6.4: Babylonian and Neo-Babylonian

Babylonia, an introduction

by The British Museum

On the River Euphrates

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): The “Queen of the Night” Relief, Old Babylonian, 1800-1750 BCE. Baked straw-tempered clay, 49 x 37 x 4.8 cm. British Museum. (Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum, via Smarthistory) The panel, modeled in high relief, depicts a naked woman with feathered wings and legs that end in talons. She wears a horned headdress and bracelets and stands on the back of a pair of lions, flanked by a pair of owls. Her arms are bent and in her hands, raised to the level of her shoulders, she holds a rod and ring.

The city of Babylon on the River Euphrates in southern Iraq is mentioned in documents of the late third millennium BCE and first came to prominence as the royal city of King Hammurabi (about 1790-1750 BCE). He established control over many other kingdoms stretching from the Persian Gulf to Syria. The British Museum holds one of the iconic artworks of this period, the so-called “Queen of the Night” (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). From around 1500 BCE a dynasty of Kassite kings took control in Babylon and unified southern Iraq into the kingdom of Babylonia. The Babylonian cities were the centers of great scribal learning and produced writings on divination, astrology, medicine and mathematics. The Kassite kings corresponded with the Egyptian Pharaohs as revealed by cuneiform letters found at Amarna in Egypt, now in the British Museum.

Babylonia had an uneasy relationship with its northern neighbor Assyria and opposed its military expansion. In 689 BCE, Babylon was sacked by the Assyrians but as the city was highly regarded it was restored to its former status soon after. Other Babylonian cities also flourished; scribes in the city of Sippar probably produced the famous “Map of the World” (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)).

Babylonian kings

After 612 BCE, the Babylonian kings Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II were able to claim much of the Assyrian empire and rebuilt Babylon on a grand scale. Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon in the sixth century BCE and it became the largest ancient settlement in Mesopotamia. There were two sets of fortified walls and massive palaces and religious buildings, including the central ziggurat tower. Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the famous “Hanging Gardens.” However, the last Babylonian king Nabonidus (555-539 BCE) was defeated by Cyrus II of Persia and the country was incorporated into the vast Achaemenid Persian Empire.

New Threats

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Map of the World, Babylonian, probably from Sippar, southern Iraq, c. 700-500 BCE. Clay, 12.2 x 8.2 cm. British Museum. (Photo: The British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) As the British Museum writes, this tablet "shows the world as a disc, surrounded by a ring of water called the 'Bitter River;' 'Babylon' is marked as a rectangle at the right end of the Euphrates although the city actually occupied both banks of the river during most of its history.... [S]mall circles are used to indicate cities or districts, and two of which are identified as 'Assyria' and 'Der.'"

Babylon remained an important center until the third century BCE, when Seleucia-on-the-Tigris was founded about ninety kilometers to the north-east. Under Antiochus I (281-261 BCE) the new settlement became the official Royal City and the civilian population was ordered to move there. Nonetheless a village existed on the old city site until the eleventh century CE. Babylon was excavated by Robert Koldewey between 1899 and 1917 on behalf of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft. Since 1958 the Iraq Directorate-General of Antiquities has carried out further investigations. Unfortunately, the earlier levels are inaccessible beneath the high water table. Since 2003, our attention has been drawn to new threats to the archaeology of Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq.

For two thousand years the myth of Babylon has haunted the European imagination. The Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens, Belshazzar’s Feast and the Fall of Babylon have inspired artists, writers, poets, philosophers and film makers.

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Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi

by Dr. Senta German

Law is at the heart of modern civilization, and is often based on principles listed here nearly 4,000 years ago.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Babylonia at the time of Hammurabi. (Map via Smarthistory)

Hammurabi of the city state of Babylon conquered much of northern and western Mesopotamia and by 1776 BCE, he is the most far-reaching leader of Mesopotamian history, describing himself as “the king who made the four quarters of the earth obedient.” Documents show Hammurabi was a classic micro-manager, concerned with all aspects of his rule, and this is seen in his famous legal code, which survives in partial copies on this stele in the Louvre and on clay tablets (a stele is a vertical stone monument or marker often inscribed with text or with relief carving). We can also view this as a monument presenting Hammurabi as an exemplary king of justice.

What is interesting about the representation of Hammurabi on the legal code stele is that he is seen as receiving the laws from the god Shamash, who is seated, complete with thunderbolts coming from his shoulders. The emphasis here is Hammurabi’s role as pious theocrat, and that the laws themselves come from the god.

Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi: A CONVERSATION

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

This is the transcript of a conversation conducted at the Musee du Louvre, Paris.

Steven: We’re in the Louvre, in Paris, looking at one of their most famous objects. This is the Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi.

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi, Babylonian, 1792-1750 BCE. Basalt, 225 x 65 cm. Musee du Louvre, Paris. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Beth: Its interesting to me that this is one of the most popular objects to look at here (it was made in the Babylonian Kingdom which is now in Iraq) and I think its because of our modern interest and reliance on law as the founding principles of a civilization. And this is such an ancient object, this is nearly 4,000 years old.

Steven: A stele is a tall carved object. This one is carved in relief at the top, and then below that, and on all sides, we have inscribed cuneiform (script that is used on the stele). It’s written in the language of Akkadian (which is the court language of the Babylonians).

Beth: Which was used for official government decrees.

Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi (detail showing columns of cuneiform). (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Steven: But that’s the language. The script is cuneiform. It’s divided into three parts. There’s a prologue, which talks about the scene that’s being represented at the top, the Investiture of Hammurabi. What we see is the king on the left, he’s smaller, and he’s facing the god, Shamash. This is the sun god, the god of justice.

Beth: And we can tell he’s a god because of the special horned crown that he wears and the flames or light that emanate from his shoulders.

Steven: We can think of this as a kind of divine light, the way that in so much Christian imagery, we see a halo.

Beth: And we have that composite view that we often see in Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Near-Eastern art, where the shoulders are frontal but the face is represented in profile.

Steven: Shamash sits on a throne, and if you look closely you can see under his feet the representation of mountains that he rises from each day. He’s giving to the king a scepter and a ring, these are signs of power. Hammurabi is demonstrating here that these are divine laws. That his authority comes from Shamash.

Beth: So we have more than 300 laws here.

Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\): Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi (detail shwoing Hammurabi and Shamash). (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Steven: And they’re very particular. Scholars believe that they weren’t so much written by the king as listed from judgments that have already been meted out.

Beth: They’re legal precedents, and they take the form of announcing an action and its consequences. So if you do X, Y is the consequence.

Steven: So, for example, if a man builds a house and the house falls on the owner, the builder is put to death. So there’s a kind of equivalence, and this might remind us of the Biblical law of, “An eye for an eye” or a tooth for a tooth.” Which is also found on the stele, and it’s important and interesting to note that the stele predates that Biblical text. The last part of the text, what is often referred to as the epilogue, speaks to the posterity of the king, of the importance of his rule and the idea that he will be remembered for all time.

Beth: This is certainly not a unique stele in terms of recording laws, but it does survive largely intact. When it was discovered, it was broken only into three parts, which you can still see today.

Steven: These laws, almost 4,000 years old, tell us a tremendous amount about Babylonian culture, about what was important to them. So many of these laws deal with agricultural issues, issues of irrigation, and are clearly expressing points of tension in society.

Beth: A lot of them have to do with family life, too, and the king is, after all, responsible for the peace and prosperity and feeding of his people. And the stele is such a wonderful reminder that Mesopotamia was such an advanced culture. Here, almost 4,000 years ago, we have cities that are dependent on good crop yields, that require laws to maintain civil society. And a reminder of the debt that the world owes to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and the area that is seeing so much conflict now.

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The Ishtar Gate and Neo-Babylonian art and architecture

by Dr. Senta German

“I, Nebuchadnezzar … magnificently adorned them with luxurious splendor for all mankind to behold in awe.”

Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\): Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, Babylon, c. 575 BCE. Glazed mud brick. Pergamon Museum, Berlin. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The chronology of Mesopotamia is complicated. Scholars refer to places (Sumer, for example) and peoples (the Babylonians), but also empires (Babylonia) and unfortunately for students of the Ancient Near East these organizing principles do not always agree. The result is that we might, for example, speak of the very ancient Babylonians starting in the 1800s BCE and then also the Neo-Babylonians more than a thousand years later. What came in between you ask? Well, quite a lot, but mostly the Kassites and the Assyrians.

The Assyrian Empire which had dominated the Near East came to an end at around 600 BCE due to a number of factors including military pressure by the Medes (a pastoral mountain people, again from the Zagros mountain range), the Babylonians, and possibly also civil war.

A Neo-Babylonian dynasty

Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\): Map of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. (Map via Smarthistory)

The Babylonians rose to power in the late 7th century and were heirs to the urban traditions which had long existed in southern Mesopotamia. They eventually ruled an empire as dominant in the Near East as that held by the Assyrians before them.

This period is called Neo-Babylonian (or new Babylonia) because Babylon had also risen to power earlier and became an independent city-state, most famously during the reign of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE).

In the art of the Neo-Babylonian Empire we see an effort to invoke the styles and iconography of the 3rd millennium rulers of Babylonia. In fact, one Neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus, found a statue of Sargon of Akkad, set it in a temple and provided it with regular offerings.

Architecture

The Neo-Babylonians are most famous for their architecture, notably at their capital city, Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 BCE) largely rebuilt this ancient city including its walls and seven gates. It is also during this era that Nebuchadnezzar purportedly built the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” for his wife because she missed the gardens of her homeland in Media (modern day Iran). Though mentioned by ancient Greek and Roman writers, the “Hanging Gardens” may, in fact, be legendary.

The Ishtar Gate (today in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) was the most elaborate of the inner city gates constructed in Babylon in antiquity (Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\)). The whole gate was covered in lapis lazuli glazed bricks which would have rendered the façade with a jewel-like shine. Alternating rows of lion and cattle march in a relief procession across the gleaming blue surface of the gate.

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Articles in this section:

• The British Museum, "Babylonia, an introduction," in Smarthistory, August 29, 2016 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Senta German, "Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Law Code Stele of King Hammurabi: A CONVERSATION," on YouTube for Smarthistory, August 8, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Dr. Senta German, "The Ishtar Gate and Neo-Babylonian art and architecture," in Smarthistory, August 8, 2015 (CC BY-NC-SA)