Cyrus Cylinder: Persian Proclamation and Modern Icon

The Cyrus Cylinder is a clay cylinder inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform on the orders of Cyrus the Great soon after he conquered Babylon in 539 BC. It describes Cyrus as the king chosen by Babylon’s god Marduk to replace the impious Nabonidus, and records that he restored temples and returned gods and people to their homes. Found at Babylon in 1879 and kept in the British Museum, it has become one of the most famous objects from the ancient Middle East, widely celebrated today as an early statement of tolerance.

Background: the conquest of Babylon

In October 539 BC Persian troops entered Babylon after Cyrus had defeated the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris. The last Neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus, was captured. The events are described in Fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Great.

Like earlier conquerors of Babylon, Cyrus needed to show that his rule was legitimate in Babylonian eyes. Mesopotamian kings traditionally did this by repairing temples and city walls and by burying inscriptions in the foundations of their buildings. These texts addressed the gods and future kings rather than the general public. The Cyrus Cylinder belongs to this long tradition.

The object

The Cylinder is made of baked clay and is about 22.5 centimetres long and about 10 centimetres in diameter at its widest. It is shaped like a barrel and was written while the clay was still soft. Its text, in Akkadian cuneiform, originally ran to about 45 lines, though some are damaged or lost.

The Cylinder was broken in antiquity. Its main part is the piece found in 1879. In 1970 the scholar Paul-Richard Berger identified a separate fragment held at Yale University as part of the end of the same text. Scholars now read the two pieces together as one continuous text.

Who wrote it

The text was almost certainly composed by Babylonian scribes, probably connected with the temple of Marduk, rather than by Persians. Its language, phrasing and religious ideas are entirely Babylonian. Cyrus’s own people spoke Old Persian, a language that was not yet regularly written at the time of his conquest.

This matters for how the Cylinder is read. It shows the Persian king speaking through a local priestly elite, in words that this elite knew would appeal to Babylonian audiences and gods. It tells us more about how Cyrus wished to be seen in Babylon than about his personal beliefs.

What the Cylinder says

The text falls into two main parts. The first is written in the third person and describes the situation before Cyrus. The second is in the first person, in the voice of Cyrus himself.

The case against Nabonidus

The opening lines, now damaged, accuse an unnamed ruler, clearly Nabonidus, of neglecting Marduk’s worship, interrupting the proper offerings and oppressing the people of Babylon with forced labour. Marduk, angered, searched among all the lands for a just king. He chose Cyrus, king of Anshan, and ordered him to march on Babylon.

The Cylinder says that Marduk let Cyrus enter Babylon without battle and delivered Nabonidus into his hands. The people of Babylon, it claims, welcomed him with joy.

Cyrus speaks

In the first-person section Cyrus gives his titles: “king of the universe, the great king, mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four quarters”. He lists his ancestors: his father Cambyses, his grandfather Cyrus and his ancestor Teispes, all described as kings of Anshan, in south-western Iran.

Cyrus then says that his army entered Babylon peacefully and that he did not allow anyone to terrorise the land. He claims to have relieved the inhabitants of burdens imposed on them. He also says he returned the statues of gods that Nabonidus had brought to Babylon to their own sanctuaries, and resettled the peoples of those cities in their homes.

The cities named are mainly in Mesopotamia and western Iran, such as Ashur, Susa, Akkad, Eshnunna, Der and the land of Gutium. The text does not mention Judah, Jerusalem or the Jews.

Building work

The last part of the Cylinder describes Cyrus’s work on Imgur-Enlil, the great inner wall of Babylon. Cyrus says that while carrying out this work he found an inscription of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, an earlier ruler of Babylon. The Cylinder was probably buried in this wall as a foundation deposit, to be found by a future king.

Discovery

The Cylinder was found in 1879 by Hormuzd Rassam, an archaeologist born in Mosul who had worked with Austen Henry Layard. He was excavating at Babylon for the British Museum, and the Cylinder was found in the area of the Esagila, the temple of Marduk. Rassam’s records of the exact findspot are not precise, a common problem with excavations of that period.

The Cylinder reached the British Museum the same year. Sir Henry Rawlinson, one of the scholars who had deciphered cuneiform, published the first translation in 1880, comparing parts of its message with the biblical account of Cyrus.

In 2010 Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum, identified two fragments of a clay tablet that carry parts of the same text. These fragments came from the area of Babylon and suggest that the text was copied and circulated, rather than written only for burial. They also helped scholars restore several missing passages.

A human rights charter?

In the 20th century the Cylinder gained a new reputation. During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, the last Shah of Iran, it was presented as the first declaration of human rights. It was the emblem of the 1971 celebrations of 2,500 years of the Persian monarchy. That year Princess Ashraf Pahlavi presented a replica to the United Nations Secretary-General, U Thant, and copies of the Cylinder have been displayed at the UN headquarters in New York.

Most historians of the ancient Near East reject the description of the text as a human rights charter. The Cylinder does not discuss rights, freedom of religion or equality. It is political propaganda in a traditional Babylonian form, with close parallels in earlier royal inscriptions, including those of Assyrian kings. Its claim that Babylon fell without violence also contrasts with the Nabonidus Chronicle, which reports killing after the battle at Opis.

At the same time, scholars recognise that the policy it describes was unusual in emphasis. Cyrus chose to rule through local traditions, to honour local gods and to allow some displaced communities to return home. This approach helped the Persians govern a very diverse empire.

Popular myths

Several loose English “translations” circulating online present the Cylinder as declaring freedom of religion, abolishing slavery or guaranteeing the right to choose one’s work. These texts do not match the cuneiform text and are modern inventions. The reliable translations are those published by the British Museum and by Assyriologists.

The Cylinder and the Bible

The Book of Ezra records a decree of Cyrus allowing the Judean exiles in Babylonia to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple, a story told in Return from Exile. The Cylinder does not confirm that decree directly, since it names no Judean place.

However, its general policy of restoring sanctuaries and allowing deported communities to return fits the biblical picture. For this reason the Cylinder has often been cited in discussions of the end of the Babylonian Exile, and it remains significant for Jewish as well as Iranian audiences.

Modern journeys

The Cylinder has rarely left London, but it has been lent abroad several times. It was shown in Tehran in 1971 for the monarchy’s celebrations. From September 2010 to April 2011 it was displayed at the National Museum of Iran, where it drew several hundred thousand visitors. In 2013 it toured five museums in the United States, and it has since been shown in India and elsewhere.

The image of the Cylinder is widely used in Iran and among Iranians abroad as a symbol of national heritage. Its text has also been used as a model of the idea that diverse peoples can be governed by respecting their traditions.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 539 BC, October: Cyrus the Great takes Babylon from Nabonidus.
• c. 539-538 BC: The Cylinder is written and buried in the wall of Babylon.
• 1879: Hormuzd Rassam finds the Cylinder at Babylon; it goes to the British Museum.
• 1880: Henry Rawlinson publishes the first translation.
• 1970: Paul-Richard Berger identifies a fragment at Yale as part of the Cylinder.
• 1971: The Cylinder becomes the emblem of Iran’s 2,500-year celebrations; a replica is given to the United Nations.
• 2010: Irving Finkel identifies tablet fragments with the same text.
• 2010-2011: The Cylinder is exhibited at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.
• 2013: The Cylinder tours museums in the United States.

Why it matters

The Cyrus Cylinder is the most important surviving statement of how Cyrus the Great wished to be seen by the people he conquered. It shows a new Persian ruler adopting the language of Babylonian kingship and presenting conquest as divine restoration. Its later fame as a human rights charter tells as much about the 20th century as about the 6th century BC, and makes it one of the most widely discussed artefacts of the ancient world.