Archimedes was so excited with his discovery of how bodies lost weight when immersed in water that he immediately hopped out of the bath, and allegedly rushed naked into the street yelling triumphantly, 'Eureka! 'Eureka!'.

It was that kind of Eureka moment in the great Arched Room of the British Museum some days ago when Michael Jursa, a visiting prof from Vienna, made what has been called the most important find in Biblical Archaeology in 100 years. 'A discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact', said the Daily Telegraph. (Those of you who had already reached that conclusion - stay tuned for confirmation evidence).

The aforementioned Arched Room houses a collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets dating back 5,000 years, and Prof Jursa had been rooting through the tablets, looking for Babylonian financial accounts (obviously Assyrian tax collectors never give up...).

Anyway, during this foray among the tablets he came across a name that rang a bell, one Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there by a hand 2,500 years old as 'the chief eunuch' of King Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon. (Some readers may not realise that court officials in those days had to be eunuchs for security reasons, so this is not so surprising as you might think. It just means he was head of the civil service).

So the able prof checked the Old Testament and there, in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 39 he read about Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, capturing Jerusalem and 'all the officials came and took seats in the Middle Gate' including a certain 'Nebo Sarsekim, a chief officer'.

Fortunately the good prof knew his ancient languages and recognised that Nabu-sharrussu-ukin in Assyrian sounded the same as Nebo Sarsekim in ancient Hebrew. (You probably already knew that, but it was news to me).

The tablet referred to the payment of some gold to a temple in Babylon (maybe it was tax-deductible even then). It is dated to the 10th year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 595 years BC, and 12 years before the siege of Jerusalem.

Why is this so important? Well, evidence from non-biblical sources of people named in the Bible is not unknown, but Nabu-sharrussu-ukin would have been a relatively insignificant figure. I'll let the prof have the last word:

"If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old testament turns out to be accurate and true, I think that it means that the whole of the narrative takes on a new kind of power".

Read the Bible passage - Jeremiah 39

Read a newspaper article about the find. Daily Telegraph 

Further study: The Old Testament Documents: are they reliable and relevant?