Talk:Nebuchadnezzar III/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 15:26, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Extremely little to pick on here.

• "After this defeat, Nebuchadnezzar III fled to Babylon which was quickly besieged and captured by Darius, whereafter Nebuchadnezzar III was executed" - Lead states there was a siege, the later prose in "Darius then quickly[17] seized Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar was captured and executed" doesn't mention a siege.

There probably was a brief siege, but Darius must have seized Babylon pretty quickly since Neb III fled to the city on 18 December and Darius was recognized as king at the latest on 22 December. I've removed "besieged and" from the lead so that it now reads "... Babylon which was quickly captured ...". Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Link cavalry

Done. Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• I'm assuming this is unknown, but was Nidintu-Bel a priest or some such order?

Yeah, we have no idea; the Babylonians believed that he was the son of their late king Nabonidus (so did not write of his actual origin) and the Persians probably did not care enough about his background to note it down. He could have been a priest but he might just as well have been some other form of authority figure, such as a general or governor. I couldn't find any sources discussing his origin other than his birth name and the name of his actual father. Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• "The final document referencing Bardiya at Babylon is dated to 20 September. " - Implies there is more than two. Is there anything relevant in the other ones (again, assuming probably not)

I've rephrased this a bit but these documents are just random letters and stuff - the Babylonians wrote down dates as the year, month and day of the current king (for instance "Bardiya, year 1, month 4, day 12") so their contents (while interesting in their own right) are typically unrelated to whatever goes on at the geopolitical stage. The relevance here is just that it gives a date shortly before Nebuchadnezzar III's rise when we know Bardiya was recognised as king by the Babylonians. Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Do the sources give anything about the significance of the name? I'm assuming it builds off of the name and power of Nebuchadnezzar II.

Yeah, the name 100 % comes from Nebuchadnezzar II. It wasn't a common name in Babylonia (Nebuchadnezzar I ruled 500 years before Nebuchadnezzar II) and Nebuchadnezzar II was in the eyes of the Babylonians the greatest king they ever had. None of the sources I've found explicitly say this, so I can't add it to the article, but it has to be the case, yes. Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Not much to nag about, mostly queries that I don't anticipate having answers other than "this information did not survive to the modern era". Good work, how many of the Babylonian rulers have you made it through? Hog Farm _Bacon 15:57, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for reviewing! Yeah, not much survives of Neb III. We know that the Babylonians clearly thought he was a big deal since Neb IV emulated him a year later and Nidin-Bel might have done the same two centuries later, but what can you do. I've only done a few Babylonians so far, mostly interesting but largely unknown figures, but I did the big Assyrian rulers – Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal – and I hope to eventually get to the big Babylonians (Nebuchadnezzar II, for example) :) Ichthyovenator (talk) 19:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)