These divinities were many of them of great antiquity. They were reverenced in their special localities as nowhere else. Thus the indignation of the priesthoods of these local cults, and of the local aristocracies, may well be imagined at the attempt of Nabonidus, the latest king of Babylon, 555-538 B. C., to concentrate all these local worships at the city of Babylon. When they saw their gods taken from their ancient shrines and gathered at Babylon in the great temple of Bel, as subordinate gods to magnify the worship of Bel, their resentment ripened into secret intrigue against their king, which resulted in the banishment of Nabonidus from his kingdom, the occupation of the throne by Cyrus, and finally the overthrow of the Babylonian empire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNS AND THEIR EQUIVALENTS] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII. THIS latest king of Babylon is, however, an interesting personage. To him we are indebted for many records which but for him the archæologists of this present time would not have recovered. He was a zealous restorer of ancient temples and shrines, which in his day had fallen into decay through all Mesopotamia. This seems to have been a duty enjoined by the gods upon all kings of Chaldea. But, whatever his motive, whether as a fulfillment of religious duty or of antiquarian inclinations, Nabonidus is said to have undertaken these restorations to an extent no king before him seems to have attempted. Of famous temples rebuilded by him are those of the Moon God of Ur, and Haran; also of the Sun God at Larsa and of Sippara. The custom of placing the records of the founder of an edifice in chambers or cavities in the foundations of the structure is of immense antiquity. These records were inscribed generally on clay cylinders and usually ended with injunctions to any future king who might, in rebuilding, come upon the secret hiding place of the cylinders that these records should be replaced in their original depository with religious rites. Failing to do this, the wrath of the gods is invoked upon his sacreligious head. It was in this way that Nabonidus came upon some very ancient and important documents. As in all cases he followed his discoveries with the record of the event upon inscribed cylinders deposited by him in the foundations of the new structure, the value of these to later explorers can scarcely be estimated. It was during his excavations in the foundations of the Sun temple at Larsa that he came upon a cylinder inscribed and deposited by Hammurabi, or Khammuragas, at the rebuilding of a more ancient temple on the same site. Hammurabi states upon his cylinder that this more ancient temple was founded by Urea, or Ur Gur, seven hundred years before his time.