BABYLONIAN CHRONICLES

   Several chronicles were written in Babylon from the middle of the second millennium B.C. onward. Chronicle Precords the dealings of the Kassite Dynasty with its Assyrian and Elamite neighbors. There are seven Neo-Babylonian chronicles from the reign of Nabunasir to the Persian conquest in 539 B.C. The Late Babylonian Chronicles follow on after a gap of some 50 years and cover the Achaemenid empire, the reign of the successors of Alexanderthe Great (Diadochi), and the period of the Seleucids.

   The scribes who wrote these documents were primarily interested in events at Babylonia from a Babylonian point of view and thus often contradict or supplement other sources, like the Assyrian annals and royal inscriptions. On the other hand, they do not gloss over military defeats or the fact that Babylonia was governed by foreign kings, and thus betray a genuine interest in history. See also HISTORIOGRAPHY.