Babylonia [and Arabia]

In the period between the collapse of the Assyrian Empire in the last decades of the 7th century BCE and the consolidation of Babylonian rule at the beginning of the 6th century BCE, the political situation changed substantially. The desert border in Transjordan became defenceless, Egypt raised claim over the Levant, and in the east, the Medes and Persians rose as new political entities. These changes forced the Chaldean Kings Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE) and Nabonidus (556–539 BCE) to act against the Arabs in the Levant and in the Arabian Peninsula respectively. The latter was the most famous historical event of Nabonidus’ long and enigmatic stay at Taymāʾ.

The inscriptions of the Babylonian kings give few details about the military actions against Arab tribes and settlements, and are in most cases badly preserved. A Babylonian chronicle recounts that Nebuchadnezzar II marched to the Land Ḫattu — a designation for the Southern Levant — in his sixth year (599 BCE). He marched to the desert and plundered the possessions, cattle, and gods of many Arab tribes (Grayson, Chronicles, 101, 9–10). Echoes of this campaign seem to be referred to in the Hebrew Bible (Jer. 49:28–33; Eph‛al 1984: 172–176; Retsö 2003: 176–181).

In his third regnal year, the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, made an extraordinary and unusual choice by moving his residence from Babylon to Taymāʾ, a distant but important trading centre within the network of caravan roads. He spent ten years there, from 553 to 543 BCE, campaigning in North Arabia. He left state affairs in the capital in the hands of the crown-prince Belshazzar. It is still a matter of discussion among scholars why the aged king abandoned his country and went to a remote place in the middle of the Arabian Desert. The annexation of North Arabia was a military and political success, but his contemporaries nonetheless interpreted his decision as pure madness. They considered that the gods punished him for having neglected his religious duties in Babylon, as we read in a libel known as the Verse Account (Schaudig, Nabonid 563–578).

According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, Nabonidus arrived in 553 BCE in the Anti-Lebanon and campaigned in the west against Edom (Grayson, Chronicles 105, i, 11–17). In a somewhat broken context, the Royal Chronicle mentions the king of Dadānu (al-ʿUlā) in North Arabia, who seems to have fled from a Babylonian military operation in 552 BCE (Schaudig, Nabonid 593, P4 V 20). Nabonidus boasts in his stelae from Ḫarrān (Weiershauser & Novotny, Royal Inscriptions 189, i, 22–27) about having transited (in the following years) the caravan roads between Tēmā (Taymāʾ), Dadānu, Padakku (al-Ḥāʾiṭ), Khibrā (Khaybar), Yadīkhu, and Yatribu (Yathrib/Madina). In Taymāʾ, recently discovered inscribed fragments of stelae (Weiershauser & Novotny, Royal Inscriptions 203–209) and a pedestal (Weiershauser & Novotny, Royal Inscriptions 205), as well as a rock relief found at al-Ḥāʾiṭ (Weiershauser & Novotny, Royal Inscriptions 199), attest to Babylonian presence in the region. Several graffiti discovered in the vicinity of Taymāʾ, written in the North Arabian script now called Taymanitic, bear the name and title of Nabonidus, as well as the names and professions of people who took part in his long Arabian campaign (Müller & al-Said, Nabonid). Nabonidus ended his stay in Arabia in his 13th regnal year, when the moon-god Sīn commanded him to return to Babylon (Weiershauser & Novotny, Royal Inscriptions 190–191, ii, 3–13).

Ariel M. Bagg

References and suggested readings

Sources

• Grayson, A.K. 2000. Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
• Müller, W.W. & S.F. al-Said 2002. Der babylonische König Nabonid in taymanischen Inschriften, in N. Nebes (ed.) Neue Beiträge zur Semitistik: 105–222. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
• Schaudig, H. 2001. Die Inschriften Nabonids von Babylon und Kyros’ des Großen. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.
• Weiershauser, F. & J. Novotny 2020. The Royal Inscriptions of Amēl-Marduk (561–560 BC), Neriglissar (559–556 BC), and Nabonidus (555–539 BC), Kings of Babylon. University Park: Eisenbrauns.

Studies

• Beaulieu, P.A. 1989. The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 BCE. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
• Eph‛al, I. 1984. The Ancient Arabs. Nomads on the Border of the Fertile Crescent 9th–5th Centuries B.C. Jerusalem: The Magness Press.
• Retsö, J. 2003. The Arabs in Antiquity. London: Routledge.
• Schaudig, H. 2020. Cuneiform texts from the Saudi-German excavations at Taymāʾ seasons 2004–2015, in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.) Taymāʾ II. Catalogue of the Inscriptions Discovered in the Saudi-German Excavations at Taymāʾ: 2–19. Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd.
• Zadok, R. 1981. Arabians in Mesopotamia during the Late-Assyrian, Chaldean, Achaemenian and Hellenistic periods chiefly according to cuneiform sources. ZDMG 131: 42–84. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43376753

_{Alternate spellings: Babylonian, Babylonians, Babel, Babylon}