Babylon history

Babylon is regarded as the oldest civilization on earth. Basically Babylonia was a state in ancient Mesopotamia. This city was located in the present day Iraq. This civilization was built near Euphrates River.It is believed that it was founded more than 4,000 years ago.The ruler Hammurabi established his empire there in Babylon.

As the time passed, a new ruler came into existence and established a Neo-babylonian empire which was expanded from the Persian gulf to the Mediterranean sea. In the reign of this ruler, Babylon became a city of with beautiful and lavish buildings. As per the  archaeological and Biblical evidence showed that the it was possible that the thousands of Jews were forced to leave their land Jerusalem and came to Babylo jin.

 Babylon Existence

 

 The Babylon town was located near the Euphrates river in present day Iraq which was about 50 miles south region of Baghdad.This city was founded by the Akkadian-speaking people of southern Mesopotamia around 2300 B.C.

Babylon  rose as a major military power under the reign of  Amorite king Hammurabi, whose ruling tenure were from 1792 to 1750 B.C. After that Hammurabi conquered native city which were southern and central Mesopotamia. He unified those regions and created an empire named Babylonia.

 Hammurabi was a strong king. He made Babylon into a  very rich, strong and influential city. He played major role as under his reign he made  one of the world’s earliest and most complete written legal codes which is also considered as the code of Hammurabi. These codes helped Babylon to excel the other cities in the region.

The empire that was called as Babylonia, was for a short period of time . This empire fell down as after the death of Hammurabi and after that the whole empire started to divide into small kingdom for several 100 years. 

 

  Renewal of Neo-Babylonian Empire

As the foundation of Neo-Babylonian empire  by the new row of kings .This new empire were also short lived as the earlier empire. It's ruling tenure was from  626 B.C. to 539 B.C. This new empire beacame the extremely powerful state in the World after conquering the Assyrians at Nineveh in 612 B.C.

As the Neo-Babylonian Empire was a  actually a time of cultural renaissance in the Near East. The Babylonians had built many beautiful and luxurious buildings and they also protected various statues and artworks which walere of earlier  Babylonian Empire during the reign of king Nebuchadnezzar II.

 Collapse of Babylon

As I have said earlier that, The Neo-Babylonian Empire was also short lived.

The great Persian king Cyrus in 539 B.C. ,conquered Babylon and destroy the Neo-babylonian empire. This Neo-babylonian empire tenure was less than a century after its establishment.  The complete fall of Babylon was done when came into full Power.

 Jewish History's context of Babylon

In sixth century B.C., after the Babylonian defeat of the Kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar II. He took  thousands of Jews from the city of Jerusalem and stopped there and captured in Babylon for more than half a century.

As after the defaet of Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Great Cyrus Persian forces. After that jewa were returned to Jerusalem and some of them stayed and they enriched in this city for more than 2,000 years.Lots of jews moved after the Israel got created in 1950.

 Babel Tower

The city of Babylon  is in both Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

According to Christian scriptures, Babylon is portrayed as an evil city. 

According to Hebrew scriptures, it tells the story of the Babylonian banishment, and saying  Nebuchadnezzar as a captor.

 There is famous depiction in bible  about the  Tower of Babel. According to the Old Testament ,it is written that  humans were trying to reach to the heavens. It further says that when God saw this, he destroyed the tower and scattered mankind all over the Earth. God confounded their speech so that they could not be able to understand each other languages.(source).

It is believed by some of the scholsrs that the legendary Tower of Babel may have been inspired from a real-life ziggurat temple which is built to give respect to Marduk who was the patron god of Babylon.

 Babylon's Wall

The art and architecture raised throughout the Babylonian Empire.The most of the art work was done in the capital city of Babylon. This capital city was famous for its impenetrable walls.

It was Hammurabi who firstly surrounded the city with walls. After him, Nebuchadnezzar II increased fortified the city with three rings of walls which were around 40 feet tall. 

Nebuchadnezzar II built three major palaces, which were lavishly decorated with yellow and blue galzed tiles. He further built a various shrines.He built the largest shrine and named it as Esagil which was dedicated to Madruk.This shrine was humongous in height. It was around 280 feet tall.

  Babylon's Hanging Gardens

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the wonders of Ancient world. Hangings Gardens was a huge winding of terraced trees, shrubs, flowers and manmade waterfalls.

Now, Archaeologists have got very less evidence of the gardens. They found it very

unclear about its existence in Babylon at all.

There are some researchers who have  uncovered evidence that says that , the hanging gardens existed in city Nineveh but not in Babylon.

 Ishtar Gate

Ishtar gate is the main entrance gate of city Babylon. This gate was decorated with bright blue glazed bricks embellished with  pictures of bulls, dragons and lions.

The Ishtar Gate was also the gave way to the city’s great religious parade Way. It was around half mile decorated which were used in religious ritual to celebrate  the New Year.

The new year in ancient Babylon started with equinox and remarked the beginning of the agricultural season.

German archaeologists collected the remains of the gate in the early twentieth century and reconstructed it in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum by using original bricks.

 

 Today's Babylon

 In Saddam Hussein time when he was President of Iraq, the Iraqi government collected Babylonian ruins and attempted to reconstruct some features of the ancient city which includes the famous Nebuchadnezzar’s palaces.

After invasion of Iraq in 2003 by United States.US built their military base on the ruins of Babylon.

 UNESCO reported the base occoured“major damage” to the archaeological site. The site was reopened for tourists in 2009. 

 

Reference (source).