In 539 BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire ruled by Nabonidus was conquered by Cyrus the Great, the King of Persia (Persia would later become today’s Iran). The city of Babylon was considered to an impenetrable fortress: the only way into the city was through the well-guarded gates in the city wall or through the Euphrates River which flowed beneath the city walls. At the points at which the river flowed into and out of the city, the Babylonians had installed metal gates. If the invaders could hold their breath long enough to swim under the walls, they would be stopped by the gates.
The Persian army camped outside of the well-fortified city and waited for the Feast of Belshazzar. Upstream, Cyrus had his troops divert the Euphrates and when the river’s flow had dropped to about mid-thigh, the Persian soldiers simply marched under the city’s walls, breached the metal gates, and entered the city. The Babylonians were not only caught unaware, but most were drunk from their celebrations.
After capturing Babylon, Cyrus issued a decree which permitted captive people, including the Jews, to return to their homelands. Subsequently, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt their temple.
Following the conquest of Babylon, Cyrus issued a declaration of human rights in the form of a clay cylinder inscribed in the Akkadian cuneiform script.
The text of the cylinder denounces Nabonidus as impious and depicts Cyrus as pleasing to Marduk, the most important Babylonian god. According the text on the cylinder, Cyrus was welcomed by the people of Babylon and he appeals to Marduk to protect and help him in ruling the city. According to the text:
The worship of Marduk, the king of the gods, he [Nabonidus] [chang]ed into abomination. Daily he used to do evil against his city [Babylon] ... He [Marduk] scanned and looked [through] all the countries, searching for a righteous ruler willing to lead [him] [in the annual procession]. [Then] he pronounced the name of Cyrus, king of Ansham, declared him to be[come] the ruler of all the world
The cylinder recounts the noble lineage of Cyrus, listing his genealogy as a king in a line of kings. Nabonidus, on the other hand, was descended from commoners.
The cylinder describes how Cyrus improved the lives of the Babylonians, repatriated displaced peoples, and restored temples and religious sanctuaries. Many people, including the former Shah of Iran, consider the Cyrus Cylinder to be the world’s first declaration of human rights. Today the cylinder is considered to be part of Iran’s cultural identity.
The Cyrus Cylinder was discovered in 1879 by the archaeologist Hormuz Rassam and is today housed in the British Museum in London. At the present time, however, there is a new development in the story of the Cyrus Cylinder. Recent (January 2010) archaeological findings in China have turned up two fossilized horse bones bearing cuneiform inscriptions which are extracts from the text of the Cyrus Cylinder.
Contact between the Persians, Babylonians, and China at this time period is not surprising. Trade between China and Mesopotamia predates the fall of the Neo-Babylonian empire. During the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 BCE to 221 CE) there were political relations with the Parthian dynasty in Iran. The new archaeological find raises some interesting questions, including why was the text of the Cyrus Cylinder copied for the Chinese? Why would this declaration have been important to the Chinese?
Iranian archaeologist Kamyar Abdi said:
"The Cyrus Cylinder had undoubtedly been important for the people living under the Achaemenid Empire, but, if the objects are proved authentic, the first question would be how the Cyrus text had been transferred to China and why the text was important enough for the Chinese to copy it."
If the objects are proven authentic, the discovery will begin to transform our knowledge about relations between the Near East, especially the Achaemenid Empire, and China during the first millennium, in particular during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-221 BC)."