The Egibi Banking family lived in Babylon continuously through the time period of the reigns of the Neo-Bablylonian Kings.
Many of their buisiness records for have survived and provide a detailed description of how business was transacted by the Babylonians circa 600 BCE.
The discorvery of the Egibi records is not recent. They were found in the later half of the 19th century and are mentioned in many books and articles.
For example, Google Books has this book, Hours with the Bible, Or, The Scriptuers in the Light of Modern Knowlege, by Cunningham Geikie
that was published 1892, that mentions the Egibi records and how they provide
http://books.google.com/books?id=AnOCY4-jbjwC&pg=PA285&dq=egibi++business+tablets&lr=&as_brr=1
From this book:
Page 284
With the fourth chapter of Daniel, the Scripture record of Nebuchadnezzar's life closes. He survived his temporary alienation for some years, and died in B.C. 561, the undisputed ruler of his vast empire. Unfortunately, very vew cuneiform memorials of his reign have survived; nor are there any annals of his campaigns, like those left by some Assyrian kings. His inscriptions refere mainly to the construction of temples, palaces, and public buildings; but they incidentally throw light on his zeal for the gods, and his pride in being virtually the builder of his mighty capital.The record of his repairing the Temple of the Seven Lights at Borsippa has already been given, in illustraion by the story of the Tower of Babel. Besides this, we have (?)engthed statement of his building or restoring various temples, at an immense cost, and of his raising the walls, digging the moats, and othewise strengthening the de-
Page 285
fences of Babylon, and a very short notice of his expedition to Egypt. Fortunately, however, there have come to light a series of commercial tablets, the business records of a great banking house in Babylon, beginning with the first year of his reign, and continuing for the next 117 years, to the thiry-fifth year of King Darius Hystaspis, B.C. 485. Egibi, the founder of the house, seems to have lived in the later years of the reign of Sennacherib; but though this is implied by a single table of B.C. 677, the unbroken series begins only in B.C. 605. They are of the greatest value in fixing dates; but, besides this, they incidentally throw light on not a few points of Babylonian life. One records a loan of a few shekels to some needy borrower; another the sale or mortgage of great estates. Every legal precaution is taken in the various documents to prevent fraud and secure the exact fulfilment of covenants, under every contingency. Witnesses duly attest each transaction, and each tablet is duly docketed and labelled, after being registered in the government office at Babylon. While the Hebrews were listening to Ezekiel at Chebar, and Daniel was at his duties or studies in the palace, the clerks and princiipals of the great banking-house were quietly working at there desks in the city, discounting bills, advancing loans, and negotiating sales and mortgages, as if the business premises of Egibi were the only important spot in the universe!
Note particularly that this book states that the Egibi records provide an unbroken series starting in B.C 605 which lasts until B.C. 485.
The Egibi records show conclusively that the known Neo-Bablyonian Kings list is accurate. At least accurate enough to show there is no "missing 20 year gap" as The Watchtower claims there must be in order to support their chronology that leads to the all-important 1914 date.
No wonder that although there are many mentions of the Egibi tablets in the literature, there is NOT A SINGLE MENTION of the word Egibi in ALL of the Watchtower publications published since 1879! Not in the printed publications and not in the Watchtower CD-ROM library.
It certainly deserves to be noted that The Watchtower chose to never mention this particularly important evidience relating to the Bablyon chronology.
--VM44