Who was Belshazzar's mother?

       Belshazzar's mother (Dan. 5:10, ii, 12) is referred to as queen in Daniel 5:10. She was either the grandmother or, more probably, the queen-mother during the reign of Belshazzar, last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Some scholars are of the opinion that she was Nitocris, queen of Babylonia, to whom Herodotus ascribed many civic improvements.
      If so, Belshazzar's mother was regarded as the noblest and most beautiful woman of her time. History records that during the insanity of her husband, Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:36), Nitocris did
much to beautify Babylon. She built beautiful bridges, wharves, tiled embankments, and lakes and made improvements and enlargements to the buildings. Years after Nebuchadnezzar's death she was an
influential force in the government.
      Though in the three verses of the fifth chapter of Daniel Belshazzar's mother appears and disappears, like a face in a window, she gives us much of herself in a single speech there. It came when Belshazzar was celebrating a great feast.
      The king, crazed with drink, earlier had shouted to his butlers to bring the cups of the Lord's Temple which had been brought to Babylon as plunder from Jerusalem. These sacred vessels were filled with wine and defiled by the lips of the drunken king and his thousand lords. At the height of the celebration an apparition, in the shape of the fingers of a man's hand, wrote upon the walls the words, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" (Dan. 5:25). None of the drunken guests could understand what they meant.
      Then it was that Belshazzar's mother, learning that her son was troubled by this astonishing occurrence, came into the banquet hall. Not knowing how to interpret the strange words, she advised the
king to call in Daniel, now an old man, who had served Nebuchadnezzar as an interpreter of dreams years before.
      Daniel appeared and read the meaning of the words, which were, "God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting; thy kingdom is divided, and
given to the Medes and Persians."
      In that same night Belshazzar was slain, and Darius seized the kingdom. The queen-mother probably never saw Belshazzar again after her brief appearance in the banquet hall.
      Her mention in the Bible came not because she had beautified Babylonia - if she was Nitocris - but because she knew the prophet Daniel, who foretold the coming of Christ.
      Of one thing we can be certain: Belshazzar's mother was a woman who believed in the greatness of God, because in her speech in the banquet hall, when she advised the king to summon Daniel, she
described him as a man "in whom is the spirit of the holy gods." And she wisely added, "And in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him."