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The '''Harran Stela''' is a cuneiform text that [[Nabonidus]], king of Babylonia, commissioned in order to relate his restoration of the Ehulhul Temple of the moon-god Sin. There are two copies extant; probably many more copies were made, but after the fall of Babylon the Persians obliterated records like this that were favorable to Nabonidus, replacing them with texts such as the Nabonidus Chronicle the Dream Text of Nabonidus that pretended to be from Nabonidus, but were rewritten in such a way to disparage Nabonidus and glorify Cyrus.<ref>Anderson, ''Darius the Mede: A Reappraisal'', 95,125.</ref> The importance of the Stela therefore is that it narrates events from a perspective different from the Persian narrative of events related to the final years of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom.

The Harran Stela is a cuneiform text that [[Nabonidus]], king of Babylonia, commissioned in order to relate his restoration of the Ehulhul Temple of the moon-god Sin. There are two copies extant; probably many more copies were made, but after the fall of Babylon the Persians obliterated records like this that were favorable to Nabonidus, replacing them with texts such as the Nabonidus Chronicle the Dream Text of Nabonidus that pretended to be from Nabonidus, but were rewritten in such a way to disparage Nabonidus and glorify Cyrus.<ref>Anderson, ''Darius the Mede: A Reappraisal'', 95,125.</ref> The importance of the Stela therefore is that it narrates events from a perspective different from the Persian narrative of events related to the final years of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom.

==Background of the Stela==

==Background of the Stela==

The Harran Stela was composed in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of [[Nabonidus|Nabonidus, King of Babylon]], i.e. 542 to 540 BC, commemorating his restoration of the temple at Ehulhul.<ref>Beaulieu, ''Reign of Nabonidus'', 32.</ref> Nabonidus relates how hostile kings were trying to be reconciled with him. The kings are named as "the king of Egypt, the Medes and the land of the Arabs, all the hostile kings".<ref>Pritchard, ''Ancient Near Eastern Texts'', 562b.</ref> The significance of this lies in its date of composition, just one to three years before Nabonidus lost his kingdom to the Medes and Persians.<ref>Beaulieu, ''Reign of Nabonidus'', 143.</ref> It was also some 13 or 14 years after Cyrus had supposedly subjugated the Medes and became ruler of the combined empire of the Persians and Medes in 559 B.C. according to Herodotus and the consensus of modern historians who follow him. Nabonidus, however, makes no mention of the Persians who soon would be the leaders of those who captured his capital. This is consistent with Xenophon’s picture of the Persians still being the subordinate partner in the Medo-Persian confederacy at the time, with Cyrus the junior sovereign under his uncle, Cyaxares II king of Media.<ref>''Cyropaedia'' 3.3.24–25, 4.1.19–21, 8.5.17–19, esp. 19.</ref> Nowhere in any surviving inscription is Cyrus called the king of Media, unless it is maintained that the present inscription is interpreted that way; this would be in contradiction to other sources where Cyrus is referred to "king of Anshan", "king of Persia", "the great king" and similar titles.<ref>It would be circular reasoning to say that the Harran Stela shows that Cyrus is called the King of the Medes because the Medes are listed on the Harran Stela as the enemy of the Babylonians.</ref> The Harran Stela therefore is evidence that just shortly before the fall of Babylon the king of the Medes, whose name is not given, not only existed, but was considered a more important enemy of the Babylonians than Cyrus and the Persians. All this is consistent with Xenophon’s history of Cyrus in the ''Cyropaedia'', but in contradiction to the accounts in Herodotus, followed by many modern historians, which portray the Persians, with the Medes subjugated under them, as the dominant force challenging Nabonidus for several years before the capture of Babylon.  

The Harran Stela was composed in the fourteenth or fifteenth year of [[Nabonidus|Nabonidus, King of Babylon]], i.e. 542 to 540 BC, commemorating his restoration of the temple at Ehulhul.<ref>Beaulieu, ''Reign of Nabonidus'', 32.</ref> Nabonidus relates how hostile kings were trying to be reconciled with him. The kings are named as "the king of Egypt, the Medes and the land of the Arabs, all the hostile kings".<ref>Pritchard, ''Ancient Near Eastern Texts'', 562b.</ref> The significance of this lies in its date of composition, just one to three years before Nabonidus lost his kingdom to the Medes and Persians.<ref>Beaulieu, ''Reign of Nabonidus'', 143.</ref> It was also some 13 or 14 years after Cyrus had supposedly subjugated the Medes and became ruler of the combined empire of the Persians and Medes in 559 B.C. according to Herodotus and the consensus of modern historians who follow him. Nabonidus, however, makes no mention of the Persians who soon would be the leaders of those who captured his capital. This is consistent with Xenophon’s picture of the Persians still being the subordinate partner in the Medo-Persian confederacy at the time, with Cyrus the junior sovereign under his uncle, Cyaxares II king of Media.<ref>''Cyropaedia'' 3.3.24–25, 4.1.19–21, 8.5.17–19, esp. 19.</ref> Nowhere in any surviving inscription is Cyrus called the king of Media, unless it is maintained that the present inscription is interpreted that way; this would be in contradiction to other sources where Cyrus is referred to "king of Anshan", "king of Persia", "the great king" and similar titles.<ref>It would be circular reasoning to say that the Harran Stela shows that Cyrus is called the King of the Medes because the Medes are listed on the Harran Stela as the enemy of the Babylonians.</ref> The Harran Stela therefore is evidence that just shortly before the fall of Babylon the king of the Medes, whose name is not given, not only existed, but was considered a more important enemy of the Babylonians than Cyrus and the Persians. All this is consistent with Xenophon’s history of Cyrus in the ''Cyropaedia'', but in contradiction to the accounts in Herodotus, followed by many modern historians, which portray the Persians, with the Medes subjugated under them, as the dominant force challenging Nabonidus for several years before the capture of Babylon.  

*[https://babylonian-collection.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/YNER%2010%20-%20Beaulieu%20-%20The%20Reign%20of%20Nabonidus%20King%20of%20Babylon%20556-549%20BC%20(1989).pdf] Paul-Alain Beaulieu, ''The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 B.C. '' (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1989).

*[https://babylonian-collection.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/YNER%2010%20-%20Beaulieu%20-%20The%20Reign%20of%20Nabonidus%20King%20of%20Babylon%20556-549%20BC%20(1989).pdf] Paul-Alain Beaulieu, ''The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 B.C. '' (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1989).

==References==

==References==