the different peoples that had been deported to Babylonia to return to their
respective home countries. (James B. Pritchard [ed.], Ancient Near Eastern Texts
Relating to the Old Testament [ANET], Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 1950, p. 316.) Most likely the edict permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem was
a part of this general release of exiled peoples. As shown by the book of Ezra, the Jews
who responded to the edict immediately began to organize themselves for the homeward
journey (Ezra 1:5-2:70), and in “the seventh month” (Tishri, corresponding to parts of
September and October) they had settled in their home cities. (Ezra 3:1) The context
seems to imply that this was still in the “first year of Cyrus” (Ezra 1:1-3:1). Most
authorities, therefore, conclude that this was in the autumn of 538 B.C.E. and not in 537
as the Watch Tower Society insists. (See for example Dr. T. C. Mitchell’s discussion in
The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., Vol. III:2, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991, pp. 430-432; also the thorough discussion of the historicity of Cyrus’ edict
by Elias Bickerman in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976,
pp. 72-108.) The Watch Tower Society, however, cannot accept the 538 B.C.E. date for
the return, as that would move the beginning of their seventy-year period back to 608
B.C.E. This, of course, would destroy their Gentile times calculation.
The Length of Reigns of the Neo-Babylonian Kings 91
Watch Tower Society holds this seventy-year period to be a pe-

riod of complete desolation of Judah and Jerusalem, we are told
that it was in the year 607 B.C.E. that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed
Jerusalem, in his eighteenth regnal year. (2 Kings 25:8; Jeremiah
52:12, 29) This event, it is assumed, started the 2,520 years, called
the Gentile times, beginning in the year 607 B.C.E.
This starting-point, however, is incompatible with a number of
historical facts.*
A. ANCIENT HISTORIANS
Up to the latter part of the nineteenth century the only way to
determine the length of the Neo-Babylonian period was by consulting
ancient Greek and Roman historians. Those historians lived hundreds
of years after the Neo-Babylonian period, and unfortunately their
statements are often contradictory.3
Those held to be the most reliable are 1) Berossus and 2) the
compiler(s) of the kinglist commonly known as Ptolemy’s Canon,
sometimes also, and more correctly, referred to as the Royal Canon.
It seems appropriate to begin our discussion with a brief pre-
sentation of these two historical sources since, although neither
of them by themselves provides conclusive evidence for the length
of the Neo-Babylonian period, their ancient testimony certainly
merits consideration.
3 These ancient historians include Megasthenes (3rd century B.C.E.), Berossus (c. 250
B.C.E.), Alexander Polyhistor (1st century B.C.E.), Eusebius Pamphilus (c. 260-340
C.E.), and Georgius Syncellus (last part of the 8th century C.E.). For a convenient
overview of the figures given by these ancient historians, see Raymond Philip Dougherty,
Nabonidus and Belshazzar (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), pp. 8-10; cf. also
Ronald H. Sack, Images of Nebuchadnezzar (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University
Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1991), pp. 31-44.
* What follows in this and the subsequent chapter, in many cases involves
information of a technical nature, accompanied by detailed documentation.While
this contributes to the firm foundation of the dates established, it is also made
necessary by attempts on the part of some sources to counteract the historical
evidence, offering information that has an appearance of validity, even of
scholarliness, but which, on examination, proves invalid and often superficial.
Some readers may find the technical data difficult to follow. Those who do not
feel they need all the details may turn directly to the summaries at the end of
each of these two chapters. These summaries give a general idea of the
discussion, the evidence presented, and the conclusions drawn from it.
A-1: Berossus
Berossus was a Babylonian priest who lived in the third century
B.C.E.
In about 281 B.C.E. he wrote a history of Babylonia in Greek
known as Babyloniaca or Chaldaica which he dedicated to the
Seleucid king Antiochus I (281–260 B.C.E.), whose vast empire
included Babylonia. Later Berossus abandoned Babylon and settled
on the Ptolemaic island of Cos.4
His writings, unfortunately, have been lost, and all that is known
about them comes from the twenty-two quotations or paraphrases of
his work by other ancient writers and from eleven statements about
Berossus made by classical, Jewish, and Christian writers.5
The longest quotations deal with the reigns of the Neo-
Babylonian kings and are found in Flavius Josephus’ Against
Apion and in his Antiquities of the Jews, both written in the latter
part of the first century C.E.; in Eusebius’ Chronicle and in his
Preparation for the Gospel, both from the early fourth century
C.E., and in other late works.6 It is known that Eusebius quoted
Berossus indirectly via the Greco-Roman scholar Cornelius
Alexander Polyhistor (first century B.C.E.).
Although some scholars have assumed that Josephus, too, knew
Berossus only via Polyhistor, the evidence for this is lacking.
Other scholars have concluded that Josephus had a copy of
Berossus’ work at hand, and recently Dr. Gregory E. Sterling has strongly
argued that Josephus quoted directly from Berossus’ work.7 Scholars agree
4 Erich Ebeling and Bruno Meissner (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie, Vol. II (Berlin
and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1938), pp. 2, 3.
5 A translation with an extensive discussion of these fragments was published by Paul
Schnabel in Berossos und die Babylonisch-Hellenistische Literatur (Leipzig and
Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1923). The first complete English translation of the surviving
fragments of Berossus’ work has been published by Stanley Mayer Burstein in The
Babyloniaca of Berossus. Sources from the Ancient Near East, Vol. 1, fascicle 5
(Malibu, Calif.: Undena Publications, 1978).
6 See Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, Book I:19-21; Antiquities of the Jews, Book X:XI,
1. The Chronicle of Eusebius is preserved only in one Armenian and one Latin version,
except for the excerpts preserved in the Chronographia of the Byzantine chronicler
Georgius Syncellus (late eighth and early ninth centuries C.E.).
7 Gregory E. Sterling, Historiography and Self-Definition (Leiden, New York, Köln: E.
J. Brill, 1992), pp. 106, 260, 261.
that the most reliable of the preserved quotations from Berossus’

work are those of Flavius Josephus.8
Where did Berossus get his information on the Neo-Babylonian

kings?
According to his own words he “translated many books which
had been preserved with great care at Babylon and which dealt
with a period of more than 150,000 years.”9 These “books” in-
cluded accounts of legendary kings “before the Flood” with very
exaggerated lengths of reign.
His history of the dynasties after the Flood down to the reign
of the Babylonian king Nabonassar (747–734 B.C.E.) is also far
from reliable and evidently contained much legendary material
and exaggerated lengths of reign.
Berossus himself indicates that it was impossible to give a
trustworthy history of Babylonia before Nabonassar, as that
king “collected and destroyed the records of the kings before
him in order that the list of Chaldaean kings might begin with
him.” 10
Despite these problems, however, for later periods, and es-
pecially for the critical Neo-Babylonian period, it has been
established that Berossus used the generally very reliable Babylonian
chronicles, or sources similar to these documents, and that he
8 Burstein, for example, says: “The earliest are those made by Josephus in the first
century A.D. from the sections concerning the second and particularly the third
book of the Babyloniaca, the latter indeed providing our best evidence for
Berossus’ treatment of the Neo-Babylonian period.” (Op. cit., pp. 10, 11; emphasis
added.) Josephus’ lengthy quotation on the Neo-Babylonian era in Against Apion
is best preserved in Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel, Book IX, chapter XL.
(See the discussion by H. St. J. Thackeray in Josephus, Vol. I [Loeb Classical
Library, Vol. 38:1], London: William Heinemann, and New York: G. P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1926, pp. xviii, xix.) The deficient textual transmission of Eusebius’
Chronicle, therefore, is of no consequence for our study. The Watch Tower
Society, in its Bible dictionary Insight on the Scriptures (Vol. I, p. 453), devotes
only one paragraph to Berossus. Almost the whole paragraph consists of a
quotation from A. T. Olmstead’s Assyrian Historiography in which he deplores the
tortuous survival history of Berossus’ fragments via Eusebius’ Chronicle (cf. note
6 above). Although this is true, it is, as noted, essentially irrelevant for our
discussion.
9 Burstein, op. cit., p. 13. The Armenian version of Eusebius’ Chronicle gives “2,150,000
years” instead of “150,000,” the figure preserved by Syncellus. None of them is believed
to be the original figure given by Berossus. (Burstein, p. 13, note 3.)
10 Burstein, op. cit., p. 22.
carefully reported their contents in Greek. 11 The figures he

gives for the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings substantially
agree with the figures given by those ancient cuneiform docu-
ments.
A-2: The Royal Canon
Ptolemy’s Canon or, more correctly, the Royal Canon is a list of
kings and their lengths of reign beginning with the reign of
Nabonassar in Babylon (747–734 B.C.E.), through the Babylonian,
Persian, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine rulers.
The kinglist had been included in the Handy Tables prepared
by the famous astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemy (70–
165 C.E.), who ended the list with the contemporary Roman ruler
Antoninus Pius (C.E. 138-161). 12 That is why it has become
known as Ptolemy’s Canon. (See the facing page.) There is, how-
ever, evidence that kinglists of this type must have been in use
long before the time of Claudius Ptolemy.
The reason why the kinglist could not have originated with
Claudius Ptolemy is that a table of this kind was a prerequisite for
the research and calculations performed by the Babylonian and
Greek astronomers. Without it they would have had no means for
dating the astronomical events their calculations showed as occur-
ring in the distant past.
Ancient fragments of such kinglists written on papyrus have been
found.13 The renowned expert on Babylonian astronomy, F. X. Kugler,
11 Burstein points out that, although Berossus made a number of surprising errors and
exercised little criticism on his sources, “the fragments make it clear that he did choose
good sources, most likely from a library at Babylon, and that he reliably reported their
contents in Greek.” (Burstein, op. cit., p. 8. Emphasis added.) Robert Drews, in his article
“The Babylonian Chronicles and Berossus,” published in Iraq, Vol. XXXVII, part 1
(Spring 1975), arrives at the same conclusion: “That the chronicles were among these
records cannot be doubted.” (p. 54) This has been demonstrated by a careful comparison
of Berossus’ statements with the Babylonian chronicles. Paul Schnabel, too, concludes:
“That he everywhere has used cuneiform records, above all the chronicles, is manifest
at every step.” — Schnabel, op. cit. (see note 5 above), p. 184.
12 The three oldest manuscripts of Ptolemy’s Handy Tables containing the kinglist
date from the eighth to tenth centuries. See Leo Depuydt, “‘More Valuable than all
Gold’: Ptolemy’s Royal Canon and Babylonian Chronology,” in Journal of
Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 47 (1995), pp. 101-106. The list of kings was continued
by astronomers after Ptolemy well into the Byzantine period.
13 G. J. Toomer, Ptolemy’s Almagest (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1984), p. 10, ftn.
12. The fragments, however, are later than Ptolemy.
concluded that the so-called Ptolemy’s Canon “had evidently

been worked out by one or more experts on the Babylonian as-
tronomy and chronology, and through the use in the Alexandrian
school successfully had passed scrupulous indirect tests.”14 Dr.
Eduard Meyer wrote in a similar vein about the canon in 1899,
pointing out that, “as it belonged to the traditional material of
knowledge of the astronomers, it was inherited from scholar to
scholar; not even Hipparchus [2nd century B.C.E.] could have
gone without the Babylonian list.”15
This is the reason why Professor Otto Neugebauer termed the
expression “Ptolemy’s Canon” a misnomer:
It is a misnomer to call such chronological tables ‘Ptolemaic
canon.’ Ptolemy’s ‘Almagest’ never contained such a canon (in spite
of assertions to the contrary often made in modern literature), but we
know that a βασιλεϖν χρονογραφια [chronicle of kings] had been
included in his ‘Handy Tables’ . . . . On the other hand, there is no
reason whatsoever to think that royal canons for astronomical
purposes did not exist long before Ptolemy.16
The canon, or kinglist, was therefore in use centuries before
Claudius Ptolemy. It was inherited and brought up-to-date from one
generation of scholars to the next.
It should be observed that the canon not only presents a running
list of kings and their reigns; in a separate column there is a running
summary of the individual reigns all the way from the first king,
Nabonassar, to the end of the list. This system provides a double
check of the individual figures, ensuring that they have been cor-
rectly copied from one scholar to the next. (See “The Royal Canon”
on the preceding page.)
From what source did the compiler(s) of the Royal Canon get the
kinglist? It was evidently compiled from sources similar to those used
by Berossus. Friedrich Schmidtke explains:
14 Franz Xaver Kugler, Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, II. Buch, II. Teil, Heft 2
(Münster in Westfalen: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1924), p. 390. Trans-
lated from the German.
15 Eduard Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, Zweiter Band (Halle a. S.: Max
Niemeyer, 1899), pp. 453-454. Translated from the German. Emphasis added.
16 Otto Neugebauer, “‘Years’ in Royal Canons,” A Locust’s Leg. Studies in honour of S.
H. Taqizadeh, ed. W. B. Henning and E. Yarshater (London: Percy Lund, Humphries
& Co., 1962), pp. 209, 210. Compare also J. A. Brinkman in A Political History of Post-
Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 B.C. (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1968), p. 22.
With respect to the dependence of the sources, the Canon of

Ptol[emy] has certainly to a great extent taken its stuff from the
Bab[ylonian] Chron[icles]. This is clear from the characteristic
αβασιλευτα ετη [years of interregnum] 688-681, which is also
found in the Chronicle (III, 28), while the King List A at this place
introduces Sennacherib instead, as well as for the two αβασιλευτα
ετη 704–703. The Canon of Ptol. like the Chronicle reproduces here
the Babylonian tradition, which did not recognize Sennacherib as the
legitimate king, as he had sacked and destroyed Babylon.17
There is also some evidence that the Royal Canon reflects not only
Babylonian chronicles, but also ancient Babylonian kinglists com-
piled by Babylonian scribes. Thus scholars have concluded that it was
based upon Babylonian chronicles and kinglists, probably through in-
termediary sources, but evidently independent of Berossus.18 This is
a very important conclusion, as the figures given in the canon for the
Neo-Babylonian kings are in substantial agreement with Berossus’
earlier figures.
Thus we have two independent witnesses reflecting the length of
the Neo-Babylonian era set out in the ancient chronicles, and even if
those chronicles are only partially preserved on cuneiform tablets,
their figures for the lengths of reign of the Neo-Babylonian kings have
to all appearances been correctly transmitted to us via Berossus and
the Royal Canon.19
17 Friedrich Schmidtke, Der Aufbau der Babylonischen Chronologie (Münster,

Westf.: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1952), p. 41. Translated from the
German.
18 Burstein, for example, points out that the canon “represents a Babylonian tradition
about the first millennium B.C. that is independent of Berossus as can be seen from
the order and forms of the names of the kings.” (Op. cit., p. 38) On the same page
Burstein gives a translation of the canon which, unfortunately, contains a couple
of errors. The regnal years shown for Nebuchadnezzar, “23”, is a misprint for “43”;
and the name “Illoaroudamos” in the canon corresponds to “Awel-Marduk”, not
“Labashi-Marduk”. For a reliable publication of the canon, see, for example, E.
J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World, revised edition (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1980), pp. 109-111.
19 Of the two sources, the Royal Canon is clearly the better witness. As Professor J.
A. Brinkman points out, the canon “is of known and praiseworthy accuracy.” (Op.
cit. [note 16 above], p. 35) Modern discoveries of Babylonian chronicles, kinglists,
astronomical texts, etc., written in cuneiform may be shown to be in complete
agreement with the canon all the way from the eighth century to the first century
B.C.E. The evidence of this is briefly discussed in C. O. Jonsson, “The Foundations
of the Assyro-Babylonian Chronology,” Chronology & Catastrophism Review,
Vol. IX (Harpenden, England: Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1987), pp. 14-23.
TABLE 1: THE REIGNS OF THE NEO-BABYLONIAN KINGS

ACCORDING TO BEROSSUS AND THE ROYAL CANON
NAME BEROSSUS ROYAL CANON B.C.E.
Nabopolassar 21 years 21 years 625-605

Nebuchadnezzar 43 years 43 years 604–562
Awel-Marduk* 2 years 2 years 561-560
Neriglissar 4 years 4 years 559-556
Labashi-Marduk 9 months — 556
Nabonidus 17 years 17 years 555-539
*Called Evil-Merodach at 2 Kings 25:27 and Jeremiah 52:31.
The Royal Canon omits Labashi-Marduk, as it always reckons

whole years only. Labashi-Marduk’s short reign of only a few months
fell in Neriglissar’s last year (which was also the accession-year of
Nabonidus).20 The Royal Canon, therefore, could leave him out.
If these lists are correct, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar would be 604/
603 B.C.E. and his eighteenth year, when he desolated Jerusalem, would be
587/86 B.C.E., not 607 B.C.E. as in Watch Tower chronology.
But even if these lists give a true representation of the lengths of
reign given in the original Neo-Babylonian chronicles, how do we
know that the chronological information originally contained in these
chronicles is reliable? How can the lengths of reign of the kings be
turned into an “absolute chronology”? 21
20 As shown by contemporary cuneiform documents, Neriglissar died in the first

month of his fourth regnal year (in late April or early May). His son and successor,
Labashi-Marduk, was killed in a rebellion after a reign of about two months. The
figure given by Berossus via Josephus, “9” months, is commonly regarded as a
transmission error for an original “2” months, the Greek signs (=letters) for “9” (θ)
and “2” (β) being quite similar. (R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian
Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75, Providence: Brown University Press, 1956, p. 13.)
The Uruk King List (discussed below) indicates a rule of three months for Labashi-
Marduk, which undoubtedly refers to the city of Uruk, where he was recognized as
king for parts of three months (Nisanu, Ayyaru, and Simanu) according to the
contract tablets.—Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon,
556-539 B.C. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 86-90.
21 As pointed out in the previous chapter, an absolute chronology is best
established by the aid of astronomically fixed dates. Claudius Ptolemy, in his
famous work Almagest, records a large number of ancient astronomical
observations, many of which are detailed descriptions of lunar eclipses. One
of these is dated to the fifth year of Nabopolassar and has been identified with
one that took place in 621 B.C.E. If this was the fifth year of Nabopolassar, his
21 years of reign would be fixed to 625–605 B.C.E. The first year of his
B. THE CUNEIFORM DOCUMENTS*

Today, historians do not need either Berossus or the Royal
Canon in order to fix the length of the Neo-Babylonian period. Its
length may be firmly established in many other ways, thanks to the
numerous cuneiform documents discovered from this period.
It is a remarkable fact that more cuneiform documents have
been excavated from the Neo-Babylonian period than from any
other pre-Christian era. Literally tens of thousands of texts have
been found, primarily consisting of business, administrative, and
legal documents, but there are also historical documents such as
chronicles and royal inscriptions.
Most important are the discovery of astronomical cuneiform
texts recording dated observations of the moon and the planets
from the period. Most of this material is written in the Akkadian
language and has been unearthed in Mesopotamia since the middle
of the nineteenth century.
The first group of documents of interest to us fall within the cat-
egory shown on the following page, with others on subsequent pages.
son and successor, Nebuchadnezzar, would then have begun in 604 B.C.E. and his
18th year (when he desolated Jerusalem) in 587. Some scholars, however, have
questioned the reliability of the astronomical observations recorded by Ptolemy.
In his sensational book, The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy (Baltimore and London:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), Dr. Robert R. Newton claimed that
Ptolemy fudged, not only a large body of the observations he says he made himself,
but also a number of the observations he records from earlier periods. (The
evidence is, though, that all observations from earlier periods recorded by Ptolemy
were taken over from the Greek mathematician Hipparchus [second century
B.C.E.], who in turn got them directly from Babylonian astronomers. See G. J.
Toomer’s article, “Hipparchus and Babylonian Astronomy,” in A Scientific Hu-
manist. Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, eds. E. Leichty, M. deJ. Ellis, & P.
Gerardi, Philadelphia, 1988, pp. 353-362.) On the assumption that Ptolemy was the
originator of “Ptolemy’s Canon,” Newton also felt that Ptolemy’s supposed
forgery may have extended to inventing the lengths of reign in this kinglist. But as
the kinglist was not a creation of Ptolemy, Newton was mistaken in this. In earlier
editions of the present work Newton’s claims and the ensuing debate they have
caused in scholarly journals were discussed at some length. This digression from
the main subject has been left out in this edition not only for reasons of space, but
also because the observations recorded by Ptolemy really are of little importance
for our discussion. It should be noted, however, that “very few historians of
astronomy have accepted Newton’s conclusions in their entirety.” — Dr. James
Evans in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 24 Parts 1/2, 1993, pp. 145,
146. (Dr. Newton died in 1991.) An article on R. R. Newton and the Royal Canon
is published on the web: http://user.tninet.se/˜oof408u/fkf/english/epage.htm
* “Cuneiform” refers to the “wedge-shaped” script used on these ancient clay tablets. The
signs were impressed on the damp clay with a pointed stick or reed (stylus).
B-1: Chronicles, kinglists, and royal inscriptions

a) Neo-Babylonian Chronicles
A chronicle is a form of historical narrative covering a sequence of
events.
Several cuneiform chronicles covering parts of Neo-Babylonian
history have been discovered, all of which are kept in the British
Museum, London. Most of them are probably copies of (or extracts
from) original documents written contemporary with the events.22
The most recent translation of them has been published by A. K.
Grayson in Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles.23 Grayson subdi-
vides the Babylonian chronicles into two parts, the first of which is
called the Neo-Babylonian Chronicle Series (Chronicles 1–7).
Chronicle 1 (= B.M. 92502) begins with the reign of Nabonassar
(747–734 B.C.E.) and ends with the accession-year of Shamash-
shuma-ukin (668 B.C.E.). Chronicles 2–7 begin with the accession-
year of Nabopolassar (626 B.C.E.) and continue into the beginning of
the reign of Cyrus (538 B.C.E.).
What do these “chronicles” consist of? With respect to the con-
tents of the chronicles, Grayson explains:
The narrative is divided into paragraphs with each paragraph
normally devoted to one regnal year. The text is concerned only with
matters related to Babylonia and, in particular, her king, and the
events, which are almost exclusively political and military in char-
acter, are narrated in an objective and laconically dry manner.24
22 Professor D. J. Wiseman says: “The Neo-Babylonian Chronicle texts are written in a

small script of a type which does not of itself allow any precise dating but which can
mean that they were written from any time almost contemporary with the events
themselves to the end of the Achaemenid rule [331 B.C.E.].” (Chronicles of Chaldean
Kings [London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1961], p. 4) Professor J. A.
Brinkman is a little more specific, stating that the extant copies of the Neo-Babylonian
chronicles are “slightly antedating the Historiai of Herodotus,” which was written c. 430
B.C.E. (J. A. Brinkman, “The Babylonian Chronicle Revisited,” in Lingering Over Words.
Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, ed. T. Abusch,
J. Huehnergard, and P. Steinkeller [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990], pp. 73, 85.) Dr. E. N.
Voigtlander says that the copies of the Neo-Babylonian chronicles seem to come from
the reign of Darius I (Voigtlander, A Survey of Neo-Babylonian History [unpublished
doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 1963], p. 204, note 45.) Chronicle 1A has a
colophon in which it is explicitly stated that the text was copied (from an earlier original)
in the 22nd year of Darius I (500/499 B.C.E.).
23 A. K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Locust Valley, New York: J.J.
Augustin Publisher, 1975). The work will hereafter be referred to as ABC.
24 A. K. Grayson in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie
(henceforth abbreviated RLA), ed. D. O. Edzard, Vol. VI (Berlin and New York: Walter
de Gruyter, 1980), p. 86.
Obverse
Reverse
The Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946

This chronicle covers the period from Nabopolassar’s 21st year (605/04 B.C.E.)
to Nebuchadnezzar’s 10th year (595/94 B.C.E.). Photo used courtesy of D. J.
Wiseman (shown in his Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon, Plate VI).
Most of these chronicles are incomplete. The extant (actually ex-

isting) parts of Chronicles 2-7 cover the following regnal years:
TABLE 2: EXTANT PARTS OF THE NEO-BABYLONIAN CHRONICLES 2-7
CHRONICLE NO. RULER REGNAL YEARS
COVERED
No.2 = B.M. 25127 Nabopolassar acc.-year – 3
3 = B.M. 21901 Nabopolassar 10 – 17
4 = B.M. 22047 Nabopolassar 18 – 20
5 = B.M. 21946 Nabopolassar 21
” ” ” Nebuchadnezzar acc.-year – 10
6 = B.M. 25124 Neriglissar 3
7 = B.M. 35382 Nabonidus 1 – 11
” ” ” Nabonidus 17
In all, the Neo-Babylonian period (625–539 B.C.E.) includes a total

of eighty-seven regnal years. As is seen in the preceding table, less than
half of these years are covered by the preserved parts of the chronicles.
Yet some important information may be gathered from them.
Chronicle 5 (B.M. 21946) shows that Nabopolassar ruled
Babylon for twenty-one years, and that he was succeeded by his
son Nebuchadnezzar. That part of the text says:
For twenty-one years Nabopolassar ruled Babylon. On the
eighth day of the month Ab he died. In the month of Elul
Nebuchadnezzar (II) returned to Babylon and on the first day
of the month he ascended the royal throne in Babylon. 25
The last chronicle (B.M. 35382), the famous Nabonidus Chronicle,
covers the reign of Nabonidus, who was the father of Belshazzar.
This chronicle unfortunately is damaged. The portion covering
Nabonidus’ twelfth year to his sixteenth year of rule is lacking, and
the portion where the words for “seventeenth year” no doubt origi-
nally could be read, is damaged.26
Notably, however, for the sixth year it is stated that Cyrus, king of
Anshan, defeated the Median king Astyages and captured Ecbatana, the
capital of Media.27 If Nabonidus ruled for seventeen years and if he
25 Grayson, ABC (1975), pp. 99, 100.
26 Ibid. p. 109.
27 Ibid., pp. 106, 107. “The sixth year,” too, is missing, but as the record for each year is
separated from the next year by a horizontal line, and as the account of Astyages’ defeat
immediately preceeds the record for the seventh year, it is quite evident that it refers to
the sixth year. – Anshan was a city and also an archaic name of the province in which it
was situated, Parsa (Persis), which lay at the Persian Gulf southeast of Babylonia. At the
time of Cyrus’ rise to power, Anshan (Parsa) was a Median tributary kingdom.
The Nabonidus Chronicle,

containing the account of the fall of Babylon.
Photo used courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum
was dethroned by Cyrus in 539 B.C.E., his first year must have been
555/54 B.C.E. and his sixth year, when Cyrus conquered Media, must
have been 550/49 B.C.E.
The Watch Tower Society, in fact, agrees with these datings. The
reason is that the secular basis of its chronology, 539 B.C.E. as the date
for the fall of Babylon, is directly connected with the reign of Cyrus.
The Greek historian Herodotus, in the fifth century B.C.E., says that
Cyrus’ total rule was twenty-nine years.28 As Cyrus died in 530
B.C.E., in the ninth year of his rule over Babylonia, his first year as
king of Anshan must have begun in c. 559 B.C.E., or about three years
before Nabonidus acceded to the throne of Babylon.
Suppose now that twenty years have to be added to the Neo-
Babylonian era, which is required if the destruction of Jerusalem is
28 Herodotus’ Historiai I:210-216. Other ancient historians such as Ktesias, Dinon,

Diodorus, Africanus, and Eusebius roughly agree with this length of reign for Cyrus. —
See Insight on the Scriptures (1988), Vol. 1, p. 454.
set at 607 rather than 587 B.C.E., and that we add these twenty years
to the reign of Nabonidus, making it thirty-seven years instead of sev-
enteen. Then his first year must have been 575/74 B.C.E. instead of
555/54. Nabonidus’ sixth year, when Astyages was defeated by
Cyrus, would then be moved back from 550/49 to 570/69 B.C.E.
Those dates, however, are impossible, as Cyrus did not come
to power until c. 559 B.C.E., as was shown above. He clearly
could not have defeated Astyages ten years before he came to
power! This is why the Society correctly dates this battle in 550
B.C.E., thereby indicating Nabonidus’ reign of seventeen years to
be correct, as is held by all authorities and classical authors.29
Though the chronicles available do not furnish a complete chro-
nology for the Neo-Babylonian period, the information which they
do preserve supports the dates for the lengths of the reigns of the
Neo-Babylonian kings given by Berossus and the Royal Canon.
As the earlier-presented evidence strongly indicates that both
of these sources derived their information from the Babylonian
chronicles independent of each other, and as their figures for the
Neo-Babylonian reigns agree, it is logical to conclude that the
chronological information originally given in the Neo-Babylonian
chronicles has been preserved unaltered by Berossus and the Royal
Canon.
Even if this is agreed upon, however, can the information given
by these Babylonian chronicles be trusted?
It is often pointed out that the Assyrian scribes distorted history

in order to glorify their kings and gods. “It is a well known fact that
in Assyrian royal inscriptions a serious military set-back is never
openly admitted.”30 Sometimes scribes garbled the narration by
29 Insight on the Scriptures (1988), Vol. 1, pp. 454, 566; Vol. 2, p. 612. That Astyages
was defeated in 550 B.C.E. may also be argued on other grounds. If, as stated by
Herodotus (Historiai I:130), Astyages ruled Media for thirty-five years, his reign
would have begun in 585 B.C.E. (550+35=585). He was the successor of his father
Cyaxares, who had died shortly after a battle with Alyattes of Lydia, which
according to Herodotus (Historiai I:73, 74) was interrupted by a solar eclipse.
Actually, a total solar eclipse visible in that area took place on May 28, 585 B.C.E.,
which is commonly identified with the one mentioned by Herodotus.—I. M.
Diakonoff, The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), pp. 112, 126; cf. M. Miller, “The earlier Persian dates in
Herodotus,” Klio, Vol. 37 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1959), p. 48.
30 A. K. Grayson, “Assyria and Babylonia,” Orientalia, Vol. 49, Fasc. 2, 1980, p. 171. See
also Antti Laato in Vetus Testamentum, Vol. XLV:2, April 1995, pp. 198-226.
changing the date of a defeat and weaving it into an account of a later

battle.31 Do the Neo-Babylonian chronicles treat history in this way, too?
Dr. A. K. Grayson, a well-known authority on the Assyrian and
Babylonian chronicles, concludes:
Unlike the Assyrian scribes the Babylonians neither fail to
mention Babylonian defeats nor do they attempt to change them
into victories. The chronicles contain a reasonably reliable and
representative record of important events in the period with which
they are concerned.32
We have reason for assurance, then, that the figures for the reigns
of the Neo-Babylonian kings given by these chronicles and preserved
to our time—thanks to Berossus and the Royal Canon—represent the
actual reigns of these kings. This conclusion will be confirmed, over
and over again, in the further discussion.
b) Babylonian king lists
A cuneiform king list differs from a chronicle in that it is usually a list

of royal names with the addition of regnal years, similar to the later
Royal Canon.
Although a number of king lists both from Assyria and
Babylonia have been unearthed, only one of them covers the Neo-
Babylonian era: the Uruk King List, shown on the following page.
Unfortunately, as can be seen, it is badly preserved, and some
portions of it are missing. Nonetheless, as will be demonstrated,
it has definite historical value.
The preserved portions cover the periods from Kandalanu to
Darius I (647–486 B.C.E.) and, on the reverse side, from Darius III
to Seleucus II (335–226 B.C.E.). It was evidently composed from
older sources sometime after the reign of Seleucus II.
31 Grayson, ibid. (1980), p. 171.

32 Ibid., p. 175. This does not mean that the chronicles are infallible records. As Dr. J. A.
Brinkman points out, “lack of nationalistic prejudice does not insure factual reliability;
and the Babylonian chronicles have their share of proven errors.” Still, he agrees that the
chronicles contain an essentially reliable record of events and dates for the period
between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C.E.: “For the period from 745 to 668, these
documents list rulers and exact dates of reign in Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam. Coverage
thereafter is spotty, in part because of lacunae in the record; but these texts still furnish
most of the precise chronological background for present knowledge of the downfall of
the Late Assyrian Empire, the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the reign of
Nabonidus, and the transition to Persian rule.”—Brinkman in Lingering Over Words (see
note 22 above), pp. 74 and 100, note 148. For additional comments on the reliability of the
Neo-Babylonian chronicles, see Chapter 7: “Attempts to overcome the evidence.”
The Uruk King List was discovered during the excavations at

Uruk (modern Warka in southern Iraq) in 1959–60 together with
about 1,000 other cuneiform texts (mostly economic texts) from
different periods.33
The preserved portion of the obverse (front or principal side),
which includes the Neo-Babylonian period, gives the following
chronological information (damaged or missing portions are in-
dicated by quotation marks or parentheses):34
33 The first transcription and translation of the text, which included an extensive
discussion by Dr. J. van Dijk, was published in 1962.—J. van Dijk, UVB (=
Vorläufiger Bericht über die von dem Deutschen Archäologischen Institut unter der
Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft aus Mitteln der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft
unternommenen Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka), Vol. 18, Berlin, 1962, pp. 53-60.
An English version of van Dijk’s translation (of the kinglist) is published by J. B.
Pritchard, The Ancient Near East (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1969), p. 566. Another, more recent transcription by A. K. Grayson was published in
1980.—A. K. Grayson, RLA (see note 24 and the picture above), Vol. VI (1980), pp.
97, 98.
34 Based upon Grayson’s transcription in RLA VI (1980), p. 97.
THE URUK KING LIST

(obverse)
21 years K(anda)lanu
1 year Sin-shum-lishir and
Sin-shar-ishkun
21 years Nabopolassar
43 (ye)ars Nebuchadnezzar
2 (ye)ars Awel-Marduk
‘3’ (years) 8 months Neriglissar
(. . .) 3 months Labashi-Marduk
‘17[?]’ (years) Nabonidus
As is seen, the royal names and the preserved figures for the
Neo-Babylonian period agree with those of Berossus and the
Royal Canon: Nabopolassar is given 21 years, Nebuchadnezzar 43
years, and Awel-Marduk (Evil-merodach) 2 years. The only de-
viation is the length of Labashi-Marduk’s reign, which is given as 3
months against Berossus’ 9 months. The smaller figure is without
doubt correct, as is proved by the economic documents unearthed.35
In contrast to the Royal Canon, which always gives whole years
only, the Uruk King List is more specific in also giving months
for the reigns of Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk. The damaged
figures for Neriglissar and Nabonidus may be restored (recon-
structed) as “3 years, 8 months,” and “17 years,” respectively. The
economic texts also indicate Neriglissar’s reign to have been three
years and eight months (August 560-April 556 B.C.E.).36
Thus, once again, we find the figures of Berossus and the Royal
Canon confirmed by this ancient document, the Uruk King List.
Admittedly, this king list was composed (from older documents)
more than 300 years after the end of the Neo-Babylonian era. On
this basis it might be argued that scribal errors may have crept into it.
35 See note 20 above. At any rate, Labashi-Marduk’s reign was swallowed up by

Neriglissar’s fourth year, which was also Nabonidus’ accession-year, and the total
length of the era is not affected.
36 J. van Dijk, UVB 18 (see note 33 above), page 57. As Neriglissar died in his fourth regnal
year, his reign would normally have been counted chronologically as four years,
according to the Babylonian accession-year system. The Uruk King List deviates from
this method at this point by giving more specific information. As van Dijk points out, “the
list is more precise than the [Royal] Canon and confirms throughout the results of the
research.”—Archiv für Orientforschung, ed. E. Weidner, Vol. 20 (Graz, 1963), p. 217.
For further information on the month of Neriglissar’s accession and the Uruk King List,
see the Appendix for Chapter 3.
So it is important to ask: Are there then no historical records

preserved from the Neo-Babylonian era itself which establish its
chronology? Yes, there are, as is immediately evident.
c) Royal inscriptions
Royal inscriptions of different kinds (building inscriptions, votive
inscriptions, annals, etc.) from the Assyrian and Babylonian eras
themselves have been found in great numbers.
In 1912 a German translation of the then-known Neo-
Babylonian inscriptions was published by Stephen Langdon, but
since then many new ones from the period in question have been
unearthed.37 A new translation of all the Neo-Babylonian royal
inscriptions is therefore being prepared.38
This is an enormous task. Paul-Richard Berger estimates that
about 1,300 royal inscriptions, one third of which are undamaged,
have been found from the Neo-Babylonian period, most of them
from the reigns of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar.39
For the chronology that we are concerned with, three of the in-
scriptions are especially valuable. All of them are original docu-
ments from the reign of Nabonidus.40 How do they aid in estab-
lishing the critical date for Jerusalem’s destruction?
We have seen that in advocating a 607 B.C.E. date, the Watch
Tower Society questions the reliability of the duration of the Neo-
Babylonian period as presented by both Berossus and the Royal
Canon (often called Ptolemy’s Canon), finding the total 20 years
too short. The first of the royal inscriptions to be discussed, called
37 Stephen Langdon, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (=Vorderasiatische
Bibliothek, Vol. IV) (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1912).
38 The first of the three planned volumes was published in 1973 as Paul-Richard Berger,
Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften (=Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Vol. 4/1)
(Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973).
39 About 75 percent of these documents were found in Babylon during the detailed
excavations of R. Koldewey in 1899-1917. (Berger, ibid., pp. 1-3) As explained by Dr.
Ronald Sack, “a virtual mountain” of royal inscriptions have survived from the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar alone. (Images of Nebuchadnezzar [Selinsgrove: Susquehanna
University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1991], p. 26.) Six
of the inscriptions are from the reign of Awel-Marduk, eight from the reign of
Neriglissar, and about thirty from the reign of Nabonidus. (Berger, op. cit., pp. 325-
388.)
40 In 1989 Paul-Alain Beaulieu, in his doctoral thesis The Reign of Nabonidus, included a
new catalogue with detailed descriptions of the royal inscriptions from the reign of
Nabonidus. —Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556 -539
B.C. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 1-42.
Nabonidus No. 18, confirms the length of reign for that king as
found in those ancient sources.
The second cuneiform tablet, Nabonidus No. 8, clearly establishes the
total length of the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings up to Nabonidus,
and enables us to know both the beginning year of Nebuchadnezzar’s
reign and the crucial year in which he desolated Jerusalem.
The third, Nabonidus No. 24, provides the length of the reign of each Neo-
Babylonian king from the first ruler, Nabopolassar, onward and down to the
ninth year of the last ruler, Nabonidus (Belshazzar was evidently a coregent
with his father Nabonidus at the time of Babylon’s fall).41
Following are the details for each of these cuneiform tablets:
(1) Nabon. No. 18 is a cylinder inscription from an unnamed year
of Nabonidus. Fulfilling the desire of Sin, the moon-god, Nabonidus
dedicated a daughter of his (named En-nigaldi-Nanna) to this god as
priestess at the Sin temple of Ur.
The important fact here is that an eclipse of the moon, dated
in the text to Ulûlu 13 and observed in the morning watch, led to
this dedication. Ulûlu, the sixth month in the Babylonian calen-
dar, corresponded to parts of August and September (or, some-
times, parts of September and October) in our calendar. The inscription ex-
plicitly states that the moon “set while eclipsed,” that is, the eclipse began be-
fore and ended after sunrise.42 Its end, therefore, was invisible at Babylon.
41 Unfortunately, scholars have arranged or numbered the inscriptions differently, which
may cause some confusion. In the systems of Tadmor, Berger, and Beaulieu the three
inscriptions are listed as follows:
Tadmor 1965: Berger 1973: Beaulieu 1989:

(1) Nabon. No. 18 Nbd Zyl. II, 7 No. 2
(2) Nabon. No. 8 Nbd Stl. Frgm. XI No. 1
(3) Nabon. No. 24 (missing) (Adad-guppi’ stele)
Beaulieu’s arrangement is chronological: No. 1 was written in Nabonidus’ first

year, No. 2 in his second year, and No. 13 after year 13, possibly in year 14 or 15.
(Beaulieu, op. cit., p. 42.) In Tadmor’s list Nabonidus’ inscriptions are numbered
in the order of their publication, starting with the fifteen texts published by
Langdon in 1912. (Hayim Tadmor, “The Inscriptions of Nabunaid: Historical
Arrangement,” in Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger on his Seventy-Fifth
Birthday [= Assyriological Studies, No. 16], ed. H. Güterbock & T. Jacobsen,
Chicago: The Chicago University Press, 1965, pp. 351-363.) The systems of
Tadmor, Berger, and Beaulieu, in turn, differ from that of H. Lewy in Archiv
Orientální, Vol. XVII, Prague, 1949, pp. 34, 35, note 32. In the discussion here
presented Tadmor’s numbers will be used.
42 This part of the text says, according to Beaulieu’s translation: “On account of
the wish for an entu priestess, in the month Ulûlu, the month (whose Sumerian
name means) ‘work of the goddesses,’ on the thirteenth day the moon was eclipsed
and set while eclipsed. Sîn requested an entu priestess. Thus (were) his sign and his
Of what significance is all this?

When sufficient details about a lunar eclipse are available and it
is known that the eclipse occurred within a certain limited time pe-
riod in the past, astronomical movements are so precise that the date
of a specific eclipse in a particular area can be determined accurately.
Since the details here meet the requirement, when during Nabonidus’
reign did the eclipse described on the ancient tablet take place?
In 1949 Hildegard Lewy examined the eclipse and found that
only once during Nabonidus’ reign did such an eclipse take place
at this time of the year, that is, on September 26, 554 B.C.E.
(Julian calendar).43 The eclipse began about 3:00 a.m. and lasted
for about three hours. If Nabonidus ruled for seventeen years and
his first year was 555/54 B.C.E., as is generally held, the eclipse
and the dedication of Nabonidus’ daughter took place in his sec-
ond regnal year (554/53 B.C.E.).
A remarkable confirmation of this dating was brought to light
twenty years later, when W. G. Lambert published his translation of
four fragments of an inscription from Nabonidus’s reign which he
named the Royal Chronicle. The inscription establishes that the dedi-
cation of Nabonidus’ daughter took place shortly before his third year,
and obviously in his second, precisely as Lewy had concluded.44
The lunar eclipse of Ulûlu 13, then, definitely fixes the second
year of Nabonidus to 554/53 B.C.E. and his first year to 555/54, thus
decision.” (Beaulieu, op. cit., p. 127) The conclusion that this lunar eclipse indicated
that Sin requested a priestess was evidently based on the astrological tablet series
Enuma Anu Enlil, the “Holy Writ” of the Assyrian and Babylonian astrologers, who
regularly based their interpretations of astronomical events on this old omina collec-
tion. A lunar eclipse seen in the morning-watch of Ulûlu 13 is expressly interpreted in
these tablets as an indication that Sin desires a priestess.—See H. Lewy, “The
Babylonian Background of the Kay Kâûs Legend,” Archiv Orientální, Vol. XVII (ed.
by B. Hrozny, Prague, 1949), pp. 50, 51.
43 H. Lewy, op. cit., pp. 50, 51.
44 W. G. Lambert, “A New Source for the Reign of Nabonidus,” Archiv für Orientforschung,
Vol. 22 (ed. by Ernst Weidner, Graz, 1968/69), pp. 1-8. Lewy’s conclusion has been
confirmed by other scholars. (See for example Beaulieu, op.cit., pp. 127-128.) The
eclipse of September 26, 554 BCE, was examined in 1999 by Professor F. Richard
Stephenson at Durham, England, who is a leading expert on ancient eclipses. He says:
“My computed details are as follows (times to the nearest tenth of an hour):
(i) Beginning at 3.0 h[our] local time, lunar altitude 34 deg[rees] in the SW.
(ii) End at 6.1 h[our] local time, lunar altitude -3 deg[rees] in the W.
The eclipse would thus end about 15 minutes after moonset. A deep
penumbral eclipse may possibly be visible for a very few minutes and
there is always the possibility of anomalous refraction at the horizon.
However, I would judge that the Moon indeed set eclipsed on this occasion.”—
Letter Stephenson-Jonsson, dated March 5, 1999.
giving a very strong confirmation to the figures for Nabonidus’ reign

set forth by Berossus and the Royal Canon.45
(2) Nabon. No. 8, or the Hillah stele, was discovered at the end
of the 19th century in the neighborhood of Hillah, about four miles
southeast of the ruins of Babylon.46
The inscription “consists of a report on the accession year and the
beginning of the first regnal year of Nabonidus” and may be shown,
on the basis of internal evidence, to have been written toward the
middle of his first regnal year (in the autumn of 555 B.C.E.).47
The information given on this stele alone helps us to establish the
total length of the period from Nabopolassar to the beginning of the
reign of Nabonidus. How does it do this?
In several of his royal inscriptions (No. 1, 8, 24, and 25 in Tadmor’s
list) Nabonidus says that in a dream in his accession year, he was com-
manded by the gods Marduk and Sin to rebuild Éhulhul, the temple of
the moon god Sin in Harran. In connection with this, the text under dis-
cussion (Nabon. No. 8) provides a very interesting piece of information:
(Concerning) Harran (and) the Éhulhul, which had been lying in
ruins for 54 years because of its devastation by the Medes (who)
destroyed the sanctuaries, with the consent of the gods the time for
reconciliation approached, 54 years, when Sîn should return to his place.
When he returned to his place, Sîn, the lord of the tiara, remembered his
lofty seat, and (as to) all the gods who left his chapel with him, it is
Marduk, the king of the gods, who ordered their gathering.48
45 Someone might claim it is possible to find another lunar eclipse setting heliacally
on Ulûlu 13 a number of years earlier that fits the description given by Nabonidus,
perhaps about twenty years earlier, in order to adapt the observation to the
chronology of the Watch Tower Society. However, modern astronomical calcula-
tions show that no such lunar eclipse, visible in Babylonia, took place at this time
of the year within twenty years, or even within fifty years before the reign of
Nabonidus! The closest lunar eclipse of this kind occurred fifty-four years earlier,
on August 24, 608 B.C.E. The lunar eclipse of Nabon. No. 18, therefore, can only
be that of September 26, 554 B.C.E. For additional information on the identifica-
tion of ancient lunar eclipses, see the Appendix for Chapter 4: “Some comments
on ancient lunar eclipses.”
46 A translation of the text was published by S. Langdon in 1912, op. cit. (note 37 above),
pp. 53-57, 270-289. For an English translation, see Ancient Near Eastern Texts (hereafter
referred to as ANET), ed. James B. Pritchard (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University
Press, 1950), pp. 308-311.
47 Col. IX mentions Nabonidus’ visit to southern Babylonia soon after a New Years’
festival. This visit is also documented in archival texts from Larsa dated to the first two
months of Nabonidus’ first year. — Beaulieu, op. cit., pp. 21, 22, 117-127.
48 Translated by Beaulieu, op. cit., p. 107.
The date when the temple Éhulhul in Harran was ruined by the
Medes is known to us from two different reliable sources:
The Babylonian Chronicle 3 (B.M. 21901) and the Harran inscrip-
tion Nabon. H 1, B, also known as the Adad-guppi’ stele (Nabon.
No. 24 in Tadmor’s list). The chronicle states that in the “sixteenth
year” of Nabopolassar, in the month Marheshwan (parts of Octo-
ber and November), “the Umman-manda (the Medes), [who] had
come [to hel]p the king of Akkad, put their armies together and
marched to Harran [against Ashur-uball]it (II) who had ascended
the throne in Assyria. . . . The king of Akkad reached Harran and
[. . .] he captured the city. He carried off the vast booty of the city
and the temple.”49 The Adad-guppi’ stele gives the same information:
Whereas in the 16th year of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon,
Sin, king of the gods, with his city and his temple was angry and
went up to heaven—the city and the people that (were) in it went
to ruin.50
Thus it is obvious that Nabonidus reckons the “fifty-four years”
from the sixteenth year of Nabopolassar to the beginning of his own
reign when the gods commanded him to rebuild the temple.51
This is in excellent agreement with the figures for the Neo-
Babylonian reigns given by Berossus and the Royal Canon. As
49 Grayson, ABC (1975), p. 95. The exact month for the destruction of the temple is not
given, but as the chronicle further states that the king of Akkad went home in the month
of Adar (the twelfth month, corresponding to February/March), the destruction must
have occurred some time between October, 610 and March, 609 B.C.E., probably
towards the end of this period.
50 C. J. Gadd, “The Harran Inscriptions of Nabonidus,” in Anatolian Studies, Vol. VIII, 1958, p.
47. That the temple Éhulhul was laid in ruins at this time is confirmed by other inscriptions,
including the Sippar Cylinder (No. 1 in Tadmor’s list) which says: “(Sîn) became angry with that
city [Harran] and temple [Éhulhul]. He aroused the Medes, who destroyed that temple and turned
it into ruins.”—Gadd, ibid., pp. 72, 73; Beaulieu, op. cit., p. 58.
51 The rebuilding of the temple Éhulhul is referred to in a number of texts which are not
easily harmonized. Owing to some vagueness in the inscriptions, it is not clear whether
the Harran temple was completed early in Nabonidus’ reign or after his ten year stay
at Teima in Arabia. The problem has been extensively discussed by a number of
scholars. Most probably, the project was started in the early years of Nabonidus’ reign,
but could not be completely finished until after his return from Teima, perhaps in his
thirteenth regnal year or later. (Beaulieu, op. cit., pp. 137, 205-210, 239-241.) “The
different texts surely refer to different stages of the work,” says Professor Henry Saggs
in his review of the problem. (H. W. F. Saggs, Peoples of the Past: Babylonians,
London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1995, p. 170) Anyway, all scholars agree
that Nabonidus reckons the fifty-four years from the sixteenth year of Nabopolassar
until his own accession-year when the “wrath” of the gods “did (eventually) calm
down,” according to the Hillah stele (col. vii), and Nabonidus “was commanded” to
rebuild the temple. For additional comments on the Hillah stele, see the Appendix.
Nabopolassar reigned for twenty-one years, five years remained from

his sixteenth year to the end of his reign. After that Nebuchadnezzar
ruled for forty-three years, Awel-Marduk for two, and Neriglissar for
four years before Nabonidus came to power (Labashi-Marduk’s few
months may be disregarded).
Summing up these regnal years (5+43+2+4) we get fifty-four
years—exactly as Nabonidus states on his stele.
If, as has been established, Nabonidus’ first year was 555/554
B.C.E., Nabopolassar’s sixteenth year must have been 610/609, his
first year 625/624 and his twenty-first and last year 605/604 B.C.E.
Nebuchadnezzar’s first year, then, was 604/603, and his eighteenth
year, when he desolated Jerusalem, was 587/586 B.C.E.—not 607
B.C.E. These dates agree completely with the dates arrived at from
Berossus’ figures and the Royal Canon.
Consequently, this stele adds its testimony in establishing the to-
tal length of the reigns of all the Neo-Babylonian kings prior to
Nabonidus. The strength of this evidence—produced right during the
Neo-Babylonian era itself—cannot be insisted upon too strongly.
(3) Nabon. No. 24, also known as the Adad-guppi’ inscription,

exists in two copies. The first was discovered in 1906 by H. Pognon
at Eski Harran in south-eastern Turkey, in the ruins of the ancient city
of Harran (known as Haran in Abraham’s time). The stele, now in
the Archaeological Museum at Ankara, is a grave inscription, evi-
dently composed by Nabonidus for his mother, Adad-guppi’.
The text not only includes a biographical sketch of Nabonidus’
mother from the time of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and on to the
ninth year of Nabonidus (when she died), but also gives the length
of reign of each of the Neo-Babylonian kings except, of course, of
Nabonidus himself, who was still living. Unfortunately, in the first
copy the portion of the text setting out the reigns is damaged, and the
only readable figures are the forty-three years of Nebuchadnezzar’s
reign and the four years of Neriglissar’s reign.52
However, in 1956 Dr. D. S. Rice discovered three other stelae at
Harran from the reign of Nabonidus, one of which bore a duplicate
inscription of the one discovered in 1906! Fortunately, the sections
52 For an extensive discussion of the inscription, see B. Landsberger, “Die Basaltstele
Nabonids von Eski-Harran,” in Halil-Edhem Hâtira Kitabi, Kilt I (Ankara: Turk Tarih
Kurumu Basimevi, 1947), pp. 115-152. An English translation is included in Pritchard’s
ANET, pp. 311, 312. In ANET the translation of stele H 1, A, col. II says “6th” year of
Nabonidus, which is an error for “9th,”. The original text clearly has “9th” year’.
of the new stele containing the chronological information were not

damaged. The first of these sections reads as follows:
From the 20th year of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, when I
was born, until the 42nd year of Ashurbanipal, the 3rd year of his
son Ashur-etil-ili, the 21st year of Nabopolassar, the 43rd year of
Nebuchadnezzar, the 2nd year of Awel-Merodach, the 4th year of
Neriglissar, during (all) these 95 years in which I visited the
temple of the great godhead Sin, king of all the gods in heaven and
in the nether world, he looked with favor upon my pious good
works and listened to my prayers, accepted my vows.53
It should be observed that the first two kings, Ashurbanipal and
his son Ashur-etil-ili, were Assyrian kings, while the following
kings were Neo-Babylonian kings. This indicates that Adad-guppi’
first lived under Assyrian rule but then, in connection with Nabo-
polassar’s revolt and liberation of Babylonia from the Assyrian
yoke, was brought under Babylonian rule.54 Nabonidus’ mother
lived to be a centenarian, and further on in the text a complete
summary of her long life is given:
He [the moon god Sin] added (to my life) many days (and)
years of happiness and kept me alive from the time of Ashurbanipal,
king of Assyria, to the 9th year of Nabonidus, king of Babylon, the son
53 C. J. Gadd, op. cit., pp. 46-56. Gadd translated the inscription in 1958 and titled the
new stele Nabon. H 1, B, as distinguished from Pognon’s stele which he titled
Nabon. H 1, A. The quotation here is from the translation of A. Leo Oppenheim
in James B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East. A New Anthology of Texts and
Pictures, Vol. II (Princeton and London: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp.
105, 106, col. I:29-33. As this passage is used as the basis for the calculation of
Adad-guppi’s age in col. II:26-29, the number of kings and their reigns are
evidently meant to be complete. In a second portion the chronological information
is repeated (col. II:40-46), but the reign of Awel-Marduk is left out, evidently
because the purpose of this section is different, viz., to explain which of the Neo-
Babylonian kings Adad-guppi’ had served as an obedient subject. This is clearly
indicated in the beginning of the section, which says: “I have obeyed with all my
heart and have done my duty (as a subject) during . . . ,” etc. As suggested by Gadd
“she was banished, or absented herself,” from the court of Awel-Marduk, “no
doubt for reasons, whatever they were, which earned that king an evil repute in the
official tradition.” (Gadd, op. cit., p. 70)
54 Nabonidus and his mother descended from the northern branch of the Aramaeans, who
earlier had been so thoroughly assimilated into the Assyrian society that even their
moon-god Sin “came to be honored among the Assyrians on an equal plane with their
native god Assur.” (M. A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia, DeKalb, Illinois: Northern
Illinois University Press, 1984, pp. 36-39.) In one of his inscriptions (Nabon. No. 9 in
Tadmor’s arrangement), Nabonidus explicitly speaks of the Assyrian kings as “my royal
ancestors.” — H. Lewy, op. cit. (cf. note 42 above), pp. 35, 36.
whom I bore, (i.e.) one hundred and four happy years (spent) in
that piety which Sin, the king of all gods, has planted in my
heart.55
This queen died in the ninth year of Nabonidus, and the mourn-
ing for the deceased mother is described in the last column of the
inscription. Interestingly, the same information is also given in the
Nabonidus Chronicle (B.M. 35382):
The ninth year: . . . On the fifth day of the month Nisan the queen
mother died in Dur-karashu which (is on) the bank of the Euphrates
upstream from Sippar.56
All the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings are given in this
royal inscription, from Nabopolassar and on to the ninth year of
Nabonidus, and the lengths of reign are in complete accordance
with the Royal Canon—a very significant fact, because the cor-
roboration comes from a witness contemporary with all these Neo-
Babylonian kings and intimately connected with all of them!57
More so than the individual testimony of any one source, it is the
harmony of all these sources which is most telling.
55 Oppenheim in Pritchard, op. cit. (1975), p. 107, col. II:26-29. For additional comments
on the Adad-guppi’ inscription, see the Appendix for Chapter 3.
56 Grayson, ABC, p. 107. Until the last column (III 5ff.), the Adad-guppi’ stele is written
in the first person. But it is evident that the inscription was chiselled out after her death,
undoubtedly by order of Nabonidus. That is why Dr. T. Longman III would like to
classify it as a “fictional autobiography” (a literary method known also from other
Akkadian texts), although he adds: “This, however, does not mean that the events and
even the opinions associated with Adad-guppi’ are unauthentic.” (Tremper Longman III,
Fictional Akkadian Autobiography, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1991, pp. 41,
101, 102, 209, 210; cf. Beaulieu, op. cit., p. 209.) But it is questionable if the Adad-guppi’
inscription, even in this sense, can be classified as a “fictional autobiography.” In his
review of Longman’s work Dr. W. Schramm points out that the text “essentially is a
genuine autobiography. The fact that there is an addition in col. III 5ff. composed by
Nabonidus (so already Gadd, AnSt 8, 55, on III 5), does not give anyone the right to
regard the whole text as fictional. The inscription, of course, was chiselled out after the
death of Adad-guppi’. But it cannot be doubted that an authentic Vorlage on the story
of Adad-guppi’s life was used.”—Bibliotheca Orientalis, Vol. LII, No. 1/2 (Leiden,
1995), p. 94.
57 The Royal Canon, of course, does not give the reigns of the Assyrian kings Ashurbanipal
and Ashur-etil-ili. For the earliest period (747–539 B.C.E.) the Canon gives a kinglist
for Babylon, not for contemporary Assyria. The reigns of Assyrian kings are given only
in so far as they also ruled directly over Babylon, which was true, for example, of
Sennacherib, who ruled over Babylon twice (in 704/03–703/02 and 688/87–681/80
B.C.E.), and of Esarhaddon, who ruled over Babylon for thirteen years (680/79–668/
67 B.C.E.). For the period of Ashurbanipal’s reign in Assyria, the Canon gives the reigns
of the contemporary vassal kings in Babylon, Shamash-shum-ukin (20 years) and
Kandalanu (22 years).—Compare Gadd, op. cit., pp. 70, 71.
The results from our discussion of the Neo-Babylonian historical

records are summarized in the following table.
TABLE 3: THE REIGNS OF THE NEO-BABYLONIAN KINGS
ACCORDING TO THE NEO-BABYLONIAN HISTORICAL RECORDS
ROYAL THE NEO-BAB. THE URUK THE ROYAL B.C.E.

NAME CHRONICLES KING LIST INSCRIPTIONS DATES
Nabopolassar 21 years 21 years 21 years 625-605
Nebuchadnezzar 43 years* 43 (ye)ars 43 years 604-562
Awel-Marduk 2 years* 2 (ye)ars 2 years 561-560
Neriglissar 4 years* ‘3’ (y’s)+8 m’s 4 years 559-556
Labashi-Marduk some months* 3 months — 556
Nabonidus ’17 years’ ’17?’ (years) 17 years 555-539
* These figures in the chronicles are preserved only via Berossus and/or the Royal
Canon. See discussion.
As may be seen from the table, the Neo-Babylonian chronol-
ogy adopted by secular historians is very strongly supported by
the ancient cuneiform sources, some of which were produced dur-
ing the Neo-Babylonian era itself. Three different lines of evi-
dence in support of this chronology are provided by these sources:
(1) Although important parts of the Neo-Babylonian Chronicles
are missing and some figures in the Uruk kinglist are partially
damaged, the combined witness of these documents strongly sup-
ports the Neo-Babylonian chronologies of Berossus and the Royal
Canon, both of which were actually—independently of each
other—derived from Neo-Babylonian chronicles and kinglists.
(2) The royal inscription Nabon. No. 18 and the Royal Chronicle fix
the second year of Nabonidus astronomically to 554/53 B.C.E. The whole
length of the Neo-Babylonian period prior to Nabonidus is given by
Nabon. No. 8, which gives the elapsed time from the sixteenth year of
Nabopolassar up to the accession-year of Nabonidus as fifty-four years.
The stele thus fixes the sixteenth year of Nabopolassar to 610/09 and his
first year to 625/24 B.C.E. These three inscriptions, therefore,
establish the length of the whole Neo-Babylonian era.
(3) The Adad-guppi’ inscription gives the reigns of all the Neo-
Babylonian kings (except for Labashi-Marduk’s brief, months-long reign,
which may be disregarded) from Nabopolassar up to the ninth year of
Nabonidus. As the Watch Tower Society indirectly accepts a seventeen-
year rule for Nabonidus, this stele of itself overthrows their 607
B.C.E. date for the desolation of Jerusalem.
Thus the Babylonian chronicles, the Uruk kinglist, and the

royal inscriptions firmly establish the length of the Neo-
Babylonian era. And yet this is just a beginning. We must still
wait to be introduced to the strongest lines of evidence in support
of the chronology presented in the table above. Their added testimony
should establish beyond any reasonable question the historical
facts of the matter.
B-2: Economic-administrative and legal documents
Literally hundreds of thousands of cuneiform texts have been exca-
vated in Mesopotamia since the middle of the nineteenth century.
The overwhelming majority of them concern economic-adminis-
trative and private legal items such as promissory notes, contracts (for
the sale, lease, or gift of land, houses, and other property, or for the
hiring of slaves and livestock), and records of law suits.
These texts are to a great extent dated just as are commercial let-
ters, contracts, receipts and other vouchers today. The dating is done
by giving the year of the reigning king, the month, and the day of the
month. A text concerning ceremonial salt from the archives of the
temple Eanna in Uruk, dated in the first year of Awel-Marduk (the
Evil-merodach of 2 Kings 25:27-30, written Amel-Marduk in
Akkadian but postvocalic m was pronounced w), is given here as an
example:
Ina-sillâ has brought one and one-half talents of salt,
the regular sattukku offering of the month of Siman
for the god Usur-amassu.
Month of Simanu, sixth day, first year of Amel-Marduk,
the king of Babylon.58
Tens of thousands of such dated texts have been unearthed from
the Neo-Babylonian period. According to the well-known Russian
Assyriologist M. A. Dandamaev, over ten thousand of these texts had
been published prior to 1991.59 Many others have been published
since, but the majority of them are still unpublished. Professor D. J.
Wiseman, another leading Assyriologist, estimates that “there are
58 Ronald H. Sack, Amel-Marduk 562-560 B.C. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener

Verlag, 1972), p. 79.
59 Dr. M. A. Dandamaev states: “The period of less than ninety years between the reign of
Nabopolassar and the occupation of Mesopotamia by the Persians is documented by tens
of thousands of texts concerning household and administrative economy and private law,
over ten thousand of which have been published so far.”—The Cambridge Ancient
History, 2nd ed., Vol. III:2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 252.
probably some 50,000 texts published and unpublished for the

period 627-539” B.C.E.60
Thus there exist large numbers of dated tablets from every year
during the whole Neo-Babylonian era. Dr. Wiseman’s estimate would
give an average of nearly 600 dated texts from each of the eighty-
seven years from Nabopolassar to Nabonidus, inclusive.
It is true that among these texts there are many that are damaged
or fragmentary, and that dates are often illegible or missing. Further,
the texts are not evenly distributed throughout the period, as the num-
ber gradually increases and culminates in the reign of Nabonidus.
Nonetheless, every single year throughout the whole period is
covered by numerous, often hundreds of tablets that are datable.
Because of this abundance of dated texts modern scholars are able
to determine not only the length of reign of each king, but also the
time of the year when each change of reign occurred, some-
times almost to the day!
The last known texts from the reign of Neriglissar, for example,
are dated I/2/4 and I?/6/4 (that is, month I, day 2 and day 6, year
4, corresponding to April 12 and 16, 556 B.C.E., Julian calendar),
and the earliest one from the reign of his son and successor,
Labashi-Marduk, is dated I/23/acc. (May 3, 556).61 The last text
from the reign of Nabonidus is dated VII/17/17 (October 13, 539), or one
day after the fall of Babylon (given as VII/16/17 in the Nabonidus
60 Private letter Wiseman-Jonsson, dated August 28, 1987. This is probably a very
conservative estimate. The most extensive collection of Neo-Babylonian texts is held in
the British Museum, which includes some 25,000 texts dated to the period 626–539
B.C.E. Most of these belong to the “Sippar collection,” which contains tablets excavated
by Hormuzd Rassam at the site of ancient Sippar (present Abu Habbah) in the years 1881
and 1882. This collection has recently been catalogued. (E. Leichty et al, Catalogue of
the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Vols. VI-VIII, London: British Museum
Publications Ltd, 1986–1988. These catalogues will hereafter be referred to as CBT.)
Substantial collections are also in Istanbul and Baghdad. Many other collections of Neo-
Babylonian documents are held in museums and at universities in the U.S.A., Canada,
England, France, Germany, Italy, and other parts of the world. It is true that many of the
tablets are damaged and the dates are often illegible. Yet, there are still tens of thousands
of Neo-Babylonian tablets with legible dates extant today. As a result of the continuous
archaeological excavations that are being carried out in the Mesopotamian area, “the
body of written sources expands significantly every year. For example, in the space of
a single season of excavations in Uruk, about six thousand documents from the Neo-
Babylonian and Achaemenid periods were discovered.”—M. A. Dandamaev, Slavery in
Babylonia (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1984), pp. 1, 2.
61 R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology: 626 B.C.–A.D. 75
(Providence: Brown University Press, 1956), pp. 12, 13.
Chronicle). The reason for the overlap of one day beyond

Babylon’s fall is easily explained:
Interestingly enough, the last tablet dated to Nabunaid from Uruk is dated
the day after Babylon fell to Cyrus. News of its capture had not yet reached
the southern city some 125 miles distant.62
In view of this immense amount of documentary evidence, the
question must be asked: If twenty years have to be added to the
Neo-Babylonian era in order to place the destruction of Jerusalem
in 607 B.C.E., where are the business and administrative texts
dated in those missing years?
Quantities of dated documents exist for each of Nebuchadnezzar’s
forty-three years, for each of Awel-Marduk’s (Evil-Merodach’s)
two years, for each of Neriglissar’s four years, and for each of
Nabonidus’ seventeen regnal years. In addition, there are many dated
texts from Labashi-Marduk’s reign of only about two months.
If any of these kings’ reigns had been longer than those just men-
tioned, large numbers of dated documents would certainly exist for
each of those extra years. Where are they? Twenty years are about
one fifth of the whole Neo-Babylonian period. Among the tens of
thousands of dated tablets from this period, many thousands ought
to have been found from those missing twenty years.
If one casts one die (of a pair of dice) tens of thousands of times
without ever getting a 6, he must logically conclude: “There is no
number 6 on this die.” The same is true of the Watch Tower’s twenty
missing “ghost years” for which one must look in vain during the
Neo-Babylonian period.
But suppose that a number of missing years really existed, and that,
by some incredible chance, the many thousands of dated tablets that
ought to be there have not been found. Why is it, then, that the lengths
of reign according to the dated tablets which have been unearthed
happen to agree with the figures of Berossus, those of the Royal
Canon, of the Uruk King List, of the contemporary royal inscriptions,
62 Ibid., p. 13. One text from the reign of Nabonidus, published by G. Contenau in Textes
Cuneiformes, Tome XII, Contrats Néo-Babyloniens, I (Paris: Librarie Orientaliste,
1927), Pl. LVIII, No. 121, apparently gives him a reign of eighteen years. Line 1 gives
the date as “VI/6/17,” but when it is repeated in line 19 in the text it is given as “VI/6/
18.” Parker and Dubberstein (p. 13) assumed “either a scribal error or an error by
Contenau.” The matter was settled by Dr. Béatrice André, who at my request collated the
original at the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1990: “The last line has, like the first, the year
17, and the error comes from Contenau.”—Letter André-Jonsson, March 20, 1990.
as well as the figures of all the other evidence that is yet to be presented
below? Why should it be that, whatever type of historical source is con-
sidered, the supposedly “missing” years consistently amount to exactly
twenty years? Why not a period of, in one case, seventeen years, in an-
other case thirteen, in yet another seven years, or perhaps different iso-
lated years distributed throughout the Neo-Babylonian period?
Each year new quantities of dated tablets are unearthed, and cata-
logues, transliterations, and translations of such texts are frequently
published, but the twenty missing years never turn up. Even improb-
ability has a limit.63
The importance of the economic-administrative and legal texts for
the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian period can hardly be overes-
timated. The evidence provided by these dated texts is simply over-
whelming. The reigns of all the Neo-Babylonian kings are copiously
attested by tens of thousands of such documents, all of which were
written during this era. As shown by the table below, these reigns are
in full agreement with the Royal Canon and the other documents dis-
cussed earlier.
TABLE 4: THE NEO-BABYLONIAN CHRONOLOGY ACCORDING
TO THE ECONOMIC-ADMINISTRATIVE AND LEGAL DOCUMENTS
Nabopolassar 21 years (625 - 605 BCE)
Nebuchadnezzar 43 years (604 - 562 BCE)
Awel-Marduk 2 years (561 - 560 BCE)
Neriglissar 4 years (559 - 556 BCE)
Labashi-Marduk 2-3 months ( 556 BCE)
Nabonidus 17 years (555 - 539 BCE)
B-3: Prosopographical evidence

Prosopography (from the Greek word prósopon, meaning “face, per-
son”) may be defined as “the study of careers, especially of individuals
linked by family, economic, social, or political relationships.”64
63 As a matter of course, defenders of the Watch Tower Society’s chronology have made
great efforts to discredit the evidence provided by these enormous quantities of dated
cuneiform tablets. On perusing modern catalogues of documents dated to the Neo-
Babylonian era, they have found a few documents that seemingly give longer reigns to
some Babylonian kings than are shown by the Royal Canon and other sources. A fresh
check of the original tablets, however, has shown that most of these odd dates simply are
modern copying, transcription, or printing errors. Some other odd dates are demonstra-
bly scribal errors. For a detailed discussion of these texts, see Appendix for chapter 3:
“Some comments on copying, reading, and scribal errors.”
64 Webster’s New World Dictionary, 3rd college edition, eds. V. Neufeldt & D. B. Guralnik
(New York: Webster’s New World Dictionaries, 1988), p. 1080.
As the names of many individuals often recur in the business

and administrative documents—sometimes hundreds of times
during the entire Neo-Babylonian period—scholars usually apply
the prosopographical method in their analysis of these texts. Such
an approach not only contributes to the understanding of the struc-
ture and social life of the Neo-Babylonian society, but it also pro-
vides additional, internal evidence in support of the established
chronology of the period.
Of the tens of thousands of documents from the Neo-
Babylonian era, more than half are the results of temple activities
and have been found in temple archives, particularly in the ar-
chives of the Eanna temple in Uruk (the temple of the goddess
Ishtar) and the Ebabbar temple in Sippar (the temple of Shamash,
the sun god). But many thousands of texts also come from private
archives and libraries.
The richest private archives are those of the Egibi and Nur-Sîn
houses, centered in the Babylon area. Other private archives have
been found, for example, in Uruk (the sons of Bel-ushallim, Nabû-
ushallim, and Bel-supê-muhur), in Borsippa (the Ea-ilûta-bâni fam-
ily), in Larsa (Itti-Shamash-balatu and his son Arad-Shamash), and
in Ur (the Sîn-uballit family).
No state archives have been found from the Neo-Babylonian pe-
riod, the reason being that at this time such documents are known to
have been written (in Aramaic) on leather and papyrus, materials that
were easily destroyed by the climatic conditions in Mesopotamia.65
Consider now how a study of certain of the available archives
can yield valuable information of a chronological nature.
a) The Egibi business house

By far the largest private archive of the Neo-Babylonian period is that
of the Egibi business house. Of this enterprise Bruno Meissner says:
From the firm the Sons of Egibi we possess such an abundance
of documents that we are able to follow nearly all business
transactions and personal experiences of its heads from the time
of Nebuchadnezzar up to the time of Darius I.66
65 For a survey of the Neo-Babylonian archives, see M. A. Dandamaev’s article in

Cuneiform Archives and Libraries, ed. K. R. Veenhof (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-
Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1986), pp. 273-277.
66 Bruno Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, Vol. II (Heidelberg, 1925), p. 331. The
quotation is translated from the German.
The business documents from the Egibi house were discovered by

Arabs during the wet season of the year 1875-76 in a mound in the
neighbourhood of Hillah, a town about four miles southeast of the ruins
of Babylon. Some three or four thousand tablets were discovered en-
closed in a number of earthen jars, resembling common water jars, cov-
ered over at the top with a tile, and cemented with bitumen.
The discoverers brought the tablets to Baghdad and sold them to a
dealer there. In that same year George Smith visited Baghdad and ac-
quired about 2,500 of these important documents for the British Museum.
The tablets were examined during the following months by W. St.
Chad Boscawen, and his report appeared in 1878 in the Transac-
tions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. 67 Boscawen states
that the tablets “relate to the various monetary transactions of a
Babylonian banking and financial agency, trading under the name of
Egibi and Sons.” The tablets “relate to every possible commercial
transaction; from the loan of a few shekels of silver, to the sale or mort-
gage of whole estates whose value is thousands of manas of silver.”68
Boscawen soon realized the importance of following the sequence
of the heads of the Egibi firm, and after a more careful analysis he
ascertained the main lines of the succession to be as follows:
From the third year of Nebuchadnezzar a person named Shula
acted as head of the Egibi firm, and continued in that capacity for a
period of twenty years, up to the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar
when he died and was succeeded by his son, Nabû-ahhê-iddina.69
The son, Nabû-ahhê-iddina, continued as the head of affairs for
a period of thirty-eight years, that is, from the twenty-third year
of Nebuchadnezzar to the twelfth year of Nabonidus when he
was succeeded by his son Itti-Marduk-balatu.70
67 W. St. Chad Boscawen, “Babylonian Dated Tablets, and the Canon of Ptolemy,” in
Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol. VI (London, January 1878),
pp. 1-78. As Boscawen points out (ibid., pp. 5, 6), George Smith himself, during his stay
at Baghdad in 1876, had begun a systematic and careful examination of the tablets, a
study that was interrupted by his untimely death in Aleppo in August that year.
Boscawen’s study was evidently based on Smith’s notebooks.—Sheila M. Evers,
“George Smith and the Egibi Tablets,” Iraq, Vol. LV, 1993, pp. 107-117.
68 Ibid., p. 6. A “mana” (mina) weighed about 0.5 kg.
69 Ibid., pp. 9, 10. Shula died between the dates VII/21/23 (month/day/year) and IV/15/24
of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (between October, 582 and July, 581 B.C.E.).—G. van Driel,
“The Rise of the House of Egibi,” Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch
Genootschap, No. 29 (Leiden, 1987), p. 51.
70 Nabû-ahhê-iddina evidently died in the thirteenth year of Nabonidus, the year after his
son had taken over the affairs. See Arthur Ungnad, “Das Haus Egibi,” Archiv für
Orientforschung, Band XIV (Berlin, 1941), p. 60, and van Driel, op. cit., pp. 66, 67.
Itti-Marduk-balatu in his turn remained head of the firm until the

first year of Darius I (521/20 B.C.E.), which was the twenty-third year
of his headship of the firm.
Boscawen epitomizes these findings as follows:
Now, summing up these periods, we get the result that from
the 3rd year of Nebuchadnezzar II to the 1st year of Darius
Hystaspis was a period of eighty-one years:
Sula at the head of the firm 20 years
Nabu-ahi-idina 38 years
Itti-Marduk-balatu 23 years
81 years
This would give an interval of eighty-three years from the 1st
year of Nebuchadnezzar to the 1st year of Darius Hystaspis.71
The significant fact is that this agrees exactly with Berossus, the Royal
Canon, and the Neo-Babylonian historical records. Counting backwards
eighty-three years from the first year of Darius I (521/20 B.C.E.) brings
us to 604 B.C.E. as the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, which agrees com-
pletely with the other lines of evidence presented above.
The archive of the Egibi-house alone would suffice to establish
the length of the Neo-Babylonian period. With this extensive set of
dated commercial tablets from the archive of one of the “Rothschilds”
of Babylon “there ought to be but little difficulty in establishing once
and for ever the chronology of this important period of ancient his-
tory,” wrote Boscawen already back in 1878.72
The evidence of these documents leaves no room for a gap in Neo-
Babylonian history from Nebuchadnezzar onward, certainly not one
of twenty years! The archive, containing tablets dated up to the forty-
third year of Nebuchadnezzar, the second year of Awel-Marduk, the
fourth year of Neriglissar and the seventeenth year of Nabonidus,
gives a complete confirmation of the chronology of Berossus and the
Royal Canon.
Since the last century still other collections of tablets belonging
to the Egibi family have been discovered.73 A number of studies on
71 Boscawen, op. cit., pp. 10, 24. This conclusion had also been arrived at previously by
George Smith in his study of the tablets.—S. M. Evers, op. cit. (note 67 above), pp. 112-
117.
72 Boscawen, op. cit., p. 11.
73 During excavations at Uruk in 1959-60, for example, an archive belonging to members of the
Egibi family was unearthed, containing 205 tablets dating from the sixth year of Nabonidus to the
thirty-third year of Darius I. Most of the tablets were dated as from the reign of Darius. See J. van
Dijk, UVB 18 (cf. note 33 above), pp. 39-41. The earliest known text of the Egibi family is dated
to 715 B.C.E. Business documents of the family then appear regularly between 690 and 480
B.C.E.—M. A. Dandamaev, op. cit. (1984; see note 60 above), p. 61.
the Egibi family have been produced, all of which confirm the
general conclusions drawn by Boscawen.74 Thanks to the enormous
amount of texts from this family, scholars have been able to trace the
history, not only of the heads of the firm, but also of many other
members of the Egibi house, and even family trees have been worked
out that extend through the whole Neo-Babylonian period and into
the Persian era!75
The pattern of intertwined family relations that has been estab-
lished in this way for several generations would be grossly distorted
if another twenty years were inserted into the Neo-Babylonian pe-
riod.
b) Life expectancy in the Neo-Babylonian period
(1) Adad-guppi’:
As was shown above in the discussion of the Harran stele (Nabon.
H 1, B), Adad-guppi’, the mother of Nabonidus, was born in the
20th year of powerful Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, 649/648 B.C.E.
She died in the ninth year of Nabonidus, in 547/546 B.C.E. at an
age of 101 or 102 years, a remarkable life span.76
What would happen to her age if we were to add twenty years to
the Neo-Babylonian era? This would necessarily increase the age of
74 Some of the most important works are: Saul Weingort, Das Haus Egibi in
neubabylonischen Rechtsurkunden (Berlin: Buchdruckerei Viktoria, 1939), 64 pages;
Arthur Ungnad, “Das Haus Egibi,” Archiv für Orientforschung, Band XIV, Heft 1/2
(Berlin, 1941), pp. 57-64; Joachim Krecher, Das Geschäftshaus Egibi in Babylon in
neubabylonischer und achämenidischer Zeit (unpublished “Habilitationsschrift,”
Universitätsbibliothek, Münster in Westfalen, 1970), ix + 349 pages.; and Martha T.
Roth, “The Dowries of the Women of the Itti-Marduk-balatu Family,” Journal of the
American Oriental Society, Vol. 111:1, 1991, pp. 19-37.
75 See, for example, J. Kohler & F. E. Peiser, Aus dem Babylonischen Rechtsleben, IV
(Leipzig:Verlag von Eduard Pfeiffer, 1898), p. 22, and M. T. Roth, op. cit., pp. 20, 21,
36. Another private enterprise, the Nur-Sîn family, which through intermarriage became
annexed to the Egibi family, has been thoroughly studied by Laurence Brian Shiff in The
Nur-Sîn Archive: Private Entrepreneurship in Babylon (603-507 B.C.) (Ph. D. disser-
tation; University of Pennsylvania, 1987), 667 pages.
76 The Adad-guppi’ inscription itself stresses that her age was extreme: “I saw my [great]
great-grandchildren, up to the fourth generation, in good health, and (thus) had my fill
of extreme old age.” — A. Malamat, “Longevity: Biblical Concepts and Some Ancient
Near Eastern Parallels,” Archiv für Orientforschung, Beiheft 19: Vorträge gehalten auf
der 28. Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Wien, 6.–10. Juli 1981 (Horn,
Austria: Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Söhne Gesellschaft M.B.H., 1982), p. 217. Dr.
Malamat also refers to a tablet found at Sultantepe which “categorizes the stages of life
from age 40 through age 90 [as follows]: 40 – lalûtu (‘prime of life’); 50 – umu kurûtu
(‘short life’); 60 – metlutu (‘maturity’); 70 – umu arkûtu (‘long life’); [80] – shibutu (‘old
age’); 90 – littutu (‘extreme old age’).”—A. Malamat, ibid., p. 215.
Adad-guppi’ to 121 or 122 years. The only way to avoid this

consequence would be to add the twenty extra years to the reign of
her surviving son Nabonidus after her death, making his reign
thirty-seven instead of seventeen years, something the contempo-
rary documents simply do not allow us to do.
This is not the only problem of this kind that confronts those who
would defend the Watch Tower Society’s chronology. Many people,
whose names appear in the business and administrative texts from the
Neo-Babylonian period, can be traced from text to text almost dur-
ing the entire period, somtimes even into the Persian era. We find that
some of these people—businessmen, slaves, scribes—must have been
eighty or ninety years old or more at the end of their careers. But if
we were to add twenty years to the Neo-Babylonian era, we would
also be forced to add twenty years to the lives of these people, mak-
ing them 100 to 110 years old—and still active in their occupations.
A few examples will follow.
(2) Apla, son of Bel-iddina:
A scribe named Apla, son of Bel-iddina, who belonged to the
trading house of Egibi, appears for the first time as a scribe in a text
dated to the twenty-eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar (577 B.C.E.).
Thereafter, his name recurs in many texts dated in the reigns of
Nebuchadnezzar, Awel-Marduk, Neriglissar, Nabonidus,
Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius I.
He appears for the last time as a witness in a document, a promis-
sory note, dated to the thirteenth year of Darius, 509 B.C.E. That
means the career of this scribe may be followed for a period of sixty-
eight years, from 577 to 509 B.C.E. The Russian Assyriologist M.
A. Dandamaev comments:
He should have been, at least, twenty years old when he
became a scribe. Even if we assume that Apla died even in the
same year when he was referred to for the last time or soon after,
he must have lived about 90 years.77
But if we allow twenty years to be added to the Neo-Babylonian
era, we would not only increase Apla’s age to 110 years or more—
we would also be forced to conclude that at this old age he was
still active as a scribe.
77 Muhammad A. Dandamaev, “About Life Expectancy in Babylonia in the first Millen-
nium B.C.,” in Death in Mesopotamia (= Mesopotamia. Copenhagen Studies in
Assyriology, Vol. 8), ed. Bendt Alster (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1980), p. 184.
(3) Iddina-Marduk and his wife Ina-Esagila-ramât

Two other examples are the businessman Iddin-Marduk, son of
Iqisha, of the family of Nur-Sin, and his wife Ina-Esagila-ramât.
Iddin-Marduk appears as director of his business activities for the first
time in a text that earlier had been dated to the eighth year of
Nebuchadnezzar (597 B.C.E.). But a recent collation of the original
tablet revealed that the year number is damaged and probably should
be read as the 28th year (577 B.C.E.). Iddin-Marduk then appears in
hundreds of dated documents, the last of which is from the third year
of Cambyses, 527 B.C.E. Other documents indicate that he died
shortly before the fifth year of Darius I (517 B.C.E.). If we assume that
he was only twenty years old when he first appears as director, he must
have been about eighty years old at the time of his death.
Iddin-Marduk’s wife, Ina-Esagila-ramât, survived her husband.
She, too, was involved in business activities. Documents show that
she got married to Iddin-Marduk no later than the 33rd year of
Nebuchadnezzar (572 B.C.E.). We must assume, therefore, that she
was at least twenty years old when she first appears as a contracting
party in a text dated to Nebuchadnezzar's 34th year (571 B.C.E.). She
appears for the last time in a text dated to the 15th year of Darius I
(507 B.C.E.), at which time she must has been at least 84 years old.78
Again, if we were to add twenty years to the Neo-Babylonian era, we
would increase the age of Iddina-Marduk to about 100 years, and the age
of Ina-Esagila-ramât to at least 104 years. We would also be forced to
hold that she, at this age, was still actively involved in the businesses.
(4) Daniel the prophet:
The Bible also provides some examples of its own. In the accession
year of Nebuchadnezzar (605 B.C.E.), Daniel, then a youth of
perhaps 15-20 years, was brought to Babylon (Daniel 1:1, 4, 6). He
served at the Babylonian court until after the end of the Neo-
Babylonian period, being still alive in the third year of Cyrus, in 536/
35 B.C.E. (Daniel 1:21; 10:1). At that time he must have been close
to ninety years old. If another twenty years were added to this period,
Daniel would have been nearly 110 years old.
Is it really likely that people during the Neo-Babylonian period
frequently reached ages of 100, 110, or even 120 years? True, we
78 Cornelia Wunsch, Die Urkunden des baylonischen Geschäftsmannes Iddin-Marduk, 1

(Groningen: STYX Publications, 1993), pp. 19, 10 ftn. 43, 12, 66.
sometimes have heard of people in southern Russia or northern India who

are said to be 150 years old or more. But on close examination, all such
statements have been proved to be false.79 The oldest known individual
in modern times has been a French woman, Jeanne Calment, who was
born on February 21, 1875, and died on August 4, 1997, at an age of 122
years.80 This Frenchwoman’s record would have been equalled by Adad-
guppi’, had that Babylonian woman been 122 years old when she died,
instead of about 102, as the ancient records indicate.
Considering these cases of exceptionally long age already pre-
sented, we rightly ask if we have any reason to believe that the life
span of people at that time surpassed that of people of today?
The Russian Assyriologist M. A. Dandamaev has examined the
life span of people in Babylonia from the seventh through to the
fourth century B.C.E., using tens of thousands of business and ad-
ministrative texts as the basis for his research. His conclusion is
that the life span of people at that time was not different from what
it is now. In his discussion, Dandamaev refers to Psalms 90:10:
“As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years. Or if due
to strength, eighty years” (NASB). These words were as true in the
Neo-Babylonian era as they are today.81
Consequently, the extremely old ages which would be created
by dating the destruction of Jerusalem to 607 instead of 587
B.C.E. provides one more argument weighing against the Watch
Tower Society’s chronology.
As has been shown in this section, a prosopographical examina-
tion of the cuneiform texts strongly supports the chronology es-
tablished for the Neo-Babylonian period. The careers of business
men, scribes, temple administrators, slaves, and others may be fol-
lowed for decades, in some cases through almost the whole Neo-
Babylonian period and on into the Persian era. Thousands of
dated documents give a profound insight into their everyday ac-
tivities. Notably, however, the lives and activities of these people
never contain reference to any year lying outside the recognized
time frame of the Neo-Babylonian period, never overlap or extend
beyond this at any time so as to point to a single year of the twenty-year
period required by the Watch Tower Society’s chronology.
79 S. Jay Olshansky et al, “In Search of Methuselah: Estimating the Upper Limits of
Human Longevity,” Science, Vol. 250, 2 November 1990. p. 635.
80 The Guinness Book of Records 2004. According to some media reports, this record may
have been beaten by a woman in El Salvador, Cruz Hernandez, who is said to have
been born on May 3, 1878, and died on March 9, 2007, at an age of 128 years.
81 M. A. Dandamaev, op. cit. (1980), p. 183.
B-4: Chronological interlocking joints

There are only two possible ways of extending the Neo-Babylonian
period to include the twenty extra years required by the Watch Tower
chronology:
Either the known Neo-Babylonian kings had longer reigns than
indicated by all the documents discussed above, or there were
other, unknown kings who belonged to the Neo-Babylonian era in
addition to those known to us from these documents.
Both of these possibilities, however, are completely excluded, not
only by the several lines of evidence presented so far and the astro-
nomical evidence that will be discussed in the next chapter, but also
by a series of texts that inseparably interlock each reign with the
next throughout the whole Neo-Babylonian period. Eleven such
chronological interlocking joints will be discussed below.
a) Nabopolassar to Nebuchadnezzar
(1) In the earlier discussion of the Neo-Babylonian chronicles, one
of them (Chronicle 5) was quoted as saying that Nabopolassar, the
first Neo-Babylonian king, ruled “for twenty-one years,” that he
died “on the eighth day of the month Ab [the fifth month],” and that
on the first day of the next month (Elul) his son Nebuchadnezzar
“ascended the royal throne in Babylon.”
At this point, then, there is no room for a longer reign of
Nabopolassar beyond the recognized span of twenty-one years, nor
for an “extra king” between him and Nebuchadnezzar.
b) Nebuchadnezzar to Awel-Marduk
(2) That Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son Awel-Marduk
(the Biblical Evil-Merodach) in the forty-third year of
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign is confirmed by a business document,
B.M. 30254, published by Ronald H. Sack in 1972.
This document mentions both the forty-third year of Nebu-
chadnezzar and the accession year of Awel-Marduk. A girl, Lit-ka-
idi, the slave of Gugua, “was placed at the disposal of Nabû-ahhe-
iddina, the son of Shulâ, the descendent of Egibi in the month of Ajaru
[the second month], forty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, and (for whom) twelve shekels of silver served as security.”
Later in the same year, “in the month of Kislimu [the ninth month], acces-
sion year of [Amel]-Marduk, king of Babylon, . . . Gugua of her own will
sold Lit-ka-idi to Nabû-ahhe-iddina for the full price of nineteen and

one-half shekels of silver.”82
This document gives no room for a longer reign of Nebu-
chadnezzar, or for an “extra king” between him and Awel-Marduk.
(3) In the Neo-Babylonian period the yield of a field or garden was

often estimated before harvest time. After the harvest the workers of
the field were to turn over the estimated amount to the owners or
buyers. Quite a number of documents recording such procedures have
been found.
One of them, designated AO 8561, not only includes estimated
yields of numerous fields for three successive years, the forty-sec-
ond and forty-third years of Nebuchadnezzar and the first year of
Awel-Marduk, but “is also a record of what portions of that yield were
received by and distributed to various persons . . . in the month of
Kislimu [the ninth month], accession year of Neriglissar.”83
This document, then, provides another joint or dovetail between
the forty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar and the reign of Awel-
Marduk.
(4) Another, similar text, YBC 4038, dated to the “month of Addaru
[the twelfth month], 15th day, accession year of Amel-Marduk,”
describes the monthly portioning out of “500 bushels of barley” at the
Eanna temple in Uruk from “the 43rd year of Nabû-kudurri-usur
[Nebuchadnezzar]” to the “1st year of Amel-Marduk.”84 Again, this text ties
together the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and his successor Awel-Marduk in a
way that gives no room for any additional years between the two.
The Bible itself confirms that Awel-Marduk’s accession year fell
in the forty-third year of his father Nebuchadnezzar. This may be
inferred from the datings given in 2 Kings 24:12; 2 Chronicles 36:10,
82 Ronald Herbert Sack, Amel-Marduk 562-560 B.C. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Verlag Butzon

& Bercker Kevelaer, 1972), pp. 62, 63.
83 Ibid., pp. 41, 116-118. The time interval from a harvest to the distribution of the
yield was normally brief, a few years at the most. In the present case the yields of
the three years’ harvests were distributed in the accession year of Neriglissar, that
is, three years after the harvests of the first year. The insertion of twenty extra years
somewhere between Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar would increase this time
interval to twenty-three years—an extremely long wait for the yields, to say the
least.
84 Ronald H. Sack, “The Scribe Nabû-bani-ahi, son of Ibnâ, and the Hierarchy of Eanna as
seen in the Erech Contracts,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Band 67 (Berlin, New York:
Walter de Gruyter, 1977), pp. 43-45.
and Jeremiah 52:28, 31. A brief discussion of this evidence is included

in the “Appendix for Chapter 3” (page 325).
c) Nebuchadnezzar to Awel-Marduk to Neriglissar
(5) In the Neo-Babylonian period, bookkeeping was already an
ancient, highly complex and formalized business.85 An interesting
example of this is a tablet known as NBC 4897. The document is,
actually, a ledger, tabulating the annual growth of a herd of sheep and goats
belonging to the Eanna temple at Uruk for ten consecutive years, from the
thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar to the first year of Neriglissar.
In the entries for each year the number of lambs and kids born
during the year is added, and the number of animals killed
(documented by their hides) or paid to the herdsmen as wages, are
subtracted. The grand totals are then given in the column far-
thest to the right. Thus it is possible to follow the numerical in-
crease of the herd year by year. The text shows that the herdsman
responsible for the herd, Nabû-ahhe-shullim, during the ten years
succeeded in enlarging the herd from 137 sheep and goats to 922
animals.86
True, the Babylonian scribe made a few miscalculations and
mathematical mistakes which partially hampers the interpreta-
tion of the document.87 There is no doubt, however, that it is an
annual record, as year numbers are given for each successive year.
In the entry for the first year of Neriglissar, for example, the grand
total column contains the following information:
Grand total: 922, 1st year of Nergal-sharra-usur, king of Babylon, 9
lambs in Uruk were received (and) 3 lambs for shearing.
Similar information is given for each year from the thirty-seventh
year of Nebuchadnezzar to his forty-third year, for the first and second
85 Bookkeeping is as old as the art of writing. In fact, the oldest known script, the
proto-cuneiform script, which emerged at Uruk (and usually is dated to about 3200
B.C.E.), “was almost exclusively restricted to bookkeeping; it was an ‘accountant’s
script’.” —H. J. Nissen, P. Damerow, & R. K. Englund, Archaic Bookkeeping
(Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 30.
86 G. van Driel & K. R. Nemet-Nejat, “Bookkeeping practices for an institutional
herd at Eanna,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 46:4, 1994, p. 47. The form of
record-keeping used in the text “involves accumulating data with cross-footing the
accounts in order to prove that all entries are accounted therein.”—Ibid., p. 47, note
1.
87 The errors occur in the totals, probably because the scribes had difficulties in
reading the numbers in their ledgers.—Ibid., pp. 56, 57.
years of Awel-Marduk, and, as cited, for the first year of Neri-

glissar.88
This document, then, not only provides an additional confirma-
tion of the lengths of reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Awel-
Marduk, but it also demonstrates that no extra kings or extra
years can be inserted between Nebuchadnezzar and Awel-Marduk,
or between Awel-Marduk and Neriglissar.
d) Neriglissar to Labashi-Marduk
(6) A cuneiform tablet in the Yale Babylonian collection, YBC 4012, not
only shows that Labashi-Marduk succeeded Neriglissar as king, but also
that he did this early in the fourth year of his father’s short reign.
The document records that “in the month of Addaru [the twelfth
month], 3rd year of Nergal-[sharra-usur], king of Babylon” (March-
April, 556 B.C.E.), Mushezib-Marduk, the overseer of the Eanna
temple in Uruk, carried a considerable amount of money to Babylon,
partly as payment for work and material for the Eanna temple. This
document was drawn up about two months later, evidently at Babylon
before Mushezib-Marduk’s return to Uruk , and is dated to the “month
of Ajaru [the second month of the next year], 22nd day, accession
year of Labashi-Marduk, king of Babylon” (June 1, 556 B.C.E.).89
According to this document, Labashi-Marduk succeeded to the
throne sometime in the first or second month of Neriglissar’s fourth
year of reign. This is in good agreement with the evidence given by
the contract tablets, which show that the demise of the crown occurred
in the first month of Neriglissar’s fourth year. (See “Appendix for
Chapter 3”, pages 326, 327.)
88 For Nebuchadnezzar, only the year numbers are given. The royal names only
appear with the first year of each king. There are two entries each for the thirty-
seventh, thirty-eighth, and forty-first years (of Nebuchadnezzar), and no entries
for his thirty-ninth and fortieth years. As pointed out by van Driel and Nemet-
Nejat, “these errors can be easily explained: the outcome of the count for the
previous year is the starting point for the inventory of the next year. That is, if the
‘accountant’ had a complete file, he would find the same data in tablets dealing
with consecutive years: once at the end of one text and again at the beginning of
the succeeding text.” (Op. cit., p. 54.) From the forty-first year of Nebuchadnezzar
until the first year of Neriglissar, though, the dates follow a regular pattern.
89 Ronald H. Sack, “Some Remarks on Sin-Iddina and Zerija, qipu and shatammu of Eanna
in Erech . . . 562-56 B.C.,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Band 66 (Berlin, New York:
Walter de Gruyter, 1976), pp. 287, 288. As mentioned earlier, in the Babylonian system
the accession year of a king was the same as the last year of his predecessor. According
to our text the accession year of Labashi-Marduk followed upon the third year of
Neriglissar. Labashi-Marduk’s accession year, therefore, was also the fourth and last
year of Neriglissar.
e) Neriglissar to Labashi-Marduk to Nabonidus

(7) That Neriglissar was succeeded by his son Labashi-Marduk is
plainly stated by Nabonidus in one of the royal inscriptions discussed
earlier, Nabon. No. 8 (the Hillah stele). In column iv of this stele,
Nabonidus relates that the cult of the goddess Anunitum in Sippar had
been renewed by Neriglissar. Then he goes on saying:
After (his) days had become full and he had started out on the
journey of (human) destiny his son Labashi-Marduk, a minor (who)
had not (yet) learned how to behave, sat down on the royal throne
against the intentions of the gods and [three lines missing here].90
After the three missing lines Nabonidus, in the next column,
goes on to speak of his own enthronement, evidently as the im-
mediate successor of Labashi-Marduk. In doing so, he also names
the last four of his royal predecessors: Nebuchadnezzar and
Neriglissar (whom he regarded as legitimate rulers), and their sons
Awel-Marduk and Labashi-Marduk (whom he regarded as illegiti-
mate usurpers). He states:
They carried me into the palace and all prostrated themselves to
my feet, they kissed my feet greeting me again and again as king.
(Thus) I was elevated to rule the country by the order of my lord
Marduk and (therefore) I shall obtain whatever I desire—there shall
be no rival of mine!
I am the real executor of the wills of Nebuchadnezzar and
Neriglissar, my royal predecessors! Their armies are entrusted to
me, I shall not treat carelessly their orders and I am (anxious) to
please them [i.e. to execute their plans].
Awel-Marduk, son of Nebuchadnezzar, and Labashi-Marduk,
son of Neriglissar [called up] their [troo]ps and . . . their . . . they
dispersed. Their orders (7-8 lines missing).91
90 James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1950), p. 309.
91 Ibid., p. 309. Berossus, whose Neo-Babylonian history was shown to be based on the
Babylonian chronicles, gives a similar account of these events: “After Eveil-maradouchos
had been killed, Neriglisaros, the man who had plotted against him, succeeded to the
throne and was king for four years. Laborosoarchodos [Labashi-Marduk], the son of
Neriglisaros, who was only a child, was master of the kingdom for nine [probably an
error for “2”; see note 20 above] months. Because his wickedness became apparent in
many ways he was plotted against and brutally killed by his friends. After he had been
killed, the plotters met and jointly conferred the kingdom on Nabonnedus, a Babylonian
and a member of the conspiracy.” — Stanley Mayer Burstein, The Babyloniaca of
Berossus. Sources from the Ancient Near East, Vol. 1, fascicle 5 (Malibu, Calif.: Undena
Publications, 1978), p. 28.
This inscription, then, interlinks the reigns of Neriglissar and

Labashi-Marduk, and evidently also those of Labashi-Marduk and
Nabonidus. The possibility of inserting an “extra king” somewhere
between these three kings is ruled out by this text.
(8) Some legal documents, too, contain information that spans the
reigns of two or more kings. One example is Nabon. No. 13, which is
dated to “the 12th day of (the month) Shabatu [the eleventh month],
the accession year of Nabonidus, king of Babylon [February 2, 555
B.C.E.].” The inscription tells about a woman, Belilitu, who brought
up the following case before the royal court:
Belilitu daughter of Bel-ushezib descendant of the messenger
declared the following to the judges of Nabonidus, king of
Babylon: ‘In the month of Abu, the first year of Nergal-shar-usur
[Neriglissar], king of Babylon [August-September, 559 B.C.E.],
I sold my slave Bazuzu to Nabu-ahhe-iddin son of Shula descen-
dent of Egibi for one-half mina five shekels of silver, but he did
not pay cash and drew up a promissory note.’ The royal judges
listened (to her) and commanded that Nabu-ahhe-iddin be brought
before them. Nabu-ahhe-iddin brought the contract that he had
concluded with Belilitu and showed the judges (the document
which indicated that) he had paid the silver for Bazuzu.92
Reference is thus made to the reigns of Neriglissar and that of
Nabonidus. The generally accepted chronology would indicate that
about three and a half years had passed since Belilitu had sold her
slave in the first year of Neriglissar until she, in the accession year
of Nabonidus, made a fraudulent but futile attempt to receive double
payment for the slave. But if twenty years were to be added some-
where between the reigns of Neriglissar and Nabonidus, then Belilitu
waited for twenty-three and a half years before she brought her case
before the court, something that appears extremely unlikely.
f) Nabonidus to Cyrus
That Nabonidus was the king of Babylon when Cyrus conquered
Babylonia in 539 B.C.E. is clearly shown by the Nabonidus Chronicle
(B.M. 35382).93 The chronicle evidently dated this event to the
92 M. A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University
Press, 1984), pp. 189, 190.
93 As early as 1877, W. St. Chad Boscawen found a document among the Egibi tablets
dated to the reign of Cyrus, “which stated that money was paid in the reign of ‘Nabu-
nahid the former king’.” — Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Vol.
VI (London, 1878), p. 29.
“seventeenth year” of Nabonidus, but as was pointed out earlier, this

portion of the chronicle is damaged and the year number is illegible.
Nonetheless, a whole group of economic texts has been found that
provides chronological interlocking connections between Nabonidus’
seventeenth year and the reign of Cyrus. These include the tablets with
the catalogue numbers CT 56:219, CT 57:52.3, and CT 57:56.94
(9) The first of the three documents (CT 56:219) is dated to the
accession year of Cyrus, and the next two (CT 57:52.3 and CT 57:56)
are dated to his first year. But all three tablets also refer to the
preceding king’s “year 17,” and since it is accepted as fact that
Nabonidus was the final king of the Neo-Babylonian line, preceding
Cyrus the Persian’s rule, this confirms that Nabonidus’ reign lasted 17
years.95
(10) One of the more graphic examples of a chronological linkage
between two reigns is a cuneiform tablet in the archaeological
museum at Florence known as SAKF 165. As Professor J. A. Brinkman
points out, this document “presents a unique year-by-year inventory
of wool stuffs made into garments for the cult statues of the deities in
Uruk. . . . Furthermore, it covers the vital years before and after the
Persian conquest of Babylonia.”96
The inventory is arranged chronologically, and the preserved
portion of the text covers five successive years, from the fifteenth
year of Nabonidus to the second year of Cyrus, with year num-
bers given at the end of the inventory for each year:
Lines 3 - 13: year 15 [of Nabonidus]
14 - 25: year 16 [of Nabonidus]
26 - 33: year 17 [of Nabonidus]
34 - 39: year 1 of Cyrus
40 - : [year 2 of Cyrus]
94 “CT 55-57” refers to the catalogues Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the
British Museum, Parts 55-57, containing economic texts copied by T. G. Pinches during
the years 1892 to 1894 and published by British Museum Publications Limited in 1982.
95 Stefan Zawadzki, “Gubaru: A Governor or a Vassal King of Babylonia?,” Eos, Vol.
LXXV (Wroclaw, Warszawa, Kraków, Gdansk, Lódz, 1987), pp. 71, 81; M. A.
Dandamayev, Iranians in Achaemenid Babylonia (Costa Mesa, California and New
York: Mazda Publishers, 1992), p. 91; Jerome Peat, “Cyrus ‘king of lands,’ Cambyses
‘king of Babylon’: the disputed co-regency,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 41/2,
Autumn 1989, p. 209. It should be noted that one of the three tablets, CT 57:56, is dated
to Cambyses as co-regent with Cyrus in his first year.
96 J. A. Brinkman, “Neo-Babylonian Texts in the Archaeological Museum at Florence,”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. XXV, Jan.-Oct. 1966, p. 209.
The royal name was evidently given only for the first year of each
ruler. But as the immediate predecessor of Cyrus was Nabonidus,
“year 15”, “year 16”, and “year 17” clearly refer to his reign. The
inventory of the year following upon “year 17” ends with the words,
“year 1, Cyrus, King of Babylon, King of the Lands” (line 39). The
last lines of the entry for the fifth year of inventory are damaged, and
“year 2” (of Cyrus) can only be understood as implied.97
(11) In ancient Mesopotamia, in the various temples the presence of

the deities was represented by their statues. In times of war, when a
city was taken, the temples were usually looted and the divine statues
were carried away as “captives” to the land of the conquerors.
As such captures were seen by the citizens as an omen that the
gods had abandoned the city and called for its destruction, they of-
ten tried to protect the statues by moving them to a safer place at the
approach of a military force.
This is what happened shortly before the Persian invasion of
northern Babylonia in 539 B.C.E., when according to the Nabonidus
Chronicle Nabonidus ordered a gathering of the gods of several cit-
ies into Babylon. The same chronicle also tells that Cyrus, after the
fall of Babylon, returned the statues to their respective cities.98
As discussed by Dr. Paul-Alain Beaulieu, there are several docu-
ments from the archive of the Eanna temple of Uruk which confirm
that, in the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, the statue of Ishtar (re-
ferred to in the documents as “Lady-of-Uruk” or “Lady of the Eanna”)
was brought upstream by boat on the river Euphrates to Babylon.
Further, these documents also show that the regular offerings to this
statue of Ishtar were not interrupted during her temporary stay at
Babylon. Cargoes of barley and other kinds of foodstuff for her cult
were sent from Uruk to Babylon.
One example of this is given by a tablet in the Yale Babylonian
Collection, YOS XIX:94, which is dated to the seventeenth year of
Nabonidus and records a deposition before the assembly of the noble-
men of Uruk:
(These are) the mar banî [noblemen] in whose presence Zeriya, son
of Ardiya, has thus spoken: Bazuzu, son of Ibni-Ishtar, descendant of
.
97 Ibid., p. 209. A transliteration of the tablet is given by Karl Oberhuber in his Sumerische
und akkadische Keilschriftdenkmäler des Archäologischen Museums zu Florenz (=
Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft, Sonderheft 8, Innsbruck, 1960), pp. 111-
113.
98 A. K. Grayson, ABC (1975), pp. 109, 110.
Gimil-Nanaya, has brought a boat from Babylon to lease it fo[r the

sum of . . . . . .], and he said thus: “I will take the barley for the regular
offerings of the Lady-of-Uruk to Babylon.” . . . . . .
City of the quay of Nanaya, domain of the Lady of Uruk: Month
Abu [the fifth month] - Day 5 - Seventeenth year of Nabonidus, king
of Babylon [= August 4, 539 B.C.E., Julian calendar].99
These documents clearly demonstrate that Cyrus’ conquest of

Babylon occurred in the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, which thus
once again is proved to have been the last year of his reign.
The many examples cited above demonstrate that the activity re-
corded in a text at times spans over and ties together two successive
reigns. They also demonstrate that it is possible to establish the length
of the entire Neo-Babylonian era by the aid of such “chronological
joints” alone. In fact, the lengths of reign of some kings (Nebuchad-
nezzar, Nabonidus) are established by more than one text of this kind.
C. SYNCHRONIC LINKS
TO THE CHRONOLOGY OF EGYPT
An excellent proof of the correctness of a chronology is when it is in

agreement with the chronologies of other contemporary nations,
provided that these other chronologies are independently established
and there are synchronisms, that is, dated connecting links that serve
to join the two or more chronologies together at one or more points.
The reason why it is important that they be independently estab-
lished is to rule out any attempt to discredit their worth by claim-
ing that the chronology of a certain period in one nation has been
established simply by the aid of the chronology of the contempo-
rary period in another nation.
During the Neo-Babylonian period there are at least four such
synchronisms between Egypt and the kingdoms of Judah and
Babylon. Three of these are given in the Bible, in 2 Kings 23:29
(where Egyptian pharaoh Necho and Judean king Josiah appear),
Jeremiah 46:2 (Necho, Nebuchadnezzar and Jehoiakim all appearing),
and Jeremiah 44:30 (pharaoh Hophra, kings Zedekiah and
Nebuchadnezzar listed).
99 Paul-Alain Beaulieu, “An Episode in the Fall of Babylon to the Persians,” Journal of
Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 52:4, October 1993, pp. 244, 245; cf. also Beaulieu, The
Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 556–539 B.C. (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1989), pp. 221, 222.
The fourth is given in a cuneiform text, B.M. 33041, which refers

to a campaign against Amasis, king of Egypt, in Nebuchadnezzar’s
thirty-seventh regnal year.100 The meaning of these synchronisms will
be unravelled further on.
C-1: The chronology of the Saite period

The kings reigning in Egypt during the Neo-Babylonian period
belonged to the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty (664-525 B.C.E.). The period
of this dynasty is also referred to as the Saite period, as the pharaohs
of this dynasty took the city of Sais in the Delta as their capital.
If the four synchronisms mentioned above are to be of any defini-
tive help to our study, it first needs to be shown that the chronology
of that twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt is fixed independently from
the contemporary Neo-Babylonian chronology, and can thus stand
on its own, as it were.
This can be determined in a quite unusual way, of which Dr. F.
K. Kienitz writes:
The chronology of the kings of the 26th dynasty, from
Psammetichus I onwards, is completely established through a series
of death stelae and stelae of holy Apis bulls, which list the birth date
in ‘Day x, Month y, Year z, of King A’ and the death date in ‘Day x,
Month y, Year z, of King B’, and also the length of life of the [bull
or person] in question in years, months, and days.101
This means that, if a death stele says that a sacred Apis bull or a
person was born in the tenth year of King A and died at the age of
twenty-five in the twentieth year of King B, we know that King
A ruled for fifteen years.
100 B.M. 33041 was first published by T. G. Pinches in Transactions of the Society of
Biblical Archaeology, Vol. VII (London, 1882), pp. 210-225.
101 Friedrich Karl Kienitz, Die politische Geschichte Ägyptens vom 7. bis zum 4.
Jahrhundert vor der Zeitwende (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953), pp. 154, 155.
(Translated from the German.) The Apis cult was practiced already in the First
Dynasty of Egypt. At death the Apis bulls were mummified and buried in a coffin
or (from the reign of Amasis onwards) in a sarcophagus made of granite. The burial
place from the reign of Ramesses II onwards–a vast catacomb known as the
“Serapeum” in Saqqara, the necropolis of Memphis–was excavated by A. Mariette
in 1851. From the beginning of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty and on the burials were
marked by grave stelae with biographical data on the Apis bulls such as dates of
installation and death and the age at death. — László Kákosy, “From the fertility
to cosmic symbolism. Outlines of the history of the cult of Apis,” Acta Classica
Universitatis Scientiarum Debrecenienses, Tomus XXVI 1990 (Debrecini, 1991),
pp. 3-7.
This is the kind of contemporary evidence to which Dr. Kienitz

refers. A translation of Kienitz’ survey of this material is given here.102
1. GRAVE STELE OF THE 3RD APIS OF THE 26TH DYNASTY
Date of Birth: Year 53 of Psammetichus I, Month 6, Day 19
Installation: Year 54 of Psammetichus I, Month 3, Day 12
Date of Death: Year 16 of Necho II, Month 2, Day 6
Date of Burial: Year 16 of Necho II, Month 4, Day 16
Length of Life: 16 years, 7 months, 17 days
Result: Length of reign of Psammetichus = 54 years.
2. GRAVE STELE OF THE 4TH APIS OF THE 26TH DYNASTY

Date of Birth: Year 16 of Necho II, Month 2, Day 7
Installation: Year 1 of Psammetichus II, Month 11, Day 9
Date of Death: Year 12 of Apries, Month 8, Day 12
Date of Burial: Year 12 of Apries, Month 10, Day 21
Result: As the date of Psammetichus II’s death is elsewhere attested as
Year 7, Month 1, Day 23,103 the length of Necho’s reign amounts to
15 years, that of Psammetichus II to 6 years.
3. TWO GRAVE STELAE OF A PRIEST NAMED PSAMMETICHUS

Date of Birth: Year 1 of Necho II, Month 11, Day 1
Date of Death: Year 27 of Amasis, Month 8, Day 28
Result: The sum of the lengths of reign of Necho II, Psammetichus II, and
Apries = 40 years. As Necho II reigned for 15 years, and Psammetichus II
for 6 years, Apries’ reign amounts to 19 years.
4. GRAVE STELE OF ANOTHER PSAMMETICHUS

Date of Birth: Year 3 of Necho II, Month 10, Day 1 or 2
Date of Death: Year 35 of Amasis, Month 2, Day 6
Result: The same as under 3.
5. GRAVE STELE OF ONE BESMAUT

Year of Birth: Year 18 of Psammetichus I
Year of Death: Year 23 of Amasis
Length of Life: 99 years
Result: The total of 94 years for the lengths of reign from Psammetichus I
to Apries inclusive is once more confirmed.
102 Kienitz, op. cit., pp. 155, 156. The grave stelae under no. 1, 2, and 3 were translated and
published by James Henry Breasted in Ancient Records of Egypt, Vol. IV (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1906), pp. 497, 498, 501-503, 518-520. For no. 4 and 5, see
the references by Kienitz, op.cit., p. 156, notes 1 and 2.
103 Lines 5/6 of the Ank-nes-nefer-ib-Re Stele. See G. Maspero, Ann. Serv. 5 (1904), pp.
85, 86, and the translation by J. H. Breasted, op. cit., IV, p. 505.
Consequently, these contemporary death stelae conclusively

establish the lengths of reign of the first four kings of the twenty-
sixth dynasty of Egypt as follows:
Psammetichus I 54 years
Necho II 15 years
Psammetichus II 6 years
Apries (= Hophra) 19 years
For the last two kings of the twenty-sixth dynasty, Amasis and
Psammetichus III, material of this kind unfortunately is lacking. However,
both Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C.E.) and the Graeco-Egyp-
tian priest and historian Manetho (active c. 300 B.C.E.) give forty-four years
to Amasis and six months to Psammetichus III.104 And these lengths of reign
have been confirmed by modern discoveries, as follows:
In the papyrus Rylands IX (also called “Petition of Petiese”) dating
from the time of Darius I (521-486 B.C.E.), the forty-fourth year of
Amasis is mentioned in a context indicating it was his last full year. Each
year, a prophet of Amun of Teuzoi (Psammetkmenempe by name) who
lived in the Nile Delta, used to send a representative to fetch his stipend.
This he did until the forty-fourth year of Amasis. This, in itself, is not
decisive. But in the “Demotic Chronicle,” a report on the compilation
of Egyptian laws written under Darius I, there are also two mentions of
the forty-fourth year of Amasis as some sort of terminal point. Finally,
the same figure is given in an inscription from Wâdi Hammâmât.105 The
figure given by Herodotus and Manetho, therefore, is strongly sup-
ported by this combination of inscriptions.
104 Manetho’s Egyptian History, which was written in Greek and probably was based
on the temple archives, is preserved only in extracts by Flavius Josephus and Christian
chronographers, especially by Julius Africanus in his Chronographia (c. 221 C.E.) and
by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Chronicon (c. 303 C.E.). Africanus, who transmits
Manetho’s data in a more accurate form, gives forty-four years to Amasis and six
months to Psammetichus III. This agrees with Herodotus’s figures.—W. G. Waddell,
Manetho (London: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. xvi-xx, 169-174.
105 W. Spiegelberg, Die Sogenannte Demotische Chronik (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche
Buchhandlung, 1914), p. 31; Kienitz, op. cit., p. 156; and Richard A. Parker, “The
Length of Reign of Amasis and the Beginning of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty,”
Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Kairo Abteilung, XV, 1957, p.
210. For some time it was held that Amasis died in his forty-fourth regnal year, and
because of the Egyptian nonaccession year system, whereby a king’s accession
year was reckoned as his first regnal year, they gave Amasis only forty-three full
years. But in 1957, in the article referred to above, R. A. Parker demonstrated
conclusively that Amasis reigned for forty-four full years. This, of course, moved
the reigns of the earlier kings of the Saite dynasty one year backwards. The
beginning of the dynasty, therefore, was re-dated to 664 instead of 663 B.C.E., as
had been held previously. (R. A. Parker, op. cit., 1957, pp. 208-212.) Since 1957,
Parker’s conclusions have obtained general acceptance among scholars.—For
additional information on the nonaccession year reckoning, see Appendix For
Chapter Two: “Methods of reckoning regnal years.”
As to Psammetichus III, the highest date available for this king

is Year Two. Three documents (papyri) dated to the third, fourth,
and fifth months of his second year have been discovered. And
yet, this is no contradiction to the statement made earlier that the
rule of this king actually covered only six months. How so?
The Egyptians used a nonaccession year system. According to this
system the year in which a king came to power was reckoned as his
first regnal year. Psammetichus III was dethroned by the Persian king
Cambyses during his conquest of Egypt, generally dated to 525
B.C.E. by the authorities.106 At this time the Egyptian civil calendar
year almost coincided with the Julian calendar year.107 If the conquest
of Egypt occurred in the sixth month of the reign of Psammetichus
III, this must have been in May or June, 525 B.C.E.108 With this pre-
requisite, his six months of rule began at the end of the previous year,
526 B.C.E., quite possibly only a few days or weeks before the end
of that year. Though he ruled for only a fraction of that year, this frac-
tion of a few days or weeks was reckoned as his first regnal year ac-
cording to the Egyptian nonaccession year system. Thereby his sec-
ond regnal year began to count only a few days or weeks after his
accession to the throne. Thus, although he ruled for only six months,
documents dated up to the fifth month of his second year are, in view
of the supporting evidence, only what we should expect to find. The
following illustration makes the matter plain:
106 Kienitz, op. cit., p. 157, note 2. This date is also accepted by the Watch Tower Society,
as can be seen from Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 1 (1988), pp. 698, 699.
107 In the two years 526 and 525 B.C.E. the Egyptian civil calendar year began on January
2 in the Julian calendar.—Winfried Barta, “Zur Datierungspraxis in Ägypten unter
Kambyses und Dareios I,” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde,
Band 119:2 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992), p. 84.
108 The exact time of the year for Cambyses’ capture of Egypt is not known. (Compare
Molly Miller, “The earlier Persian dates in Herodotus,” in Klio, Band 37, 1959, pp. 30,
31.)—In the nineteenth century E. Revillout, one of the founders of the scholarly
journal Revue Égyptologique in the 1870’s, claimed that Psammetichus III ruled for at
least two years, as one document dated to the fourth year of a king Psammetichus
seemed to be written at the end of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. (Revue Égyptologique,
Vol. 3, Paris, 1885, p. 191; and Vol. 7, 1896, p. 139.) But since then many new
documents have been discovered that make Revillout’s theory untenable. The docu-
ment evidently refers either to one of the earlier kings known by the name of
Psammetichus, or to one of the later vassal kings by that name. There were three kings
by the name Psammetichus during the Saite period, and also two or three vassal kings
by that name in the fifth century, and sometimes it has been difficult to decide which
of them is referred to in a text. Some documents that an earlier generation of
Egyptologists dated to the reign of Psammetichus III have later had to be re-dated.—
Wolfgang Helck & Wolfhart Westendorf (eds.), Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Band IV
(Wiesbaden, 1982), pp. 1172-75.
526 BCE 525 BCE

(P’s 1st year) (P’s 2nd year)
P’s reign = 6 months

As demonstrated by the discussion above, the chronology of the
Twenty-Sixth Dynasty of Egypt is soundly and independently estab-
lished. The results are summarized in the following table:
CHRONOLOGY OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH DYNASTY:
Psammetichus I 54 years 664 – 610 B.C.E.
Necho II 15 610 – 595
Psammetichus II 6 595 – 589
Apries (= Hophra) 19 589 – 570
Amasis 44 570 – 526
Psammetichus III 1 526 – 525
C-2: Synchronisms to the chronology of the Saite period

Does the chronology of the Egyptian Saite period square with that of the Neo-
Babylonian era as established above? Or, instead, does it harmonize with the
chronology of the Watch Tower Society as presented, for example, in its Bible
dictionary Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 1, pages 462-466?
The four synchronisms to the Egyptian chronology mentioned earlier (the
first three of these coming from the Scriptures) decide the matter:
First synchonism—2 Kings 23:29: In his [king Josiah’s] days
Pharaoh Nechoh the king of Egypt came up to the king of Assyria by
the river Euphrates, and King Josiah proceeded to go to meet him; but
he put him to death at Megiddo as soon as he saw him. (NW)
Here it is clearly shown that Judean king Josiah died at Megiddo
in the reign of Pharaoh Necho of Egypt. According to the chronol-
ogy of the Watch Tower Society, Josiah’s death took place in 629
B.C.E. (See Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 2, pp. 118, 483.) But ac-
cording to clear historical evidence, Necho’s reign did not begin un-
til nineteen years later, in 610 B.C.E. (see table above).109 So Josiah’s
death did not take place in 629 B.C.E. but twenty years later, in 609.110
109 Helck & Westendorf, op. cit., Band IV, pp. 369-71. Necho succeeded to the throne at
the death of his father Psammetichus I in the spring or summer of 610 B.C.E., but
according to the Egyptian antedating method his first year was counted from the
beginning of the Egyptian civil calendar year, which this year began on January 23 of
the Julian calendar. —W. Barta, op. cit., p. 89.
110 For a discussion of the exact date of Josiah’s death, see the final section of the Appendix:
“Chronological tables covering the seventy years.”
Second synchornism—Jeremiah 46:2: For Egypt, concerning the

military force of Pharaoh Necho the king of Egypt, who happened
to be by the river Euphrates at Carchemish, whom Nebuchadrezzar
the king of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the
son of Josiah, the king of Judah. (NW)
This battle in the “fourth year of Jehoiakim” is placed in the year

625 B.C.E. by the Watch Tower Society (Insight on the Scriptures,
Vol. 2, p. 483.), which again cannot be harmonized with the con-
temporary chronology of Egypt. But if this battle at Carchemish took
place twenty years later, in the accession-year of Nebuchadnezzar,
that is, in June, 605 B.C.E. according to all the lines of evidence pre-
sented earlier, we find this date to be in perfect harmony with the rec-
ognized reign of Pharaoh Necho, 610–595 B.C.E.
Third synchronism—Jeremiah 44:30: This is what Jehovah has
said: ‘Here I am giving Pharaoh Hophra, the king of Egypt, into
the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those seeking for his
soul, just as I have given Zedekiah the king of Judah into the hand
of Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, his enemy and the one
seeking for his soul.’ (NW)
As the context shows (verses 1ff.) these words were uttered not
long after the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, when the rest
of the Jewish population had fled to Egypt after the assassination of
Gedaliah. At that time Egypt was ruled by Pharaoh Hophra, or Apries,
as he is named by Herodotus.111
If Apries ruled Egypt at the time when the Jews fled there some
months after the desolation of Jerusalem, this desolation cannot
be dated to 607 B.C.E., for Apries did not begin his reign until
589 B.C.E. (see table above). But a dating of the desolation of Jerusa-
lem to 587 B.C.E. is in good agreement with the years of reign his-
torically established for him: 589–570 B.C.E.
Fourth synchronism—B.M. 33041: As mentioned earlier, this
text refers to a campaign against king Amasis ([Ama]-a-su) in
Nebuchadnezzar’s thirty-seventh year. A. L. Oppenheim’s transla-
tion of this scanty fragment reads as follows: “. . . [in] the 37th year,
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Bab[ylon], mar[ched against] Egypt (Mi-
sir) to deliver a battle. [Ama]sis (text: [ . . . ]-a(?)-su), of Egypt,
[called up his a]rm[y] . . . [ . . . ]ku from the town Putu-Iaman . . .
111 His name in the Egyptian inscriptions is transcribed as Wahibre. In the Septuagint
version of the Old Testament (LXX), his name is spelled Ouaphre.
distant regions which (are situated on islands) amidst the sea . . .

many . . . which/who (are) in Egypt . . . [car]rying weapons, horses
and [chariot]s . . . he called up to assist him and . . . did [ . . . ] in
front of him . . . he put his trust . . . .”112
This text is badly damaged, but it does definitely state that the
campaign into Egypt took place in Nebuchadnezzar’s “thirty-seventh
year,” and while it is true that the name of the pharaoh is only partly
legible, the cuneiform signs that are preserved seem only to fit
Amasis, and no other pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty.
The Watch Tower Society dates the thirty-seventh year of
Nebuchadnezzar to 588 B.C.E. (Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 1, p. 698),
but this was during the reign of Apries (see the table). On the other hand,
if Nebuchadnezzar’s thirty-seventh year was 568/67 B.C.E., as is estab-
lished by all the lines of evidence presented earlier, this date is in excel-
lent agreement with the reign of Amasis (570–526 B.C.E.).
Consequently, not one of the four synchronisms with the indepen-
dently established chronology of Egypt agrees with the chronology de-
veloped by the Watch Tower Society. The discrepancy in that Society’s
reckoning is consistently about twenty years out of harmony.
Interestingly, however, all four synchronisms are in perfect
harmony with the dates arrived at from the other lines of evidences
that have been discussed. These synchronisms to the Egyptian
chronology, therefore, add yet another line of evidence to the oth-
ers, which point consistently to 587 B.C.E. as the definitive date
for the destruction of Jerusalem.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Seven lines of evidence have been presented above against any possible
dating of the destruction of Jerusalem to the year 607 B.C.E., all of which
lines of evidence agree in dating that event twenty years later. At least four
of these lines of evidence are clearly independent of each other.
Consider first the three which give evidence of interdependence:
(1) Early historians, the Neo-Babylonian chronicles, and the
Uruk kinglist
We first saw that in the third century B.C.E., Babylonian priest
Berossus wrote a history of Babylonia, quoted from by later histori-
ans, both in the B.C.E. and early C.E. periods. The validity of the
112 Translated by A. Leo Oppenheim in Pritchard’s ANET (see note 2 above), p. 308.
dates presented by Berossus in his history is evidenced by their ac-

curate reflection of historical material now available on ancient cu-
neiform tablets unearthed in Babylon, particularly the Neo-
Babylonian Chronicles (a series of historical vignettes setting out
certain episodes relating to the Babylonian empire, notably records
of kingly succesion and of military campaigns waged), and also
the Babylonian kinglists (particularly the one known as the Uruk
kinglist) which list the Babylonian rulers by name along with the
years of their reign.
Likewise with the source known as the Royal Canon, a list of
Babylonian rulers, which, though only fully extant in manuscripts
of Ptolemy's Handy Tables dated to the eighth century C.E. and
in later manuscripts, seems clearly to have been the common
source relied upon by astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (70-161 C.E.)
and by earlier scholars, such as Hipparchus of the second century
B.C.E., when these dealt with and dated events of the Neo-Babylonian
period. Though the Royal Canon evidently drew upon sources common
to those employed by Berossus—that is, the ancient Neo-Babylonian
chronicles and kinglists—the order and forms of the names of kings
found in it differ from his presentation sufficiently to indicate that it is a
record developed independently of his writings.
It is acknowledged that the Neo-Babylonian chronicles un-
earthed up to this point are still incomplete, and also that some of
the figures in the Uruk kinglist for the reigns of the Neo-
Babylonian kings are damaged and only partially legible. How-
ever, the figures that are there and are legible on these cuneiform
tablets all agree with the corresponding figures found both in the
writings of Berossus and in the listing of the Royal Canon.
There is, then, strong reason to believe that the chronological in-
formation originally given in those Neo-Babylonian sources has been
preserved unaltered by Berossus and the Royal Canon. Both of these
agree as to the overall length of the Neo-Babylonian era. In the cru-
cial area here under investigation, their figures point to 604/03
B.C.E. as the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, and 587/86
B.C.E. as his eighteenth year when he desolated Jerusalem.
Though this evidence is substantial, it remains true that
Berossus and the Royal Canon are secondary sources, and even
those ancient tablets known as the Babylonian Chronicles and the
Uruk kinglist are evidently copies of earlier originals. What supporting
evidence is there, then, to believe the records involved were actually writ-
ten contemporaneously with the times and events described?
(2) Inscriptions Nabon. No. 18 and Nabon. No. 8 (the Hillah stele)
Aside from the Baylonian Chronicles and kinglists there are
other ancient documents which give evidence of being, not cop-
ies, but originals. The royal inscription Nabon. No. 18, dated by
the aid of another inscription known as the Royal Chronicle to the
second year of Nabonidus, fixes this year astronomically to 554/53
B.C.E. As Nabonidus’ reign ended with the fall of Babylon in 539
B.C.E., the total length of his reign is shown by this inscription
to have been seventeen years (555/54—539/38 B.C.E.).
The whole length of the Neo-Babylonian period prior to
Nabonidus is given by Nabon. No. 8 (the Hillah stele), which gives
the time elapsed from the sixteenth year of initial ruler
Nabopolassar up to the accession-year of final ruler Nabonidus as
fifty-four years. The stele thus fixes the sixteenth year of
Nabopolassar to 610/09 B.C.E.
If this was Nabopolassar’s sixteenth year, his twenty-first and last year was
605/04 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar’s first year, then, was 604/03 B.C.E. and his
eighteenth year was 587/86, during which Jerusalem was destroyed.
(3) Nabon. H 1, B (the Adad-guppi’ stele)
Nabon. H 1, B (the Adad-guppi’ stele) gives the reigns of all the
Neo-Babylonian kings (except for that of Labashi-Marduk, as his
brief reign does not affect the chronology presented) from
Nabopolassar up to the ninth year of Nabonidus. Since the Watch
Tower Society indirectly accepts a seventeen-year rule for
Nabonidus (as was shown above in the discussion of the
Nabonidus Chronicle), this stele of itself overthrows their 607
B.C.E. date for the desolation of Jerusalem and shows this event
to have taken place twenty years later, in 587 B.C.E.
These three lines of evidence may logically be grouped together
because it cannot be clearly established that the various documents
involved are wholly independent of one another. Reasons for believ-
ing that Berossus and the Royal Canon both got their information
from Babylonian chronicles and kinglists have already been pointed
out. It is also possible that the chronological information given in
the royal inscriptions was derived from the chronicles (although this
is something that cannot be proved).113 Grayson’s suggestion, that the
chronicles themselves may have been composed with the help of the
113 A. K. Grayson, “Assyria and Babylonia,” Orientalia, Vol. 49 (1980), p. 164.

information given in the astronomical “diaries” has been strongly

argued against by other scholars.114
This possible interdependence of some of these sources, however,
does not nullify their conclusive power. As the ancient royal in-
scriptions preserve chronological information that is contemporary
with the Neo-Babylonian era itself, we have every reason to ac-
cept it as factual and true information. This would be true even if this infor-
mation was based upon contemporary Babylonian chronicles. For, although
the chronology of these chronicles is preserved only in a few fragmentary
copies, in a late kinglist, and by Berossus and the Royal Canon, the agree-
ment between these later sources and the ancient royal inscriptions is strik-
ing. This agreement confirms that the figures of the original Neo-Babylonian
chronicles have been correctly preserved in these later sources.
There remain four lines of evidence which have sound claim
to independence.
(4) Economic-administrative and legal documents
Tens of thousands of economic, administrative and legal texts,
dated to the year, month, and the day of the reigning king, have come
down to us from the Neo-Babylonian period. A large number of dated
tablets are extant from each year during this whole period. The length
of reign of each king may, then, be established by these documents,
sometimes almost to the day.
The results arrived at are in good agreement with the figures
given by Berossus, the Royal Canon, the chronicles, and the con-
temporary royal inscriptions from the reign of Nabonidus.
The twenty years demanded by the chronology of the Watch
Tower Society are totally missing.
The business and administrative documents are original docu-
ments, contemporary with the Neo-Babylonian era itself, which
makes this line of evidence exceedingly strong. These documents
definitely point to 587/86 B.C.E. as Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth
regnal year, when he desolated Jerusalem.
(5) Prosopographical evidence
The prosopographical study of the cuneiform tablets provides
various checks on the accuracy of the Neo-Babylonian chronology.
114 Ibid., p. 174. Cf. John M. Steele, Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early
Astronomers (Dordrecht, etc: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 127, 128. The
astronomical observations recorded in these diaries must anyway be treated as separate
and independent lines of evidence.
The careers of scribes, temple administrators, slaves, business

men, and others may be followed for decades, in some cases through
almost the whole Neo-Babylonian period and on into the Persian era.
Thousands of dated documents give insight into the business, legal,
religous, family and other activities of these individuals. Many texts
deal with matters that extend over weeks, months, or even years, such
as inventories, lease of land or houses, instalments of debts, hire of
slaves and livestock, run-away slaves, court proceedings, and so on.
The activities of some individuals may be followed through almost
their whole lives. But never do we find that their activities cross the
established chronological borders of the period into some unknown
twenty-year period that the Watch Tower Society would add to the
Neo-Babylonian era. The insertion of these twenty years would, in
fact, not only distort the understanding of the careers, activities, and
family relations of many individuals, but it would also give many of
them abnormal life spans.
(6) Chronological interlocking joints
Sometimes a text may contain activities and dates that intersect
two or more consecutive reigns in a way that chronologically ties
them together and excludes every possibility of inserting extra kings
and years between them.
As was demonstrated in this particular section, quite a number
of such documents exist that interlock each reign with the next
throughout the whole Neo-Babylonian period. Although eleven
documents of this kind were presented earlier, a close examina-
tion of the tens of thousands of unpublished tablets from the Neo-
Babylonian period would probably multiply the number. Those
presented, however, suffice to show that the length of the whole
Neo-Babylonian era may be securely established by the aid of
such “chronological joints” alone.
(7) Synchronisms with the contemporary Egyptian chronology
The chronology of contemporary Egyptian kings provides an
excellent test of Neo-Babylonian chronology, as there are four
synchronisms tied to it, three of which are given in the Bible.
These synchronisms are of the utmost importance, as the contempo-
rary chronology of Egypt has been established independently of the chro-
nologies of other nations of that time. Yet it was shown that the
Egyptian chronology is in complete harmony with the data given
by Berossus, the Royal Canon, and all the cuneiform documents
discussed above, while a comparison with the chronology of the

Watch Tower Society shows a consistent difference of about twenty
years.
These four synchronisms to Egyptian chronology all refute the 607
B.C.E. date for the desolation of Jerusalem and once again uphold
587/86 B.C.E. as the correct date for that event.
The evidence from all this material is overwhelming and should

certainly be conclusive. For most scholars, just two or three of these
seven lines of evidence would be sufficient proof of the accuracy of
the Neo-Babylonian chronology. For the leaders of the Watch Tower
Society, however, not even seven lines of evidence are enough to
change their minds, as shown by their consistent rejection of such
evidence presented to them earlier.
Since the chronology constitutes the very foundation for the ma-
jor claims and message of the organization, they evidently feel that
too much is at stake for abandoning their Gentile times chronology,
not least of this being their own claimed position of divine author-
ity. It is extremely unlikely, therefore, that even twice the number of
lines of evidence will have any influence on their minds.
For the sake of completeness, however, another seven lines of
evidence will be presented in detail in the next chapter, and a few
others will be briefly described. As all of them are based on ancient
Babylonian astronomical texts, they will be shown to turn the chro-
nology of the whole Neo-Babylonian era into what is termed an ab-
solute chronology.

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3

THE LENGTH OF REIGNS OF

This is because the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian period

Watch Tower Society holds this seventy-year period to be a pe-

that the most reliable of the preserved quotations from Berossus’

Where did Berossus get his information on the Neo-Babylonian

carefully reported their contents in Greek. 11 The figures he

concluded that the so-called Ptolemy’s Canon “had evidently

With respect to the dependence of the sources, the Canon of

17 Friedrich Schmidtke, Der Aufbau der Babylonischen Chronologie (Münster,

TABLE 1: THE REIGNS OF THE NEO-BABYLONIAN KINGS

NAME BEROSSUS ROYAL CANON B.C.E.

Nabopolassar 21 years 21 years 625-605

The Royal Canon omits Labashi-Marduk, as it always reckons

20 As shown by contemporary cuneiform documents, Neriglissar died in the first

B. THE CUNEIFORM DOCUMENTS*

B-1: Chronicles, kinglists, and royal inscriptions

22 Professor D. J. Wiseman says: “The Neo-Babylonian Chronicle texts are written in a

The Babylonian Chronicle BM 21946

Most of these chronicles are incomplete. The extant (actually ex-

In all, the Neo-Babylonian period (625–539 B.C.E.) includes a total

The Nabonidus Chronicle,

28 Herodotus’ Historiai I:210-216. Other ancient historians such as Ktesias, Dinon,

It is often pointed out that the Assyrian scribes distorted history

changing the date of a defeat and weaving it into an account of a later

b) Babylonian king lists

A cuneiform king list differs from a chronicle in that it is usually a list

31 Grayson, ibid. (1980), p. 171.

The Uruk King List was discovered during the excavations at

THE URUK KING LIST

35 See note 20 above. At any rate, Labashi-Marduk’s reign was swallowed up by

So it is important to ask: Are there then no historical records

Tadmor 1965: Berger 1973: Beaulieu 1989:

Beaulieu’s arrangement is chronological: No. 1 was written in Nabonidus’ first

Of what significance is all this?

giving a very strong confirmation to the figures for Nabonidus’ reign

Nabopolassar reigned for twenty-one years, five years remained from

(3) Nabon. No. 24, also known as the Adad-guppi’ inscription,

of the new stele containing the chronological information were not

The results from our discussion of the Neo-Babylonian historical

ROYAL THE NEO-BAB. THE URUK THE ROYAL B.C.E.

Thus the Babylonian chronicles, the Uruk kinglist, and the

58 Ronald H. Sack, Amel-Marduk 562-560 B.C. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener

probably some 50,000 texts published and unpublished for the

Chronicle). The reason for the overlap of one day beyond

B-3: Prosopographical evidence

As the names of many individuals often recur in the business

a) The Egibi business house

65 For a survey of the Neo-Babylonian archives, see M. A. Dandamaev’s article in

The business documents from the Egibi house were discovered by

Itti-Marduk-balatu in his turn remained head of the firm until the

Adad-guppi’ to 121 or 122 years. The only way to avoid this

(3) Iddina-Marduk and his wife Ina-Esagila-ramât

78 Cornelia Wunsch, Die Urkunden des baylonischen Geschäftsmannes Iddin-Marduk, 1

sometimes have heard of people in southern Russia or northern India who

B-4: Chronological interlocking joints

sold Lit-ka-idi to Nabû-ahhe-iddina for the full price of nineteen and

(3) In the Neo-Babylonian period the yield of a field or garden was