1
(Biblical form of the name Nabu-kudurru-
Neo-Babylonian
(Chaldean) Empire
PAUL-ALAIN BEAULIEU
University of Toronto, Canada
The Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire
encompasses the period between the capture
of the Babylonian throne by Nabopolassar
(Greek form of the name Nabu-aplu-usur)
in the year 626 (henceforth all dates are
BCE) and the fall of the city to the Persians
in the fall of 539. For about a century Baby-
lonia (southern Iraq) had been at times a
rival, at other times a vassal of the Assyrian
Empire. The advent of Nabopolassar in 626
signaled the start of an uprising to regain
Babylonian independence. Civil war raged
for several years between Assyrian forces
and the insurgents, but by 620 Nabopolassar
had prevailed and forced the Assyrians to
withdraw to their homeland in northern
Iraq. Soon after, the Babylonians made an
alliance with the Medes, an Iranian people
with their center of power just east of
Assyria, and the two allies began incursions
into Assyria proper which culminated in
the capture and sack of the Assyrian capital
Nineveh in the summer of 612. Assyrian
resistance continued with Egyptian support
for a couple of years, but the capture of Har-
ran by the Medes and Babylonians in 610
ended the long history of Assyria. The Medes
retreated to their possessions north and east
of Mesopotamia and Assyrian territories fell
in their majority to Babylon, suddenly cata-
pulted to the role of major territorial power.
A new empire was born. For a few years the
Egyptians tried to stop the Babylonian
advance in the Levant, but the son of Nabo-
polassar, the crown prince Nebuchadnezzar
The Encyclopedia of Empire, First Edition. Edited by John M. MacKenzie.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe220
usur), shattered their hopes at the battle
of Carchemish in 605. His accession to the
throne of Babylon in the same year marks
the beginning of Babylon’s last and most
glorious historical period.
Compared with other empires in history,
the Neo-Babylonian one stands out as
remarkably short-lived and is sometimes
presented as a transition between the vaster
and more influential Assyrian and Persian
empires. Yet, however short its lifetime, it
did leave a lasting imprint on human mem-
ory, and this is due not so much to its intrin-
sic achievements than to its impact on the
course of Jewish history. Wary of Egypt gain-
ing a foothold in Palestine, Nebuchadnezzar
campaigned twice against Jerusalem, captur-
ing the city once in 597 and again after it
rebelled in 587, the second capture ending
in 586 with the destruction of the temple
and the exile of a large part of the population
to Babylonia, the famous “Babylonian exile.”
The Assyrians had long carried out deport-
ations of conquered populations on a vast
scale, and by adopting similar practices the
Babylonians signified their intention to
emulate Assyrian imperial policies. Reflec-
tions of the Babylonian onslaught in the
Bible through the voices of prophets and
the details compiled by chroniclers not only
constitute an important source for the his-
tory of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, but they
have also colored our very perception of its
nature. The Biblical image of Babylon as a
brutal imperial power presiding over the
spoliation of entire peoples made its way in
the end from Judaism into Christianity to
become a symbol for Roman, and indeed
for all forms of corruption. Thus Babylon
survived through the memory of the ages
2
not simply as an empire among many others,
but viewed through the Judeo-Christian
prism it came to epitomize what an empire
essentially is: a brutal, rapacious and oppres-
sive regime, in sum, the very polar opposite
of a god-fearing and morally upright society.
A more complex picture inevitably emerges
from the study of Babylonian sources. Given
the time distance involved, more than two
and a half millennia, their relative richness
seems quite remarkable, but their haphazard
distribution in time, space, and genre can
be frustrating to the historian. Cuneiform
sources form the quasi-totality of our material.
Official sources emanating from the state have
survived mostly in the form of building
inscriptions which in their majority record
the restoration of temples in Babylonian cities
and allude only rarely to contemporary events.
Few royal inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian
kings have been discovered outside Babylonia,
but those of Nebuchadnezzar in Lebanon and
of Nabonidus at Sela in southern Jordan and at
Teima in northern Arabia form a corpus of sig-
nificant historical interest. Unfortunately the
palaces in Babylon have not yielded any state
archive such as those discovered in Nineveh
and other late Assyrian capitals, but only a
small group of administrative lists that are
still almost entirely unpublished and contain
according to preliminary surveys only a lim-
ited amount of data. A restricted number of
chronicles covering the reigns of the Neo-
Babylonian kings year by year constitute our
main source of information on political his-
tory, but they have survived in fragmentary
state and cover less than half the time span
of the dynasty, the most important gap occur-
ring between years 12 and 43 of Nebuchadnez-
zar (593–562). The most abundant cuneiform
source by far consists of archives of temples
and private families. The archives of Ebabbar,
the temple of the sun god Shamash at Sippar in
northern Babylonia, and of Eanna, the temple
of the goddess Ishtar in the city of Uruk in the
south, include thousands of legal and admin-
istrative documents as well as letters. Family
archives have been found in several Babylon-
ian cities, the most important one belonging
to the Egibi family in Babylon. The larger
temple and family archives spread over
several generations, sometimes even begin-
ning during the time of Assyrian dominion
over Babylonia in the 7th century and ending
one or two generations into the Persian period,
thus revealing some of the changes brought
about by the turnover of political regimes.
Only clay tablets have survived, but scribes
also made use of wooden boards filled with
wax to write cuneiform. And, last but not least,
it is important to bear in mind the influence of
the Aramaic language, which had become the
second language of Babylonia in the 1st mil-
lennium but was written on parchment and
papyrus, all of which have vanished. These fac-
tors have no doubt created some distortion in
our data.
The limitations of sources allow us to
reconstruct the history of the empire
only in a sketchy manner. Nebuchadnezzar
(r.605–562 and known as Nebuchadnezzar
II) spent most of his military efforts in the
first 11 years of his reign on the conquest
of the Levant. The sack of Jerusalem in
587 represents the culmination of this process
and after that only the Phoenician city of
Tyre put up stiff resistance until it fell in
the last years of his reign. At his death in
562 Babylon controlled a vast empire corre-
sponding roughly to the modern countries
of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan,
with some possible extensions in southwest-
ern Iran and southeastern Turkey. His son
Amel-Marduk (the Evil-Merodach of the
Bible) reigned only two years (562–560)
and lost his life in a coup led by a high digni-
tary named Nergal-sharru-usur (known
in Greek sources as Neriglissar, 560–556),
who was very probably his brother-in-law
through his marriage to a daughter of

Nebuchadnezzar. Neriglissar continued
imperial expansion in Cilicia. After his death
in 556 his son Labashi-Marduk ascended the
throne, but after a few months a coup brought
to power another high dignitary by the name
of Nabonidus (Greek form of the name Nabu-
na’id, r.556–539). The major military effort of
his reign was directed at northern Arabia
where he marched as far south as Yathrib
(modern Medina). Nabonidus resided for
ten years in the oasis of Teima and during this
period a new power, the Persians, began to
rise east and north of the empire. In 550 their
King Cyrus, probably with Babylonian sup-
port, revolted against his Median overlords
and took over their vast territory. Later he
turned against the Kingdom of Lydia in west-
ern Asia Minor, defeating its ruler Croesus in
546. The conflict now appeared imminent
between Babylon and the Persians, and this
may have prompted Nabonidus to return to
Babylon in 543 to resume full exercise of
power, which he had left to his son Bel-
sharru-usur (the Biblical Belshazzar) during
his stay in Arabia. The end came in the fall
of 539 when the Persians irrupted into north-
ern Babylonia, defeated the army of Naboni-
dus near Opis, and marched toward the
capital, which was taken on October 12.
The mighty Babylonian Empire had fallen,
almost too easily, like a ripe fruit. Persian
propaganda attributed Babylon’s fall to the
shortcomings of its last king, Nabonidus,
who allegedly promoted divisive religious
ideas and oppressed his subjects with exacting
measures. Few of these claims can be trusted
at face value, and there is no solid evidence for
major political strife in Babylonia in the years
preceding the Persian conquest. One may be
tempted to presume that the Babylonian
Empire suffered from structural fault lines
which made it an easy prey for invaders,
but here again it seems difficult to find data
pointing in that direction. To be sure, Baby-
lonia had experienced a long period of
3
economic decline in the early part of the 1st
millennium, characterized by demographic
slump, shrinkage of cities, and neglect of basic
infrastructure. However, by the second half of
the 8th century these trends had reversed
and the situation continued to improve under
Assyrian rule. When Babylon regained its
independence after 626 the country rapidly
showed signs of growing prosperity. The
Neo-Babylonian kings launched ambitious
hydrological projects in northern Babylonia,
notably in the region of Sippar which saw
its agricultural output increase considerably.
They also intervened in the management of
the vast agricultural estates of the Eanna tem-
ple at Uruk in the south, although much of its
reorganization had already occurred in the
late 8th and 7th centuries. Long-distance
trade was not neglected, and it may be telling
that the “chief of the royal merchants” of
Nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of the 6th
century bore the Phoenician name Hanunu
(i.e., Hanon). Coinage had been introduced
in Lydia and parts of the Greek world
by the end of the 7th century. Although the
Babylonian kings did not mint coins, the
use of the silver shekel as monetary unit is
widely attested in contemporary archives,
and silver money was used for many types
of transactions, including payment of taxes
and the hire of labor. This indicates the extent
to which the Babylonian economy had
become monetized, a process which in turn
may have facilitated its integration into vaster
networks of exchange.
Heavily urbanized, especially along the
course of the Euphrates, Babylonia formed
the core of the empire. Archaeological surveys
have determined that about half of its popu-
lation lived in settlements larger than ten
hectares, considered the threshold between
village and city. Babylon ranks as one of the
largest cities of the ancient world and may
easily have reached a population of 200 000.
The Neo-Babylonian kings carried out an
4
impressive building program which focused
mostly on Babylon, Borsippa, and Sippar,
although southern cities benefited from these
efforts too. These involved the rebuilding
of most major temples, the erection of new
palaces, fortification walls, and the irrigation
system. The resources channeled into the
royal coffers in the form of tribute and out-
right spoliation served to finance the cost of
these projects, but the Babylonian population
had to contribute as well in the form of
taxation and corvée labor. Nebuchadnezzar
transformed Babylon into an architectural
display of imperial grandeur later remem-
bered by the Greeks in their catalogues of
wonders of the world. These routinely
included Babylon’s defensive walls and also
its famed Hanging Gardens, although no con-
temporary evidence has yet surfaced for their
existence. Babylonian cities became major
centers of trade and crafts and their elite citi-
zens made up an important component of the
power structure of the imperial core. Organ-
ized into tightly controlled clans claiming
descent from a common ancestor, they man-
aged the temples and their vast resources
and occupied a privileged cultural position,
monopolizing not only religious functions
but also the transmission of cuneiform learn-
ing with its important cultural, literary, and
scientific heritage. Many cities had gained
increased autonomy in the preceding centu-
ries and even the Assyrian kings had granted
them new privileges in the form of tax exemp-
tions. These policies were reversed by the
Neo-Babylonian kings who further reduced
the autonomy of urban elites by introducing
royal henchmen in the administration of tem-
ples and encouraging the migration of leading
families from the capital to provincial centers.
For instance, at Uruk in the 6th century
important temple offices had become monop-
olized by a few families from Babylon. Such
measures counteracted centrifugal tendencies
and increased the cohesion of the imperial
core. At the same time the monarchy
ensured the loyalty of local elites by allowing
them to participate in a shared model of
administration.
The population of the imperial core was far
from homogeneous. Besides the native Baby-
lonians and a significant influx of foreigners,
important semi-nomadic groups of West
Semitic origin, the Arameans and the Chal-
deans, had settled in the country. Organized
in large tribal units, they made up a substantial
portion of the rural population and had
already reached the higher echelons of the
power structure by the 8th and 7th centuries,
at which time a number of Babylonian kings
claimed Chaldean lineage. The Chaldean clan
of Bit-Yakin in the south even emerged as a
leader in the Babylonian struggle against the
Assyrians. The Neo-Babylonian Empire and
dynasty are often labeled “Chaldean” by his-
torians. The Bible refers to Nebuchadnezzar
both as “king of Babylon” and “king of the
Chaldeans” and insists that he invaded Judah
with an army of Chaldeans and Arameans.
Nabopolassar may have been Chaldean but
conclusive evidence is lacking. Neriglissar
belonged to the Aramean clan of the Puqudu,
while Nabonidus may also have been an
Aramean at least on the side of his mother, a
woman named Adad-guppi who originated
probably from northern Syria. While the
extent to which these groups exerted autono-
mous political influence cannot be easily
appraised, it should be noted that all of them
bore typical Babylonian names and appear
to have been well integrated socially and cul-
turally. The heterogeneous nature of leader-
ship in the imperial core can be appraised
from an inscription dated to the 7th year of
Nebuchadnezzar known as the Hofkalender
(Court Document) which contains a list of
his officials. The palace officials head the list
and their titles are, not surprisingly, mostly
inherited from the previous Assyrian palace
administration. The document continues with

the leaders of Aramean and Chaldean terri-
tories and the city governors, the latter
being drawn probably from the urban elites.
Heterogeneous does not mean incohesive,
however, and it is probable that all three power
constituencies, namely the royal household,
the Aramean and Chaldean tribal leaders,
and the Babylonian city elites, co-existed in
relative harmony. The family of Neriglissar
presents an interesting case of exogamy aimed
at cementing relations between all three
groups. Neriglissar himself occurs in the Hof-
kalender with the title of Simmagir alongside
his father Bel-shumu-ishkun, who is listed as
leader of the Aramean tribe of the Puqudu
in eastern Babylonia. Neriglissar married
Kasshaya, a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, an
alliance which justified his bid for the throne
in the coup of 560 against Amel-Marduk.
Once in power Neriglissar married off his
own daughter Gigitu to the high priest of the
Ezida temple in Borsippa, thus providing his
Aramean family with privileged entry among
the traditional city elites.
Beyond Babylonia we have almost no evi-
dence on the administrative structure of the
empire. The Hofkalender ends with Levantine
city rulers who had become vassals of Nebu-
chadnezzar. However, the document dates
to the year 598 and sources are lacking to
judge how these areas were eventually inte-
grated in the imperial system. The fate of
Judah, known mostly through the Bible,
need not be representative of Babylonian
policy. The coastal city of Ashkelon had suf-
fered massive destruction at the hand of Neb-
uchadnezzar’s armies in 604, a fate which
heralded that of Jerusalem in 586. However,
the Babylonians possibly earmarked central
and southern Palestine as a buffer zone with
Egypt, leaving the area partly depopulated
on purpose. The geographic distribution of
Babylonian inscriptions in the West demon-
strates an interest in Phoenicia and the roads
linking it to TransJordan and northern
5
Arabia, probably reflecting trade patterns.
Evidence has surfaced in recent years for
the implantation of Babylonian colonies in
the Habur region in northeastern Syria and
also at Tyre in Phoenicia. The question as
to whether the Babylonians strove to build a
cohesive imperial structure like the Assyrians
cannot really be answered at present. The offi-
cial inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian kings
rarely acknowledge the imperial nature of
their rule and refer to the territories beyond
Babylonia only in vague terms. Preoccupied
mostly with the refection of temples, they
extol the ruler’s religious scruples, piety,
and subservience to the gods. Had the Baby-
lonian Empire lived longer, a more consistent
imperial ideology might have crystallized, but
the Persian conquest of 539 suddenly ended
what, all in all, must be regarded as a short
yet successful final manifestation of Mesopo-
tamian hegemony over the larger Near East.
SEE ALSO: Achaemenid Empire; Assyrian
Empire
FURTHER READING
Baker, H. D. 2012. “The Neo-Babylonian Empire.”
In D. Potts (Ed.), A Companion to the Archaeol-
ogy of the Ancient Near East, 914–930. Oxford:
Wiley Blackwell.
Beaulieu, P-A. 2013. “Arameans, Chaldeans
and Arabs in Late Babylonian Sources.”
In A. Berlejung and M. P. Streck (Eds.),
Aramaeans, Chaldaeans, and Arabs in Baby-
lonia and Palestine in the First Millennium B.
C., 31–55. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, Leipziger
Altorientalische Studien 3.
Brinkman, J. A. 1984. Prelude to Empire:
Babylonian Society and Politics, 747–626 B.C.
Philadelphia: Occasional Publications of the
Babylonian Fund 7.
Da Riva, R. 2008. The Neo-Babylonian Royal
Inscriptions: An Introduction. Münster: Ugarit-
Verlag. Guides to the Mesopotamian Textual
Records 4.
Jursa, M. 2014. “The Neo-Babylonian Empire.”
In N. Gehler and R. Rollinger (Eds.), Imperien
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und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte, 121–148. Practice and Rhetoric.” In O. Lipschits and
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. J. Blenkinsopp (Eds.), Judah and the Judeans
Vanderhooft, D. 2003. “Babylonian Strategies in the Neo-Babylonian Period, 235–262. Winona
of Imperial Control in the West: Royal Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.