The Babylonian record and the astronomical tablet VAT 4956

Neo-Babylonian chronology is unusually well anchored. Tablets dated by regnal year, king lists, and above all the astronomical diary VAT 4956, which records datable positions of the moon and planets in the thirty seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, fix his reign and place the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC. The same records leave no room for the twenty extra years the 607 date needs.