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Jehoiachin's rations tablets date from the 6th century BC and describe the oil rations set aside for a royal captive identified with
Jehoiachin's rations tablets date from the 6th century BC and describe the oil rations set aside for a royal captive identified with Jeconiah
Jeconiah ( meaning "Yahweh has established"; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin ( ''Yəhoyāḵin'' ; ), was the nineteenth and penultimate king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BCE ...
, king of Judah. Tablets from the royal archives of Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...
, emperor of the Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...
, were unearthed in the ruins of Babylon that contain food rations paid to captives and craftsmen who lived in and around the city. On one of the tablets, "Ya’u-kīnu, king of the land of Yahudu" is mentioned along with his five sons listed as royal princes.
Excavation
The tablets were excavated fromBabylon
Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...
during 1899–1917 by Robert Koldewey and were stored in a barrel-vaulted underground building consisting of rows of rooms near the Ishtar Gate
The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon (in the area of present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq). It was constructed by order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city. It was part of a grand walled proce ...
.
Translation
The tablets' text states:Another tablet reads:Babylon 28122: "...t Ia-'-u-kin, king..." Babylon 28178: "10 (sila of oil) to ...Ia-'-kin, king of Ia ..2 sila to ..sos of the king of Ia-a-hu-du" Babylon 28186: "10 (sila) to Ia-ku-u-ki-nu, the son of the king of Ia-ku-du, 2 sila for the 5 sons of the king of Ia-ku-du"
A ''sila'' is a Babylonian unit of capacity equivalent to approximately 800 mL (1.7 US pints).1 sila (oil) for three carpenters from Arvad Arwad (; ), the classical Aradus, is a town in Syria on an eponymous island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative center of the Arwad Subdistrict (''nahiyah''), of which it is the only locality., apiece, 11 sila for eight woodworkers fromByblos Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic, locally ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC and continuously inhabited ..., . . . 3 sila for seven Greek craftsman, sila apiece, sila to the carpenter, Nabuetir 10 sila to Ia-ku-u-ki-nu, theking of Judah The Kings of Judah were the monarchs who ruled over the ancient Kingdom of Judah, which was formed in about 930 BC, according to the Hebrew Bible, when the United Kingdom of Israel split, with the people of the northern Kingdom of Israel rejecti ...’s son, 2 sila for the five sons of the Judean king.
See also
*List of artifacts significant to the Bible
The following is a list of inscribed Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, items made or given shape by humans, that are significant to biblical archaeology.
Selected artifacts significant to biblical chronology
This table lists inscriptions which ...
* Biblical archaeology (excavations and artifacts)
References
{{reflist, 2 6th-century BC inscriptions Babylon Clay tablets Biblical archaeology Nebuchadnezzar II Akkadian inscriptions