Nabonidus at Tayma: Babylon's Absent Antiquarian King

Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, spent about ten years, roughly 552–543 BC, at the oasis of Tayma in north-western Arabia, leaving his son Belshazzar to govern Babylon. His absence meant that Babylon’s great New Year festival could not be held, and it was later used by his enemies to portray him as an impious ruler. Nabonidus is also remembered as one of history’s first “archaeologists”, a king who dug for the foundations of temples built many centuries before him.

An unusual king

Nabonidus came to the throne in 556 BC after a palace coup removed the young king Labashi-Marduk. He was not a member of Nebuchadnezzar’s family. His mother, Adad-guppi, was a long-lived devotee of Sin, the moon god of the city of Harran in northern Mesopotamia, and her own funerary inscription survives.

Nabonidus shared his mother’s devotion. He rebuilt Sin’s temple at Harran and promoted the moon god at a time when Marduk was the chief god of Babylon. Many historians think this caused tension with Babylon’s powerful priesthood.

The move to Arabia

After campaigns in the west, Nabonidus marched into north-western Arabia around 552 BC. He captured Tayma, a large oasis on the caravan routes that carried incense from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean, and made it his residence.

In an inscription set up at Harran, Nabonidus says that he stayed away from Babylon for ten years. He names the Arabian oases he controlled, including Tayma, Dadanu (Dedan, modern al-Ula), Padakku, Hibra, Yadihu and Yatribu, the later Medina.

The Nabonidus Chronicle, a Babylonian record written after the Persian conquest, repeats for several years the same entry: the king was in Tayma, the crown prince, the officials and the army were in Babylonia, and the New Year festival did not take place. A hostile Persian-era poem, the “Verse Account of Nabonidus”, accuses him of killing the ruler of Tayma and building a palace there like the palace of Babylon.

Why did he go?

Ancient sources give no clear reason, and modern historians weigh several explanations:

• Trade and wealth. Tayma controlled routes for incense, gold and other goods; holding it gave Babylon a share of valuable Arabian trade.
• Strategy. The oases formed a frontier against desert peoples and an alternative route to Egypt and the Levant.
• Religion and politics. Distance from Babylon may have eased conflict with the priests of Marduk; Nabonidus’ own texts say the people of Babylon had sinned against Sin.
• Illness. A fragmentary Aramaic text from Qumran, the “Prayer of Nabonidus”, says he suffered a long illness in Teman (Tayma). Some scholars think this tradition lies behind the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness in the Book of Daniel.

Archaeology at Tayma

Excavations at Tayma by a Saudi–German team, begun in 2004, have explored the oasis’s walls, temples and settlement. In 2004 they found a fragment of a stele with a cuneiform inscription of Nabonidus, the first Babylonian royal text from Arabia found in excavation. In 2021 Saudi archaeologists announced a rock relief of Nabonidus with a cuneiform inscription at al-Hait, in the Ha’il region, a site identified with ancient Padakku.

The antiquarian king

Nabonidus was also an enthusiastic restorer of ancient temples. Before rebuilding, his workmen dug for the original foundation deposits, which recorded the names of earlier builders. At Sippar he reported finding the foundation of Naram-Sin of Akkad, whom he dated 3,200 years before his time. The real gap was closer to 1,700 years, but the effort to date the past is remarkable.

At Ur he restored the great ziggurat, described in Ziggurat of Ur, and installed his daughter as high priestess of the moon god under the name Ennigaldi-Nanna. Clay cylinders from Ur record his work and ask the god to protect his son Belshazzar.

Return and fall

Nabonidus returned to Babylon around 543 BC, perhaps because of the rising power of Persia, and the New Year festival was again celebrated. In 539 BC Cyrus the Great invaded. After a Persian victory at Opis on the Tigris, Sippar surrendered and Babylon was taken in October 539 BC, as told in Fall of Babylon to Cyrus. The Cyrus Cylinder later blamed Nabonidus for neglecting Marduk, presenting Cyrus as the god’s chosen restorer.

Timeline

• 556 BC: Nabonidus becomes king after a coup in Babylon.
• c. 553 BC: Campaigns in the west and in Edom.
• c. 552 BC: Nabonidus takes Tayma and makes it his residence.
• c. 552–543 BC: Belshazzar governs Babylon; the New Year festival is not held.
• c. 543 BC: Nabonidus returns to Babylon.
• 539 BC, October: Cyrus the Great takes Babylon; Nabonidus is captured.

Why it matters

Nabonidus’ decade at Tayma brought Babylonian power deep into Arabia and shaped how he was remembered, as an absent and eccentric ruler in Persian propaganda and later Jewish tradition. His digging into the foundations of ancient temples makes him one of the earliest known rulers to take a deliberate interest in the distant past.