History of the Cyrus Cylinder
I recently watched an interesting TED Talk called 2600 years of history in one object by Neil MacGregor. You can find the presentation here Cyrus Cylinder Talk. In a little over 19 minutes, you can learn about an object that was made over 2500 years ago and discovered about 140 years ago. The object is a clay cylinder covered with writing.
This talk was loaded with information. I learned of the parallels between events in 539 BC and into the 2000s. A lot of this centers on the Middle East conflict ie. the Iran-Iraq war. The history written on the cylinder recounts when the empire of Babylon fell to Cyrus.
The segment I enjoyed the most depicts a night that is told of in the Book of Daniel in the Holy Bible. The fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote on the wall. The writing said the kingdom of Babylon would be handed over to the Medes and Persians. Later that night Cyrus, king of the Persians took over Babylon.
I find this type of history very interesting and would recommend this TED Talk to anyone at least somewhat interested in ancient history. There is a wealth of information within this presentation and one could study this and related topics almost indefinitely. In this short blog, I could really only touch on a few key elements of the talk.
