Neo-Babylonian Empire

When Assyria collapsed at the end of the 7th century BC, the Chaldean general Nabopolassar (r. 626–605) seized Babylon and declared independence. With Median allies he destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC and, at Carchemish in 605, his son Nebuchadnezzar II routed Pharaoh Necho and the last Assyrian remnant — opening the way for an empire that ran from the Persian Gulf to the borders of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605–562) rebuilt Babylon on a scale the world had never seen: the great Ishtar Gate of glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat Etemenanki, and the gardens for his Median wife (the legendary "hanging gardens"). It was Nebuchadnezzar who deported Daniel and his friends in 605 BC (Dan 1), who took Jehoiachin and Ezekiel in 597 (2 Kgs 24), and who burned Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 (2 Kgs 25, Jer 39, Lamentations). After his death the dynasty weakened under four short reigns; the last king, Nabonidus (556–539), neglected Babylon for the desert oasis of Tema, leaving his son Belshazzar as regent in the city. On 12 October 539 BC, Cyrus the Persian entered Babylon without a fight, and the empire was over.