Nabonassar
Nabonassar (also
Nabonasser,
Nabu-nasir,
Nebo-adon-Assur or
Nabo-n-assar) was a king of
Assyria who founded the Chaldean and
Babylonian kingdom. He became a king in
747 BC, and ruled 14 years (until 732 BC). The Greek astronomer
Claudius Ptolemaeus started an
era,
i.e. a start point for
chronological calculations, at New Years day in the
Egyptian calendar of that year: at
Wednesday February 26,
747 BC (in our
proleptic Julian calendar). At this day the
Nabonassar era (AN -
Anno Nabonassari) began, which was used by Ptolemy and later astronomers, but not by the Babylonians themselves.
