Zoroastrian Heritage: The Remarkable Discovery of the Cyrus Cylinder

Cyrus the Great & Cyrus Cylinder Series:
» Cyrus the Great (at Zoroastrian Heritage)
» Cyrus the Great - His Religion & Inspiration
» Cyrus the Great - Pasargadae, Capital (at Zoroastrian Heritage)
» Cyrus the Great - Information Sources
» Cyrus the Great - Xenophon's Cyropaedia (at Zoroastrian Heritage)
» Cyrus the Great - Hebrew Bible Quotes
» Cyrus Cylinder
» Cyrus Cylinder & its Discoverer Hormuzd Rassam
» Cyrus Cylinder - its Remarkable Discovery
» Cyrus Cylinder - Contents (Eduljee)
» Cyrus Cylinder - Translation (Rogers)
» Cyrus Cylinder - Translation (Finkel)
» Cyrus' Edict & the Chinese Cuneiform Bones
» Cyrus Cylinder - Talk by Neil MacGregor

The Cyrus Cylinder. Image credit: David Holt at Flickr

It is a miracle that the fragile terracotta cylinder known to us as the Cyrus Cylinder has survived destruction.

Historical sites of Mesopotamia

The cylinder was discovered in the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, which lies in the centre of today’s Iraq. The archaeologist credited with the discovery the cylinder is Hormuzd Rassam. Rassam was a native of Mosul – from which the name Muslin is derived – a city that lies on the east bank of the upper Tigris River in Northern Iraq today.

In February 1879, when Rassam visited the ruins of ancient Babylon, he found the site devastated, raised to the ground and looted. Local brick brokers had made a career out of digging up ancient Babylon’s bricks to sell as a cheap building material. Then when Rassam started his excavations, these “greedy” Arab brokers tried to bribe his workers to sell them not just the bricks they uncovered, but any antiquities they found as well. Since the Turkish authorities – the then rulers of Iraq – were inclined to favour the local brokers, there was no point in even trying to apprehend the thieves.

Babylon ruins

On page 266-7 of his book Asshur and the Land of Nimrod (New York, 1897) Rassam states, “Indeed, the annihilation of that city was so effectual that one wonders whether the accounts given of its greatness and magnificence by different Gentile historians were true…. I found it would be only waste of money and labour to excavate at Imjaileeba (the site of the principal, or old, palace), where former diggers had left nothing unturned to find what they wanted.”

An old site map of Babylon

On page 260 of his book Rassam states, “The damage done by such mode of searching is incalculable, inasmuch as the Arab style of digging is too clumsy…. In nine cases out of ten, they break or lose a large part of their collections, and worse than all, they try to make a good bargain by breaking the inscribed objects, and dividing them amongst their customers.” He adds, “I myself bought, when I was at Baghdad, a most valuable Babylonian terra-cotta cylinder for the British Museum, which had met with the same fate. The discoverer had tried to saw it in two, and in doing so the upper part broke into fragments, some of which were lost altogether. The saw that was used for that purpose must have been very rough, as it gnawed off nearly half an inch of the inscription.”

Rassam had to make a deal with the locals. First, he employed those whose profession it had been to steal the bricks and next, he allowed them to keep and sell the bricks provided they would not steal any artifacts they uncovered. At least in some part, the devil’s bargain worked, for we are fortunate to have the Cyrus Cylinder not just for its enormous antiquity, but for the priceless information it contains.

Location of the Discovery

A 1944 Site Map of Babylon

Rassam has left us with conflicting versions about where the cylinder was discovered. On page 267 of his book we find him stating that the “most important discoveries have been made in these mounds (of Babylon) from time to time, amongst which we discovered in the ruins of Jimjima (also spelt Jumjuma) a broken terra-cotta cylinder, which has been deciphered in the first instance by Sir Henry Rawlinson, and found to contain the official record of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus….” Jimjima/Jumjuma (see 'An old site map of Babylon above') was an area that lay to the south of the site.

Scale model reconstruction of the Esagila complex containing the Marduk Temple.
The model is made by Andre Caron of Quebec

However, in a letter dated November 20, 1879 to Samuel Birch, the Keeper of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, Rassam wrote, “The Cylinder of Cyrus was found at Omran (Tell Amran) (together) with about six hundred pieces of inscribed terracottas before I left Baghdad (on April 2, 1879).” The Omran/Amran mound lies to the north of Jimjima about halfway up the length of the site. Excavation of the Omran mound has revealed a complex that is now known as the Esagila Marduk Temple complex. If the latter assertions are correct, we can say the Cyrus Cylinder was discovered in March 1879. The British Museum quoting C.B. Walker (1972) states on its website that the cylinder was “buried in the foundations of the city wall of Babylon” though the page also states Amran was the ‘findspot’.

An overview model of Babylon made by Andre Caron of Quebec

This is all very confusing since the city wall is quite separate from the temple walls. A British Museum press release written by an author of a completely different temperament merely states it was found “in a wall”. Some authors call the cylinder a “foundation deposit” implying that the cylinder was placed during the construction of the foundation perhaps with no further access. If so, and if the cylinder was found in a temple foundation, then it would appear that Cyrus commissioned the building, re-building or expansion of the temple in Babylon (as he did with the temple of Jerusalem and elsewhere). This possibility is supported by a line (4) in the text.

During our research on the subject, we found one reference stating that the cylinder was found in Nineveh (Nineveh is some 500 km to the north of Babylon near Mosul. See map above). The reference did not provide information substantiating the claim.

On November 17, 1879, another noted archaeologist and historian, Sir Henry Rawlinson, presented a paper to the Royal Asiatic Society titled A Newly discovered Cylinder of Cyrus the Great. In it, he stated that the Cyrus Cylinder was discovered at the Birs Nimrud site – ancient Borsippa – about 18 km to the south-west of the Babylon site. It is widely held that Rawlinson made an error in his pronouncement.

Rassam had stated in his book the cylinder was discovered at the Babylon site before he left Baghdad. However, in a news report dated November 21, 1879 and published in the Building News, Rawlinson states, “It (the Cyrus Cylinder) was not among the monuments lately brought home by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam himself, but must be credited to his last archaeological explorations in the East, under the auspices of the British Museum, having been sent to this country by one of the agents left behind by him to continue his excavations in the Mesopotamian mounds.” According to David Damrosch in his What Is World Literature? (Princeton, 2003, p. 48), “Rassam’s decisive role was often minimised or denied outright – most likely, as (Rassam’s previous employer and mentor) Layard later wrote to a friend, ‘because he is a ‘nigger’ and because Rawlinson as is his habit, appropriated to himself the credit of Rassam’s discoveries.’”

According to a recent book, The Cyrus Cylinder (2013), written by Irving Finkel (p. 49), Hormuzd Rassam had left the site in the charge his assistant and overseer of excavations, Daud Toma when the Cylinder was discovered between March 17 and 23, 1879. Finkel further notes that the shipping documents show that the cylinder was shipped 1879 and received in a broken condition. The Cylinder together with other finds from at Tell Amran (Omran) and Jumjamah were entrusted to a local merchant Baltazar for shipment to England via steamer. The Cylinder and other artifacts were received by the British Museum in August of that year as documented by the Museum's cuneiform curator, Theophilus Pinches.