Overview
Administrative tablets from the storerooms of Nebuchadnezzar II's palace at Babylon record monthly issues of sesame oil and other staples to people held or maintained at court. Four of them list rations for 'Ya'u-kinu (also written Ya'ukin), king of the land of Yahudu' - Jehoiachin, king of Judah, deported in 597 BCE - together with his five sons and other Judahites.
Koldewey found the tablets in the vaulted substructure at the north-east corner of the Southern Palace, noting in 1914 that 'the large number of tablets found in the stairway chamber on the south side' related to food supplies, which led him to read the building as a storehouse. Ernst Weidner recognised Jehoiachin's name in the Berlin tablets and published the key texts in 1939. In 2025 Olof Pedersén published the whole archive of 527 texts.
The same lists issue oil to craftsmen and dignitaries from many lands (secondary transcriptions mention carpenters from Arvad, woodworkers from Byblos and Greek craftsmen). Pedersén's summary notes that the largest single quantity of oil in the archive went to Jehoiachin.
What the text says (summary)
One tablet lists 10 sila of oil for 'Ya'ukin, king of Yahudu', 2 1/2 sila for 'the sons of the king of Yahudu' (another tablet: 'the 5 sons of the king of Yahudu'), and 4 sila for eight men of Yahudu.Summary of the published readings (Weidner 1939, as reproduced in secondary sources; full edition Pedersén 2025); no public-domain translation exists
What the evidence shows
- About three hundred ration texts dated between Nebuchadnezzar's 10th and 35th years (CoJS); Pedersén (2025) publishes 527 texts and fragments from the palace archives.
- Four texts name Jehoiachin with the title 'king of the land of Yahudu'; one is dated year 13 of Nebuchadnezzar (592/591 BCE) (CoJS).
- Five sons of the king of Judah receive oil alongside him (secondary transcriptions of Weidner's texts).
- The archive records barley, dates and sesame oil shipped mostly by boat, stored in silos and issued to foreigners and guests; the largest single oil allocation goes to Jehoiachin (Pedersén 2025 abstract).
- Findspot: the Vaulted Building of the Southern Palace; Koldewey (1914, p. 100) records many tablets in its southern stairway chamber and reads the building as a storehouse (he also proposed it as the Hanging Gardens, an identification CoJS reports as since abandoned).
Open questions
- Prisoner or pensioner? 2 Kgs 25:27-29 says Evil-Merodach 'did lift up the head of Jehoiachin ... out of prison' in the 37th year of the exile (c. 561 BCE). The tablets show him drawing large rations with his household in 592/591 BCE. CoJS reads the size of the ration as evidence that he was not imprisoned for the whole exile; another reading (ours) is that a period of confinement came later than 592. The tablets themselves say nothing about prison.
- Five sons in 592 BCE: 1 Chr 3:17-18 lists seven sons of Jeconiah (Shealtiel, Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, Nedabiah). The tablet count (five) is a snapshot of one year and does not contradict a later total; it does bear on Jer 22:30 ('write ye this man childless'), which the text itself explains in the same verse as 'no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David'.
- Weidner's 1939 first edition ('Jojachin, König von Juda, in babylonischen Keilschrifttexten', Mélanges syriens offerts à M. René Dussaud II) is the standard reference in secondary literature; it was not available for this entry, so it is not listed as a verified source.
Since 2024
- 2025Pedersén publishes the complete South Palace administrative archive (527 texts) with photographs online, including the Jehoiachin oil lists; abstract notes Jehoiachin received the largest single oil allocation. [2]
- 2023-10 / 2037The Berlin Vorderasiatisches Museum's full collection is off display until the South Wing reopens, expected 2037. [4]
Sources
- R. Koldewey, The Excavations at Babylon, trans. A. S. Johns (London: Macmillan, 1914), pp. vii, 91-100 ('The Vaulted Building') link excavation report
- O. Pedersén, The South Palace Archives in Babylon: Administrative Records in the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II (Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2025). DOI 10.13173/9783447124140 link editio princeps
- Center for Online Judaic Studies, 'Babylonian Ration List: King Jehoiakhin in Exile, 592/1 BCE' (CojsWiki; archived copy of 13 Nov 2013) link study
- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 'Refurbishment of the Pergamonmuseum' (official page) link museum record
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- Old entry: 'discovered during excavations in the ancient city of Babylon in the 1930s' / 'Discovery: 1930s, Iraq'. They were excavated 1902-1903 by Koldewey's German expedition; the 1930s is when Weidner identified them in Berlin (published 1939).
- Old entry: 'date to approximately 560 BCE'. The archive runs from Nebuchadnezzar's year 10 to 35 (c. 595-570 BCE); the dated Jehoiachin tablet is year 13 (592/591 BCE) - about 30 years before the release in 2 Kgs 25:27 (c. 561).
- Old entry: the tablets 'confirm' 2 Kgs 25:27-30. They record rations decades earlier; they match 2 Kgs 24:15 (deportation to Babylon) and the kind of allowance in 25:30, not the release event itself.
- Old entry omits the five sons and the other foreign recipients recorded on the same lists.
- Old 'Ezra 2 (Return from exile)' tie removed; the tablets have no connection to the return lists.
- Old location 'Pergamon Museum, Berlin' - they belong to the Vorderasiatisches Museum (in the Pergamonmuseum building), whose galleries have been closed since October 2023.
Checked against new publications through 2026-09.