Babylon
The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.
Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Extra-biblically, Babylon is celebrated for edifices, renowned as a seat of learning and culture, eulogised for a legal codification pre-dating Mosaic Law (see Code of Hammurabi), and marvelled for aqueduct-lined Hanging Gardens, one of Herodotus’ Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World. Earlier Akkadian (north-west) and Sumerian (south-east) Mesopotamian tradition and their mutual bilingualism heavily influenced Babylonian (and Assyrian) culture. And Akkadian had gradually predominated to become lingua franca at the turn of the third millennium of antiquity.
Well apart from Hammurabi's laws and administration, his success was largely due to the ‘virtues’ of both diplomacy and war. By 1755 BCE he had united all of Mesopotamia under the rule of Babylon, at the time the largest city in the world and part of the realm that he called Babylonia. (Debate persists to the degree in which the cities of Nineveh, Tuttul, and Assur were under Babylonian authority.)
The ancient Semitic cultural region of the central and southern Mesopotamian plain emerged as the independent Akkadian nation-state of Babylonia with the Amorite Dynasty. The region corresponds to present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province in Iraq, not 100 km south of Baghdad. The capital city — founded upon the 3rd millennium BCE ancient city of Eridu (home to the water-god, Enki) and eclipsing the then Mesopotamian “holy city” of Nippur (home to Enlil, the supreme god of Sumer and Akkad) — was built astride the Euphrates River.
The Babylonian Empire had two incarnations: a brief initial period — founded by the Amorites (an intractable Canaanite tribe considered masters of witchcraft) upon the remains of the Akkadian Empire (i.e. after the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur that related to Sargon (of Akkad), who may have been the biblical Nimrod, grandson of Ham, whom it is said built the original Tower of Babel) in 1894 BCE, by Sumuabum but not well established until its sixth ruler, Hammurabi, and lasting only until his death — to then be ruled successively by the Hittites, Kassites, Assyria (Sennacherib, reigning from 705-681 BCE, razed the city of Babylon), and Elamites; and a second (Neo-Babylonian) dynasty from 608-539 BCE, rebuilt by Sennacherib’s son (Esarhaddon) only to revolt against Ashurbanipal of Nineveh, and break away by 612 BCE to be developed by the Chaldeans, starting with Nabopolassar.
After it fell a second time Babylonia was ruled in turn by the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Parthians, Romans, and Sassanids. And so it was that the seat of empire had returned to Babylonia, more than a thousand years after the rule of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE), and it is only relics from this second period that excavations have been able to unveil. Rising water levels over the centuries has meant that the ruins of the Old Babylon are inaccessible, and with it perhaps the city’s true early role within the ancient world. Most of what is known of Old Babylon is from geographically distant artefacts.
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| Human-headed winged lion (lamassu), 883-859 B.C. Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Ashurnasirpal II, excavated at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), northern Mesopotamia. |
Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
- Babylonia: 1894-1750 BCE*
- Neo-Babylonia (Chaldean Dynasty): 612-539 BCE
Extra-biblically, Babylon is celebrated for edifices, renowned as a seat of learning and culture, eulogised for a legal codification pre-dating Mosaic Law (see Code of Hammurabi), and marvelled for aqueduct-lined Hanging Gardens, one of Herodotus’ Seven Wonders of the (Ancient) World. Earlier Akkadian (north-west) and Sumerian (south-east) Mesopotamian tradition and their mutual bilingualism heavily influenced Babylonian (and Assyrian) culture. And Akkadian had gradually predominated to become lingua franca at the turn of the third millennium of antiquity.
Well apart from Hammurabi's laws and administration, his success was largely due to the ‘virtues’ of both diplomacy and war. By 1755 BCE he had united all of Mesopotamia under the rule of Babylon, at the time the largest city in the world and part of the realm that he called Babylonia. (Debate persists to the degree in which the cities of Nineveh, Tuttul, and Assur were under Babylonian authority.)
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The ancient Semitic cultural region of the central and southern Mesopotamian plain emerged as the independent Akkadian nation-state of Babylonia with the Amorite Dynasty. The region corresponds to present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province in Iraq, not 100 km south of Baghdad. The capital city — founded upon the 3rd millennium BCE ancient city of Eridu (home to the water-god, Enki) and eclipsing the then Mesopotamian “holy city” of Nippur (home to Enlil, the supreme god of Sumer and Akkad) — was built astride the Euphrates River.
The Babylonian Empire had two incarnations: a brief initial period — founded by the Amorites (an intractable Canaanite tribe considered masters of witchcraft) upon the remains of the Akkadian Empire (i.e. after the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur that related to Sargon (of Akkad), who may have been the biblical Nimrod, grandson of Ham, whom it is said built the original Tower of Babel) in 1894 BCE, by Sumuabum but not well established until its sixth ruler, Hammurabi, and lasting only until his death — to then be ruled successively by the Hittites, Kassites, Assyria (Sennacherib, reigning from 705-681 BCE, razed the city of Babylon), and Elamites; and a second (Neo-Babylonian) dynasty from 608-539 BCE, rebuilt by Sennacherib’s son (Esarhaddon) only to revolt against Ashurbanipal of Nineveh, and break away by 612 BCE to be developed by the Chaldeans, starting with Nabopolassar.
After it fell a second time Babylonia was ruled in turn by the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Parthians, Romans, and Sassanids. And so it was that the seat of empire had returned to Babylonia, more than a thousand years after the rule of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE), and it is only relics from this second period that excavations have been able to unveil. Rising water levels over the centuries has meant that the ruins of the Old Babylon are inaccessible, and with it perhaps the city’s true early role within the ancient world. Most of what is known of Old Babylon is from geographically distant artefacts.
Neo-Babylonia
Nebuchadnezzar II (604-561 BCE), son of Nabopolassar, renovated the city to its grand splendour. It was at this time that the great walls, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Ishtar Gate were built. This period coincides with the time of the Babylonian Exile (of the Jews) in which the Babylonian Talmud was written. Joshua J. Mark says that:The Euphrates River divided the city in two between an `old’ and a `new’ city with the Temple of Marduk and the great towering ziggurat in the center. Streets and avenues were widened to better accommodate the yearly processional of the statue of the great god Marduk in the journey from his home temple in the city to the New Year Festival Temple outside the Ishtar Gate.The Neo-Babylonian rulers were:
- Nabopolassar: 625-604 BC
- Nebuchadrezzar II (s): 604-568 BC
- Evil-Merodach (s): 561-560 BC
- Neriglissar (brother-in-law): 559-556 BC
- Labosoarchad (s): 556 BC
- Nabonidus: 555-539 BC
- Belshazzar: 539 BC
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Editor's note: More recent suggestions are that the Hanging Gardens could have been built by Sennacherib at his capital of Nineveh and in honour of Semiramis, who was likely based on the Assyrian queen Sammu-Ramat, who reigned 811-806 BCE.
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