De Ferranti Glossary: "Cyrus Cylinder"

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Cyrus Cylinder
The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient Persian clay cylinder, now broken into several fragments, on which is written a declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of the Achaemenid Persian king Cyrus the Great. It dates from the 6th century BC and was discovered in the ruins of Babylon in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) in 1879. It is in the possession of the British Museum, which sponsored the expedition that discovered the Cylinder. The Cylinder was created following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Persian army under Cyrus the Great invaded and conquered the Neo-Babylonian Empire, bringing it under the control of the Persian Empire.

The text on the Cylinder praises Cyrus the Great, listing his genealogy as a king from a line of kings. The Babylonian king Nabonidus, (see earlier Cylinder of Nabonidus), who was defeated and deposed by Cyrus, is denounced as an impious oppressor of the people of Babylonia and his low-born origins are implicitly contrasted to Cyrus's kingly heritage. The victorious Cyrus is portrayed as having been chosen by the chief Babylonian god Marduk to restore peace and order to the Babylonians. The text states that Cyrus was welcomed by the people of Babylon as their new ruler and entered the city in peace. It appeals to Marduk to protect and help Cyrus and his son Cambyses. It exalts Cyrus's efforts as a benefactor of the citizens of Babylonia who improved their lives, repatriated displaced people and restored temples and cult sanctuaries across Mesopotamia and elsewhere in the region. It concludes with a description of the work of Cyrus in repairing the city wall of Babylon, in which he found a similar inscription by an earlier king of Babylon.

The Cylinder’s text has been linked by some as corroborative evidence of Cyrus’ policy of the repatriation of the Jewish people following their Babylonian captivity, (an act that the Book of Ezra attributes to Cyrus), as the text refers to the restoration of cult sanctuaries and repatriation of deported peoples. Some scholars, dispute this interpretation, noting that the Cyrus Cylinder identifies only Mesopotamian sanctuaries, and makes no mention of Jews, Jerusalem, or Judea. The Cylinder has also been interpreted by some as an early "human rights charter," though the British Museum and other scholars reject this as anachronistic and a misunderstanding of the Cylinder's status as a generic foundation deposit. It was adopted as a symbol by the Shah of Iran's pre-1979 government, which put it on display in Tehran in 1971 to commemorate 2,500 years of the Iranian monarchy.

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