Chaldeans
Chaldeans, an ancient Semitic people originally from the desert of Arabia. During the 11th century B.C., they began to settle in Babylonia at the head of the Persian Gulf. The “Ur of the Chaldees” mentioned in the Bible may actually have been an earlier Babylonian city.
The Chaldeans, one of several Aramaic-speaking peoples who established kingdoms in Babylonia, were conquered by the Assyrians in 729 B.C. Merodach-baladan, a Chaldean king, revolted and retook the throne of Babylon in 721. Control of the country passed back and forth between the Assyrians and the Chaldeans several times. Finally, in 689 B.C., the Assyrian king Sennacherib destroyed Babylon. The Chaldeans revolted again in 626 B.C., when Nabopolassar became their king, and in 612, with the Medes as their allies, overthrew the Assyrian Empire. The Chaldeans then founded the Neo-Babylonian, or Chaldean, Empire.