The Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient Persian royal inscription, was written on clay.
The artifact is a small barrel-shaped cylinder made from baked clay. It was created in Babylon after Cyrus the Great conquered the city in 539 BCE. Its inscription uses Babylonian cuneiform and presents Cyrus as a legitimate ruler favored by the Babylonian god Marduk.
The text describes Cyrus’s restoration of temples and religious images, along with his return of displaced peoples. These statements have made the cylinder an important source for studying Achaemenid imperial ideology and Babylonian political traditions.
A common modern misunderstanding calls it the world’s first declaration of human rights. Historians generally reject that description because the inscription is a royal foundation text, not a universal rights charter. The cylinder is now held by the British Museum in London.