The last Assyrian city to fall was Harran in south east Anotolia, this city was also the birthplace of the last king of Babylon, the Assyrian Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar.

The short-lived 11th dynasty of the Kings of Babylon ( 6th century BC ) is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean Dynasty, although only the first four rulers of this dynasty were known to be Chaldeans, and the last ruler, Nabonidus ( and his son and regent Belshazzar ) was known to be from Assyria.

Nabonidus proved to be the final native Mesopotamian king of Babylon, he and his son, the regent Belshazzar being deposed by the Persians in 539 BC.

Taylor found clay cylinders in the four corners of the top stage of the ziggurat which bore an inscription of Nabonidus ( Nabuna ` id ), the last king of Babylon ( 539 BC ), closing with a prayer for his son Belshar-uzur ( Bel-ŝarra-Uzur ), the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel.

Meanwhile, Nabonidus had established a camp in the desert of Arabia, near the southern frontier of his kingdom, leaving his son Belshazzar ( Belsharutsur ) in command of the army.

Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon, and a few days afterwards the son of Nabonidus died.

Fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls, written from 150 BCE to 70 CE state that it was Nabonidus ( N-b-n-y ) who was smitten by God with a fever for seven years of his reign while his son Belshazzar was regent.

However, the last king of Babylon, the Assyrian born Nabonidus, paid little attention to politics, preferring to obsess with worship of the moon god Sin ( mythology ), leaving day to day rule to his son Belshazzar.

Belshazzar (; Biblical Hebrew בלשאצר ; Akkadian: Bēl-šarra-uṣur ), sometimes called Balthazar (), was a 6th century BC prince of Babylon, the son of Nabonidus and the last king of Babylon according to the Book of Daniel ( 2nd century BC ).

Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus, who after ruling only three years, went to the oasis of Tayma and devoted himself to the worship of the moon god Sin.

According to the Nabonidus Cylinder, Nabonidus petitions the god Sin as follows: " And as for Belshazzar my firstborn son, my own child, let the fear of your great divinity be in his heart, and may he commit no sin ; may he enjoy happiness in life ".

Josephus refers to the queen at the time ( corresponding to the Nitocris of Herodotus ) as the grandmother of Belshazzar which corroborates the alternative view that the younger " Labynetos " ( son of Nitocris ) is Nabonidus.

Meanwhile, Nabonidus, who had concealed himself, was captured, but treated honourably ; and when his wife died, Cambyses II, the son of Cyrus, conducted the funeral.

In 539 BCE, Nabonidus retired to Tayma for worship and looking for prophecies, entrusting the kingship of Babylon to his son.

New evidence from Babylon has verified the existence of Belshazzar, the name first given in Daniel 5: 1, as well as his co-regency during the absence of his father, Nabonidus, in Temâ.

However, there is no evidence that Belshazzar ever officially held the title of " king " as he is never called such on the Nabonidus Cylinder.

In line with the statement that Nabonidus " entrusted the kingship " to Belshazzar in his absence, there is evidence that Belshazzar's name was used with his father's in oath formulas, that he was able to pass edicts, lease farmlands, and receive the " royal privilege " to eat the food offered to the gods.

For example, Nabonidus was the natural, or paternal father of Belshazzar, and the seven years of insanity could be related to Nabonidus ' sojourn in Tayma in the desert.

Belshazzar was positioned in the city of Babylon to hold the capital, while Nabonidus marched his troops north to meet Cyrus.

New evidence from Babylon has verified the existence of Belshazzar as well as his co-regency during the absence of his father, Nabonidus, in Temâ.

In line with the statement that Nabonidus " entrusted the kingship " to Belshazzar in his absence, there is evidence that Belshazzar's name was used with his father's in oath formulas, that he was able to pass edicts, lease farmlands, and receive the " royal privilege " to eat the food offered to the gods.

There were several rulers over Babylon between the death of Nebuchadnezzar and the rulership of Nabonidus and Belshazzar.

There is no evidence that Belshazzar ever officially held the title of " king " as he is never called such in the Nabonidus Cylinder.

The bottom line is that Nabonidus was still alive when Cyrus conquered Babylon, and had not been replaced as the official king of Babylon by Belshazzar.

Some scholars have argued that the non-observance of the Akitu during Nabonidus ' absence demonstrates that Belshazzar was not the " king " since it shows that he could not officiate over the festival.

This stated, the fact that Belshazzar did not disobey his father's command is evidence that Nabonidus remained the official ( and actual ) king of Babylon.

In 540 BC, Nabonidus returned from Tayma, hoping to defend his kingdom from the Persians who were planning to advance on Babylon.

Thus, they were not only able to capture Babylon, but also King Nabonidus.

As a work of historical fiction, this novel has several characters who were real or from ancient mythologies: Alexander the Great, Cyrus, Marduk, Nabonidus, Pharaoh.

Most of the localities it mentions in connection with the restoration of temples were in eastern and northern Mesopotamia, in territories that had been ruled by the deposed Babylonian king Nabonidus ( excepting Susa ).

For the unnamed " king of Babylon " a wide range of identifications have been proposed. They include a Babylonian ruler of the prophet Isaiah's own time the later Nebuchadnezzar II, under whom the Babylonian captivity of the Jews began, or Nabonidus, and the Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon II and Sennacherib, Herbert Wolf held that the " king of Babylon " was not a specific ruler but a generic representation of the whole line of rulers.

* 539 BC – Cyrus the Great enters the city of Babylon, detains Nabonidus and ends the Babylonian captivity.

The last Babylonian king, Nabonidus ( who was Assyrian born, and not a Chaldean ), improved the ziggurat.

Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus ( Nabu-na ' id ), and the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, there is a fair amount of information available.

Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel-Marduk, who was assumed to be wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus in removing the images of the local gods from their ancestral shrines to his capital Babylon.

The Nabonidus Chronicle records that, prior to the battle ( s ), Nabonidus had ordered cult statues from outlying Babylonian cities to be brought into the capital, suggesting that the conflict over Susa had begun possibly in the winter of 540 BCE.

Opinions differ however on how best to reconcile Herodotus with the Babylonian sources and an alternative view is that the younger Labynetos is Nabonidus.

While some claim that it is obvious from his inscriptions that he became almost henotheistic, others consider Nabonidus to have been similar to other Babylonian rulers, in that he respected the other cults and religions in his kingdom.

Finally, Berossus claimed that Cyrus beat the Babylonian army, but this time, Nabonidus was supposed to have fled to nearby Borsippa.

The accounts by Berossus and the retrospective Hellenistic Babylonian dynastic prophecies, which mention that Nabonidus ' life was spared, and that he was allowed to retire to live in Carmania.

A chronicle drawn up just after the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, gives the history of the reign of Nabonidus (' Nabuna ' id '), the last king of Babylon, and of the fall of the Babylonian empire.

This is similar to another Babylonian history, Chronicle of Nabonidus, and differs from the rationalistic accounts of other Greek historians like Thucydides.

According to the Greek author Herodotus, Cyrus treated Croesus well and with respect after the battle, but this is contradicted by the Nabonidus Chronicle, one of the Babylonian Chronicles ( although whether or not the text refers to Lydia's king or prince is unclear ).

The Nabonidus Chronicle records that, prior to the battle ( s ), Nabonidus had ordered cult statues from outlying Babylonian cities to be brought into the capital, suggesting that the conflict had begun possibly in the winter of 540 BC.

Two days later, on October 7 ( proleptic Gregorian calendar ), Gubaru's troops entered Babylon, again without any resistance from the Babylonian armies, and detained Nabonidus.

The text of the cylinder denounces the deposed Babylonian king Nabonidus as impious and portrays Cyrus as pleasing to the chief god Marduk.

The Chronicle of Nabonidus, the Cyrus Cylinder and the so-called Verse Account of Nabonidus contain apologies for the Persian king shedding a rather unfavourable light on the Babylonian king so that it appears that Cyrus I was a liberator and defender of Babylonian orthodoxy, acknowledging him has a legitimate successor to the Babylonian throne.