Babylonian Chronicles
The Babylonian Chronicles are about 45 clay tablets that record major events in Babylonian history. They are an early form of historiography, written in Babylonian cuneiform and covering the period from the reign of Nabonassar to the Parthian period. The tablets were likely created by Babylonian astronomers who used the Astronomical Diaries as a source. Most of the tablets in the British Museum were identified as chronicles after being acquired from antiquities dealers from 19th‑century digs; only three have proven provenance. They provide the main narrative for large sections of Babylonian history.
The Chronicles are thought to have been moved to the British Museum after 19th‑century excavations in Babylon and were left undeciphered in archives for decades. The first chronicle published was BM 92502 (ABC1) in 1887 by Theophilus Pinches. In the 1920s, the Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (ABC3) appeared in 1923, and the Esarhaddon Chronicle (ABC14) along with the Akitu Chronicle (ABC16) and the Nabonidus Chronicle (ABC7) were published in 1924. Donald Wiseman published four more tablets in 1956, including the Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle (ABC5). Later scholarship includes A. K. Grayson’s Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (1975) and Jean-Jacques Glassner’s Chroniques Mésopotamiennes (1993; translated as Mesopotamian Chronicles, 2004). A collection focusing on Hellenistic Chronicles appeared in 2025 (van der Spek, Finkel, Pirngruber & Stevens). BM stands for British Museum numbers.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 08:58 (CET).