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Chronology and 607 BCE · Claim record

An inscription of Adad-guppi, the mother of King Nabonidus, set up at Harran in the sixth century BCE, measures her life by the regnal years it ran between: from the twentieth year of Ashurbanipal, in which she says she was born, through his forty-second year, then the third year of Ashur-etel-ilani, the twenty-first of Nabopolassar, the forty-third of Nebuchadnezzar II, the second of Amel-Marduk and the fourth of Neriglissar — and calls that span “ninety-five years”. The named years are the points the count runs between, and they add up exactly: 22 further years of Ashurbanipal, then 3 + 21 + 43 + 2 + 4 = 95.

Claim ID claim-chronology-adadguppi-95-yearsExplicit statement
Explicit statement Verified

An inscription of Adad-guppi, the mother of King Nabonidus, set up at Harran in the sixth century BCE, measures her life by the regnal years it ran between: from the twentieth year of Ashurbanipal, in which she says she was born, through his forty-second year, then the third year of Ashur-etel-ilani, the twenty-first of Nabopolassar, the forty-third of Nebuchadnezzar II, the second of Amel-Marduk and the fourth of Neriglissar — and calls that span “ninety-five years”. The named years are the points the count runs between, and they add up exactly: 22 further years of Ashurbanipal, then 3 + 21 + 43 + 2 + 4 = 95. RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, 2020RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, 2020

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation’s published argument does not address this inscription. Its general position is that the record is discontinuous — “gaps in the history documented by the Babylonian chronicles suggest that we may not have a continuous chronological record” and “Could others have ruled between the reigns of these kings?” (The Watchtower, 1 November 2011, p. 24). It does cite a different royal inscription, of Neriglissar, as possible evidence for an extra king (same issue, note 10).

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, “Nabonidus 2001 (the Harran stele of Adad-guppi), column i line 29”

2020 · i 29 · Frauke Weiershaeuser and Jamie Novotny (edition) · Oracc / LMU Munich

“From the twentieth year of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, (during) which I was born, until the forty-second year of Ashurbanipal, the third year of Aššur-etel-ilāni, his son, the twenty-first year of Nabopolassar, the forty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar (II), the second year of Amēl-Marduk, (and) the fourth year of Neriglissar, after (these) ninety-five years”

Adad-guppi, the mother of King Nabonidus, dates her own long life by naming in order the regnal years it ran between. The count starts in the twentieth year of Ashurbanipal, in which she says she was born, and ends in the fourth year of Neriglissar, and the inscription calls that span ninety-five years: a further twenty-two years of Ashurbanipal, then three, twenty-one, forty-three, two and four. The inscription is a sixth-century BCE document from Harran, written within living memory of the reigns it counts.

Official source Archived or alternative copy

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The Oracc HTML edition was downloaded and read on 19 September 2026; the transliteration and the English translation of column i 29 were read together and the line label “(i 29)” read from the page. Oracc asks that the page be cited as http://oracc.org/ribo/Q005471/. The year-numbers named here are the points the count runs between, not a list of reign lengths: 22 + 3 + 21 + 43 + 2 + 4 = 95.

Scan provenance. Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online (RIBo), Babylon 7, edited by Frauke Weiershaeuser and Jamie Novotny for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative at LMU Munich; CC BY-SA 3.0.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-oracc-adadguppi-ii40, src-chr-e-pd-1942-p9-10-transitions

Notes. The same inscription records that Sin kept her alive 'for 104 good years' from the time of Ashurbanipal 'until the ninth year of Nabonidus'.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-oracc-adadguppi-i29

Peer-reviewed / scholarly Verified

RIBo, Babylon 7: The Inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, “Nabonidus 2001 (the Harran stele of Adad-guppi), column ii line 40b”

2020 · ii 40b · Frauke Weiershaeuser and Jamie Novotny (edition) · Oracc / LMU Munich

“During the twenty-one years of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, the forty-three years of Nebuchadnezzar (II), son of Nabopolassar, and the four years of Neriglissar, king of Babylon, (when) th(ose three kings) exercised kingship, I whole heartedly revered them ... for sixty-eight years”

A second, independent summation in the same inscription: 21 + 43 + 4 = 68 years of continuous service under three named Babylonian kings.

Official source Archived or alternative copy

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Read in the Oracc HTML edition on 19 September 2026, with the Akkadian ('ina 21 MU.MES ... ina 43 MU.MES') alongside the translation.

Scan provenance. Royal Inscriptions of Babylonia online (RIBo), Babylon 7, edited by Frauke Weiershaeuser and Jamie Novotny for the Munich Open-access Cuneiform Corpus Initiative at LMU Munich; CC BY-SA 3.0.

Corroborated by. src-chr-e-oracc-adadguppi-i29

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chr-e-oracc-adadguppi-ii40

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-chronology-adadguppi-95-years/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.