50 Fun Facts About Babylon

On which river did ancient Babylon stand?

Babylon straddled the Euphrates; Herodotus described the river dividing the city in two, spanned by a bridge, and a branch of it runs through the ruins.

In which modern country are the ruins of Babylon?

The ruins lie in Iraq's Babil Governorate, south of Baghdad on the Euphrates; the modern governorate takes its name from Babylon.

What does the Akkadian name Babilim, from which 'Babylon' derives, traditionally mean?

Bab-ilim is traditionally read as 'Gate of the gods', though many Assyriologists treat this as a folk etymology for an older, non-Semitic name such as Babilla.

In the Book of Genesis, the name Babel is interpreted to mean what?

Genesis 11:9 links Babel to the Hebrew verb balal, 'to confuse', so the name signifies confusion: God confounded the builders' speech there; the English verb 'babble' is unrelated.

Which Amorite king founded the Old Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC?

Hammurabi (r. c.1792-1750 BC), sixth Amorite king of Babylon, conquered Larsa, Eshnunna and Mari, uniting southern Mesopotamia into the Old Babylonian Empire.

On what kind of stone is the primary copy of the famous Old Babylonian law code inscribed?

The Code of Hammurabi's primary copy is a 2.25-metre stele of black basalt; its top shows the king receiving the laws' authority from the sun god Shamash.

Which Babylonian creation epic opens with the words 'When on high'?

The Enuma Elish, recited at Babylon's New Year festival, opens 'When on high' and tells how the city's patron god defeats Tiamat to create the world.

Which museum received the Babylonian law-code stele after its 1901 discovery at Susa?

The French expedition under Jacques de Morgan shipped the stele to Paris, where the Louvre has displayed it since the early 1900s; Jean-Vincent Scheil published the first translation in 1902.

Which Hittite king is thought to have sacked Babylon in 1595 BC, ending its first dynasty?

Mursili I marched down the Euphrates, sacked Babylon around 1595 BC and carried off the statue of the city's patron god, ending the dynasty of Hammurabi.

Which people ruled Babylon for 435 years after the Hittite sack, calling it Karduniash?

The Kassites ruled Babylonia as Karduniash for some four centuries; kings such as Burna-Buriash II corresponded as equals with Egypt's pharaohs in the Amarna letters.

Which Assyrian king razed Babylon to the ground in 689 BC and dumped the rubble in the water?

Sennacherib levelled Babylon in 689 BC and flooded the site; his murder by his own sons in 681 BC was seen as divine vengeance, and his successor Esarhaddon rebuilt the city.

Which Assyrian prince, ruling Babylon, started a civil war against his brother Ashurbanipal in 652 BC?

Shamash-shum-ukin, installed as king of Babylon by their father Esarhaddon, rebelled in 652 BC; after a long siege Babylon was starved into surrender in 648 BC.

Which king freed Babylon from Assyria and founded the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 626 BC?

Nabopolassar seized Babylon's throne in 626 BC and, allied with the Medes, destroyed Assyria by 609 BC; his Neo-Babylonian Empire is also called the Chaldean Empire.

Which Neo-Babylonian king rebuilt the city, built the Ishtar Gate and is blamed for the Jewish exile?

Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605-562 BC) rebuilt Babylon and its Ishtar Gate; he captured Jerusalem in 597 BC and destroyed Solomon's Temple in 586 BC, deporting Judah's elite.

How many gates ringed Babylon's inner city?

Babylon's inner wall had eight gates, each named for a god, the Ishtar Gate among them; Herodotus's claim of a hundred gates is read as an echo of Homer's Thebes.

What colour glaze covered the bricks of the Ishtar Gate?

The Ishtar Gate's bricks were glazed a deep blue to imitate lapis lazuli, with relief animals picked out in golden-yellow and white against the blue ground.

Which three animals appear in relief on the Ishtar Gate?

Dragons, bulls and lions march along the gate and Processional Way: the mushussu dragon for the city god, the aurochs for the storm god Adad, the lion for Ishtar.

In which city was the Ishtar Gate reconstructed from excavated bricks after 1918?

The German excavators shipped the glazed-brick fragments home, and the smaller front gate was reassembled in Berlin's Pergamon Museum, opening in 1930.

What was the name of the great ziggurat of Babylon, thought to lie behind the story of the Tower of Babel?

Etemenanki, 'House of the foundation of heaven and earth', was a seven-stage ziggurat; the Esagila tablet, translated by George Smith in 1876, gives its base and height as 91 metres.

To which god were Babylon's great ziggurat and the neighbouring temple Esagila dedicated?

Marduk, Babylon's patron god, rose with the city to head the Mesopotamian pantheon; his name may mean 'calf of the sun god', and Esagila housed his cult statue.

According to legend, for whom did the king build the Hanging Gardens?

Berossus's tale has Nebuchadnezzar II build the gardens for his homesick wife Amytis, a Mede who missed her homeland's green hills; no Babylonian text mentions her or the gardens.

Which scholar has argued that the Hanging Gardens were really near the Assyrian capital, Nineveh?

Oxford Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley argued in 2013 that the gardens were built by Sennacherib at Nineveh; they are the only Wonder whose site has never been established.

How many of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were in Babylon on some ancient lists?

Two Babylonian entries appear on some lists: the Hanging Gardens and the city's great walls, which Antipater of Sidon included before later lists swapped them for the Pharos.

Which Persian king captured Babylon in 539 BC?

Cyrus the Great took Babylon in October 539 BC after his victory at Opis on the Tigris; a Babylonian chronicle records that his forces entered the city without a battle.

According to the traditional account, how did the Persians get into Babylon in 539 BC?

Herodotus says the Persians diverted the river and waded in: the Euphrates was turned into a marsh until soldiers could walk its bed under the walls while the city feasted.

Which artefact is cited as evidence the Persian conqueror let exiled peoples, including Jews, go home?

The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay barrel found at Babylon in 1879, records Cyrus restoring gods and peoples to their homes; it names Mesopotamian sanctuaries only, not Jews or Jerusalem.

Who was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire when Babylon fell in 539 BC?

Nabonidus, who spent about ten years at the Arabian oasis of Tayma leaving his son as regent, was captured after Babylon fell to Cyrus in October 539 BC.

According to Herodotus, in what did the Babylonians bury their dead?

Herodotus wrote that the Babylonians buried their dead in honey; he also described turbans and perfume, and three tribes who ate nothing but fish.

Which conqueror died in the royal palace at Babylon in 323 BC?

Alexander the Great died in Nebuchadnezzar II's palace at Babylon on 10 or 11 June 323 BC, aged 32; he had ordered the ruined ziggurat cleared, its rubble heaped on the Homera mound.

Which Roman emperor briefly captured Babylon in AD 116?

Trajan reached Babylon during his Parthian campaign in AD 116 and sacrificed in the room where Alexander died; his successor Hadrian abandoned everything east of the Euphrates.

Around what population is Babylon thought to have been the first city ever to reach?

Babylon was perhaps the first city to pass 200,000 people; it was probably the world's largest city around 1770-1670 BC and again from about 612 to 320 BC, covering some 900 hectares.

Which German archaeologist led the first scientific excavation of Babylon, from 1899 to 1917?

Robert Koldewey dug at Babylon for the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft from 1899 until British troops approached in 1917, uncovering the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way.

What happened to over 200 crates of Babylonian artefacts from the French Fresnel expedition in May 1855?

The 'Qurnah Disaster' saw a ship and four rafts go down; a Japanese expedition in 1971-72 failed to recover them.

Which employee of the British East India Company carried out the first excavations at Babylon in 1811-12?

Claudius Rich, the East India Company's Resident at Baghdad, mapped and dug at Babylon in 1811-12 and published his Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon in 1815.

Which Iraqi leader inscribed bricks at Babylon calling himself the son of its greatest king?

Saddam Hussein rebuilt Nebuchadnezzar's Southern Palace on top of the ancient foundations in the 1980s, stamping bricks that called him the son of Nebuchadnezzar; they became collectors' items after 2003.

What was the name of the US military base built on the ruins of Babylon after the 2003 invasion?

Camp Alpha, established by US Marines in April 2003 and later run by Polish forces, was handed back to Iraq in January 2005; a British Museum report found vehicles had crushed ancient pavements.

In which year was Babylon inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

UNESCO inscribed Babylon as a World Heritage Site in July 2019, at its committee session in Baku; Iraq had sought the listing since the 1980s.

In the Book of Daniel, whose banquet was interrupted by a hand writing on the wall?

Daniel 5 tells how Belshazzar's feast, using vessels looted from the Jerusalem Temple, was interrupted by the writing 'mene, mene, tekel, upharsin'; he was killed that night.

According to Genesis 10, who founded Babel along with Uruk and Akkad?

Genesis 10:8-10 calls Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, 'a mighty hunter before the LORD' whose kingdom began with Babel, Erech (Uruk) and Accad in the land of Shinar.

In the Book of Revelation, Babylon is personified as a woman riding what?

Revelation 17 shows 'Babylon the Great' as a woman in purple and scarlet riding a seven-headed scarlet beast with ten horns; many scholars read the name as code for Rome.

In Rastafari belief and reggae lyrics, what does 'Babylon' stand for?

In Rastafari, 'Babylon' is the oppressive materialist system of Western society and its police, contrasted with Zion; reggae artists such as Bob Marley sang against it.

Which number base did Babylonian scribes use for their arithmetic and astronomy?

Babylonian scribes inherited the Sumerian sexagesimal system, counting in base 60; its legacy survives in the 60-minute hour and the 360-degree circle.

Which material was quarried from Babylon's ruins for centuries to build nearby towns?

For centuries Babylon's ruins served as a brick quarry: its kiln-fired baked bricks, many stamped with Nebuchadnezzar II's name, were carted off to build nearby towns.

Which city did Babylon eclipse as southern Mesopotamia's holy city in the 18th century BC?

Babylon supplanted Nippur, the city of Enlil, as southern Mesopotamia's religious centre under Hammurabi, and Marduk took Enlil's place at the head of the pantheon.

On a tablet from whose reign does the earliest firm mention of Babylon, as a small town, appear?

A year name of Shar-Kali-Sharri of Akkad (late 23rd century BC) records temples for Annunitum and Ilaba built at KA.DINGIR, the Sumerian writing of Babylon's name.

According to Ctesias, who was Babylon's first king, when the city was supposedly founded in 2286 BC?

Ctesias, as quoted by Diodorus Siculus and George Syncellus, made Belus Babylon's first king and dated the foundation to 2286 BC; no cuneiform record supports it.

Babylon's ruins lie within which modern Iraqi city, about 85 km south of Baghdad?

The ruins lie in present-day Hillah, capital of Babil Governorate; the Shatt al-Hillah, a branch of the Euphrates, runs through the ancient site.

At which 331 BC battle did Alexander the Great defeat Darius III before occupying Babylon?

After routing Darius III at Gaugamela, north of Arbela, on 1 October 331 BC, Alexander marched south and entered Babylon in triumph later that month.

According to the Babylonian king list, which Amorite chieftain began Amorite rule in Babylon?

Babylonian King List A opens the First Dynasty with Sumu-abum (c. 1894 BC), an Amorite chieftain who broke away from neighbouring Kazallu; his successor Sumu-la-El consolidated the city.

Which scholar's 1883 pronouncement led Herodotus's account of Babylon to be treated as Greek folklore?

Archibald Henry Sayce's 1883 edition of Herodotus, Books I-III, dismissed the historian's Babylon, with its hundred gates and bitumen-cemented walls, as Greek folklore.