Nebuchadnezzar II

Nebuchadnezzar II ruled the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 605 to 562 BCE. He defeated Egypt at Carchemish in 605 BCE, took Jerusalem in 597 BCE, and after a revolt destroyed the city and Solomon's Temple in 587/586 BCE, deporting much of Judah's population to Babylonia. At home he rebuilt Babylon on a grand scale, including the glazed-brick Ishtar Gate (now in Berlin's Pergamon Museum), the ziggurat Etemenanki and the temple of Marduk, Esagila. His building inscriptions survive in large numbers.

The Book of Daniel makes him a central character. In Daniel 2 he dreams of a statue of gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay, which scholars compare with other ancient schemes of metal ages. In Daniel 4 he dreams of a great tree cut down at the order of "a watcher and an holy one" from heaven, the Bible's only use of the word watcher for such a being, and he is driven out to live like an animal for seven periods.

Historians note that this madness story has no Babylonian record and may preserve memories of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, who spent years away at Tayma in Arabia.