The DOI matches its Crossref record; 2 of the 2 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire: The Imperial Periphery as Seen from the Centre
Open accessAbstract
The paper examines the cuneiform evidence from sixth-century Babylonia (and beyond) for information on the form and aims of Neo-Babylonian imperial rule over its western provinces. While new texts, which hitherto have not been considered in this context, can be brought to bear on the issue, direct evidence from these provinces is still scarce. These documents will thus be supplemented by drawing on the rich information concerning state institutions and resource extraction in the imperial centre. It is argued that in the first half of the Neo-Babylonian period, until ca. 585 BCE, Babylonian imperial rule in the western periphery can be conceptualized primarily as a straightforward exploitative tributary regime. From about the mid-reign of Nebuchadnezzar onwards, however, there is a shift towards a more sustainable resource extraction through the creation of stable pockets of Babylonian presence in the periphery. This diachronic shift was meant to steady and organize the initial ad hoc Babylonian approach. These measures, however, did not prevail, and the chaotic years which followed the 43 years reign of Nebuchadnezzar illustrate the fragility of the relatively short-lived Babylonian imperial age.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“In a palace-like residence that was in use from late Assyrian times into the Neo-Babylonian period, cuneiform tablets written in the Assyrian language and in an Assyrian format, but dated to the second and fifth years of Nebuchadnezzar, have been recovered: in the area, at that time, Babylonian control was based on the collaboration of the local, Assyrian elites.”
From The Neo-Babylonian Empire (2023) · cites this paper as Levavi 2020
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Together with Carchemish on the Euphrates, Riblah on the Orontes river, and perhaps Harran on the Balikh river, Tyre was thus one of the few urban centers upon which the Babylonians based their control of the region.”
From The Neo-Babylonian Empire (2023) · cites this paper as Levavi 2020
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“This regime has been called “superficial domination” 180 -but only in the sense that the Babylonian apparatus of supervision and control was minimal and normally quite remote from the centers where tribute was extracted.”
From The Neo-Babylonian Empire (2023) · cites this paper as Levavi 2020: 62
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“In the Khabur valley further east, the best evidence of Babylonian control from the late seventh century onward comes from the site of Tell Sheikh Hamad, the old Assyrian city of Dur-Katlimmu.”
From The Neo-Babylonian Empire (2023) · cites this paper as Levavi 2020
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“The evidence of “colony-building” in the Khabur valley and perhaps in the region of Tyre shows that this model was not followed consistently everywhere and throughout the entire period of Neo-Babylonian domination, 181”
From The Neo-Babylonian Empire (2023) · cites this paper as Levavi 2020
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Babylonian Strategies of Imperial Control in the West: Royal Practice and Rhetoric
Vanderhooft, D. (2003) · Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period · doi:10.1515/9781575065403-012 · Cited by 39
Jursa, M. (2023) · The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East Volume V · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0050 · Cited by 28
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 49
- Alstola, T. 2020. Judeans in Babylonia: A Study of Deportees in the Sixth and Fifth Centuries BCE. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 109. Leiden/Boston: Brill. · DOI · Paper page
- Bagg, A. 2013. “Palestine under Assyrian Rule: a New Look at the Assyrian Imperial Policy in the West.” JAOS 133 (1): 119–44. https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.133.1.0119. · DOI
- Barstad, H. M. 2003. “After the “Myth of the Empty Land”: Major Challenges in the Study of Neo-Babylonian Judah.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by L. Oded, and J. Blenkinsopp, 3–20. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Beaulieu, P. A. 2005. “Eanna’s contribution to the construction of the North Palace at Babylon.” In Approaching the Babylonian Economy. Proceedings of the START Project Symposium Held in Vienna, 1–3 July 2004, edited by H. Baker, and M. Jursa, 45–73. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.
- Betlyon, J. W. 2003. “Neo-Babylonian Military Operations Other Than War in Judah and Jerusalem.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by L. Oded, and J. Blenkinsopp, 263–84. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Blenkinsopp, J. 2002. “The Bible, Archaeology and Politics; or, the Empty Land Revisited.” JSOT 27: 169–87, https://doi.org/10.1177/030908920202700202. · DOI
- Brinkman, J. A. 1990. “The Babylonian Chronicle Revisited.” In Lingering over Words, Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, edited by T. Abusch, J. Huehnergard, and P. Steinkeller, 73–104. Georgia: Scholars Press. · DOI
- Carter, E. C. 2003. “Ideology and Archaeology in the Neo-Babylonian Period: Excavating Text and Tell.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by L. Oded, and J. Blenkinsopp, 301–22. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Crowell, B. L. 2007. “Nabonidus, as-Sila, and the Beginning of the End of Edom.” BASOR 348: 75–88, https://doi.org/10.1086/basor25067039. · DOI
- Da Riva, R. 2013a. “Nebuchadnezzar II’s Prism (EŞ 7834): A New Edition.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 103 (2): 196–229, https://doi.org/10.1515/za-2013-0013. · DOI
- Da Riva, R. 2013b The Inscriptions of Nabopolassar, Amēl-Marduk and Neriglissar. SANER, 3. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. · DOI
- Da Riva, R. 2014. “Enduring Images of an Ephemeral Empire: Neo-Babylonian Inscriptions and Representations in the Western Periphery.” In Mesopotamia in the Ancient World: Impact, Continuities, Parallels, edited by R. Rollinger, and E. van Dongen. Melammu Symposia 7, 306–30. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. · DOI · Paper page
- Da Riva, R. 2018. “The Neo-Babylonian Palace as Centre of the World.” ARAMAZD: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies 12 (1): 96–108, https://doi.org/10.13109/wdor.2018.48.1.96. · DOI
- Da Riva, R. 2019. “The king of the rock revisited: the site of As-Sila (Tafila, Jordan) and the Iscription of Nabonidus of Babylon.” In A Tribute to Mirjo Salvini, edited by R. Eichmann, H. Schaudig, and A. Hausleiter, 163–76. Oxford: Archaeopress. · DOI
- Eichmann, R., H. Schaudig, and A. Hausleiter. 2006. “Archaeology and Epigraphy at Tayma (Saudi-Arabia).” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 17: 163–76, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0471.2006.00269.x. · DOI
- Fantalkin, A. 2011. “Why Did Nebuchadnezzar II Destroy Ashkelon in Kislev 604 B.C.E.?.” In The Fire Signals of Lachish: Studies in the Archaeology and History of Israel in the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Persian Period in Honor of David Ussishkin, edited by I. Finkelstein, and N. Naʾaman, 87–111. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Faust, A. 2007. “Settlement Dynamics and Demographic Fluctuations in Judah from the Late Iron Age to the Hellenistic Period and the Archaeology of Persian-Period Yehud.” In A Time of Change: Judah and its Neighbors During the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods, edited by Y. Levin, 23–51. London: Bloomsbury.
- Faust, A. 2012. Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period The Archaeology of Desolation. Atlanta: SBL. · DOI
- Hackl, J., and M. Jursa 2015. “Egyptians in Babylonia in the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Periods.” In Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context, edited by J. Stökl, and C. Waerzeggers, 157–80. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. · DOI
- Jursa, M. 2014a. “The Lost State Correspondence of the Babylonian Empire as Reflected in Contemporary Administrative Letters.” In State Correspondence in the Ancient World, edited by K. Radner, 94–111, 226–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press. · DOI
- Jursa, M., and R. Zadok. 2020. “Judeans and other Westsemites: another view from the Babylonian countryside.” HEBAI 9 (1):20–40. https://doi.org/10.1628/hebai-2020-0004. · DOI
- Kahn, D. 2018. “Nebuchadnezzar and Egypt: An Update on the Egyptian Monuments.” HEBAI 7: 65–78, https://doi.org/10.1628/hebai-2018-0005. · DOI
- Killebrew, A. E., and M. Steiner, eds. 2014. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000-332 BCE. Oxford: Oxford University press. · DOI
- Kreppner, F. J. 2008a. “The Collapse of the Assyrian Empire and the Continuity of Ceramic Culture: The Case of the Red House at Tall Sheikh Hamad.” JANES 45: 147–65, https://doi.org/10.2143/anes.45.0.2033168. · DOI
- Kreppner, F. J. 2008b. “The Continuity of Ceramic Production after the Fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. New Data from the Red House of Tall Sheikh Hamad.” In Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, edited by H. Kühne, R. Czichon, and F. J. Kreppner, 167–78. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
- Lemaire, A. 2003. “Nabonidus in Arabia and Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp, 285–98. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Levavi, Y. 2017. “Betting on the right horse – loyalty in the early years of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.” In Proceedings of the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Wasaw 2010, July 21–25, 2014): Fortune and Misfortune, edited by O. Drewnowska, and M. Sandowicz, 177–90. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Levavi, Y. In press. “The Sound of Silence: the Destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib and the Babylonian Chronicles.” In Culture of defeat: Submission in written sources and the Archaeological record of the Ancient Near East, edited by K. Streit, and M. Grohmann. The Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East Series 165–187. Piscataway (NJ): Gorgias. · DOI
- Lipschits, O., and D. Vanderhooft. 2014. “Continuity and Change in the Persian Period Judahite Stamped Jar Administration.” In Jewish “Material” Otherness? Studies in the Formation of Persian Period Judaism(s), edited by C. Frevel, K. Pyschny, and I. Cornelius. OBO 264, 43–66. Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg.
- Lipschits, O., and J. Blenkinsopp, eds. 2003. In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Lipschits, O. 2003. “Demographic Changes in Judah between the Seventh and the Fifth Centuries b.c.e.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp, 323–76. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Livingstone, A. 2005. “Taimāᵓ and Nabonidus: It’s a small world.” In Writing and ancient Near Eastern society: Papers in honour of Alan R. Millard, edited by P. Bienkowski, et al. C. Mee, and E. Slater. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 426, 29–39. London: T&T Clark International.
- Magee, P. 2014. The Archaeology of Prehistoric Arabia: Adaptation and Social Formation from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. · DOI
- Münkler, H. 2007 Empires: the Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States. translated by Camiller, Patrick. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Nevader, M. 2015. “On Reading Ezekiel by the Rivers of Babylon.” Die Welt Des Orients 45/1: 99–110, https://doi.org/10.13109/wdor.2015.45.1.99. · DOI
- Oded, B. 2003. “Where Is the “Myth of the Empty Land” To Be Found? History versus Myth.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits, and J. Blenkinsopp, 55–74. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Oelsner, J. 2017. “Überlegungen zu Ausgrabungen von Babylon.” ZDMG 167: 289–94. https://doi.org/10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.167.2.0289. · DOI
- Pearce, L., and C. Wunsch. 2014 Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer. CUSAS, 28. Bethesda: CDL Press.
- Pedersén, O. 1998. Archives and Libraries in the Ancient Near East 1500−300 B.C. Bethesda: CDL Press.
- Sack, R. H. 2003. “Nebuchadnezzar II and the Old Testament: History versus Ideology.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits, and J. Blenkinsopp, 221–34. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Sack, R. H. 2004. Images of Nebuchadnezzar: The Emergence of a Legend, 2nd edition Susquehanna: University Press. London/Toronto: Associated University Press.
- Van der Brugge, C., and K. Kleber. 2016. “The Empire of Trade and the Empires of Force: Tyre in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods.” In Dynamics of Production and Economic Interaction in the Near East in the First Half of the First Millennium BCE, edited by J. C. M Garcia, 187–222. Oxford: Oxbow.
- Vanderhooft, D. 1999 The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets. Harvard Semitic Monographs, 59. Atlanta: Scholars Pres. · DOI
- Vanderhooft, D. 2018. “Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, My Servant: Contrasting Prophetic Images of the Great King.” HEBAI 7: 93–111, https://doi.org/10.1628/hebai-2018-0008. · DOI
- Waerzeggers, C. 2012. “The Babylonian Chronicles: Classification and Provenance.” JNES 71 (2): 285–98, https://doi.org/10.1086/666831. · DOI
- Waerzeggers, C. 2015. “Babylonian Kingship in the Persian Period: Performance and Reception.” In Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context, edited by J. Stökl, and C. Waerzeggers, 181–222. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. · DOI
- Zertal, A. 2003. “The Province of Samaria (Assyrian Samerina) in the Late Iron Age (Iron Age III).” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits, and J. Blenkinsopp, 377–412. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Zorn, R. J. 2003. “Tell en-Naßbeh and the Problem of the Material Culture of the Sixth Century.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period, edited by O. Lipschits, and J. Blenkinsopp, 413–47. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. · DOI
- Zorn, R. J. 2014. “The Levant During the Babylonian Period.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000-332 BCE, edited by A. E. Killebrew, and M. Steiner, 825–40. Oxford: Oxford University press.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Jursa, M. (2023) · The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East Volume V · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190687663.003.0050 · Cited by 28
Metadata
- Authors
- Levavi, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Levavi, Yuval
- ORCID
- Levavi, Yuval
- Venue
- Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History
- Publisher
- Walter de Gruyter GmbH
- Published
- 2020-06-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 59-84
- ISSN
- 2328-9554 (ISSN-L)
- 2328-9562
- OpenAlex
- W3044866961
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 5 · 2021: 17
- FWCI
- 26.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Austrian Science Fund
- Universität Wien
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Ancient Near East History
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Ancient Egypt and Archaeology
- Keywords
- Neo-Babylonian Empire, imperial periphery, resource extraction, Nebuchadnezzar II, imperial administration, 6th century BC
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review