Ancient history

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Babylon

Approximately between 2000 and 500 BC, Babylon was the capital of the Babylonian empire and an important religious and commercial center . It was also the place where the legendary Tower of Babel was built and the Gardens of, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were built.
The city of Babylon was famous throughout the ancient world. When the Greek writer Herodotus visited it around 450 B.C. -after having been conquered by the Persians-, he stated that "exceeded in splendor any city in the known world" . The glories of the capital included immense and ornate temples and palaces, as well as the brick ziggurat that was supposedly the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible.
Babylon is located in Iraq, 88 kilometers south of the city of Baghdad. Between 1899 and 1913, Babylon was excavated by the German archaeologist Robert Kolde-wey and his team. Brick by brick, they slowly rebuilt the image of the ancient city. His investigation brought to light Babylon as it had been in its final years, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Beneath the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon lie the remains of the city in earlier times.
By the 17th century BC, Babylon had become the center of a vast empire, during the reign of Hammurabi . Koldewey's team found that Hammurabi's Babylon had beautiful temples and palaces, as well as a complicated maze of narrow streets lined with houses. All the buildings were made of adobes, on foundations of baked bricks. Hammurabi's capital was protected by strong walls.
After the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon passed into the hands of the Kassites, who ruled it from 1660 BC. until 1150 BC Then, in the 7th century BC, the Assyrians captured and sacked the city.

The City of Nebuchadnezzar

It was not until the Babylonian general Nabopolassar defeated the Assyrians in 626 BC that Babylon regained its former glory . He and his son Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the capital and transformed it into the most beautiful city in the ancient Middle East. Nebuchadnezzar's capital occupied an area of ​​850 hectares, larger than many modern cities. At its peak, 250,000 people lived there.
The rectangular city was surrounded by a double line of walls. The outer one was 26 meters thick. The interior was just as massive, as Herodotus tells us that two chariots pulled by four horses each could pass together along the rampart path.

CharacteristicsofNebuchadnezzar

Eight bronze gates gave way to the city. The most magnificent of these was the Ishtar Gate . Its walls and access were decorated with bright blue glazed bricks, as well as reliefs of animals that represented the Babylonian gods. Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, was represented by a lion; Adad, the god of storms, was represented by a bull. A griffin represented Marduk, who was an important god as well as the patron of the city.
In Nebuchadnezzar's time, the Euphrates River flowed through the city, dividing it in two. Both halves were connected by a stone bridge. The western part contained the houses of most of the citizens, while the eastern part contained temples and palaces.
Nebuchadnezzar's palace was near the Ishtar Gate. Known as the "Wonder of Humanity", it was built around five patios and its walls were decorated with glazed bricks. . On the floor of one of the patios, archaeologists found a huge sculpture of a lion trampling the body of a man. The statue symbolized Babylon's triumph over its neighbors.

The Temple of Marduk

To the south of the palace was the temple of Marduk, linked to the Ishtar Gate by a wide street called Processional Avenue. This temple was the center of the most important festival in the city, which took place during the new year and lasted 11 days . At its climax, the king led a procession carrying a statue of Marduk through the Ishtar Gate to a shrine on the outskirts of the city. To the north of Marduk's temple was a brick ziggurat, or temple-pyramid, which is supposed to be the origin of the Tower of Babel mentioned in the Bible. It stood 300 feet (91 m) high, and on its top was a small shrine to Marduk.

The Lost Gardens

Although repeatedly searched, archaeologists have so far been unable to find any remains of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. According to surviving descriptions from ancient authors, the gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife, a Mede princess who longed for the woods and meadows of her native land. The gardens probably grew on terraces, long since collapsed.

Nebuchadnezzar's fall

After Nebuchadnezzar, the power of Babylon disappeared. The city first fell into the hands of the Persian Empire, in 539 BC, being conquered again in 331 BC, this time by the Macedonian general Alexander the Great. He made it his capital, but when Alexander died, the region passed into the hands of his general Seleucus, who preferred to build a new capital, Seleucia, along the Tigris River, so Babylon was abandoned.


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