Chapter 7 / 10 · 539 BCE or soon after
Illustrative reconstruction, not a survey. Positions and sizes are approximate unless a dimension names its source.
A clay cylinder written in Babylonian cuneiform: what it is, how it was made to be buried, how it was found, and how its text is laid out.
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Scene 1 / 8 · 539 BCE or soon after
A clay cylinder
A barrel of clay about 22.5 centimetres long, with 45 lines of Babylonian cuneiform.
Explainer
The Cyrus Cylinder is a barrel-shaped object of clay. It is about 22.5 centimetres long and about 10 centimetres across. These sizes are to verify against the British Museum’s record.
Its text is written in the Babylonian language, in cuneiform script, in 45 lines. It is in the British Museum, number BM 90920.
Measurements
Measurements
| Length | about 22.5 cm (to verify) The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify |
|---|---|
| Diameter | about 10 cm (to verify) The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify |
| Lines of text | 45 M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003, lines 1 to 45 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source |
| Museum number | BM 90920 (1880,0617.1941) The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify |
Sources: The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify · I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, introduction To verify · M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003, lines 1 to 45 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source
Narration script
This is the Cyrus Cylinder. It is small, about the length of a hand, and made of clay. Forty-five lines of Babylonian cuneiform run around it. It is kept in the British Museum in London. Its size here follows the museum’s published figures, which are still to be checked.
Scene 2 / 8 · 539 BCE or soon after
Written to be buried
The Cylinder is a foundation text. It ends with building work on the city wall Imgur-Enlil.
Explainer
Babylonian kings placed inscribed objects in the foundations of the buildings they restored. The Cyrus Cylinder belongs to this tradition. It was written to be buried, not displayed.
Near its end the text tells of work on Imgur-Enlil, the great wall of Babylon. It also says an inscription of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal was seen during the work.
The drawing shows the inner double wall, measured by the excavators, as the kind of structure such a text was laid in.
How we know it
How we know it
The genre is known from many earlier Babylonian foundation inscriptions. Amélie Kuhrt shows how closely the Cylinder follows their conventions.
Sources: M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003, lines 38 to 45 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source · A. Kuhrt, The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (25), 1983, pp. 83 to 97 To verify · I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, introduction To verify
Narration script
The Cylinder was not made to be read in a hall. It was made to be buried. Babylonian kings placed texts like this in the foundations of the buildings they restored. Near its end, the Cylinder describes work on the great wall of Babylon, Imgur-Enlil. It even mentions finding an older inscription of an Assyrian king during the work.
Scene 3 / 8 · 1879
Found in 1879
The Cylinder was found at Babylon in 1879, in excavations by Hormuzd Rassam for the British Museum.
Explainer
The Cylinder was found in 1879 at Babylon, during excavations by Hormuzd Rassam for the British Museum. Its exact findspot is recorded only roughly.
Koldewey lists Rassam’s work at Babylon among the explorations before his own. The museum registered the Cylinder in 1880.
How we know it
How we know it
The museum’s register and its collection record give the year of the find and of registration. These details are to verify against the record.
Sources: The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify · I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, introduction To verify · R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, Preface Verified
Narration script
The Cylinder came to light in 1879, at Babylon, during excavations by Hormuzd Rassam for the British Museum. Its exact findspot was recorded only roughly. The next year it entered the museum’s collection, where it has been ever since, apart from loans abroad.
Scene 4 / 8 · 539 BCE or soon after
Forty-five lines round the clay
The text runs in rows round the barrel. The drawing marks a few lines a reader can find.
Explainer
The text runs in 45 rows round the barrel. The drawing shows each row as a band between fine lines. The wedge marks inside are schematic; they are not the signs.
Numbered callouts mark lines a reader can find: line 12, where Marduk names Cyrus; line 17, the entry into Babylon without battle; line 20, where Cyrus speaks; lines 30 to 34, gods and people returned; line 38, the wall Imgur-Enlil.
Measurements
Where to find it
Sources: M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003, lines 1 to 45 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source
Narration script
The text wraps round the clay in forty-five rows. Here each row is a band, and the wedges inside are only a sign of writing, not the real signs. The numbered marks show lines you can look up in any translation. Line twelve names Cyrus. Line seventeen tells of the entry into Babylon. Line thirty-eight names the wall.
Scene 5 / 8 · 539 BCE or soon after
Two voices
The first part speaks about Cyrus. From line 20, Cyrus speaks himself.
Explainer
Lines 1 to 19 are told in the third person. They accuse the previous king, Nabonidus, of neglecting Marduk’s worship. Marduk looks for a just ruler, calls Cyrus king of Anshan, and lets him enter Babylon without battle.
From line 20 the voice changes. Cyrus speaks in the first person, gives his titles and his ancestors, and describes his care for Babylon.
This is how a Babylonian royal text presents a new king as the god’s choice. It is a text with a purpose, written for its time.
Debate
Who wrote it, and for whom?
The text was composed by Babylonian scribes in a long royal tradition. Readers debate how far it reflects Cyrus’s own policy and how far the scribes’ conventions.
A. Kuhrt, The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (25), 1983, pp. 83 to 97 To verify · P. Briant, trans. P. T. Daniels, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, 2002, ch. 1 To verify
Sources: M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003, lines 1 to 19 and 20 to 22 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source · A. Kuhrt, The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (25), 1983, pp. 83 to 97 To verify
Narration script
The text has two voices. The first part tells of the old king, Nabonidus, and how the god Marduk turned away from him. Marduk then calls Cyrus, king of Anshan, and lets him enter Babylon without a battle. From line twenty, Cyrus speaks himself, with his titles and his ancestors. It is a royal text, written to make a case.
Scene 6 / 8 · Identified in the 1970s
Fragment B
A smaller fragment, kept at Yale, completes parts of the last lines. It was recognised in the 1970s.
Explainer
The Cylinder survives in pieces. The main fragment, A, is in London. A smaller fragment, B, preserves parts of lines 36 to 45.
Fragment B is kept in the Yale Babylonian Collection, catalogued as NBC 2504. It was identified as part of the Cylinder in the 1970s. These details are to verify against the publications.
The explode control lifts fragment B away from its place.
Sources: P.-R. Berger, Der Kyros-Zylinder mit dem Zusatzfragment BIN II Nr. 32, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 64, 1975 To verify · I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, introduction To verify · M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003, lines 36 to 45 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source
Narration script
The Cylinder is broken. Most of it is one large fragment in London. A smaller piece, kept at Yale, preserves parts of the last ten lines. It was recognised as part of the same object only in the nineteen seventies. Here the small fragment lifts away, so you can see where it belongs.
Scene 7 / 8 · Identified in 2010
Copies on tablets
The same text was also copied on clay tablets. Two fragments were identified in the British Museum.
Explainer
In 2010 two fragments of a clay tablet in the British Museum were identified as carrying the text of the Cylinder.
So the text was copied, and could circulate beyond one buried object. The fragments are shown here as a generic tablet: their sizes are not drawn.
Sources: I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, the tablet copies To verify
Narration script
The same words were also copied onto ordinary clay tablets. Two fragments of such a tablet were identified in the British Museum in 2010. So the text did not live only in one buried cylinder. It was copied, and could be read. The tablet you see is generic, not drawn to the size of the real fragments.
Scene 8 / 8 · 1879 to today
Reading the Cylinder today
One object, read in different ways. Later chapters set the readings side by side, with their sources.
Explainer
The Cylinder is read today in more than one way. Some see in it a ruler who respected the peoples and gods of his empire. Specialists read it as a Babylonian royal inscription in an old tradition.
The chapters Return and Legacy, in preparation, set these readings side by side. We describe the readings. We endorse none of them.
A ruler who respected the peoples of his empire
Many readers see in the Cylinder a king who honoured the gods of others and let deported communities go home.
Encyclopaedia Iranica, Cyrus Cylinder, Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 2013 To verify
A Babylonian royal text
Specialists read it as a foundation inscription in Babylonian royal tradition, presenting Cyrus as a lawful king chosen by Marduk.
A. Kuhrt, The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (25), 1983, pp. 83 to 97 To verifyI. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, introduction To verify
Sources: A. Kuhrt, The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (25), 1983, pp. 83 to 97 To verify · Encyclopaedia Iranica, Cyrus Cylinder, Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 2013 To verify · I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013, introduction To verify
Narration script
Today the Cylinder is read in more than one way. Some see a ruler who respected the gods and peoples of his empire. Specialists read a Babylonian royal text, in an old tradition. Later chapters set these readings side by side, with their sources. We describe them. We do not choose between them.
Sources
- M. Cogan (translation), adapted to H. Schaudig’s edition, The Cyrus Cylinder, lines 1 to 45, The Context of Scripture, vol. II, 2003 (Livius.org edition) Secondary source
- I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013 To verify
- The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify
- A. Kuhrt, The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (25), 1983 To verify
- P. Briant, trans. P. T. Daniels, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, 2002 To verify
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, Cyrus Cylinder, Encyclopaedia Iranica online, 2013 To verify
- D. Stronach, Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963, 1978 To verify
- R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914 Verified
- P.-R. Berger, Der Kyros-Zylinder mit dem Zusatzfragment BIN II Nr. 32, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 64, 1975 To verify