Nabopolassar

Nabopolassar founded the Neo-Babylonian Empire and destroyed Assyria, the power that had dominated the Near East for three centuries. His origins are obscure; he described himself as a son of a nobody, which may be modesty or may be accurate, and he was probably a Chaldean official in the south, possibly governor of the Sealand. Assyria fell into civil war after the death of Ashurbanipal around 631 BC. Nabopolassar took Babylon in 626 BC and was crowned in November of that year, ending Assyrian rule over the city. The war that followed lasted more than a decade. He fought Assyrian armies across Mesopotamia with mixed results, gradually pushing north. The decisive change came in 615 BC when Cyaxares, king of the Medes, entered the war and the two made an alliance sealed by the marriage of Nabopolassar's son Nebuchadnezzar to a Median princess. Ashur, the ancient religious capital, fell to the Medes in 614 BC. In 612 BC the combined Babylonian, Median and Scythian forces besieged Nineveh for three months and destroyed it — an event that shocked the region and is celebrated in the biblical book of Nahum. The remnant Assyrian government fled to Harran, which fell in 610 BC. Egypt intervened on Assyria's side, and Pharaoh Necho II marched north; it was on that campaign that Josiah of Judah was killed at Megiddo. In 605 BC Nabopolassar, by then in poor health, sent Nebuchadnezzar to command, and he destroyed the Egyptian army at Carchemish. Nabopolassar rebuilt Babylonian temples and canals, and died in 605 BC.

• Lived: 658 BCE – 605 BCE
• Nationality: Iraqi
• Roles: ruler, general