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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

Parker and Dubberstein's standard reference chronology fixes each Neo-Babylonian reign from dated business and administrative tablets. At the change from Nebuchadnezzar II to Amel-Marduk, the last tablet of the old reign and the first of the new are dated to the same day, 7 October 562 BCE; at the change from Amel-Marduk to Neriglissar the gap is six days.

Claim ID claim-chronology-business-tablets-transitionsConcerns 1942Explicit statement
Explicit statement · 1942 Verified

Parker and Dubberstein's standard reference chronology fixes each Neo-Babylonian reign from dated business and administrative tablets. At the change from Nebuchadnezzar II to Amel-Marduk, the last tablet of the old reign and the first of the new are dated to the same day, 7 October 562 BCE; at the change from Amel-Marduk to Neriglissar the gap is six days. Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45 (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 24), 1942Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45 (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 24), 1942

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation points to tablets that appear to date Nebuchadnezzar's successor before the end of Nebuchadnezzar's last year and asks whether the record is continuous.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45 (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 24), “II. Kings' Reigns: Nebuchadnezzar II and Amel-Marduk”

1942 · pp.9-10 · Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein · Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

“Evidence for End of Reign VI/14/43 (Sept. 25, 562), Uruk ... VI/26/43 (Oct. 7, 562), Uruk ... The first tablet dated to Amel-Marduk (see below) comes from Sippar (?) and is dated on the same day as the last tablet of Nebuchadnezzar from Uruk. Accordingly Nebuchadnezzar died during the first days of October, 562.”

The standard reference chronology establishes the length of each Neo-Babylonian reign from dated business and administrative tablets, listing for every king the last tablet of his reign and the first tablet of his successor's. At this junction the two are dated to the same day.

Official source Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The full PDF was downloaded from the ISAC asset server on 19 September 2026, converted with pdftotext and read. The running head reads '10 BABYLONIAN CHRONOLOGY 626 B.C.--A.D. 45'.

Scan provenance. Free PDF of the volume published by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (formerly the Oriental Institute), University of Chicago; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; DOI https://doi.org/10.83354/68x5-8f30

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-oracc-adadguppi-i29, src-chr-e-w11-1101-footnote-e

Notes. The same pages show Amel-Marduk’s last tablet on 7 August 560 and Neriglissar’s first on 13 August 560, a gap of six days. Page 10 also carries Labashi-Marduk: first dated tablet 22 May 556, last 20 June 556, with the conclusion that he “seems to have been recognized as king only in May and June, 556”. He is the one king the organisation says Ptolemy omitted who falls inside the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, and the standard chronology accounts for him in weeks, not years.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-pd-1942-p9-10-transitions

Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C. - A.D. 45 (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 24), “Preface”

1942 · pp.vii · Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein · Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

“This study aims at providing a brief, but complete and thorough, presentation of the data bearing upon the chronological problems of the Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid Persian, and Seleucid periods, together with tables for the easy translation of dates from the Babylonian calendar into the Julian.”

The authors describe the scope of the work that became, in its revised 1956 edition (Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75), the standard reference for converting Babylonian dates.

Official source Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Read in the ISAC PDF on 19 September 2026. Only the 1942 edition (626 B.C.-A.D. 45) was opened in this session; the 1956 Brown University Press revision, which extends to A.D. 75, was not opened and its page numbers are not cited here.

Scan provenance. Free PDF of the volume published by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (formerly the Oriental Institute), University of Chicago; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; DOI https://doi.org/10.83354/68x5-8f30

Notes. Wiseman's 1956 volume states that its Julian dates 'follow the tables of R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein in Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 45'.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-pd-1942-preface

Claim page

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