The Cyrus Cylinder: From Babylonian Propaganda to Human Rights Charter

Lecture will take place on Wednesday, 4 March 2026, at 5 p.m. at the the Lanthieri mansion in Vipava.

This will be followed by a discussion with the lecturer, moderated by Dr. Milan Mrđenović (Research Centre for Humanities and School of Humanities, University of Nova Gorica).

Lecture will be in English.

Warmly welcome!

Lecture summary:
Created after Cyrus the Great's conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, the so-called Cyrus Cylinder is one of the most famous artifacts from ancient history, currently back in the British Museum after a decade-long world tour. This lecture takes issue with its modern designation as the "world's first charter of human rights.” Far from a universal declaration of tolerance, the clay cylinder—inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform—employs standard Mesopotamian royal rhetoric: it demonizes the previous king as impious, asserts the god Marduk’s endorsement of Cyrus as the new king, and describes the resettlement of exiled gods (as statues) to reward allies and consolidate imperial control. We will discuss how the message of the cylinder became muddled in the politics of the Cold War, and then took on a life of its own with the advent of the internet, where a fake translation of the Cylinder (claiming democracy, religious freedom, and anti-slavery as core values) has had surprising influence at high levels.