Position in chronology
Cyrus Cylinder
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialI am Cyrus, king of the world, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world… When I entered Babylon as a friend, and established the seat of government in the palace of the ruler under jubilation and rejoicing, Marduk, the great lord, induced the magnanimous inhabitants of Babylon to love me…
Editorial entry — translation cited from: Schaudig 2001, Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros' des Großen; Finkel 2013, The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon
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Why it matters
Often called the world's first declaration of human rights — a 20th-century characterization that overstates its scope; it is, more accurately, a typical Mesopotamian royal accession text framed as Marduk's restoration of order. But its references to religious tolerance and the return of exiled peoples (which the Hebrew Bible echoes in describing the end of the Babylonian Exile) have made it one of the most politically resonant cuneiform artifacts ever recovered.
Transliteration
anāku Kuraš šar kiššati šarru rabû šarru dannu šar Bābili / [I am Cyrus, king of the world, great king, mighty king, king of Babylon]
Scholarly note
The Cyrus Cylinder records the Persian king Cyrus II's capture of Babylon in 539 BCE and his official policy thereafter: restoration of native cults, return of deported peoples to their homelands, recognition of Marduk as legitimating divinity. The text is Akkadian, written on baked clay in the cuneiform tradition of Babylonian royal inscriptions; Cyrus appropriates the genre rather than inventing a new one. The cylinder was discovered in 1879 at Babylon by Hormuzd Rassam, fragmented; further fragments were identified in the British Museum's collection as recently as 2010.
Attribution
Image: British Museum, BM 90920 · imagery to be sourced at next ingestion pass.
Translation excerpted from Schaudig 2001, Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros' des Großen; Finkel 2013, The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia's Proclamation from Ancient Babylon.
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