Cyrus Cylinder in the context of "Printed"

Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. Printing by pressing an inked image onto paper (using woodblock printing) appeared later that century. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.

The Second Temple (Hebrew: בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ‎ הַשֵּׁנִי‎, romanized: Bēṯ hamMīqdāš hašŠēnī, lit. 'Second House of the Sanctum') was the temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod the Great around 18 BCE, consequently also being known as Herod's Temple thereafter. Defining the Second Temple period and standing as a pivotal symbol of Jewish identity, it was the basis and namesake of Second Temple Judaism. The Second Temple served as the chief place of worship, ritual sacrifice (korban), and communal gathering for the Jewish people, among whom it regularly attracted pilgrims for the Three Pilgrimage Festivals: Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.

In 539 BCE, the Persian conquest of Babylon enabled the Achaemenid Empire to expand across the Fertile Crescent by annexing the Neo-Babylonian Empire, including the territory of the former Kingdom of Judah, which had been annexed as the Babylonian province of Yehud during the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who concurrently exiled part of Judah's population to Babylon. Following this campaign, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued the "Edict of Cyrus" (sometimes identified with the Cyrus Cylinder), which is described in the Hebrew Bible as a royal proclamation that authorized and encouraged the repatriation of displaced populations in the region. This event is called the return to Zion in Ezra–Nehemiah, marking the resurgence of Jewish life in what had become the self-governing Persian province of Yehud. The reign of the Persian king Darius the Great saw the completion of the Second Temple, signifying a period of renewed Jewish hope and religious revival. According to the biblical account, the Second Temple was originally a relatively modest structure built under the authority of the Persian-appointed Jewish governor Zerubbabel, who was the grandson of the penultimate Judahite king Jeconiah.

The Edict of Cyrus usually refers to the biblical account of a proclamation by Cyrus the Great, the founding king of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, in 539 BC. It was issued after the Persians conquered the Neo-Babylonian Empire upon the fall of Babylon, and is described in the Tanakh, which claims that it authorized and encouraged the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (i.e., the Second Temple).

The Cyrus Cylinder text has also been called the "Edict of Cyrus", but this text is now considered to support the biblical account only in a very general sense.