Austrian academic discovers name of Babylon King Nebuchadnezzar IIs chief eunuch

An Austrian professor has probably made the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, that too in the British Museums great Arched Room, which holds a collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, dating back 5,000 years.

London, July 11 : An Austrian professor has probably made the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, that too in the British Museum's great Arched Room, which holds a collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, dating back 5,000 years.

During the course of his survey, Professor Michael Jursa came across a name - Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as "the chief eunuch" of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

According to The Telegraph, Professor Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he found, spelled differently, the same name - Nebo-Sarsekim.

Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II's "chief officer" and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city.

The small tablet, the size of "a packet of 10 cigarettes" according to Irving Finkel, a British Museum expert, is a bill of receipt acknowledging Nabu-sharrussu-ukin's payment of 0.75 kg of gold to a temple in Babylon.

The tablet is dated to the 10th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 595BC, 12 years before the siege of Jerusalem.

Evidence from non-Biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure.

"This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find. If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power," said Dr. Finkel.

Cuneiform is the oldest known form of writing and was commonly used in the Middle East between 3,200 BC and the second century AD. It was created by pressing a wedge-shaped instrument, usually a cut reed, into moist clay.

ANI