The Cyrus Cylinder is a barrel-shaped clay cylinder measuring 22.5 x 10 cm on which is inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform a proclamation from the Persian king, Cyrus the Great.
Written in 539 BC, the text was discovered in 1879 in the ruins of ancient Babylon.
The year of his victory over the Neo-Babylonian Empire, in 539 BC, he issued a decree granting freedom to all the exiled or deported peoples of his empire.
This, according to the Book of Ezra, authorized the Jews deported to Babylon to return to Judea and build the Second Temple of Jerusalem there (Ezra 5:13). In compensation for the damage caused by Nebuchadnezzar II, he even returned the Temple furnishings seized by the latter (Ezra 1:7-11).
In 1971, the United Nations had the Edict of Cyrus translated into all languages, as it is often presented as the first declaration of human rights.
Preserved at the British Museum in London, which sponsored the expedition that discovered it.
