One of four clay tablets now in the possession of the British Museum contains contemporary references to the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, it was revealed here in a lecture to the British Academy by D. J. Wiseman, of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum.
The tablets belong to a series known as the “Babylonian Chronicle, “which give a year by year account of the main political and religious events from 626 B. C. E. to 594 B. C. E. with a break of only six years. Mr. Wiseman disclosed that the tablet in question, now deciphered, records that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon “in this seventh year, mustered his troops and marched into the land of Hatti, besieged the city of Judah, and, on the second day of the month of Adar (597 B. C. E.) captured the city and took the King prisoner. He appointed there a King of his own choice and, having exacted a heavy tribute, sent it with prisoners to Babylon.” This is the first time that an exact date has been established for the capture of Jerusalem.
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