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{{Infobox monarch
| name = Nebuchadnezzar I
| title = [[List of kings of Babylon|King of Babylon]]
| image= Nabu-Kudurri-Usur.jpg
| caption = Detail from kudurru of Nebuchadnezzar granting Šitti-Marduk freedom from taxation<ref group=i name=lak>Kudurru BM 90858, BBSt 6 grant to LAK-ti Marduk.</ref>
| reign = c. 1125 – 1104 BC
| coronation =
| predecessor = [[Ninurta-nadin-shumi|Ninurta-nādin-šumi]]
| successor = [[Enlil-nadin-apli|Enlil-nādin-apli]]
| spouse  =
| royal house = 2nd Dynasty of [[Isin]]
| father =
| mother =
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| buried =}}

'''Nebuchadnezzar I'''{{#tag:ref|<sup>md</sup>''Nabû-kudurrī-úṣur'' (AN-AG-ŠA-DU-ŠIŠ)<ref group=i name=klc>''Babylonian King List C'', 4</ref> or <sup>md</sup>''Nábû-ku-dúr-uṣur'',<ref group=i>''Synchronistic King List'', tablet excavation number Ass. 14616c (KAV 216), ii 15.</ref> meaning "[[Nabu|Nabû]], protect my eldest son" or "Nabû, protect the border"|group="nb"}} ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|n|ɛ|b|j|ʊ|k|ə|d|ˈ|n|ɛ|z|ər}}), r. c. 1125–1104 BC, was the fourth king of the Second Dynasty of [[Isin]] and Fourth Dynasty of [[Babylon]]. He ruled for 22 years according to the ''Babylonian King List C'',<ref group=i name=klc/> and was the most prominent monarch of this dynasty. He is best known for his victory over [[Elam]] and the recovery of the cultic idol of [[Marduk]].

==Biography==

He is unrelated to his later namesake, [[Nebuchadnezzar II|Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur II]], who has come to be known by the Hebrew form of his name “Nebuchadnezzar.” Consequently, it is anachronistic but not inappropriate to apply this designation retroactively to the earlier king, as he does not make an appearance in the Bible. He is misidentified in the ''Chronicle Concerning the Reign of [[Shamash-shum-ukin|Šamaš-šuma-ukin]]''<ref group=i>''Šamaš-šuma-ukin Chronicle'' (ABC 15), tablet BM 96273.</ref> as the brother of [[Shirikti-shuqamuna|Širikti-šuqamuna]] probably in place of [[Ninurta-kudurri-usur I|Ninurta-kudurrῑ-uṣur I]].<ref name=grayson>{{ cite book | title = Assyrian and Babylonian chronicles | author = A. K. Grayson | publisher = J. J. Augustin | year = 1975 | pages = 231 }}</ref> He succeeded his father, [[Ninurta-nadin-shumi|Ninurta-nādin-šumi]], and was succeeded in turn by his son [[Enlil-nadin-apli|Enlil-nādin-apli]], brother [[Marduk-nadin-ahhe|Marduk-nādin-aḫḫē]] and then nephew [[Marduk-shapik-zeri|Marduk-šāpik-zēri]], the only members of this family known to have reigned during the dynasty.

The ''Enmeduranki legend'', or the ''seed of kingship'',<ref group=i>The ''seed of kingship'' tablet K 4874.</ref> is a Sumero-Akkadian composition relating his endowment with perfect wisdom (''nam-kù-zu'') by the god Marduk and his claim to belong to a “distant line of kingship from before the flood” and to be an “offspring of [[En-men-dur-ana|Enmeduranki]], king of [[Sippar]].” It begins with a lament over preceding events:

{{quote|At that time, in the reign of a previous king, conditions changed. Good departed and evil was regular,<ref group=nb>''da-mi-iq-ti is-si-ma le-mu-ut-tu sad-rat''.</ref> The lord became angry and got furious. He gave the command and the gods of the land abandoned it […] its people were incited to commit crime. The guardians of peace became furious, and went up to the dome of heaven, the spirit of justice stood aside. …who guards living beings, prostrated the people, they all became like those who have no god. Evil demons filled the land, the namtar-demon […] they penetrated the cult centers. The land diminished, its fortunes changed. The wicked Elamite, who did not hold (the land’s) treasures in esteem, […] his battle, his attack was swift. He devastated the habitations, he made them into a ruin, he carried off the gods, he ruined the shrines.<ref>{{ cite book | title = Central Sanctuary and Centralization of Worship in Ancient Israel | author = P. Pitkanen | publisher = Gorgias Press | year = 2004 | page = 34 }}</ref>|The seed of kingship|lines 15-24.}}

===War with Elam===

The duration of Nebuchadnezzar's war with Elam and the number of campaigns he conducted are not known, though it is reasonable to believe that this was a protracted effort with diverse strategic considerations.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Nielsen|first1=John|title=Nebuchadnezzar I's Eastern Front|journal=The Ancient Near East in the 12th-10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History, AOAT|date=2012|volume=392|pages=401–411}}</ref> According to a later literary tradition, an invasion of Elam was thwarted when his army was struck by plague and he narrowly escaped death in the stampede to return home. A raid, or ''šiḫṭu'', commemorated in a ''kudurru'' created during his reign describes a successful campaign. In this raid he was accompanied by the [[Kassites|Kassite]] chieftain Šitti-Marduk who struck the decisive blow,<ref group=i name=lak/> he was able to overrun Elam in a surprise attack conducted from Dēr during the hottest of the summer months, Dumuzi, when

{{quote|the axes (held in the hand) burned like fire and the road-surfaces were scorching like flame. There was no water in the wells and drinking supplies were unavailable. The strength of the powerful horses slackened and the legs of even the strongest man weakened.<ref name=edwards>{{ cite book | title = Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 2, Part 2, History of the Middle East and the Aegean Region, c. 1380-1000 BC | chapter = XXXI: Assyria and Babylonia, c. 1200-1000 BC | author = D. J. Wiseman | editor = I. E. S. Edwards | publisher = Cambridge University Press | date = 1975 | pages = 454–457 }}</ref>|Shitti-Marduk kudurru| i 17–21. }}

According to the ''kudduru'', Nebuchadnezzar routed the Elamite king Ḫulteludiš-Inšušinak on the banks of the river Ulaya in an engagement that saw the dust of the battle darkening the sky. No contemporary or later source records a sack of Susa by Nebuchadnezzar, but according to another ''kudurru'' he was able to retrieve the statue of Marduk (here called Bēl) and that of the goddess Il-āliya (DINGIR.URU-ia) during this or another campaign.<ref group=i>Stone tablet BM 92987, BBSt 24 7-12.</ref> The campaign destroyed Elam as a power and provided a defining moment for the Babylonians akin to the siege of Troy for the ancient Greeks.<ref>{{ cite book | title = From an antique land: an introduction to ancient Near Eastern literature | chapter = Akkadian Literature | author = Benjamin R. Foster | editor = Carl S. Ehrlich | publisher = Rowman and Littlefield | year = 2009 | page = 200 }}</ref>

This famous victory was celebrated in hymns, epic poetry and alluded to in the ''[[Marduk#The Marduk Prophecy|Marduk prophecy]]''.<ref group=i>''Marduk Prophecy'' tablet K. 2158+.</ref> Known as “Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur and Marduk” or the ''Epic of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur''<ref group=i>The ''Epic of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur'', K.3426 (published as CT 13 48).</ref> a poetic document deals with the legendary story of his recovery of the statue of Marduk and is one of two hymns glorify his military achievements. It opens with the king in despair, lamenting over the absence of Marduk, "beautiful Babylon pass through your heart, Turn your face toward (your temple) Esagila, which you love!”

The ''Hymn to Marduk'',<ref group=i>The ''Hymn to Marduk'', DT 71.</ref> celebrating victory over the Elamites, is assigned to him rather than [[Ashurbanipal]] who had a similar triumph, on stylistic grounds. There is a poetic pseudo-autobiography,<ref group=i>Tablet K.2660, 3R 38.</ref> which does not actually mention him by name. An interlinear Sumero-Akkadian text<ref group=i>Tablet BM 99067 K 3444, duplicated as K 3317 K 3319 K 5190 BM 35000.</ref> describes the events preceding the return of the statue from Elam and its joyous installation in Babylon.<ref>{{ cite book | title = The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays | author = J. J. M. Roberts | publisher = Eisenbrauns | year = 2002 | pages = 83–92 }}</ref> A seventh-century astrological report alludes to observations made during his reign and their relationship to his devastation of Elam.

===Other conflicts===

The ''Synchronistic History''<ref group=i>''Synchronistic History'', tablets K4401a + Rm 854, ii 1–13.</ref> relates his entente cordiale with his contemporary, the [[Assyria]]n king [[Ashur-resh-ishi I|Aššur-rēša-iši I]],<ref group=i>''Synchronistic King List'' 2-3 (KAV 12).</ref> and subsequently the outcome of two military campaigns against the border fortresses of Zanqi and Idi that he conducted in violation of this agreement. The first was curtailed by the arrival of Aššur-rēša-iši’s main force, causing Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur to burn his siege engines and flee, while the second resulted in a battle in which the Assyrians apparently triumphed, “slaughtered his troops (and) carried off his camp.” It even reports the capture of the Babylonian field marshal, Karaštu.<ref name=grayson2>{{ cite book | title = Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, Volume 1 | author = A. K. Grayson | publisher = Otto Harrassowitz | year = 1972 | pages = 147–153 }}</ref>

He is titled as the conqueror of the Amorite lands,<ref group=nb>KUR.MAR.TU.KI.</ref> “despoiler of the Kassites,” in the Šittti-Marduk kudurru, despite the beneficiary being a Kassite chieftain and ally, and having smitten the mighty Lullubû with weapons.<ref name=brinkman>{{ cite book | title = Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Nab – Nuzi | chapter = Nebukadnezar I | author = J. A. Brinkman |editor1=Erich Ebeling |editor2=Bruno Meissner |editor3=Dietz Otto Edzard | publisher = Walter De Gruyter Inc | year = 2001 | pages = 192–194 }}</ref>

===Domestic affairs===

His construction activities are memorialized in building inscriptions of the Ekituš-ḫegal-tila, temple of [[Adad]], in Babylon, on bricks from the temple of Enlil in [[Nippur]] and appear in the later king [[Simbar-shipak|Simbar-Šipak]]’s reference to his having built the throne of [[Enlil]] for the Ekur-igigal in Nippur. A late Babylonian inventory lists his donations of gold vessels in [[Ur]] and [[Nabonidus]], ca. 555 to 539 BC, consulted his stele for the ''ēntu-''priestess.

The earliest of three extant economic texts is dated to his eighth year. Together with three kudurrus and a stone memorial tablet, these are the only contemporary commercial or administrative records extant. Apart from the two deeds related to the Elamite campaign, the other kudurru<ref group=i>The Hinke Kudurru year 16.</ref> bears witness to a land grant to the ''nišakku'' of Nippur, a certain Nudku-ibni.<ref>{{ cite book | title = A New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I | author = William John Hinke | publisher = University of Pennsylvania | year =  1907 | pages = 142–155 }}</ref> His name appears on four [[Lorestān bronze]] daggers and there is a prayer to Marduk on two more. He may be the Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur who is mentioned in the ''Chronicle of Market Prices''<ref group=i>''Chronicle of Market Prices'' (ABC 23), BM 48498, line 13.</ref> which records his ninth year but the context is lost.

===Period literature===

The Uruk ''List of Sages and Scholars''<ref group=i>W 20030,7 the Seleucid ''List of Sages and Scholars,'' recovered from Anu’s Bīt Rēš temple during the 1959/60 excavation.</ref> names Šaggil-kīnam-ubbib as the ''ummânu'', or sage, who served under him and the later king [[Adad-apla-iddina]] when he would author the ''Babylonian Theodicy'',<ref>{{ cite journal | title = The Uruk List of Kings and Sages and Late Mesopotamian Scholarship | author = Alan Lenzi | journal = Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions | volume = 8 | number = 2 | year = 2008 | pages = 137–169 | doi=10.1163/156921208786611764}}</ref> and several literary texts are thought to originate from his age, written in both Sumerian and Akkadian.

Lambert has suggested that it was during his reign that Marduk was elevated to the head of the pantheon, displacing Enlil and that the [[Enûma Eliš]] was possibly composed, but some historians claim an origin during the earlier Kassite dynasty.<ref name=brinkman/> A text concerning chemical process (imitations for precious stones) bears a colophon identifying it as a copy of an older Babylonian original but places it in his library.

==See also==
* [[Kudurru for Šitti-Marduk]]
* [[Neminath]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group="nb"}}

==References==

===(i) Primary sources===
{{Reflist|30em|group="i"}}

===Secondary sources===
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{{Babylonian kings}}

{{Authority control}}

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[[Category:Babylonian kings]]
[[Category:12th-century BC rulers]]