Bible Synapse
Nabonidus Cylinders from Ur
Inscription · c. 540 BC · Assyria and Babylon · also called Nabonidus Cylinder, Elugalgalgasisa Cylinder, Cylinders of Nabonidus
See it on the map and timeline
- Date
- c. 540 BC (the writing of the cylinders)
- Found
- Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar), Iraq, 1854. John George Taylor, the British vice-consul at Basra, found four of them in 1854 built into the temple tower at Ur; more copies were found later and are in the Iraq Museum and other collections.
- Now
- British Museum, London (BM 91125–91128 (Taylor’s four cylinders))
- Passages
- Daniel 5:1–2, Daniel 5:30, Daniel 7:1, Daniel 8:1
What it is
Barrel-shaped clay cylinders with two columns of Akkadian, deposited in the temple tower of the moon god Sin at Ur. Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, records that he rebuilt the tower on its ancient plan, laid down by Ur-Namma and Shulgi. The text ends with a prayer to Sin for the king himself and for “Belshazzar, my first-born son, my own offspring”, that the god may keep him from sin and grant him a full life.
How it connects to the Bible
Daniel 5 names Belshazzar as king of Babylon on the night the city fell, and Daniel 7 and 8 date visions to his reign: “Belshazzar the king made a great feast” (Daniel 5:1). For a long time he was unknown outside the Bible; these cylinders name him as Nabonidus’s eldest son, and other Babylonian texts call him the crown prince.
What scholars debate
Daniel calls Belshazzar king and calls Nebuchadnezzar his father, while Babylonian records make him the son and crown prince of Nabonidus; scholars explain the difference in various ways.