The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in History and Historical Memory [Hardcover]

Foreword; PART I: WRITING HISTORY AND RECOVERING MEMORY, SOURCES AND METHODOLGIES; 1. Toward an Understanding of the Babylonian Memory of Nebuchadnezzar I; 2. Nebuchadnezzar I: Prior Scholarship and Historical Sources; PART II: NEBUCHADNEZZAR I AND HIS TIMES; 3. The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I; 4. Nebuchadnezzar Is Successors; PART III: REMEMBERING NEBUCHADNEZZAR I IN THE 1ST MILLENNIUM BCE; 5. Esarhaddon and the Return of Marduk in 668 BCE; 6. Remembering Nebuchadnezzar I from the Babylonian Zenith to Seleucid Decline; PART IV: THE MAKING OF MEMORY AND THE MAKING OF MEANING; 7. Nebuchadnezzar I in the Collective Memory; 8. The Elevation of Marduk: Nebuchadnezzar I as Cultural Formation; 9. Intentional History in the Early First Millennium BCE; Index

Nebuchadnezzar I (r. 1125-1104) was one of the more significant and successful kings to rule Babylonia in the intervening period between the demise of the Kassite Dynasty in the 12^th century at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the emergence of a new, independent Babylonian monarchy in the last quarter of the 7^th century. His dynamic reign saw Nebuchadnezzar active on both domestic and foreign fronts. He tended to the needs of the traditional cult sanctuaries and their associated priesthoods in the major cities throughout Babylonia and embarked on military campaigns against both Assyria in the north and Elam to the east. Yet later Babylonian tradition celebrated him for one achievement that was little noted in his own royal inscriptions: the return of the statue of Marduk, Babylons patron deity, from captivity in Elam.

The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar reconstructs the history of Nebuchadnezzar Is rule and, drawing upon theoretical treatments of historical and collective memory, examines how stories of his reign were intentionally utilized by later generations of Babylonian scholars and priests to create an historil“j