539 BC · Middle East · Empire
Persian forces entered Babylon and absorbed its territories into the Achaemenid Empire; exiled communities gained new possibilities of return.
Atlas dossier · Biblical & ClassicalFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
‘He hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem.’ — Ezra 1:2 (KJV)
Persian forces entered Babylon and absorbed its territories into the Achaemenid Empire; exiled communities gained new possibilities of return.
Cyrus II · Nabonidus · Judean exiles
Persian imperial policy transformed the Near East and frames the Biblical restoration of Jerusalem.
Supplemental archival visual
Cyrus Cylinder, Babylon, c. 539 BCE is presented as a period visual interpretation or documentary record. It does not independently establish the dossier’s chronology; use the linked item page and source trail for its provenance and reuse terms.
Open the item page and rights record ↗Cyrus Cylinder, Babylon, c. 539 BCE — Daderot; CC0 1.0; via British Museum
Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
490 BC–-479 · EuropeGreco-Persian WarsGreek coalitions resisted Achaemenid invasions in campaigns remembered at Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea.
431 BC–-404 · EuropePeloponnesian WarAthens, Sparta and their alliances fought across the Greek world in a prolonged conflict marked by plague, revolt, naval warfare and the Sicilian disaster.
334 BC–-323 · GlobalWars of Alexander the GreatAlexander’s Macedonian army defeated Achaemenid Persia, besieged Tyre, entered Egypt and campaigned through Central Asia to the Indus.