The Babylonian Chronicles are a series of tablets recording major events in Babylonian history. They are thus one of the first steps in the development of

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

. The Babylonian Chronicles were written in Babylonian

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...

, from the reign of

Nabonassar Nabû-nāṣir was the king of Babylon from 747 to 734 BC. He deposed a foreign Chaldean usurper named Nabu-shuma-ishkun, bringing native rule back to Babylon after twenty-three years of Chaldean rule. His reign saw the beginning of a new era ...

up to the Parthian Period, by Babylonian astronomers ("Chaldaeans"), who probably used the ''

Astronomical Diaries The Babylonian astronomical diaries are a collection of Babylonian cuneiform texts that contain systematic records of astronomical observations and political events as well as predictions, based on astronomical observations. They also include oth ...

'' as their source. Almost all of the tablets were identified as chronicles once in the collection of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, having been acquired via antiquities dealers from unknown excavations in the 19th century. All but three of the chronicles are unprovenanced. The Chronicles provide the "master narrative" for large tracts of current Babylonian history.Caroline Waerzeggers
The_Babylonian_Chronicles_Classification_and_Provenance
''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' 71/2 (2012), 285–298.

Discovery and publication

The chronicles are thought to have been transferred to the

after 19th century excavations in Babylon, and subsequently left undeciphered in the archives for decades. The first chronicle to be published was BM 92502 (ABC1) in 1887 by

Theophilus Pinches Theophilus Goldridge Pinches M.R.A.S. (1856 – 6 June 1934 Muswell Hill, London), was a pioneer British assyriologist. Pinches was originally employed in father's business as a die-sinker, but, following an amateur interest in cuneiform ins ...

under the title "The Babylonian Chronicle". This was followed in 1923 by the publication of the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (ABC 3), in 1924 by Sidney Smith's publication of the Esarhaddon Chronicle (ABC 14), the Akitu Chronicle (ABC 16) and the

Nabonidus Chronicle The Nabonidus Chronicle is an ancient Babylonian text, part of a larger series of Babylonian Chronicles inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets. It deals primarily with the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, co ...

(ABC 7), and in 1956 by Donald Wiseman's publication of four further tablets including the

Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle The Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle, also known as Jerusalem Chronicle, is one of the series of Babylonian Chronicles, and contains a description of the first eleven years of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. The tablet details Nebuchadnezzar's military ...

(ABC 5).Wiseman, 1956, pages 1+2
/ref>

Chronicles

Numbering systems

ABC – A.K. Grayson, ''Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975)'' CM – Jean-Jacques Glassner, ''Chroniques Mésopotamiennes'' (1993) (translated as ''Mesopotamian Chronicles'', 2004) BCHP – I. Finkel & R.J. van der Spek, ''Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period (not yet published)'' BM – British Museum Number

List

References

Literature

* Leo Oppenheim's translation of the

can be found in J. B. Pritchard (ed.) ''

Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament ''Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament'' edited by James B. Pritchard (1st ed. 1950, 2nd ed.1955, 3rd ed. 1969) is an anthology of important historical, legal, mythological, liturgical, and secular texts from the ancient Near ...

'' (= ''ANET''; 1950, 1955, 1969). * The standard edition is A.K. Grayson, ''Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles'' (= ''ABC''; 1975; ). * A translation of Chronicle 25, discovered after the publication of ''ABC'', was published by C.B.F. Walker "Babylonian Chronicle 25: A Chronicle of the Kassite and Isin Dynasties", in G. van Driel e.a. (eds.): ''Zikir Šumim: Assyriological Studies Presented to F.R. Kraus on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday'' (= ''Fs. Kraus''; 1982). * John Brinkman revises Grayson's reading o
''ABC'' 1
in: "The Babylonian Chronicle revisited" in T. Abusch, J. Huehnergard, P. Steinkeller (eds.): ''Lingering over Words. Studies in Ancient Near Eastern literature in Honor of William L. Moran'' (1990 Atlanta; ). * Fragments of the chronicles that are relevant to the study of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

, can be found in William W. Hallo (ed.), ''The Context of Scripture'', volume 1 (2003 Leiden and Boston; ). This book also contains the Weidner Chronicle. * A recent update of ''ABC'' is

Jean-Jacques Glassner Jean-Jacques Glassner, born 1944 in Bischwiller (Alsace) is a French historian, specialist of the Mesopotamian world and cuneiform script. Biography During his studies at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University, he devoted himself to assyriology. He l ...

, ''Mesopotamian Chronicles'' (= ''CM''; 2004, ; French version 1993, ). * An even more recent update of ''ABC'' is Amélie Kuhrt, ''The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period'' (Routledge, 2007; ). * The publication of I. Finkel & R. J. van der Spek, ''Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period'' (= ''BCHP'') has been announced. * An exposition that the Babylonian Chronicle should be regarded as a literary interpretation of the past in Waerzeggers, Caroline. "Writing History Under Empire: The Babylonian Chronicle Reconsidered", ''Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History'', vol. 8, no. 1-2, 2021, pp. 279-317.

External links

Mesopotamian Chronicles
all Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles

a list of relevant secondary literature

translations and bibliographies
Cuneiform sources for the history of Hellenistic Babylonia. Edition and Analysis
information about the BCHP Project {{Authority control 8th-century BC works 7th-century BC works 6th-century BC works 5th-century BC works 19th-century archaeological discoveries Babylonia Mesopotamian chronicles Akkadian inscriptions Clay tablets Neo-Babylonian Empire