~539 BCE·Achaemenid PersianEditorial
Cyrus Cylinder
Often called the world's first declaration of human rights — a 20th-century characterization that overstates its scope; it is, more accurately, a typical Mesopotamian royal accession text framed as Marduk's restoration of order. But its references to religious tolerance and the return of exiled peoples (which the Hebrew Bible echoes in describing the end of the Babylonian Exile) have made it one of the most politically resonant cuneiform artifacts ever recovered.
Law·Writing & Literature