Cyrus Cylinder
Cilindro de Ciro
- Date
- c. 539 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Babylon, Iraq
- Credited to
- Cyrus the Great (had it inscribed); rediscovered by Hormuzd Rassam
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A baked clay cylinder with a cuneiform inscription proclaiming the policies of Cyrus the Great after his conquest of Babylon; it has been read as an early declaration of religious and political tolerance.
Excavated by Hormuzd Rassam in March 1879 at the Esagila temple; its modern reading as a 'charter of human rights' is contested by historians, who see it mainly as conventional royal propaganda.
What it led to
- Modern symbol of tolerance and human rights
- Study of Achaemenid imperial policy
- Comparisons with proclamations by later rulers