Episode 4838: Dark Enigma - The Last King of Babylon – digging into the reign of Mesopotamia’s most eccentric ruler

Please be aware the stories, theories, re-enactments and language in this podcast are of an adult nature and can be considered disturbing, frightening and in some cases even offensive.  Listener Discretion is therefore advised.  Welcome heathens welcome to the world of the weird and unexplained.  I’m your host, Nicole Delacroix and together, we will be investigating stories about the things that go bump in the night, frighteningly imagined creatures, supernatural beings and even some unsolved mysteries but I promise all sorts of weirdness.  So, sit back, grab your favorite drink, and prepare to be transported to today's dark Enigma....  And on today’s Dark enigma well, we have an interesting listener suggestion, so let’s get on with it!  With that said, we will still be playing our drinking game and as you know, the drinking game is only for those of us that are at home and have nowhere else to go tonight.  The choice of libation, as always my darlings, is yours, so choose your poison accordingly… Alright, now for the game part how about every time I say King that will be a single shot and every time I say Babylon, that will be a double shot.  Now that the business end is out of the way we can jump headfirst into today’s dark enigma… so grab your best clay tablet and your abacus and we dive into today’s offering of That Wild and Crazy Guy – The Last King of Babylon – digging into the reign of Mesopotamia’s most eccentric ruler. Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, reigning from 556-539 BC. He took the throne after the assassination of the boy-king Labashi-Marduk, who was murdered in a conspiracy only nine months after his inauguration. It is not known whether Nabonidus played a role in his death, but he was chosen as the new king soon after.  During many years of his kingship, Nabonidus was absent at the Arabian oasis of Tayma. The reasons for his long absence remain a matter of controversy, with theories ranging from illness, to madness, to an interest in religious archaeology. The fall of an empire in antiquity was usually the result of complex, interconnected factors that lay beyond the scope of any one person’s control. Nonetheless, traumatized contemporaries and later historians alike have often laid the fault at the feet of a single individual. The enigmatic Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus seemed destined for just such a fate after the Persian armies of Cyrus the Great marched through Babylon’s gates in October 539 B.C.