History is a grim reminder of how power and wealth are fleeting and once great civilisations are reduced to rubble with the passage of time. The city of Babylon was the glittering centrepiece of the Mesopotamian civilisation and the capital of ancient Mesopotamia. It was feted as the greatest city of the ancient world but all that remains today are a couple of ruins between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, 55 miles (88 km) south of Baghdad in Iraq’s Babil province.
Amidst the ruins, some significant reminders of the bygone era have managed to survive the ravages of time such as the glazed brick panels from the Ishtar Gate, built by King Nebuchadnezzar, clay tablets inscribed with the cuneiform script, one of the most ancient forms of written expression, and the most amazing of all, a Babylonian map of the world made from clay. Babylon is depicted as the centre of the world and, in the middle, a square marks the site of the Etemenanki ziggurat, the so-called Tower of Babel.
Over hundreds of years, a number of myths have been told about ancient Babylon, so there are some misconceptions today about the real Babylon and the mythical city of Babylon.
References to Babylon in the Old Testament have etched the city on the collective consciousness for eternity. The book of Genesis mentions Babylon as the first city to be built after the great flood. One of the legendary rulers of Babylon was the so-called mad King Nebuchadnezzar, who was said to have built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and the legendary Tower of Babel, linking heaven and earth.
Myths persist about Babylon as a city of vice and a hotbed of sin, but historians argue that this unsavoury reputation was bestowed upon the city by the Old Testament in response to Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Jerusalem and destruction of the city’s temple in 586 BC, when many of the inhabitants, including the King of Judah, were deported to Babylon. Far from being evil or mad, Nebuchadnezzar was in reality a successful king whose reign was marked by stability and peace.
Babylon became the greatest city of the ancient world during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar from 605-562 BC. The most enduring legend about the king is that he built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to cheer up his wife Amyitis who was homesick for her mountain homeland of Media. In reality, archaeologists have not been able to find any conclusive evidence to support this theory. However, Nebuchadnezzar did complete the reconstruction of the imperial grounds and constructed the spectacular Ishtar Gate. His most famous feat was rebuilding the Tower of Babel to a height of 300ft. It had actually been built some 1,300 years earlier but destroyed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 689.
There are drawings and a description today of the tower, known as the ziggurat. We know that it was a Babylonian version of the pyramids, towering over the lives of the citizens. It was a status symbol, an embodiment of the power of the king and his closeness to god. Yet, astoundingly for all the ziggurat’s colossal size and symbolic power, not one brick has survived. In fact, when archaeologists went to Babylon at the beginning of the 20th century, they thought they would find the tower, but all they found was a great rectangular pitch filled with muddy water.
Although the tower of Babel was razed to the ground, the dramatic ‘fall of Babylon’ is actually just a myth and the truth of the decline of the empire was altogether a different story.
Conquered by Persian emperor Cyrus in 539 BC, Babylon continued to exist as one of the capitals of his empire. Later, Alexander the Great chose Babylon as his capital, and once again it flourished as a centre of learning and commerce.
His intention to make it the centre of his world empire and extend the tower even further was never realised as he died of fever in the city in 323 BC.
Alexander’s vast empire was carved up by his four chief generals — one of them called Seleucos succeeded Alexander and decided to move the capital from the ancient city and build himself a new one named Seleucia, 40 miles away. His decision to move the government, the army and the religious institutions along with him, signalled the beginning of the end of Babylon. Once money stopped pouring into the city, it just began to decay and by 141 BC, Babylon was desolate.
In modern-day Iraq, Saddam Hussein attempted to resurrect the city as a national icon, projecting himself as Nebuchadnezzar’s natural successor and carving his name into some of the city’s ancient monuments. In 2005, it emerged that US forces had caused extensive damage to the site by setting up a military camp there.
Jeremiah’s Old Testament warning, that ‘Never again will people live there; it will lie desolate forever,’ was not so far from the truth.
Today sheep graze where Nebuchadnezzar once ruled, a sight the king would have never anticipated when he built his mighty city.
As a young man, Nebuchadnezzar witnessed the fall of the city of Nineveh in Assyria and when he built Babylon, he was determined it would never suffer the indignity of defeat. He thought it would last forever. How wrong he was!