Translations:Nabonidus/12/en

"One of the most powerful illustrations of the strength and conviction of image worship in ancient Mesopotamia is probably the treatment of cult statues in times of war. Assyrian and Babylonian sources of the first millennium frequently allude to the removal of divine statues from the temples as the result of a city being conquered. Spoliated statues were usually carried off to the land of the victorious power (Assyria in most known cases) where they remained in captivity until a turn of events would allow them to be restored to their shrines. (...) Rather than incur the capture of their gods and the resulting implications of such capture, namely, that the gods were abandoning the city and calling for its destruction, cities often tried to prevent the transfer of the statues to enemy territory, since continued possession of them in the face of adversity proved that the gods were still protecting and supporting their people and native land. (...) [D]uring the months which preceded the invasion and conquest of Babylonia by the Persians in 539 BC, King Nabonidus ordered a massive gathering of the gods of Sumer and Akkad into the capital. Unlike previous attempts, the gathering ordered by Nabonidus is documented by a number of historical and archival sources." [after this, Beaulieu goes on to discuss these sources in detail]

—P.-A. Beaulieu 1993:241-2