| This is all that remains of the ancient famed city of Babylon.The town flourished and attained notable prominence and political repute with the rise of the first Babylonian dynasty.Babylonian Empire from 612 BC."Gateway of the god(s)", translating Sumerian Ka.Babel), interpreted by Book of Genesis 11:9 to mean "confusion" (of languages), from the verb balal, "to confuse".History
The earliest source to mention Babylon may be a dated tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca."Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51).Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name.Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer.David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu.Some Biblical literalists believe that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon), because this is stated in Book of Genesis 10.Over the years, the power and population of Babylon waned.From around the 20th century BC, it was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the west who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians, but did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep.Hammurabi is known for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that was to have a profound influence on the region.The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.Babylon grew in extent and grandeur over time, but gradually became subject to the rule of Assyria.It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca.BC, and again between ca.It is recorded that Babylon's legal system developed a form of negligence law, and Babylon was probably the first culture to develop negligence law.In the common law world, the law of negligence was not fully rediscovered until the 20th century.Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south.This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year.BC against his brother in Nineveh, Assurbanipal.Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians and starved into surrender.Assurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel.In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources.Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.The Ishtar gate is shown in the top left corner of the image.Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis.Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in Nineveh.Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military manoeuver.Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal.Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians, Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to wading levels or to dry up altogether.The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach.Cyrus claimed the city by walking through the gates of Babylon with little or no resistance from the drunken Babylonians.Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement.In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations.Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region.This section does not cite any references or sources.Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror.Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce.BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila.By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.This section does not cite any references or sources.Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until around 650 AD.It continued to have its own culture and peoples, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon.Some examples of their cultural products are found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Mandaean religion, and the religion of the prophet Mani.Most of the existing remains lie on the east bank of the Euphrates, the principal ones being three vast mounds: the Babil to the north, the Qasr or "Palace" (also known as the Mujelliba) in the centre, and the Ishgn "Amran ibn" All, with the outlying spur of the Jumjuma, to the south.Aswad or "Black Mound" and three lines of rampart, one of which encloses the Babil mound on the north and east sides, while a third forms a triangle with the southeast angle of the other two.West of the Euphrates are other ramparts, and the remains of the ancient Borsippa.The estimate of Ctesias is essentially the same as that of Q.According to Herodotus, the width of the walls was 24 m.One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq".Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna".These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state.He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat.US forces were criticised for building a helipad on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, under the command of General James T.The vibrations from helicopter landings led a nearby Babylonian structure to collapse.US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused damage to the archaeological record.In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr.Thames and Hudson, 1986.Druckerei und Verlag (1997), p.Iraq, BBC, April 25, 2005, mentions damage to Babylon.This page was last modified 05:01, 8 January 2008.See Copyrights for details.This northern neighbour and colony of Babylon remained to the last of the same race and language and of almost the same religion and civilization as that of the country from which it emigrated.The political fortunes of both countries for more than a thousand years were closely interwoven with one another; in fact, for many centuries they formed one political unit.Old Testament exegesis, and for much of Babylonian history during the period of Assyrian supremacy.Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, from the slopes of Khuzistan on the east to the Arabian Desert on the west, and is substantially contained between the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, though, to the west a narrow strip of cultivation on the right bank of the Euphrates must be added.Its total length is some 300 miles, its greatest width about 125 miles; about 23,000 square miles in all, or the size of Holland and Belgium together.Babylonian geography is that the land to the south encroaches on the sea and that the Persian Gulf recedes at present at the rate of a mile in seventy years, while in the past, though still in historic times, it receded as much as a mile in thirty years.In the early period of Babylonian history the gulf must have extended some hundred and twenty miles further inland.Yakin we gather that as late as 695 B.In how far man was witness of this gradual formation of the Babylonian soil we cannot determine at present; as far south as Larsa and Lagash man had built cities 4,000 years before Christ.It may, however, well be observed that the astounding system of canals which existed in ancient Babylonia even from the remotest historical times, though largely due to man's careful industry and patient toil, was not entirely the work of the spade, but of nature once leading the waters of Euphrates and Tigris in a hundred rivulets to the sea, forming a delta like that of the Nile.The fertility of this rich alluvial plain was in ancient times proverbial; it produced a wealth of wheat, barley, sesame, dates, and other fruits and cereals.The cornfields of Babylonia were mostly in the south, where Larsa, Lagash, Erech, and Calneh were the centres of an opulent agricultural population.The palm tree was cultivated with assiduous care and besides furnishing all sorts of food and beverage, was used for a thousand domestic needs.Nina, King of Shirpurla sent to Magan, i.Sinaitic Peninsula, for hard stone and hard wood; while the copper mines of Sinai were probably being worked by Babylonians shortly after 3750, when Snefru, first king of the Fourth Egyptian dynasty, drove them away.It is remarkable that Babylonia possesses no bronze period, but passed from copper to iron; though in later ages it learnt the use of bronze from Assyria.Eridu, at present Mughair.Pontus), at present Senkere; Erech, the Biblical Arach (Genesis 10:10), fifteen miles northwest of Larsa, is at present Warka; eight miles northeast from the modern Shatra was Shirpurla, or Lagash, now Tello.Shirpurla, at present the mounds of Iskha, is of importance only in the very earliest history of Babylonia.The site of the important city of Isin (read also Nisin) has not yet been determined, but it was probably situated a little north of Erech.Genesis 10:10, Calanne), at present Nuffar, was a great religious centre, with its Bel Temple, unrivaled in antiquity and sanctity, a sort of Mecca for the Semitic Babylonians.Kutha, the present Telli Ibrahim, the city whence the Babylonian colonists of Samaria were taken (2 Kings 17:30), and which played a great role in Northern Babylonia before the Amorite dynasty.Hammurabi, about 2300 B.Babylon rose to power and even before a brick of Babylon was laid.Semitic world, but most likely also of Egypt.The people dwelling in this valley were certainly not all of one race; they differed in type and language.The Semitic invaders, however, eagerly adopted, improved, and widely spread the civilization of the race they had conquered.Although a number of arguments converge into an irrefragable proof that the Sumerians were the aboriginal inhabitants of Babylonia, we have no historical records of the time when they were the sole occupants of the Euphrates Valley; at the dawn of history we find both races in possession of the land and to a certain extent mixed, though the Semite was predominant in the North while the Sumerian maintained himself for centuries in the South.Whence these Sumerians came, cannot be decided, and probably all that will ever be known is that, after a nomadic existence in mountainous districts in the East, they found a plain in the lands of Sennaar and dwelt in it (Genesis 11:2).Their first settlement was Eridu, then a seaport on the Persian Gulf, where their earliest myths represent the first man, Adapu, or Adamu (Adam?From whence the Semitic race invaded Babylonia, and what was its origin, we know not, but it must be noted that the language they spoke, though clearly and thoroughly Semitic, is yet so strikingly different from all other Semitic languages that it stands in a category apart, and the time when it formed one speech with the other Semitic tongues lies immeasurably far back beyond our calculations.Owing to the broken state of the sherd on which the inscription occurs, and which possibly dates soon after 5000 B.It probably was Shirpurla, and he ruled over Southern Babylonia.He claims to have won a great victory over the City of Kish, and he dedicated the spoil, including a statue of bright silver, to Mullil, the god of Calanne (Nippur).Somewhat later Mesilim, the King of Kish, retrieved the defeat of his predecessor and acted as suzerain of Shirpurla.After Eannatum II the history of Shirpurla is a blank, until we find the name of Lugal Ushumgal, when, however, the city has for a time lost its independence, for this ruler was the vassal of Shargon I of Akkad, about 3800 B.About two centuries later we find Gudea, one of the most famous rulers the city every possessed.Lugal Zaggisi, son of the Patesi of Gishban, who became King of Erech, proudly styled himself King of the World, as Enshagkushanna and Alusharshid had done, claimed to rule from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and praises the supreme god Enlil, or Bel, of Nippur, who "granted him the dominion of all from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof and caused the countries to dwell in peace".Ittibel's son, Sargon I, suddenly stands before us as a giant figure in history about 3800 B.Sumerian, like those of previous kings.Under him flourished Semitic language, literature, and art, especially architecture.He established his dominion in Susa, the capital of Elam, subdued Syria and Palestine in three campaigns, set up an image of himself on the Syrian coast, as a monument of his triumphs, and welded his conquests into one empire.Sin's son, Semitic successes were temporarily eclipsed; Egypt occupied Sinai, Elam became again independent, and in Babylonia itself the Sumerian element reasserted itself.We find a dynasty of Ur already in prominence.This city seems at two different periods to have exercised the hegemony over the Euphrates Valley or part of it.This Urgur assumed the title of King of Sumer and Akkad, thus making the first attempt to unite North and South Babylonia into a political unit, and inaugurating a royal style which was borne perhaps longer than the title of any other dignity since the world was made.Ur predominates, for the second time, about 2800 B.Sin and Ine Sin, whose buildings and fortifications are found in many cities of Babylonia.Dangin, Hilprecht, Bezold) accept but two dynasties, other (Rogers) three, others (Hugo, Radau) four.The supremacy of Ur is followed, about 2500 B.Amun, who obtained such a foothold on Babylonian soil that the year of his reign was used to date contract tablets, a sure sign that he was at least king de facto.Laghamar, "Servant of Laghamar", an Elamite deity), known to us from the Bible, seems to have been more successful.Not only does he appear as overlord of Babylonia, but he carried his conquest as far west as Palestine.Chedormabug was originally Prince of Emutbal, or western Elam, but obtained dominion over Babylonia and rebuilt the temple at Ur.Aku, considered himself so well established on Babylonian territory that he affected the ancient titles, Exalter of Ur, King of Larsa, King of Sumer and Akkad.Semitic and almost certainly Amorite.The Babylonians called it the dynasty of Babylon, for, though foreign in origin, it may have had its actual home in that city, which it gratefully and proudly remembered.Under the first five kings Babylon was still only the mightiest amongst several rival cities, but the sixth king, Hammurabi, who succeeded in beating down all opposition, obtained absolute rule of Northern and Southern Babylonia and drove out the Elamite invaders.Babylonia henceforward formed but one state and was welded into one empire.The second ruler strengthened his capital with large fortifications; the third ruler was apparently in danger of a native pretender or foreign rival called Immeru; only the fourth ruler was definitely styled King; while Hammurabi himself in the beginning of his reign acknowledged the suzerainty of Elam.This Hammurabi is one of the most gigantic figures of the world's history, to be named with Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon, but best compared to a Charlemagne, a conqueror and a lawgiver, whose powerful genius formed a lasting empire out of chaos, and whose beneficent influence continued for ages throughout an area almost as large as Europe.Doubtless a dozen centuries later Assyrian kings were to make greater conquests than he, but whereas they were giant destroyers he was a giant builder.The stele on which these laws are inscribed was found at Susa by M.Morgan and the Dominican friar Scheil, and first published and translated by the latter in 1902.This astounding find, giving us, in 3638 short lines, 282 laws and regulations affecting the whole range of public and private life, is unequalled even in the marvelous history of Babylonian research.From no other document can a more swift and accurate estimate of Babylonian civilization be formed than from this code.For a complete English translation see T.Whereas the Assyrian kings loved to fill the boastful records of their reigns with ghastly descriptions of battle and war, so that we possess the minutest details of their military campaigns, the genius of Babylon, on the contrary, was one of peace, and culture, and progress.The building of temples, the adorning of cities, the digging of canals, the making of roads, the framing of laws was their pride; their records breathe, or affect to breathe, all serene tranquility; warlike exploits are but mentioned by the way, hence we have, even in the case of the two greatest Babylonian conquerors, Hammurabi and Nabuchodonosor II, but scanty information of their deeds of arms.Hammurabi, the blessing of men, which bringeth the water of the overflow unto the land of Sumer and Akkad.Lasting water I provided for the land of Sumer and Akkad.In what seems an ode on the king, engraved on his statue we find the words: "Hammurabi, the strong warrior, the destroyer of his foes, he is the hurricane of battle, sweeping the land of his foes, he brings opposition to naught, he puts an end to insurrection, he breaks the warrior as an image of clay."That trade prospered, and temples were built, is all we can say."Unknown Dynasty" be fictitious or not, the latter date is approximately right.This dynasty was a foreign one, but its place of origin is not easy to ascertain.In their own official designation they style themselves kings of Kardunyash and the King of Egypt addresses Kadashman Bel as King of Kardunyash.Information about the Kassite period is obtained but sparsely.The extent of territory thus under dominion of the Babylonian monarch is wider than even that under the Amorite dynasty; but in the royal title, which is altogether unusual in its form, Babylon takes but the third place; only a few generations later, however, the old style and title is resumed, and Babylon again stands first; the foreign conquerors were evidently conquered by the peaceful conquest of superior Babylonian civilization.Kakrime with all his wide dominions had yet to send an embassy to the land of Khani to obtain the gods Marduk and Zarpanit, the most sacred national idols, which had evidently been captured by the enemy.The next king of whom we have any knowledge is Karaindash (1450 B.Bel and Amenophis III, King of Egypt, it is evident that the King of Babylon could assume a more independent tone of fair equality with the great Pharao than the kings of Assyria or Mitanni.And when a Babylonian caravan has been robbed by the people of Akko in Canaan, the Egyptian Government receives a preemptory letter from Babylon for amende honorable and restitution.Bel was succeeded by Burnaburiash I, Kurigalzu I, Burnaburiash II.Amenhotep IV of Egypt suggest a period of perfect tranquillity and prosperity.For the cause and result of the first great conflict between Assyria and Babylon see ASSYRIA.THE SECOND, OR CHALDEAN, EMPIRE
With the death, in 626 B.Kandalanu (the Babylonian name of Assurbanipal), King of Assyria, Assyrian power in Babylon practically ceased.Though Semites, the Chaldeans belonged to a race perfectly distinct from the Babylonians proper, and were foreigners in the Euphrates Valley.They were settlers from Arabia, who had invaded Babylonia from the South.Their stronghold was the district known as the Sealands.During the Assyrian supremacy the combined forces of Babylon and Assyria had kept them in check, but, owing probably to the fearful Assyrian atrocities in Babylon, the citizens had begun to look towards their former enemies for help, and the Chaldean power grew apace in Babylon till, in Nabopolassar, it assumed the reins of government, and thus imperceptibly a foreign race superseded the ancient inhabitants.Nabopolassar must have been a strong, beneficient ruler, engaged in rebuilding temples and digging canals, like his predecessors, and yet maintaining his hold over the conquered provinces.How Josias of Juda, trying to bar his way, was slain at Megiddo is known from 2 Kings 23:29.Egypt to the Euphrates in hopes of annexing part of Mesopotamia.He was met by the Babylonian army at Carchemish, the ancient Hittite capital, where he wished to cross the Euphrates.Against the solemn warning of Jeremias the Prophet, Jehoiakim refused tribute, i.Jechonias, however, son of Jehoiakim, who as a lad of eighteen had succeeded his father, surrendered; 7000 men capable of bearing arms and 1000 workers in iron were carried away and made to form a colony on a canal near Nippur (the River Chobar mentioned in Ezekiel 1:1), and Zedekias was substituted for Jechonias as vassal King of Juda.Hophra, King of Egypt, who had succeeded Necho II in 589 B.Syrian States in a conspiracy against Babylon.Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon had entered into the coalition, and at last even Juda had joined, and Zedekias against the advice of Jeremias, broke his oath of allegiance to the Chaldeans.Babylonian army began to surround Jerusalem in 587 B.They were unable to take the city by storm and intended to subdue it by starvation.The Babylonians raised the siege to drive the Egyptians back; they then returned to Jerusalem and continued the siege in grim earnest.The city was destroyed, and the temple treasures carried to Babylon.Babylonia, a miserable remnant only was allowed to remain under a Jewish governor Godolias.When this governor was slain by a Jewish faction under Ishmael, a fraction of this remnant, fearing Nabuchodonosor's wrath, emigrated to Egypt, forcibly taking Jeremias the Prophet with them.Nabuchodonosor now turned his arms against Tyre.The position of Tyre was immeasurably superior to that of Jerusalem.The Babylonians had no fleet; therefore, as long as the sea remained open, Tyre was impregnable.Tyre, that Nabuchodonosor at the end of his reign was recognized as suzerain of the city.He entered the very heart of the country, ravaged and pillaged as he chose, apparently without opposition, and returned laden with booty through the Syrian Provinces.Thus Nabuchodonosor the Chaldean showed himself a capable military ruler, yet as a Babylonian monarch, following the custom of his predecessors, he gloried not in the arts of war, but of peace.His boast was the vast building operations which made Babylon a city (for those days) impregnable, which adorned the capital with palaces, and the famous "procession road", and Gate of Ishtar, and which restored and beautifies a great number of temples in different towns of Babylonia.Babylonian record has as yet been found.The etymology of Sidrach and Misach is unknown, but Abednego and Arioch (Abdnebo and Eriaku) are well known.Oppert found the base of a great statue near a mound called Duair, east of Babylon, and this may have belonged to the golden image erected "in the plain of Dura of the province of Babylon" (Dan.Merodach (2 Kings 25:27), who released Joachim of Juda and raised him above the other vassal kings at Babylon, but his mild rule evidently displeased the priestly caste, and they accused him of reigning lawlessly and extravagantly.Marduk, no more than a child, who reigned nine months and was assassinated.He was a royal antiquarian rather than a ruling king.Babylon by what they would call misdirected piety.Sargon of Akkad, Naram Sin's father; upon this date most of our early Babylonian chronology is based.Germanic world power which replaced the decrepit Semitic civilization.At last Nabonaid, realizing the situation, met the Persians at Opis.Owing to internal strife amongst the Babylonians, many of whom were dissatisfied with Nabonaid, the Persians had an easy victory, taking the city of Sippar without fighting.Nabonaid fled to Babylon.Cyrus's soldiers, under the generalship of Ugbaru (Gobryas), Governor of Gutium, entered the capital without striking a blow and captured Nabonaid.Persians entered, at night, that quarter of the city where Baltassar occupied a fortified position in apparent security, where the sacred vessels of Jehovah's temple were profaned, where the hand appeared on the wall writing Mane, Tekel Phares, and where Daniel was offered the third place in the kingdom (i.King Nabonaid spent the rest of his life in Carmania.In one sense Babylonian history ends here, and Persian history begins, yet a few words are needed on the return of the Jewish captives after their seventy years of exile.It has long been supposed that Cyrus, professing the Mazdean religion, was a strict monotheist and released the Jews out of sympathy for their faith.But this king was, apparently, only unconsciously an instrument in God's hands, and the permission for the Jews to return was merely given out of political sagacity and a wish for popularity in his new domains.At least we possess inscriptions of him in which he is most profuse in his homage to the Babylonian Pantheon.The very phraseology of the decree given in I Esdras, i, 2 sqq.Darius Hystaspes, who in 521 B.Zerubabel is a thoroughly Babylonian name and occurs frequently on documents of that time; but we cannot as yet trace any connection between the Zerubabel of Scripture and any name mentioned in these documents."Chus begat Nemrod, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon and Arach and Achad and Chalanne in the land of Sennaar."It must be noted, also, that in v.This exactly represents the fact that Assyria was purely Semitic where Babylonia was not.Some see in Chus a designation of the city of Kish, mentioned above amongst the cities of early Babylonia, and certainly one of its most ancient towns.Others again see in Nemrod an intentional corruption of Amarudu, the Akkadian for Marduk, whom the Babylonians worshiped as the great God, and who, perhaps, was the deified ancestor of their city.This corruption would be parallel to Nisroch (2 Kings 19:37) for Assuraku, and Nibhaz (2 Kings 17:31) for Abahazu, or Abed Nego for Abdnebo.Marduk, who entrapped the monster Tiamtu in his net."The beginning of his kingdom was Babylon and Arach and Achad and Calanne".These cities of Northern Babylonia are probably enumerated inversely to the order of their antiquity; so that Nippur (Calanne) is the most ancient, and Babylon the most modern.Recent excavations have shown that Nippur dates far back beyond the Sargonid age (3800 B.Semitic tongue, and where for many centuries the people were at least bilingual.Yet there remained in the national consciousness the memory that the first settlers in the Babylonian plain spoke one language.What historical fact lies behind the account of the building of the Tower of Babel is difficult to ascertain.Of course any real attempt to reach heaven by a tower is out of the question.The mountains of Elam were too close by, to tell them that a few yards more or less were of no importance to get in touch with the sky.The remains of Ezida, at present Birs Nimrud, are traditionally pointed out as the Tower of Babel; whether rightly, is impossible to say; Esagila, in Babylon itself, has as good, if not a better, claim.We have no record of the building of the city and tower being interrupted by any such catastrophe as a confusion of languages; but that such an interruption because of diversity of speech of the townspeople took place, is not impossible.Next to be mentioned is the account of the battle of the four kings against five near the Dead Sea (Genesis 14).Sumer of the Babylonian inscriptions, and Amraphel is identified by most scholars with the great Hammurabi, the sixth King of Babylon.The initial gutteral of the king's name being a soft one, and the Babylonians being given to dropping their H's, the name actually occurs in cuneiform inscriptions as Ammurapi.Arioch, King of Pontus (Pontus is St.Aku bearing the title of King of Larsa and Father of Emutbalu.The name Chedorlahomer has apparently, though not quite certainly, been found on two tablets together with the names Eriaku and Tudhula, which latter king is evidently "Thadal, king of the Nations".The Hebrew goyim, "nations", is a clerical error for Gutium or Guti, a neighbouring state which plays an important role throughout Babylonian history.We have documentary evidence that Eriaku's father Kudurmabug, King of Elam, and after him Hammurabi of Babylon, claimed authority over Palestine the land of Martu.This Biblical passage, therefore, which was once described as bristling with impossibilities, has so far only received confirmation from Babylonian documents.According to Genesis 11:28 and 31, Abraham was a Babylonian from the city of Ur.Sin, thus showing that Abram was a Babylonian name in use long before and after the date of the Patriarch.No excavations have as yet taken place at Harran, and Abraham's ancestry remains obscure.Amurri, which fact shows the early intercourse between Babylonia and the Amorite land, or Palestine.In Chanaan Abraham remained within the sphere of Babylonian language and influence, or perhaps even authority.Egypt, wrote neither his own language nor that of Pharao, but Babylonian, the universal language of the day.Considering that the progenitor of the Hebrew race was a Babylonian, and that Babylonian culture remained paramount in Western Asia for more than 1000 years, the most astounding feature of the Hebrew Scriptures is the almost complete absence of Babylonian religious ideas, the more so as Babylonian religion, though Oriental polytheism, possessed a refinement, a nobility of thought, and a piety, which are often admirable.The Babylonian account of creation, though often compared with the Biblical one, differs from it on main and essential points for it contains no direct statement of the Creation of the world: Tiamtu and Apsu, the watery waste and the abyss wedded together, beget the universe; Marduk, the conqueror of chaos, shapes and orders all things; but this is the mythological garb of evolution as opposed to creation.The Babylonian mythology possesses something analogous to the biblical Garden of Eden.In the glorious house, which is like a forest, its shadow extends; no man enters its midst.Between the mouths of the rivers, which are on both sides."The Babylonians, however, seem to have possessed no account of the Fall.It seems likely that the name of Ea, or Ya, or Aa, the oldest god of the Babylonian Pantheon, is connected with the name Jahve, Jahu, or Ja, of the Old Testament.Babylonian tablet, but the reading has been strongly disputed by other scholars.The greatest similarity between Hebrew and Babylonian records is in their accounts of the Flood.Babylonian Noah, commanded by Ea, builds a ship and transfers hither his family, the beasts of the field, and the sons of the artificers, and he shuts the door.Six days and nights the wind blew, the flood overwhelmed the land.The seventh day the storm ceased; quieted, the sea shrank back; all mankind had turned to corruption."The gods smelled a savour, the gods smelled a sweet savour, the gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer."No one reading the Babylonian account of the Flood can deny its intimate connection with the narrative in Genesis, yet the former is so intimately bound up with Babylonian mythology, that the inspired character of the Hebrew account is the better appreciated by the contrast.RELIGION
The Babylonian Pantheon arose out of a gradual amalgamation of the local deities of the early city states of Sumer and Akkad.And Babylonian mythology is mainly the projection into the heavenly sphere of the earthly fortunes of the early centres of civilization in the Euphrates valley.Babylonian religion, therefore, is largely a Sumerian, i.The tutelary spirit of a locality extended his power with the political power of his adherents; when the citizens of one city entered into political relations with the citizens of another, popular imagination soon created the relation of father and son, brother and sister, or man and wife, between their respective gods.The Babylonian Trinity of Anu, Bel, and Ea is the result of later speculation, dividing the divine power into that which rules in heaven, that which rules the earth, and that which rules under the earth.Ea was originally the god of Eridu on the Persian Gulf and therefore the god of the ocean and the waters below.Bel, which is Semitic for "chief" or "lord") of Nippur, one of the oldest, possibly the oldest, centre of civilization after Eridu.Although nominal head of the Pantheon, he had in later days no temple dedicated to him except one, and that he shared with Hadad.The Babylonian theologians not only gave him a place in the Pantheon, but in the Epos "Enuma Elish" it is related how as reward for overcoming the Dragon of Chaos, the great gods, his fathers, bestowed upon Marduk their own names and titles.Marduk gradually so outshone the other deities that these were looked upon as mere manifestations of Marduk, whose name became almost a synonym for God.And though Babylonians never quite reached monotheism, their ideas sometimes seem to come near it.Unlike the Assyrians, the Babylonians never possessed a female deity of such standing in the Pantheon as Ishtar of Ninive or Arbela.Borsippa, over against Babylon, rises into prominence and wins honours almost equal to those of Marduk, and the twin cities have two almost inseparable gods.CIVILIZATION
It is impossible in this article to give an idea of the astounding culture which had developed in the Euphrates Valley, the cradle of civilization, even as early as 2300 B.Hammurabi, and a careful reading of his code of laws will give us a clear insight in the Babylonian world of four thousand years ago."Negative" confessions in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and fills us with admiration for the moral level of the Babylonian world.Though polygamists, the Babylonians raised but one woman to the legal status of wife, and women possessed considerable rights and freedom of action.On the other hand, they possessed an institution analogous to vestal virgins at Rome.These female votaries had a privileged position in Babylonian society; we know, however, of no such dire penalty for their unfaithfulness as the Roman law inflicted.The repeated coupling of the words "votary or public woman" and the minute and indulgent legislation of which they are the objects make us fear that the virtue of chastity was not prized in Babylon.Although originally only a provident, prosperous agricultural people, the Babylonians seem to have developed a great commercial talent; and well might some Assyrian Napoleon have referred to his Southern neighbours as "that nation of shopkeepers."We also possess a deed of purchase by Manishtusu, King of Kish, some 4000 B.Babylonian, which in accuracy and minuteness of detail in moneys and values would compare well with a modern balance sheet that has passed the chartered accountants.LITERATURE
Vast as is the material of Babylonian inscriptions, equally varied are their contents.The great majority no doubt of the 300,000 tablets hitherto unearthed deal with business matters rather than with matters literary; contracts, marriage settlements, cadastral surveys, commercial letters, orders for goods or acknowledgments of their receipt, official communications between magistrates and civil or military governors, names, titles, and dates on foundation stones, private correspondence, and so on.It is convenient to classify as follows: (1) the Epos; (2) the Psalm; (3) the Historical Narrative.Borrowing an expression from the early Teuton literature, this might be called the "saga of the primeval chaos".Assyrian scribes called it by its first words "Enuma Elish" (When on high) as the Jews called Genesis "Bereshith" (in the beginning).Although it contains an account of the world's origin, as above contrasted with the account given in the Bible, it is not so much a cosmogony as the story of the heroic deeds of the god Marduk, in his struggle with the Dragon of Chaos.Though the youngest of the gods, Marduk is charged by them to fight Tiamtu and the gods on her side.He then sets about fashioning the universe, and the stars, and the moon; he forms man."Let me gather my blood and let me set up a man, let me make then men dwelling on the earth."When Marduk has finished his work, he is acclaimed by all the gods with joy and given fifty names.The gods are apparently eager to bestow their own titles upon him.The aim of the poem clearly is to explain how Marduk, the local god of as modern a city as Babylon, had displaced the deities of the older Babylonian cities, "the gods his fathers".The great national epos of Gilgamesh, which probably had in Babylonian literature some such place as the Odyssey or the Aeneid amongst the Greeks and Romans.It consists of twelve chapters or cantos.It opens with the words Sha nagbo imuru (He who saw everything).When the story begins, the city and the temples are in a ruinous state.Erech has been besieged for three years, till Bel and Ishtar interest themselves in its behalf.Gilgamesh cuts off the head of Humbabe, the Elamite king.Ishtar the goddess falls in love with him and asks him in marriage.But Gilgamesh scornfully reminds her of her treatment of former lovers.This animal is overcome and slain to the great joy of the city of Erech.Babylonian Noah, who tells him the story of the flood, which fills up the eleventh chapter of some 330 lines, referred to above.Gilgamesh the plant of rejuvenescence but he loses it again on his way back to Erech."At the break of dawn in the morning there arose from the foundation of heaven a dark cloud.The Storm god thundered within it and Nebo and Marduk went before it.Uragala dragged the anchors loose, the Annunak raised their torches, with their flashing they lighted the earth.The roar of the Storm god reached to the heavens and everything bright turned into darkness."Legend, a sort of "Paradise Lost", probably a standard work of Babylonian literature, as it is found not only in the Ninive library, but even among the Amarna tablets in Egypt.Anu, the Supreme God, invites him to Paradise, offers him the food and drink of immortality, but Adapa, mistakenly thinking it poison, refuses, and loses life everlasting.The goddess of Erech goes: To the land whence no one ever returneth, To the house of gloom where dwelleth Irkalla, To the house which one enters but nevermore leaveth, On the way where there is no retracing of footsteps, To the house which one enters, and daylight all ceases.Likewise fragments of legendary stories about the earliest Babylonian kings have come down to us.One of the most remarkable is that in which Sargon of Akkad, born of a vestal maiden of high degree, is exposed by his mother in a basket of bulrushes and pitch floating on the waters of the Euphrates; he is found by a water carrier and brought up as a gardener.The Psalm
This species of literature, which formerly seemed almost limited to the Hebrew race, had a luxurious growth on Babylonian soil.On the other hand, naught but unreasoning prejudice would trouble to deny the often touching beauty and nobility of thought in some of these productions of the instinctive piety of a noble race.It is natural moreover that the tone of some Babylonian psalms should strongly remind us of some songs of Israel, where every psalmist boasted that he had as forefather a Babylonian: Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees.Some of these psalms are written in Sumerian with Semitic Babylonian interlinear translations; others in Semitic Babylonian only.There are acrostics and even double acrostics, the initial and final syllable of each line being the same.Moreover, there are a great number of "lamentations" not over personal but over national calamities; and a Babylonian "prophet" wept over the fall of Nippur many centuries before Jeremias wrote his inspired songs of sorrow over the destruction of Jerusalem.Besides these there are numberless omen tablets, magical recipes for all sorts of ills, and rituals of temple service, but they belong to the history of religion and astrology rather than to that of literature.The Historical Narrative
The Babylonians seemed to have possessed no ex professo historians, who, like a Herodotus, endeavoured to give a connected narrative of the past.Whereas we possess considerable historical texts of Hammurabi, we possess but very little of his many successors on the Babylonian throne until the Second Babylonian Empire, when long historical texts tell us the doings of Nabopolassar, Nabuchodonosor, and Nabonidus.They invariably begin with a long homage to the gods, giving lengthy lists of deities, protectors of the sovereign and state, and end with imprecations on those who destroy, mutilate, or disregard the inscription.The Babylonian royal inscriptions, as far as at present known, are almost without exception peaceful in tone and matter.Even when at war, the Babylonian king thought it bad taste to refer to it in his monumental proclamations.No doubt the Babylonians must have despised Assyrian inscriptions as bloodthirsty screeds.Publication information Written by J.Bezold, Ninive und Babylon (Leipzig, 1903); Pinches, The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia (London, 1903); Sayce, The Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions (London, 1907); Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Giessen, I, 1905; II, 1907); Radau, Early Babylonian History (New York, 1900); Lagrange, Historical Criticism and O.Jeremias, Das Alte Testament in Lichte des alten Orients (Leipzig, 1906); Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel (Leipzig and Stuttgart, 1905) for a collection of texts with immediate bearing on O.Just visit our Forum and leave your message.Sumerian that preceded it, urban in character, although based
on agriculture rather than industry.The country consisted of a dozen or
so cities, surrounded by villages and hamlets.Babylonian or Assyrian antiquity.Babylonia, Antiochus Soter, about 280 B.Nabonassar, king of Babylon (747 B.Babylonian kings to the fall of Babylon.Assyria are unexpectedly rich in material available for this purpose.For the earlier period before 900 B.Babylon somewhat later than 2500 B.Babylonia under Kassite rule.Shalmaneser II,, Tiglathpileser III.Under his son, the famous Nebuchadrezzar II.It is an accessible land (sect.Nippur the shrine where many kings were proud to offer their gifts.Reference has already been made (sect.Semitic people begin to occupy this Babylonian plain?Babylonia known by the collective name of Elam.Babylonia for local supremacy.Enshagsagana (about 4500 B.Kish and Gishban, was Shirpurla (sect.Shirpurla a vassal kingdom.Gishban, Lugalzaggisi (about 4000 B.Sumerian culture by the conquerors.Azupirani, situate on the bank of the Euphrates.Akki, the irrigator, it carried me.Akki, the irrigator, reared me as his own son.Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, p.Sargon was a great conqueror.Shirpurla, Kish, Babylon, and Uruk.Arabia and the islands of the Persian gulf.Lugalzaggisi the west, and Alusharshid the east.Sargon founded and his successors ruled.Uruk, and Ur in the south.Babylonia, north and south, under one sceptre.Isin, a city of southern Babylonia, whose site is as yet unknown.Kings of Shumer and Akkad.Ur, in control of united Babylonia.King of the Four Regions.The most vigorous of these rulers was Dungi II.Native dynasties disappeared before the onslaught.Ashurbanipal restored it to its temple.The former city was devastated and its temples sacked.Siniddinam, and for at least a quarter of a century (about 2275 B.The first of these is the native religious literature.Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela.Elamite period of Babylonian history.The earliest occupations of the inhabitants were agricultural.Babylonian life was affected by this predominating activity.Babylonian landscape and the chief condition of agricultural prosperity.Syrian mountains for the adornment of palaces and temples.Babylonian society was well differentiated.The sources of the supply were various.Naturally they became standards of value.Others wear thick flat quilted caps.An important element of early Babylonian society was the family.Some religious ceremonies accompanied the marriage celebration.Piety is their highest virtue.The temples took their tithe.Babylonia is the legal system.Hilprecht, Recent Research, etc.Gilgamesh, preserved in twelve books, a Babylonian Odyssey.The authors of these writings are unknown.Babylonian undoubtedly comes off superior.Geschichte der Weltlitteratur, I.On its outer surface dwelt mankind.Sargon of Agade (Maspero, DC, p.Babylonia and Assyria, p.Babylonian was deeply interfused with his religion.Babylonian civilization with a sketch of the religion.The outlook of the Babylonians upon the life beyond was sombre.Political growth is indicated by the wider worship of the local god.He is the builder, the general, the judge, the high priest.The mighty rivers offered themselves as avenues for wider expansion.Old Babylonia in its essential characteristics.Kacallu again, and destroyed the city of Kish.Babylonia and was ready to enter the south.The issue of the war is unknown.Babylonia and eastward across the Tigris to the mountains of Elam.Babylonia and Assyria, p.Sippar, apparently connecting the Tigris and Euphrates.Khammurabi's achievements had begotten in his successor.Babylon, now became the head of the Babylonian pantheon.Bel of Nippur, was transferred to Marduk of Babylon.Conquest Of Babylonia And The Appearance Of Assyria.With the last king of the dynasty of Khammurabi (about 2098 B.Babylonia, a name subsequently extended over all the land.Semitic Babylonians over whom they ruled.Kassites supreme in Babylonia.Assur on the west bank of the middle Tigris (lat.Babylonian Empire (King, Let.The kingdom of Assyria took form and gathered power.Mesopotamia are in front.Babylonia profoundly influenced the development of Assyria.Babylonians who fled before the conquerors as they overspread the land.Conflicts Of Babylonia And Assyria.Babylonian authority on the Mediterranean.Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia.They were crowded back as Egypt pressed forward.Assyria's northern movement (sect.Tigris over against the eastern mountains.Egypt stood as arbiter and head among them.Cease (trying) to form an alliance with me.If thou lovest me, let them have no good fortune.Karakhardash, who followed his father upon the throne (about 1325 B.Nippur were rebuilt by him as well as that of Agade.An inscription of Adadnirari I.Subari on the upper Tigris.Assyrian arms across the Euphrates.Shalmaneser's son, Tukulti Ninib (about 1250) and the Kassite rulers.Babylonian chronicle (RP, 2 ser.He ruled, according to the kings' list, for thirty years.Babylonians, but both kings were killed.Milishikhu and his son Mardukbaliddin, Babylonia was supreme.Historically and ethically, Babylonia was the product of the
union of the Akkadians and the Sumerians.Anu and Bel called me, Hammurappi, the exalted prince, the worshipper
of the gods, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy
the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing
the weak, ...It mingles the most enlightened of laws with the most barbarous
punishments, and sets trial by ordeal right next to elaborate
judicial proceedures.This famous law code was only one of Hammurappi's accomplishments.They were the national deities.From taxes imposed on the people, he financed the forces of law
and order, and had enough left over to beautify his capital.Palaces and temples went up frequently.Ships manned by ninety plied up and down the river.Its people were Semitic, with dark hair
and features.Both sexes had long hair.Both men and women wore perfume.The common dress for both sexes
was a white linen tunic reaching to the feet.As wealth grew, the poeple developed a taste
for color, dying their garments red on blue or blue on red in
stripes, circles, checks and dots.Eight years after Hamurrappi's death, the Kassites,
a mountain tribe to the north of Babylonia invaded the land, plundered
it, retreated, and raided it again and again.The Kassites ruled for six hundred years.It was during their
rule that the Amarna letters were written in which the kinglets
of Babylonia and Syria, having sent modest tribute to imperial
Egypt after the victories of Thutmose III, beg for aid against
rebels and invaders, and quarrel about the value of the gifts
that they exchange with the disdainful Amenhotep III and the absorbed
and neglegent Akhetnaton (Ikhnatan).At long last the Kassites were expelled, but disorder continued
in Babylonia for another four hundred years under a series of
obscure rulers with long names that you don't want to know, until
the rising power of Assyria in the north stretched down and brought
Babylonia under the power of the Ninevite kings.Esarhaddon restored it to prosperity.The rise of the Medes weakened Assyria and with their help, Nabopolassar
libertated Babylonia, set up an independant dynasty, and after
his death (Aug.Babylonian monarchs after Hamurrappi himself.When Egypt conspired with Assyria to reduce Babylon to a vassal
again, Nebuchadnezzer met the Egyptian hosts at Carchemesh and
almost annihilated them Palestine and Syria then fell under his
dominion and Babylonian merchants controlled the trade that flowed
across western Asia from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.Babylon the unrivaled capital of the
Near East, and the largest and most magnificent metropolis of
the ancient world.The wall enclosed
an area of two hundred square miles.Compared to the Old City
of Jerusalem, surrounded by a wall and enclosing an area of one
square mile, Babylon is enormous.Euphrates,
busy with commerse.Most of the buildings of Babylon were brick,
since stone was rare in Mesopotamia.Built by Nebuchadnezzer, king
of Babylon.It was crowned with a shrine containing a massive table
of solid gold, and an ornate bed on which each night, some woman
slept to await the pleasure of the god (or his representative).South of the ziggurat stood the gigantic temple of Marduk, chief
deity of Babylon.Around and below this temple the city spread
itself out in narrow, winding streets, alive with traffic and
bargains, and smells of garbage and humanity.Six hundred yards north of
the great ziggurat rose a mound called Kasr, on which Nebucahdnezzer
built the most imposing of his palaces.Nebuchadnezzer is reported to
have built them for one of his wives, the daughter of Cyaxares,
the King of the Medes.This princess, so the story goes, unaccustomed
to the hot sun and dust of Babylon, pined away for the green of
her native land.So, Nebuchadnezzer made this beautiful and lush
garden to ease her homesickness.The topmost terrace was covered with rich soil to a depth of
many feet, providing space and nourishment not mearly for various
flowering plants, but for large trees.Commerse was harrassed with a multiplicity
of dangers and tolls.The merchant did not know which to fear
more: the robbers that might attack him along the road, or the
towns and baronies which exacted heavy fees from him for the priviledge
of using their less than safe roads.It was safer, where possible, to take the great national highway,
the Euphrates, which Nebuchadnezzer had made navigable from the
Persian Gulf all the way to Thapsacus.The Babylonians had no coinage, but even before Hamurrappi they
used, besides barly and wheat, ingots of gold and silver as standards
of value and mediums of exchange.The metal was unstamped and
had to be weighed for each transaction.Babylonia was essentially a commercial civilization.Most of
the documents that have survived are business related: sales,
loans, contracts, partnerships, comissions, exchanges, agreements,
promissary notes, etc.They apparently were prospering, and they
were filled with the spirit of materialism.On a darker note, slavery was an important part of Babylonian
life (as it was for most nations through the eighteenth century
and even into the ninteenth century AD).Slaves were aquired
from captives taken in battle, slave raids carried out upon foreign
states by marauding bedouins, and from the reproductive enthusiasm
of the slaves themselves.Slaves and whatever property they might have belonged entirely
to their masters.If a slave escaped, no one could
legally harbor him or her and there were usually nice rewards
posted for his or her capture.The power of the king was
limited by the law, the aristocracy, and the clergy.The king
was the agent of the city's god.Taxation was in the name of
that god, and the money went into the treasuries of the temple.All the glamor of the supernatural hedged about
the throne and made rebellion a colossal impiety which risked
not only life, but also the eternal soul.The wealth of the temples grew from generation to generation,
as the rich shared their dividends with the gods.The kings,
feeling a special need for divine forgiveness, built temples,
equipped them with furniture, food, and slaves, deeded to them
great tracts of land, and assigned them an anual income from the
state.Poor as well as rich turned over to the tmeples as much as they
thought profitable of their earthly gains.Unsurprisingly, much of the agricultural,
manufacturing, and financing of Babylonia became the pervue of
the priests.An official census of the gods late in the ninth century placed
their number at around 65,000.The gods were derived from the Sumerian panthon.Transcendance
was not a pronounced part of the Babylonians' concept of deity.The oldest gods in the Babylonian pantheon were the astronomical
deities:
1.Babyonians returned
upon death.Additionally, each family had its own household gods, to whom
prayers might be said and to whom libations were poured each morning
and evening.The multiplicity of gods created some confusion, and so periodically
reform movements would simplify the system by interpreting minor
gods as forms or attributes of major deities, thus reducing the
total number of divine beings.In this way the chief god of the
city of Babylon, Marduk (a sun god), was tunred into the chief
of all Babylonian deities.Another deity of importance was Ishtar (also called Astarte by
the Greeks and Asherah or Astoreth by the Jewish people).She
was very similar to the Egyptian goddess Isis, the Greek goddess
Aphrodite, and the Roman Venus.Once a woman has taken ehr seat she is not allowed to go home until a man has thrown a silver coin into her lap and taken ehr outside to lie with her.Assyrian name for aphrodite.The value of the coin is of no consequence; once thrown it becomes sacred, andthe law forbids that it should ever be refused.The language of the Babylonians
was Semitic, making it not too difficult to learn.Reading a Babylonian text is like trying
to do a rebus.The Babylonian cuneiform writing system is a combination of signs,
some of which are Sumerian logograms representing an entire Babylonian
word; some are symbols representing a syllable within a word.In the anals of Babylonia, his name disappears from the records
for four years.Within thirty years of his death, his empire crumbled to pieces.Nabonidus, who held the throne seventeen years, much preferred
archeology to government, and devoted himself to excavating the
antiquities of Sumer while his own realm went to ruin.Unfortunately, they did not
adequately protect themselves.The Persians crashed his party and killed
him.For two centuries thereafter,
Persia ruled Babylonia as part of the greatest empire that history
had known up to that moment.The date: June 13, 323 BC.This was the heartland of the Babylonian
Empire, which dominated the ancient Near East between the fall of the
Assyrian
empire (612 BCE) and the rise of the Achaemenid
Empire (after 539).It produces wild barley, chickpea, and sesame, and even, in its
marshlands, edible roots, called
gongai.The land also produces dates, apples, and all sorts
of other fruit, as well as fish and birds, field birds as well as waterfowl.There are also in the land of the Babylonians waterless and infertile regions
near Arabia,
while lying opposite Arabia there are hilly and fertile areas.Babylonia have refused to believe even
what I have already said about its fertility.Of course, this is exaggerated, and it should be
noted that Herodotus does not claim that he was in Babylonia.Another factor contributing to Babylonia's agricultural
wealth was the use of the the seeder plough.In the fourth and third millennium, the alluvial plain witnessed the
rise of the world's first urban centers and monarchies, together with the
first attempts to write (in cuneiform script), to build temples, create
monumental works of art, organize an administration, and build empires.One of the first cities was Uruk, which in c.BCE measured some 250
hectares.Some of their literary
texts, like the Eridu
Genesis, became "classics" and influenced the writers of Babylonia,
Judah, and Greece.One of the problems the Sumerians encountered was the irrigation of the
plain, and war was sometimes waged about access to water.Nippur was a very important center too.The Sumerians were not the only people living in this area.Our sources
also refer to the Akkadians, who may be an illiterate, lower class that
was slowly moving upward in the social pyramid, or an invading nation.We don't know, but it is certain that they spoke a Semitic language related
to modern Arabic and Hebrew.In the second millennium, the Akkadian language
was spoken and written all over Mesopotamia,
although there was a southern (Babylonian) and a northern (Assyrian)
variant.For the first time, the people living on the alluvial plain of southern
Mesopotamia were united in a strong, centralized state.An empire, in other
words.Nammu
of Ur, the founder of the Empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur.The central institutions were strengthened and there is a surprising
wealth of administrative sources, written in Sumerian.Third Dynasty of Ur lost control after some kind of ecological crisis
that may be due to climatological changes, a succession of bad harvests
after the impact of a giant meteor, or simply bad irrigation.Marduk and his snake
dragon
(from J.All of a sudden, it is there, out of the blue, and quite powerful.It has been assumed that Babylon is in fact the lost capital of Sargon,
but we will probably never be able to test this hypothesis, because the
oldest building phase of Babylon is far below groundwater level.Yet, this period was always remembered, and it is not exaggerated to
say that in the eighteenth century, the foundations were laid for the Babylonian
culture, which was to last for almost two millenniums.In Babylon, the world was created, and the Babylonian
ziggurat,
which was called Etemenanki,
was regarded as the foundation of heaven on earth.Every year, the gods
of the Babylonian cities came to Babylon to visit Marduk and celebrate
the Akitu (New
Year) festival.This important text was to become a Babylonian "classic" that was read
and copied for more than a millennium and a half.She resembles the Sumerian goddess Inana.In general, we can say
that the Babylonian civilization contained many Sumerian elements.In fact, you can not
write Akkadian unless you recognize many Sumerian signs.In our times, the Babylonian laws of king Hammurabi have become famous.Now, we know of quite a few other codifications, and the laws of Hammurabi
are less unique than they once were.Besides, the real significance of
the regulations it is still unclear.Although during the next centuries the political
fortunes of Babylonia were fluctuating (more...Babylonian civilization continued to influence all neighboring states:
Elam and Assyria, but also Syria and Persia.Babylonian creation myth, Oannes,
can be found as far to the east as Pasargadae.The Jews copied
the Babylonian calendar.The most fascinating later innovation of Babylonian
culture was the invention of astronomy by the scientists that are usually
(although incorrectly) called Chaldaeans.Later, the Babylonians
created stellar catalogues and a nearly perfect calendar.The importance
of these predictions can not be exaggerated.This is, of course, astrology, not astronomy.But in the fifth or fourth century, the Babylonians, who had always been
good in mathematics, developed two mathematical systems to predict eclipses
and dangerous periods (explained here).Now, we are really talking about science in the modern sense of the word.Mathematics and astronomy are the lasting legacy of ancient Babylonia.Yet, when the Chaldaeans did their greatest discoveries, Babylonia
had lost its political independence for good.After the glory of the Old
Babylonian kingdom of Hammurabi, its capital was captured by Kassites,
a Babylonized tribe from the Zagros.They and their successors as rulers
of Babylonia, the Second Dynasty of Isin, continued to rule the country
from one central capital, propagated the cult of Marduk, and ordered the
scribes to copy the classical literary texts.The twelfth and eleventh
centuries saw the political disintegration of Babylonia, but Babylon remained
the universally recognized cultural capital of the world, and invading
tribes usually accepted Babylonian culture.When Assyria started to increase its power in the tenth century, its
kings proudly accepted the Babylonian legacy, and usually treated Babylon
kindly.In 539, the Persian king Cyrus
the Great captured Babylon (texts),
and he treated the ancient city and the Babylonians just as respectful
as other conquerors had done.One of Cyrus' most important texts, the
Cyrus
Cylinder, is written in Akkadian and presents him as the king
chosen and loved by Marduk.His son Cambyses
accepted the Babylonian calendar, and Akkadian was one of the three official
languages in the early period of Persian domination.Two Babylonians offering
tribute to the Achaemenid
king.For two centuries, Babylon was one of the most important cities in
the Achaemenid
Empire, and the Babylonians shared in the ups and downs of the Persian
monarchy.The Astronomical
Diaries (which document the entire period of 652 to 60 BCE) inform
us about political events in the city and tell us about the prices of products,
so that we can start to write an economical history of Babylonia.But Babylonian language, literature and civilization were slowly being
superseded.Alexander settled Greeks and Macedonians in
Babylonia, where he founded a city called Charax.The Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period, which were
studied for the first time in 2003, will no doubt offer new insights in
this period.Babylonia was a rich country. |
![The Beatles : [1995] Anthology 1](/covers/25/2550/alb_85100_th.jpg "The Beatles : [1995] Anthology 1")
