It follows a standard pattern of reporting only events of immediate relevance to Babylonia, making it of somewhat limited utility as a source for a wider history of the region.

[4] Although the writing is of a good standard, the copying was decidedly imperfect and the scribe made a number of errors that are visible in the text.

[5] The tablet was acquired by the British Museum in 1879 from the antiquities dealers Spartali & Co. Its original place of discovery is unknown, though it has been presumed that it came from the ruins of Babylon.

[6] The text, known at the time as "the Annals of Nabonidus", was first discussed in print by Sir Henry Rawlinson in the Athenaeum magazine of 14 February 1880, with the first English translation being published two years later by Professor T. G. Pinches in the Transactions of the Society for Biblical Archaeology (1882).

[5] It has since been translated by a number of scholars, notably Sidney Smith,[5] A. Leo Oppenheim,[7] Albert Kirk Grayson,[4] Jean-Jacques Glassner,[8] and Amélie Kuhrt.

A long surviving section describes the events of Nabonidus's seventeenth and final year as king, when Cyrus invaded and conquered Babylonia.

It provides a terse description of the Battle of Opis, in which the Persians decisively defeated Nabonidus's army, massacred the retreating Babylonians and took a great haul of loot.

[16] Julye Bidmead attributes the priests' hostility to Nabonidus's unsuccessful attempts to introduce the worship of the moon god Sîn.