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  1. Discover
  2. Paper: The Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BC
  3. Unit: Week 1 - Cyrus at Babylon

Brick-stamp from Ur (BM)

Commentary

Brick-stamp from Ur (BM)
Accession number: 
Museum Number 118362
Collection: 
British Museum

Brick-stamp from Ur (BM)

Fired clay brick from Ur, with brick-stamp inscription across six lines, in Babylonian cuneiform, "Cyrus, king of the world, king of Anshan, son of Cambyses, king of Anshan. The great gods delivered all the lands into my hand, and I made this land to dwell in peace". c. 539-530 BC.

H. 0.325m; W. 0.32m; Th. 0.06m.  British Museum (BM 118362).

For the titulature of Cyrus the Great in this text, see M. Waters, 'Cyrus and the Achaemenids', Iran 42 (2004), 91-102; similarly, but more radically still, D. T. Potts, ‘Cyrus and the Kingdom of Anshan’, in V.S. Curtis & S. Stewart, Birth of the Persian Empire (2005), 7-28.