Ancient Babylonia - History of Babylonia

The once great city of Babylon, where the Jews were held captive for 70 years, became a symbol of power, materialism, and cruelty.

The city of Babylon was the capital of the ancient land of Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia. It was situated on the Euphrates River about 50 miles south of modern Baghdad, just north of what is now the modern Iraqi town of al-Hillah. The tremendous wealth and power of this city, along with its monumental size and appearance, were certainly considered a Biblical myth, that is, until its foundations were unearthed and its riches substantiated during the 19th century. Archaeologists stood in awe as their discoveries revealed that certain stories in the Bible were an actual situation that had happened in time. A quick overview of the writings of the prophet Isaiah in the Bible,

especially chapter 13, reveals somepredictions concerning Babylon that stagger the imagination. The Word "Babylon" Babylon is Akkadian "babilani" which means "the Gate of God(s)" and it became the capital of the land of Babylonia. The etymology of the name Babel in the Bible means "confused" (Gen 11:9) and throughout the Bible, Babylon was a symbol of the confusion caused by godlessness. The name Babylon is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Babel. The Location of Babylon Babylon lies in the land of Shinar as revealed in the Bible (Gen 10:10) and its general location has never been disputed. See Geography The Tower of Babel The Bible reveals that all false systems of religion began in the land of Babylon and will have their consummation from the spirit of Babylon in the last days. It is interesting to note that every organized system of religion in the world today has traces of ancient Babylon. The Bible records in Genesis 10:10, that, after the great flood, all men spoke one common language and a man named Nimrod built a city and established a common religion. Nimrod was a descendant of Noahs son, Ham. Genesis 11:1-9 describes the building of the city and its famous tower "whose top may reach unto heaven." It also records how God came down and punished the peoples arrogance by creating a confusion of different languages and possibly their racial distinctions. This way man would be forced to obey Gods original command to "be fruitful and fill the whole earth." It is interesting that the materials used to build the Tower of Babel were the same as those employed for the construction of the great ziggurat of Babylon and similar ziggurats, according to ancient building inscriptions. The Early Growth of Babylon

There is evidence that man has lived in this area of Mesopotamia since the beginning of civilization. The first records indicate that Babylon was established as a city around the 23rd century BC. Before this it was a provincial capital ruled by the kings of the city of Ur. Then came the migration of the Amorites. Quick Overview of Babylonian History Babylonia (pronounced babilahnia) was an ancient empire that existed in the Near East in southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. Throughout much of their history their main rival for supremacy were their neighbors, the Assyrians. It was the Babylonians, under King Nebuchadnezzar II, who destroyed Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, and carried Gods covenant people into captivity in 587 BC. The Bible reveals much about the Babylonians all the way back from the time of Hammurapi (2000 BC) to the fall of Babylon (about 500 BC). Throughout the Old Testament there are references to the Babylonians, their people, culture, religion, military power, etc. Babylonia was a long, narrow country about 40 miles wide at its widest point and having an area of about 8,000 square miles. It was bordered on the north by Assyria, on the east by Elam, on the south and west by the Arabian desert, and on the southeast by the Persian Gulf. The earliest known inhabitants of Mesopotamia were the Sumerians, whom the Bible refers to as the people of the "land of Shinar" (Gen 10:10). Sargon, from one of the Sumerian cities, united the people of Babylonia under his rule about 2300 B.C. Many scholars believe that Sargon might have been the same person as Nimrod (Gen 10:8).

Artists Depiction of the Ziggurat at Ur Around 2000 BC Hammurapi emerged as the ruler of Babylonia. He expanded the borders of the Empire and organized its laws into a written system, also known as the Code of Hammurapi. About this time Abraham left Ur, an ancient city located in lower Babylon, and moved to Haran, a city in the north. Later, Abraham left Haran and migrated into the land of Canaan under God's promise that he would become the father of a great nation (Gen 12). Alongside of Babylonia there must also be a mention of Assyria, which bordered Babylonia on the north. Assyria's development was often intertwined with the course of Babylonian history. About 1270 BC, the Assyrians overpowered Babylonia. For the next 700 years, Babylonia was a lesser power as the Assyrians dominated the ancient world. Around 626 BC, Babylonian independence was finally won from Assyria by a leader named Nabopolassar. Under his leadership, Babylonia again became the dominant imperial power in the Near East and thus entered into her "golden age." In 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II, the son of Nabopolassar, became ruler and reigned for 44 years. Under him the Babylonian Empire reached its greatest strength. Using the treasures which he took from other nations, Nebuchadnezzar built Babylon, the capital city of Babylonia, into one of the leading cities of the world. The famous hanging gardens of Babylon were known to the Greeks as one of the seven wonders of the world.

As previously mentioned, in 587 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and carried the leading citizens of the Kingdom of Judah as prisoners to Babylon. The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah had foretold that the Jews would be free to return home to Jerusalem after 70 years. The Lord had encouraged His people through Ezekiel and Daniel who were also captives in Babylon. During this 70 year period of captivity, the Persians conquered Babylonia, and the Babylonians passed from the scene as a world power. Throughout the long period of Babylonia history, the Babylonians achieved a high level of civilization that made an impact on the whole known world. Sumerian culture was its basis, which later Babylonians regarded as traditional. In the area of religion, the Sumerians already had a system of gods, each with a main temple in each city. The chief gods were Anu, god of heaven; Enlil, god of the air; and Enki or Ea, god of the sea. Others were Shamash, the sungod; Sin, the moongod; Ishtar, goddess of love and war; and Adad, the storm-god. The Amorites promoted the god Marduk at the city of Babylon, so that he became the chief god of the Babylonian religion, starting around 1100 BC. Babylonian religion was temple-centered, with elaborate festivals and many different types of priests, especially the exorcist and the diviner, who mainly were trained to drive away evil spirits.

Babylonian literature was mainly dominated by mythology and legends. Among these was a creation myth written to glorify their god Marduk. According to this myth, Marduk created heaven and earth from the corpse of the goddess Tiamat. Another work was the Gilgamesh Epic, a flood story written about 2000 BC. Scientific literature of the Babylonians included treatises on astronomy, mathematics, medicine, chemistry, botany, and nature.

One of the main aspects of Babylonian culture was a codified system of law. Hammurapis famous code was the successor of earlier collections of laws going back to about 2050 BC. The Babylonians used art for the national celebration of great events and glorification of the gods. It was marked by stylized and symbolic representations, but it expressed realism and spontaneity in the depiction of animals.

The Old Testament contains many references to Babylonia. Gen 10:10 mentions four Babylonian cities, Babel (Babylon), Erech (Uruk), Accad (Agade) and Calneh. These, along with Assyria, were ruled by Nimrod. The History of Babylonia Traditionally the history of Babylonia has been broken down into three major periods: The Old Babylonian Period ( 2000-1595 BC)

The Middle Babylonian Period (1595-1000 BC) The Neo-Babylonian Period (1000-539 BC)

Babylonia: country, language, religion, culture

Babylonia is the Greek name of what the inhabitants knew as Mt Akkad, the fertile alluvial plain between the Euphrates and Tigris. 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 theAchaemenid Empire (after 539). Its capital was Babylon. In a well-known description of ancient Babylonia, Berossus (or Bel-re'uunu, to use his real name) says that the land lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. It produces wild barley, chickpea, and sesame, and even, in its marshlands, edible roots, called gongai. These roots are the equal of barley in nutrition. 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. [Babylonian history fr.1; tr. G. Verbrugghe and J. Wickersham] Another ancient author, the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, was impressed by the fertility of ancient Babylonia So great is the fertility of the grain fields that they normally produce crops of twohundredfold, and in an exceptional year as much as three-hundredfold. The blades of wheat and barley are at least three inches wide. As for millet and sesame, I will not say to what an astonishing size they grow, though I know well enough; but I also know that people who have not been to Babylonia have refused to believe even what I have already said about its fertility. [Histories 1.193; tr. Aubrey de Slincourt] Of course, this is exaggerated, and it should be noted that Herodotus does not claim that he was in Babylonia. Yet, his statement shows that people believed that the alluvial plains of the Lower Euphrates and Tigris were extremely fertile, and this is correct, although the yields were typically fifteenfold, which is, compared to the Mediterranean world, astonishing. Another factor contributing to Babylonia's agricultural wealth was the use of the the seeder plough. It remained unknown in the west (Greece and Rome), but when it was introduced in Europe in the nineteenth century, the productivity climbed with no less than 50%.

Mask of a Sumerian (Louvre)

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.3200 BCE measured some 250 hectares. We do not know what language these "inventors of civilization" spoke, because the oldest texts are written with simple pictograms, which can represent any language. When in c.2600 these pictograms were for the first time used to represent syllables and abstract principles, a real script has been invented. By then, the people spoke Sumerian. Some of their literary texts, like the Eridu Genesis, became "classics" and influenced the writers ofBabylonia, Judah, and Greece. In this period, the Early Dynastic Age, city states like Uruk, Ur, Larsa, Eridu, Laga, Umma, Isin, Nippur, and Ki, were important, and we read about their relations, which were sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile. One of the problems the Sumerians encountered was the irrigation of the plain, and war was sometimes waged about access to water. Ki seems to have claimed some sort of superiority, but the details are obscure, and we are certain that Nippur was a very important center too. Its god Enlil was head of the

Sumerian pantheon. 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. In the fourteenth century, it had become the language of international diplomacy, and we find Akkadian texts as far away as Turkey and Egypt. It remained important for the next millennium or so, and was still -although rarely- written in the third century CE. No language in world history can be traced over so long a period. The Akkadian language is called after Agade, a not identified city that was the first to use Akkadian as the language of its chancellery. Its most famous king, Sargon, may have ruled from 2296 to 2240. His reign was the culmination of a process that had started earlier: several Sumerian kings had tried to unite all city states, but the first to do so was Sargon. 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. Sargon's armies invaded Elam in the east, Syria in the west, Subartu in the north, and marched against the Arabs in the south, so that his descendants could claim with some justification to be the "kings of the four corners of the world".

Portrait of an Akkadian king, said to be Sargon (!!!)

There were trade contacts with Anatolia and India. The descendants fought wars against the Gutaeans, people living in theZagros mountain range. However, these enemies were invincible, and the Akkadian dynasty lost credit. The new ruler of the united cities was king UrNammu of Ur, the founder of the Empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur. It continued what Sargon had started, and is often dated to 2112-2004 . The central institutions were strengthened and there is a surprising wealth of administrative sources, written in Sumerian. (Sometimes, the Ur IIIperiod is called a "Sumerian Renaissance", as if the Akkadian kings had lived in some sort of Dark Ages; the term has, indeed, anti-Semitic associations.) A bureaucracy ruled the towns, which were now provinces with governors, and no longer independent cities. However, in ca.2000, the 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. However this may be, the central state collapsed, and from the west, the Amorites -until then regarded as "truffleeating barbarians" entered the region and captured Isin, Larsa, and a new city, never heard of before: Babylon.

Fragment of an Akkadian victory stela (Louvre)

All of a sudden, it is there, out of the blue, and quite powerful. At the same time, the city of Agade disappears from our sources. Later, the country surrounding Babylon (which we call Babylonia) was called Mt Akkad, "the country of Agade". 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.
Marduk and his snake dragon (from J. Black & A. Green,Gods, demons and symbols ofancient Mesopotamia,1992;!!!)

The most famous Babylonian king was Hammurabi (1792-1750?), who was able reunite southern Mesopotamia. East of the Tigris, he attacked Elam, Enunna, and the mountain tribes in the Zagros; in the north, his armies reached Aur; in the northwest, he captured Mari; and he accepted Harranas the northernmost city of his kingdom. This empire was to last for a century and a half, but in 1595(?), Babylon was captured and sacked by a Hittite army. 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. The pantheon changed considerably, and the hitherto unimportant city god of Babylon, Marduk, became the head of the pantheon, replacing Enlil, the old supreme god who was still all-powerful in, for example, the Epic of Atrahasis. The syncretism is expressed in the words that Marduk is "the enlil of the

gods", which may be rendered as "president of the council of gods". For the moment, Marduk's claim to be the supreme god was only recognized in Babylon, but in the fourteenth century, it had been recognized by the other cities too. Marduk's temple, the Esagila, became very famous, and replaced the old sanctuary of Nippur as major cult center. 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. In the creation epic Enma li, Babylon is the center of the universe. This important text was to become a Babylonian "classic" that was read and copied for more than a millennium and a half. Another important text composed in this period was the Epic of Gilgame, which is known from copies that were found all over the ancient Near East, including Nineveh, Hattuas, Emar, and Megiddo. The cult for other Babylonian gods became popular too: for example Nab, the god of the scribes, the sun god ama, and Itar, the goddess of love and war. She resembles the Sumerian goddess Inana. In general, we can say that the Babylonian civilization contained many Sumerian elements. The Sumerian language had by now

Tablet containing the text ofEnma li (British Museum;!!!)

been replaced by Akkadian, but was still learned by people and the ancient texts were still copied. 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. The stele -which is now in the Louvre in Paris- on which the regulations were inscribed, is one of the best-known monuments from Antiquity. Yet it is unclear how important the laws of Hammurabi really were. When the stele was discovered in Susa, it was the first known non-Biblical law code of the ancient Near East. 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. In a society that was overwhelmingly illiterate, people would never know their rights if they depended upon a written text, and it is possible that the stele was in fact only meant to show to the eternal gods that the king was a just man, or tried to be. Although during the next centuries the political fortunes of Babylonia were fluctuating (more...), the Babylonian civilization continued to influence all neighboring states: Elam and Assyria, but also Syria and Persia. Babylonian artistic motifs like the bull with a man's head (lamassu) have been found inHattuas, Karchemi, Nineveh, and Persepolis. A relief showing one of the heroes of the Babylonian creation myth, Oannes, can be found as far to the east as Pasargadae. The library of the Assyrian king Aurbanipal (668-631)in

King Hammurabi and ama Capital of the stele with the Laws of Hammurabi (Louvre)

Babylonian world map (British Museum)

Nineveh contained many literary texts from Babylonia, including, as we already noted, the Epic of Gilgame. Greek philosophers tried to learn something in Babylon. The Jews copied the Babylonian calendar. The Akitu festival was still celebrated in the early third century CE in Emessa in Syria, and during the brief reign of the emperor Heliogabalus (218-222) even in Rome. The list is endless. The most fascinating later innovation of Babylonian culture was the invention of astronomy by the scientists that are usually (although incorrectly) calledChaldaeans. The development started early: we possess a list of systematic observations of Venus written down under king Ammisaduqa (16461626?). Later, the Babylonians created stellar catalogues and a nearly perfectcalendar. In the eighth century, they were able to predict eclipses, which they regarded as evil omens that announced the beginning of a dangerous period. The importance of these predictions can not be exaggerated. Now that dangerous periods were predictable, it was possible to appoint substitute kings who would bear the brunt of the gods' wrath. The real king would remain unharmed and the continuity of the state's policy was guaranteed. (The poor man who was appointed as substitute king was killed. In this way, the omen was always right.) 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

Tablet with a list of eclipses between 518 and 465, mentioning the death of kingXerxes (British Museum;!!!)

(explainedhere). 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. After the fall of the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 (text), Babylon was briefly the political center of the Near East, but the splendor of the kingdom of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, which is documented in theBabylonian chronicles, was short-lived. 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

Cyrus' cylinder (British Museum)

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. For two centuries, Babylon was one of the most important cities in theAchaemenid 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. The Persian government increasingly preferred Aramaic as the language of their chancellery, and the Akkadian language was no longer used in the Achaemenid royal inscriptions after the reign of Artaxerxes I Makrocheir (465-424). Things really changed when the Macedonianconqueror Alexander the Great defeated the last Persian king Darius III Codomannus. Alexander settled Greeks and Macedonians in Babylonia, where he founded a city called Charax. Alexander's successor Seleucus I Nicator ordered the building of another Greek city, Seleucia; later, Uruk was refounded as a Greek town too, and king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (174-164) settled Greeks in Babylon again (text).

Two Babylonians. Relief from the eastern stairs of theApadana at Persepolis (more).

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. The fact that these chronicles exist is interesting enough: their publication, and the continuation of the series of Astronomical Diaries, proves that Babylon still was a cultural center of some local significance. The great days were over, but the city was still important when the Parthians took over the region in 141 BCE. Babylonia was a rich country. It could afford to pay large number of scribes, scholars, and -sometimes- soldiers. This explains why its language, literature, and culture could spread over the ancient Near East, and why its influence lasted so long.