... enjoy the ride

 

Created for Macro Mondays - Magnetic

Europe, The Netherlands, Rotterdam, Centre, Markthal, Chinese supermarket, Kitchen utensils (uncut)

 

Shot in the Markthal, in the 'Wah nam hong' supermarket, one of the two Chinese supermarket chains in Roterdam. Gotta love those large Hanzi logograms on the wall.

 

This is the start of a Rotterdam 'retail' mini series and number 1082 of Minimalism / explicit graphism and 391 of interiors.

Depth of Field

 

White Rabbit Gallery, a Sydney-based gallery home for contemporary Chinese art

How's everyone out there doing?!?! Hope you guys had a happy thanksgiving. Today I figured I'd switch it up and share something more abstract. I can't even begin to tell you guys how much I love getting in the air and photographing the river deltas in Iceland! These glacier river are amazing and have so much character, and just leaves endless ideas for creativity and compositions. I love that there's no sense of scale. This area could be big, could be small, who knows? These scenes, let the viewer soak in the details, and lets the mind journey with ones own thoughts.

 

With this particular composition, I see a Chinese symbol/character hence the title of the image. I also see someone dancing, like they are in tune with the perfect melody. What do you guys see?

Thanks for your faves and comments!

This reminds me of the logogram symbols used in Chinese writing.

The Mayan script, also known as Mayan glyphs or Mayan hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until shortly after the arrival of the conquistadors in the 16th century CE and into the 18th century in isolated areas, such as Tayasal.

 

Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing. Mayan writing was called "hieroglyphics" or hieroglyphs by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who did not understand it but found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, to which the Mayan writing system is not at all related.

 

Although modern Mayan languages use the Latin alphabet as standard, Mayan writing has received official support and promotion by the Mexican government and is taught in universities and public schools in several Mayan-speaking areas.

 

The Mayas used a positional base-twenty (vigesimal) numerical system which only included whole numbers. For simple counting operations, a bar and dot notation was used. The dot represents 1 and the bar represents 5. A shell was used to represent zero. Numbers from 6 to 19 are formed combining bars and dots. Numbers can be written horizontally or vertically.

These four examples show how the value of Maya numerals can be calculated

 

The value of a number depends on its position going from the bottom line upward in the configuration. The initial position (viz bottom line) has the value represented in the symbol. On the following line, the value of the symbol is multiplied by 20; on the third line from the bottom it's multiplied by 400, and each successive line is growing by powers of 20. That is to say, Mayan numerals use base 20. This positional system allows the calculation of large figures, necessary for chronology and astronomy.

Sweetpea Vine

My Summer Garden (series)

Red indian.... a member of the race of people living in America when Europeans arrived

 

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the descendants of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas. Pueblos indígenas (indigenous peoples) is a common term in Spanish-speaking countries. Aborigen (aboriginal/native) is used in Argentina, whereas "Amerindian" is used in Quebec, The Guianas, and the English-speaking Caribbean.[21][22][23][24] Indigenous peoples are commonly known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, which include First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.[25] Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives.[26]

 

According to the prevailing theories of the settlement of the Americas, migrations of humans from Asia (in particular North Asia)[27][28] to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge which connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The majority of experts agree that the earliest pre-modern human migration via Beringia took place at least 13,500 years ago.[29] These early Paleo-Indians spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their genesis, described by a wide range of creation myths.

 

Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, thought that he had arrived in the East Indies.[30][31][32][33][34][35] The Americas came to be known as the "West Indies", a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the names "Indies" and "Indian", which implied some kind of racial or cultural unity among the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. This unifying concept, codified in law, religion, and politics, was not originally accepted by indigenous peoples but has been embraced by many over the last two centuries.[citation needed] Even though the term "Indian" does not include the Aleuts, Inuit, or Yupik peoples, these groups are considered indigenous peoples of the Americas.

 

Although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in Amazonia, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas.[36] Although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires.

  

A Navajo man on horseback in Monument valley, Arizona.

Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous peoples; some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, and Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, but also cater to modern needs. Some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.

  

Migration into the continents[edit]

For more details on theories of the migrations of the Paleo-Indians, see settlement of the Americas.

The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, provide the subject of ongoing research and discussion.[37][38] According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation.[37] During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the land bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to north west North America (Alaska).[39][40] Alaska was a glacial refugia because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist. The Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska (East Beringia) for thousands of years.[41][42]

 

Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single ancestral population, one that developed in isolation, conjectured to be Beringia.[43][44] The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years.[45][46][47] Around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond.[38][48][49] These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets.[50]

 

Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to South America.[51] Evidence of the latter would have been covered by a sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age.[52]

 

The time range of 40,000–16,500 years ago is debatable and probably will remain so for years to come.[37][38] The few agreements achieved to date include:[29][53]

 

the origin from Central Asia

widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the Late Glacial Maximum, around 16,000–13,000 years before present

Stone tools, particularly projectile points and scrapers, are the primary evidence of the earliest human activity in the Americas. Crafted lithic flaked tools are used by archaeologists and anthropologists to classify cultural periods.[54] The Clovis culture, the earliest definitively-dated Paleo-Indians in the Americas, appears around 11,500 RCBP (radiocarbon years Before Present[55]), equivalent to 13,500 to 13,000 calendar years ago.

 

In 2014, the autosomal DNA of a 12,500+-year-old infant from Montana found in close association with several Clovis artifacts was sequenced.[56] These are the Anzick-1 remains from the Anzick Clovis burial in Montana. The data indicate that the individual was from a population ancestral to present South American and Central American Native American populations, and closely related to present North American Native American populations. The implication is that there was an early divergence between North American and Central American plus South American populations. Hypotheses which posit that invasions subsequent to the Clovis culture overwhelmed or assimilated previous migrants into the Americas were ruled out.[56]

 

Similarly, the skeleton of a teenage girl (named 'Naia', after a water nymph from Greek mythology) found in the underwater caves called sistema Sac Actun in Mexico's eastern Yucatán Peninsula in 2007 has had DNA extracted, and at 13,000 years old is considered the oldest genetically intact human skeleton ever found in the Americas. The DNA indicates she was from a lineage derived from Asian origins that is represented in the modern native population's DNA.[57]

 

Pre-Columbian era[edit]

Main article: Pre-Columbian era

See also: Archaeology of the Americas

 

Language families of North American indigenous peoples

The Pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European and African influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original arrival in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the early modern period.[58]

 

While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until Europeans either conquered or significantly influenced them, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus' initial landing.[59] "Pre-Columbian" is used especially often in the context of discussing the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and the Maya civilizations) and those of the Andes (Inca Empire, Moche culture, Muisca Confederation, Cañaris).

  

Ethnic groups circa 1300-1535

 

Paleo-Indians hunting a glyptodont

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies.[60] Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first significant European and African arrivals (ca. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through oral history and through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Mayan, Olmec, Mixtec, and Nahua peoples, had their own written records. However, the European colonists of the time worked to eliminate non-Christian beliefs, and Christian pyres destroyed many pre-Columbian written records. Only a few documents remained hidden and survived, leaving contemporary historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.

 

According to both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter had achieved many accomplishments.[61] For instance, the Aztecs built one of the largest cities in the world, Tenochtitlan, the ancient site of Mexico City, with an estimated population of 200,000. American civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics. The domestication of maize or corn required thousands of years of selective breeding.

 

Inuit, Alaskan Native, and American Indian creation myths tell of a variety of origins of their respective peoples. Some were "always there" or were created by gods or animals, some migrated from a specified compass point, and others came from "across the ocean".[62]

 

European colonization[edit]

Main article: European colonization of the Americas

See also: Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas and Columbian Exchange

 

Cultural areas of North America at time of European contact

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the peoples of the continents. Although the exact pre-contact population of the Americas is unknown, scholars estimate that Native American populations diminished by between 80 and 90% within the first centuries of contact with Europeans. The leading cause was disease. The continent was ravaged by epidemics of diseases such as smallpox, measles, and cholera, which were brought from Europe by the early explorers and spread quickly into new areas even before later explorers and colonists reached them. Native Americans suffered high mortality rates due to their lack of prior exposure to these diseases. The loss of lives was exacerbated by conflict between colonists and indigenous people. Colonists also frequently perpetrated massacres on the indigenous groups and enslaved them.[63][64][65] According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), the North American Indian Wars of the 19th century cost the lives of about 19,000 whites and 30,000 Native Americans.[66]

 

The first indigenous group encountered by Columbus were the 250,000 Taínos of Hispaniola who represented the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. Within thirty years about 70% of the Taínos had died.[67] They had no immunity to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population.[68] Increasing punishment of the Taínos for revolting against forced labour, despite measures put in place by the encomienda, which included religious education and protection from warring tribes,[69] eventually led to the last great Taíno rebellion.

 

Following years of mistreatment, the Taínos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their infants and men jumping from the cliffs or ingesting untreated cassava, a violent poison.[67] Eventually, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo managed to hold out in the Baoruco Mountain Range for thirteen years, causing serious damage to the Spanish, Carib-held plantations and their Indian auxiliaries.[70] Hearing of the seriousness of the revolt, Emperor Charles V (also King of Spain) sent captain Francisco Barrionuevo to negotiate a peace treaty with the ever-increasing number of rebels. Two months later, after consultation with the Audencia of Santo Domingo, Enriquillo was offered any part of the island to live in peace.

 

The Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513, were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly with regard to native Indians. The laws forbade the maltreatment of natives and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism.[71] The Spanish crown found it difficult to enforce these laws in a distant colony.

  

Drawing accompanying text in Book XII of the 16th-century Florentine Codex (compiled 1540–1585), showing Nahuas of conquest-era central Mexico suffering from smallpox

Various theories for the decline of the Native American populations emphasize epidemic diseases, conflicts with Europeans, and conflicts among warring tribes. Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives.[72][73] Some believe that after first contacts with Europeans and Africans, Old World diseases caused the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World in the following 150 years.[74] Smallpox killed up to one third of the native population of Hispaniola in 1518.[75] By killing the Incan ruler Huayna Capac, smallpox caused the Inca Civil War. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture.

 

Smallpox had killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico.[76][77] Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez on April 23, 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s,[78] possibly killing over 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone (the heartland of the Aztec Empire), and aiding in the victory of Hernán Cortés over the Aztec Empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521.[citation needed]

 

Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous Americans had no immunity.[79]

 

Explorations of the Caribbean led to the discovery of the Arawaks of the Lesser Antilles. The culture was destroyed by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through to the modern populace. In Amazonia, indigenous societies weathered centuries of colonization.[80]

  

Indians visiting a Brazilian farm plantation in Minas Gerais ca. 1824

Contact with European diseases such as smallpox and measles killed between 50 and 67 per cent of the Aboriginal population of North America in the first hundred years after the arrival of Europeans.[81] Some 90 per cent of the native population near Massachusetts Bay Colony died of smallpox in an epidemic in 1617–1619.[82] In 1633, in Plymouth, the Native Americans there were exposed to smallpox because of contact with Europeans. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans.[83] It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679.[84][85] During the 1770s, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.[86] The 1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic and 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plains Indians.[87][88] In 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).[89][90]

 

The Indigenous peoples in Brazil declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated three million[91] to some 300,000 in 1997.[dubious – discuss][not in citation given][92]

 

The Spanish Empire and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild.[93] The re-introduction of the horse, extinct in the Americas for over 7500 years, had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America and of Patagonia in South America. By domesticating horses, some tribes had great success: horses enabled them to expand their territories, exchange more goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game, especially bison.

 

Agriculture[edit]

See also: Agriculture in Mesoamerica and Incan agriculture

 

A bison hunt depicted by George Catlin

Over the course of thousands of years, American indigenous peoples domesticated, bred and cultivated a large array of plant species. These species now constitute 50–60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide.[94] In certain cases, the indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as was the case in the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. Numerous such agricultural products retain their native names in the English and Spanish lexicons.

 

The South American highlands were a center of early agriculture. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggests that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru,[95] from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Over 99% of all modern cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile,[96] Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.[97][98] According to George Raudzens, "It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines, while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet."[99] The persistent drought around 850 AD coincided with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization, and the famine of One Rabbit (AD 1454) was a major catastrophe in Mexico.[100]

  

Andenes in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru. The Incan agricultural terraces are still used by many of the Incas' descendents, Quechua-speaking Andean farmers.

Natives of North America began practicing farming approximately 4,000 years ago, late in the Archaic period of North American cultures. Technology had advanced to the point that pottery was becoming common and the small-scale felling of trees had become feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indians began using fire in a controlled manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was used to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories. It made travel easier and facilitated the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants, which were important for both food and medicines.[101]

 

In the Mississippi River valley, Europeans noted Native Americans' managed groves of nut and fruit trees not far from villages and towns and their gardens and agricultural fields. Further away, prescribed burning would have been used in forest and prairie areas.[102]

 

Many crops first domesticated by indigenous Americans are now produced and used globally. Chief among these is maize or "corn", arguably the most important crop in the world.[103] Other significant crops include cassava, chia, squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash), the pinto bean, Phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans and lima beans, tomatoes, potatoes, avocados, peanuts, cocoa beans (used to make chocolate), vanilla, strawberries, pineapples, Peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum, including bell peppers, jalapeños, paprika and chili peppers) sunflower seeds, rubber, brazilwood, chicle, tobacco, coca, manioc and some species of cotton.

 

Studies of contemporary indigenous environmental management, including agro-forestry practices among Itza Maya in Guatemala and hunting and fishing among the Menominee of Wisconsin, suggest that longstanding "sacred values" may represent a summary of sustainable millennial traditions.[104]

 

Culture[edit]

Further information: Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of North America

 

Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley, Andes, Peru

Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been shared mostly within geographical zones where unrelated peoples adopted similar technologies and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area is Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development among the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example is the North American plains where until the 19th century several peoples shared the traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers based primarily on buffalo hunting.

 

Writing systems[edit]

See also: Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, Cherokee syllabary, and Quipu

 

Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico

The development of writing is counted among the many achievements and innovations of pre-Columbian American cultures. Independent from the development of writing in other areas of the world, the Mesoamerican region produced several indigenous writing systems beginning in the 1st millennium BCE. What may be the earliest-known example in the Americas of an extensive text thought to be writing is by the Cascajal Block. The Olmec hieroglyphs tablet has been indirectly dated from ceramic shards found in the same context to approximately 900 BCE, around the time that Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán began to wane.[105]

 

The Maya writing system was a combination of phonetic syllabic symbols and logograms — that is, it was a logosyllabic writing system. It is the only pre-Columbian writing system known to represent completely the spoken language of its community. In total, the script has more than one thousand different glyphs, although a few are variations of the same sign or meaning, and many appear only rarely or are confined to particular localities. At any one time, no more than about five hundred glyphs were in use, some two hundred of which (including variations) had a phonetic or syllabic interpretation.[106][107][108]

 

Aztec codices (singular codex) are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices differ from European codices in that they are largely pictorial; they were not meant to symbolize spoken or written narratives.[109] The colonial era codices not only contain Aztec pictograms, but also Classical Nahuatl (in the Latin alphabet), Spanish, and occasionally Latin.

 

Spanish mendicants in the sixteenth century taught indigenous scribes in their communities to write their languages in Latin letters, and there is a large number of local-level documents in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Yucatec Maya from the colonial era, many of which were part of lawsuits and other legal matters. Although Spaniards initially taught indigenous scribes alphabetic writing, the tradition became self-perpetuating at the local level.[110] The Spanish crown gathered such documentation, and contemporary Spanish translations were made for legal cases. Scholars have translated and analyzed these documents in what is called the New Philology to write histories of indigenous peoples from indigenous viewpoints.[111]

 

The Wiigwaasabak, birch bark scrolls on which the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe) people wrote complex geometrical patterns and shapes, can also be considered a form of writing, as can Mi'kmaq hieroglyphics.

 

Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write some Aboriginal Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families.

 

Music and art[edit]

Main articles: Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas and Native American music

 

Apache fiddle made by Chesley Goseyun Wilson (San Carlos Apache)

 

Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, ca. 1350–1450 CE

 

Textile art by Julia Pingushat (Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut Territory, Canada), wool, embroidery floss, 1995

Native American music in North America is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often centers around drumming. Rattles, clappersticks, and rasps were also popular percussive instruments. Flutes were made of rivercane, cedar, and other woods. The tuning of these flutes is not precise and depends on the length of the wood used and the hand span of the intended player, but the finger holes are most often around a whole step apart and, at least in Northern California, a flute was not used if it turned out to have an interval close to a half step. The Apache fiddle is a single stringed instrument.[citation needed]

 

The music of the indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America was often pentatonic. Before the arrival of the Spaniards and other Europeans, music was inseparable from religious festivities and included a large variety of percussion and wind instruments such as drums, flutes, sea snail shells (used as a trumpet) and "rain" tubes. No remnants of pre-Columbian stringed instruments were found until archaeologists discovered a jar in Guatemala, attributed to the Maya of the Late Classic Era (600–900 CE), which depicts a stringed musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument is one of the very few stringed instruments known in the Americas prior to the introduction of European musical instruments; when played, it produces a sound that mimics a jaguar's growl.[112]

 

Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas comprise a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculptures, basketry, carvings, and beadwork.[113] Because too many artists were posing as Native Americans and Alaska Natives[114] in order to profit from the cachet of Indigenous art in the United States, the U.S. passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, requiring artists to prove that they are enrolled in a state or federally recognized tribe. To support the ongoing practice of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian arts and cultures in the United States,[115] the Ford Foundation, arts advocates and American Indian tribes created an endowment seed fund and established a national Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in 2007.[116][117]

 

Demography of contemporary populations[edit]

 

This map shows the percentage of indigenous population in different countries of the Americas.

The following table provides estimates for each country in the Americas of the populations of indigenous people and those with partial indigenous ancestry, each expressed as a percentage of the overall population. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given.

 

Note: these categories are inconsistently defined and measured differently from country to country. Some figures are based on the results of population-wide genetic surveys while others are based on self-identification or observational estimation

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas

Whilst there may be a handful of Neolithic marks on a ridge overlooking the western end of Mont Bégo, the corniform images are all Bronze Age - 4,800 ybp, with engraving continuing for a period of 1,500 - 2,000 years.

 

Top left : The abstraction of this schematic might seem to be approaching the essential lines of a logogram - but it is a single example and, as far as I am aware, not repeated.

 

Top right: Possibly the smallest example I witnessed. Seven percussive holes for the beam of the plough and a triangle for the operator. Rather than 'bad drawing' or a naive drawing by a youngster, this seems to me to be a wish to get-down the essential line ideas of an image in a limited amount of time. Was it getting dark? Had others already stated to descend? Were there rolls of thunder in the distance? Was it too hot? Was it in the character of the artist to be rushed? Speed may also change the style of the petroglyph.

 

Lower left: A proud beam, a clear mainshare, one corniform cow with a rounded body and one with a squared body, a yoke and, low down, potentially the lines of the crofter.

 

Lower right: Potentially two thicknesses to the beam of the plough and an attempt to depict the blade end that needed an explanation by the crofter artist.

 

Despite schematic conventions, there are too many descriptive details to individual examples for these rock art ploughs to be considered as pictographs. Despite that, there are too many line conventions, so typical of writing, for the images to be thought as only being 'registers of activity'. Within the conventions there are clear categories of variant around the depiction of the horns and body of the cows, with variables that are far too dynamic to be ignored.

 

There is a reported statistic of 13 399 corniform petroglyphs around Mont Bégo of which 1067 have been seen to have yokes.

 

AJM 28.1.19

P1001842 copy

Kyoto, Japan - April 2012: Sakura (flower cherry tree) over roof-top in Sannen-zaka street

Kyoto, Japan - April 2012: tombs Japanese cemetery

Author: Ángel Manuel Rodríguez

What biblical symbolism is associated with the four cardinal directions?

Cardinal compass points in the Bible are rich in meaning. Knowing their symbolism can help interpret some biblical passages. We often orient ourselves by facing north. In the ancient world the point of orientation was east. The east was before them, the west behind, the south to the right, and the north to the left. The future wasn’t in front, but behind, that is to say invisible. 1. The East: The importance of the east as the main point of orientation may be related to the rising of the sun and its importance in the religions of the ancient Near East. In the Bible its symbolism emerges for the first time in Genesis. The Garden of Eden was placed in the East (chap. 2:8), and its entrance faced the east (chap. 3:24). After sinning, Adam and Eve left the garden and went toward the east (chap. 3:24). This eastward movement continued with Cain (chap. 4:16) and culminated in the movement of the human race toward the east (chap. 11:2-4). Within this context the east is symbolically ambivalent. The garden placed there symbolized safety and security. After sin, when it was the direction of the exile, it represented a condition of alienation from God. It was also the place of the wilderness, from which destructive winds came, threatening life (Ps. 48:7; Eze. 27:26). To the prophets the east was a symbol of Babylonian exile and the saving presence of God. He traveled to Babylon and ultimately redeemed His people (Eze. 10:18, 19; 11:22, 23). The east became a place where God intervened on behalf of His people, bringing them salvation (cf. Rev. 16:12). 2. The West: The west symbolizes both negative and positive elements. To the west of the land was the sea, representing evil and death (Dan. 7:2, 3). In fact, the term “sea” often referred to the west (Num. 3:23). It is also the place of darkness because that’s where the sun sets (Ps. 104:19, 20). The positive meaning is its association with the Israelite tabernacle/Temple. Although it faced east, access to it required movement toward the west. In that sense the west pointed toward restored unity with God; a return to the Garden of Eden. When the Israelites traveled to and worshipped in the Temple they faced the west and had the rising sun behind them. This movement to the west began with Abram, who left the east and went to Canaan in the west in obedience to God (Gen. 11:31). It is a symbol of divine blessing. Once the exiles were liberated from their enemies in the east, they traveled west, to the land of Israel. In that journey, the Lord Himself traveled with them (Eze. 43:2-5). 3. The North: Bible students have suggested that the north is a symbol of the permanent or the eternal, perhaps because the polar stars were permanently visible in the sky. It is the place of God’s celestial dwelling (Isa. 14:13) and from which His glory descends (Job 37:22) with blessings or judgments (Eze. 1:4). He is the true King of the North. But the north—represented by the left hand—is also a symbol of disaster. The enemy of God’s people came from the north (Jer. 1:14, 15; Eze. 38:6), bringing destruction. In a sense, the enemy was the false king of the north who tried to usurp God’s role and is finally destroyed by the Lord (Zeph. 2:12; Dan. 11:21-45).

4. The South: The south is primarily a negative symbol. But the fact that it is represented by the right hand makes it also a positive one. It is negative because to the south of Israel was the wilderness, a region where life does not prosper (Isa. 30:6). To the south was Egypt, which opposed God’s power and oppressed His people. But the south was also the place where the Lord appeared to Moses, went with Him to Egypt, liberated His people, and appeared to them on Mount Sinai (e.g., Deut. 33:2). The ambivalent nature of the symbols of the four cardinal directions seems based on the fact that evil was perceived to be present everywhere and that God’s saving presence was always accessible to His people from any corner of the world (Ps. 139:7-12). In a sense they pointed beyond the points of the compass to the cosmic conflict between good and evil. Copyright: Copyright © Biblical Research Institute General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists® The Four Symbols were given human names after Daoism became popular. The Azure Dragon has the name Meng Zhang (孟章), the Vermilion Bird was called Ling Guang (陵光), the White Tiger Jian Bing (監兵), and the Black Turtle Zhi Ming (執明). In 1987, a tomb was found at Xishuipo (西水坡) in Puyang, Henan. There were some clam shells and bones forming the images of the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger, and the Big Dipper. It is believed that the tomb belongs to the Neolithic Age, dating to about 6,000 years ago. The Rongcheng Shi manuscript recovered in 1994 gives five directions rather than four and places the animals quite differently: Yu the Great gave banners to his people marking the north with a bird, the south with a snake, the east with the sun, the west with the moon, and the center with a bear.

Cardinal directions in Chinese language: their cultural, social and symbolic meanings.Introduction In his discussions of dominant Ndembu ritual symbols, Victor Turner points out that one major property of symbols is polarization of meanings. That is to say symbols possess two clearly different poles of meanings - the physical and physiological (the sensory pole), and the abstract and ideological (the ideological pole) (Turner, 1967, p.28). At the sensory pole, the meanings represent "the natural and physiological phenomena and processes" and "arouse desires and feelings." At the ideological pole, the meanings represent "components of the moral and social orders, to principles of social organization, to kinds of corporate grouping, and to the norms and values inherent in structural relationships" (Turner, 1967, p.28).

 

The same kind of polarization of meanings can be detected in cardinal directions of the Chinese symbolic system. However, Turner did not focus his discussions on the interrelations between the sensory and the ideological poles of symbolic meanings. Durkheim's and Mauss's Primitive Classification represented one school of thought on this issue. They argued that the origin of logical classification was a result and an aspect of social classification (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963, p.84). In the case of cardinal directions, more evidence has indicated that the sensory pole of meanings determines the ideological pole rather than the other way around. In this article the author first applies etymological method to study the meanings of direction words in Chinese language. The author believes such analyses help to understand how directions have been perceived in the history of the written language. The latter part of the article discusses how cardinal directions and other orientation concepts are used as part of traditional Chinese symbolic system. Following Jung's definitions of "signs" vs. "symbols" (Turner, 1963), we can say the directional words are signs of the known meanings of directions, whereas directions and other orientation concepts are symbols of the unknown universe.Etymological studies of directional words allow us to trace the evolution of the Chinese characters, whose hieroglyphic nature is particularly conservatory of the ideological evolution of the words. The etymological data are mostly collected from a variety of well-recognized dictionaries and online dictionary sites in both English and Chinese. The semantic units in Chinese language arc words and characters. However, graphemes and phonemes of the characters have been studied in some cases in order to understand the origin of meanings. In addition, idioms and phrases are also informational sources as it usually takes a long time for them to be established. Hence, they are used to trace ancient meanings of the words as well. Space and time are two of the most fundamental concepts in all cultures, the essential reality of human life. Like the air we breathe and the water we drink every day, they are the daily necessity we could never do without but usually take for granted. Perception of space and time defines the essence of a culture's worldview, which differs in geography and in periods of history. It is especially so in Chinese culture, as cardinal directions have become an integrative part of its symbolic classification system that defines the physical and the social reality. Studying perception of space and time would allow us to tap into the depth of a culture's worldview. The Chinese Characters Before starting the discussions of the direction words, the author would like to give a brief introduction of some major etymological and linguistic principles of the Chinese writing system. This will provide the theoretical foundation for some later discussions. If we are to divide the writing systems in the world into three types: the logographic system (in which the minimal complete unit is a logogram), the syllabic system (in which the minimal complete unit is a syllable) and the alphabetic system (in which the minimal complete unit is an alphabet) (Writing system, Wikipedia), the Chinese writing system is a typical logographic system. According to Shuowen Jiezi, one of the earliest and most well recognized etymological dictionaries in Chinese, the ancient Chinese characters can be divided into six different categories in terms of how they were developed or formed (Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online; Shuowen Jiezi, Wikipedia; Zhongwen.com, online). The first category is the pictographs (xiangxing, [??]) (1), which are direct graphical depiction of the objects they denote. Examples include [??] (ri; the archaic form [??]) meaning the sun. The second category is ideographs (zhishi, [??]; or xiangshi, [??]) that represent abstract notions. For instance, the concepts of "above" and "below" are expressed as (shang, [??]) and (xia, [??]). They use signs like the dashes and dots to express abstract ideas. The third category is called logical aggregates (huiyi, [??]; or xiangyi, [??]) in which two or more parts are combined to indicate the meanings. One example would be the character for brightness (ming, [??]), which is a combination of the characters of the sun ([??]) and the moon (yue, [??]). The fourth group is phonetic complexes (xingsheng, [??] or xiangsheng, [??]), which are composed of phonetics that are indicative of the pronunciation and radicals that are indicative of the semantic category. An example of this category is (bei, [??]), which means the back of the body. It is a combination of a phonetics (bei, [??]) and a radical (yue, [??]), which indicates flesh. The fifth type of characters is called transferences (zhuanzhu, [??]) in which more abstract and complicated meanings are derived from the original concrete meanings of words. For an example, the word [??] (bei, the back of the body) gradually adopts the meanings of "turn one's back" and "betray and desert somebody or something." The last principle that Chinese characters developed is false borrowing (jiajie, [??]) in which words take on totally unrelated meanings from the original either intentionally or accidentally. There are two major writing systems used by Chinese language speakers in modern days. One of them is the simplified writing system currently used in Mainland China, which has been adopted as the standard writing system of the People's Republic of China since 1956. The other is the traditional and comparatively more complex writing system that is used by Chinese language speakers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and other Chinese diasporas around the world. The simplified Chinese is a further evolution over the traditional Chinese, and is therefore less preservatory of the original meanings. All Chinese characters used in this article are simplified unless stated otherwise. Direction Words in Chinese Cardinal directions are some of those abstract concepts that do not lend themselves easily to pictorial representations. In Chinese, the meanings of direction words are mostly combinations of graphemes and phonemes, although some parts of the words are pictographs. The author believes the relations between the formation and the meaning of the direction words could be of cultural significance and indicative of some cognitive characteristics of the culture. Traditionally there are three sets of orientation terms in Chinese culture: si mian and ba fang , which are two-dimensional' and liu he , which is three-dimensional. Si mian, literally four sides, designates the four cardinal directions and is sometimes thought of as including a fifth point, the center. Ba fang, on the other hand, denotes eight directions, the four cardinal compass points plus northeast, southwest, northwest and southeast. In addition to the two dimensional systems is the three dimensional concept of liu he, which literally means unity of six. It is the four cardinal directions and up (heaven) and down (earth) and is used to refer to the universe.

The simplified Chinese characters for the five cardinal points are (east, south, west, north and the middle) or (east, west, south, north and the middle), in the particular orders of the five. (dong, the east). is the simplified character for the east that is currently used in mainland China. The script no longer shows its original connections with the meaning of east. However, its comparatively older form does. is an example of a logical aggregate, which can be broken up into two graphemes - (ri, the sun) and (mu, a tree). The combination of the two pictographs depicts vividly the sun rising behind a tree (Karlgren, 1923, p.324; Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online; zhongwen.com, online). In contemporary Chinese there are at least three characters that are formed by different combinations of the same two graphemes (the sun) and] (a tree). In addition to the cardinal direction word (the east), the other two are (gao ) and (yao). The character (gao) represents the sun above a tree, hence its meaning being bright and being high. (yao), which is the sun below a tree, means being deep and far, losing contact with somebody. Its more archaic meaning is darkness as implied by the combination of the graphemes. The two examples prove that the relative positions between the pictorial components of (the sun) and (a tree) is significantly indicative of the semantic meanings of the characters. In the character (the east) the position of the sun is between the root and the top of the tree, indicating the sun is rising. The composition of the logogram strongly indicates that the concept of east in the language is associated with the observation of the sun's movements in the environment. (xi, the west). The ancient form of this character is , showing a bird roosting on its nest (Karlgren, 1923, p.234; Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online; zhongwen. com, online). According to Shuowen Jiezi, the pictograph indicates that "when the sun is in the west, the birds perch over the nest" (Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online). The explicit meanings of the script are "being at home" and "being at rest." In Chinese idioms "birds returns to their nests" is usually associated with the meanings of dusk and sunset. Here the concept of sunset is borrowed to indicate the concept of the direction of sunset, the west. It is the concept of time that makes the logical link between this pictograph and its directional meaning. In many civilizations, the movements of celestial bodies define the concepts of time and space. Ancient people must have observed how the movement of the sun influences things in their environment. The sun creates days and nights, light and shadow, the seasons, and cycle of life, which all have great impact on people's livelihood. Records from all early civilizations show that ancient people established the first measurements of passage of time based on the movements of celestial bodies. For an example, the ancient Chinese read the positions of the shadow of a dial to tell the hours of a day. Our current 365 days solar calendar relies on the movements of the sun. The earliest Egyptian calendar depended on the movements of the moon. The Mayans of the Central America developed their 260 days calendar according to the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the Venus. In Chinese, the spatial division of east and west both contain some implications of time. East is connected to the beginning of a day, a year, and a life, whereas west to the end of work, a day, and a life. The Chinese character for the sun also means a day, daytime, and years. It also appears in many compound words and idioms with indications of time. Connecting east with sunrise and dawn and west with sunset and evening are common in many other languages as well. The English word east comes from Eastre, the name of a pagan dawn goddess whose festival was celebrated at vernal equinox almost at the same time as the Christian Easter (Weiner, 1989, p.36; Flexner and Hawk, vol. 5, 1993, p.615; Webster, 2002, p.716). In Latin and Greek among some other old Indo-European languages, the stem for east means dawn (Weiner, vol. 5, 1989, p.36). In English "go west" means "to die." There is exactly the same phrase in Chinese that means exactly the same thing. (nan, the south). is composed of a radical [??] and a phonetic [??] (Karlgren, 1923, p.203; Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online; zhongwen.com, online). The archaic form of [??] (bo) is [??], a picture of lianas indicating abundant and tangled vegetation. Living in the North hemisphere, ancient Chinese have observed that the southern side of a mountain, a tree, and a house receives more sunshine than the northern side. Vegetation is therefore more flourishing and abundant on the southern side. South is the direction where vegetation grows more luxuriantly. The phonetics [??], pronounced as (ren), is used as the phonetic in several other tree names (Karlgren, 1923, p.203). (bei, the north). The older form of this character is which indicates two persons positioned back to back (Karlgren, 1923, p.216; Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online; zhongwen.com, online). The picture strongly points to the meaning of back. In modern Chinese, another phonetic complex (bei) is used for the meaning of the back of human body, in which [??] (north) functions as the phonetic and ((flesh) as the radical. In some dictionaries the word it has two pronunciations, bei and bei (Guoyu Cidian, online; Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online). The meaning associated with the first pronunciation is "an equivalence to the back of human body." North and back in Chinese share the same pronunciation and the same meaning in archaic Chinese. The meaning associated with the second pronunciation can be an adjective "being disagreeable and harsh," or a verb "to flee," or "to be defeated, to turn back on." The pictograph of north is linked to the observer-centered concept of back. In Chinese, back means being opposite to front, being the back of or being in the shadow. North is linked to back in all three senses. North is opposite to the sun and the south. That is why it is in the shadow and darkness. This is similar to the back of a person. In Chinese culture, the north side of a building is usually its back, for gates and doors are opened on the south to receive more sunshine. Light and shadow are the major dichotomous concepts associated with north and south in Chinese. The characters of north and south indicate that north is the shadowed side whereas south is the lit side. The geography and landscape of the country stresses the dichotomous divisions. All major rivers and mountains in China run west-and-eastward, which divide the land into parallel stripes. The ancient Chinese have learned to tell directions by looking at the positions of light and shadow. The saying goes "the shadowed side of a mountain is north and the shadowed side of a river is south." The two characters for being in shadow and being lighted by the sunlight are (shadow; Yin) and (light; Yang) respectively. The two words are also used for the dialectic philosophical concepts of yin-yang, which classify things, phenomena, and their traits into dichotomy in many eastern cultures. The two concepts are often represented by two signs,--(a broken line, yin)--(a solid line, yang). The symbols are stacked together to create eight trigrams like . Legend has it that one ancient Chinese king developed the eight trigrams into a system of sixty-four hexagrams to represent different processes in divination. His theory was written in a well-known book, Yi Jin (I Ching), another classic work of the ancient Chinese symbolic system. (the middle or the center, zhong). The ideograph could be interpreted as a vertical line bisecting an enclosure or an arrow hitting the center of a target (Karlgren, 1923, p.360; Xu, Shuowen Jiezi online; zhongwen.com, online). It denotes the meaning of the center or in between.

The fact that the concept of the center or the middle is depicted by an ideograph instead of a pictograph indicates to some extent that it is comparatively more abstract than the other four cardinal directions. A boundary is required before the center could be defined. Limited geographical boundary was not uncommon among ancient people who had no efficient way of transportation to travel widely. The center is a concept relative to the periphery. When the center or the middle is present, the four directions become the relative periphery or the frontiers. In Chinese, China means the Middle Kingdom. The name comes from the country's geographical position in early history when the core territory was surrounded by frontiers on all directions. The Five Elements System In addition to the Yin-Yang and the eight diagrams, another major part of the primitive Chinese symbolic system is the Five Elements System (Wu Xing, Wikipedia). The five elements refer to metal, wood, water, fire and earth. Each of these elements is matched to many other aspects of the material world (See table 1). For example, five planets, five colors, seasons of the year, organs of the body, sense organs, flavors, and animals to mention just a few. The four cardinal directions plus a center are an integral part of the system, which is critical and widely applied in many areas of traditional Chinese culture. Traditional Chinese medicine is one area in which the Five Elements System plays a pivotal role. Five major blood circulation organs, five major digestion organs, and other parts of the human bodies are corresponded with the five elements based on similar attributes. Things belonging to the same category are considered as related with each other. For an example, patients suffering from liver problem usually have weaker sight, crave sour food, are easy to get angry, sometimes show unhealthy dark greenness in skin tone and more likely fall victim of the disease in springtime.The Five Elements System is also a fairly sophisticated symbolic system that uses the concrete relationships between the five material elements in nature to represent and explain the abstract interactions and relationships of all phenomena . In general the system specifies four kinds of relationships. Two of the four relationships create a positive balance state. They are called generating (mothering) relationship (Sheng), and restraining or counterbalancing (fathering) relationships (Ke, . The other two exist when there is a negative out-of-balance state either because one element is too strong or too weak. In a restraining relationship, if the restraining element overpowers and hence over-limits the restrained element, there is an over-restraining relationship (Cheng, . On the other hand, if the restrained overpowers the restraining, it could not be contained but instead controls the restraining element. This would break the balance of the system and create a humiliating relationship (Wu) The picture illustrates the four relationships among the five elements. Clockwise, each element in the circle is generated by the previous element and in turn generates the following one, restricts the third one and is restrained by the fourth one. For instance, fire is fueled (created) by wood, creates earth (ashes), melts (restrains) metal, and is extinguished (restrained) by water. Orders of Cardinal Directions The juxtaposition of the four Chinese cardinal directions, sometimes five, is an idiom in itself, a synonym to "everywhere" and "direction." This idiom has two forms, east-south-west-north and east-west-south-north. When present, the word for the middle is the last character in both arrangements. The orders of the four cardinal directions are different from that in English, which is usually north, south, east and west. Statistically speaking, there are twenty-four permutations for four cardinal directions. It is culturally significant that only one or two orders are used. It is not known why these particular orders exist to the exclusion of the other possibilities. The first order is clockwise starting from the east, which happens to imitate the movement of the sun in the sky. It represents a continuous cycle in both time and space. In the ancient Chinese classificatory system, the directions are matched with the seasons, east to spring, south to summer, west to autumn, and north to winter. The clockwise order of the cardinal directions also coincides with the chronological order of the four seasons. Again, space and time are inseparable from each other. East, a spatial concept standing out originally as the place where the sun rises, takes on the meaning of a start in time. The day starts at the east. The east wind from the seas brings warmth and rain, an indication of the advent of spring. Spring is taken as the beginning of a year, which starts the annual farming cycle. The Chinese New Year is called the Spring Festival. The matching between directions and seasons results in substitution between the two sets of concepts. East wind is almost a synonym of spring wind, spring fanning is called east activities, and East Emperor is a literate alias of the god of spring. Correspondingly, west harvest means autumn harvest, and west wind usually refers to autumn wind that sweeps away leaves from the trees. The matching is certainly related to China's geographical and climatic situations. Warm and damp wind comes from the east and the south, and cold and dry wind from the north and the west. The former brings spring, the latter the winter. It's interesting to compare the Chinese classification with a similar one in the Zuni culture. The Zuni also attributes seasons, colors and animals to spatial divisions (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963, p.43). They also add the center to the four cardinal directions, and have zenith and nadir in their basic spatial divisions. Also like the Chinese, the Zuni associate winter with north, and fire and summer with south. This is reasonable as both peoples live in the northern hemisphere. However, the Zuni "attributed water, the spring and its damp breezes, to the west; ... the earth, seeds, the frosts which bring the seeds to maturity and end the year, to the east." (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963, p.43) This is exactly the opposite to the Chinese's. For the Zuni, who lived in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, damp breezes and rain come from the west and frosts come from the east. The differences and similarities of the two systems provide strong evidence for how people's perceptions of spatial divisions are shaped by their environments. In the second Chinese order the cardinal directions are organized into two dimensions: east-west and south-north. The east-west dimension always comes before the south-north dimension in such an order. Southeast and Northwest are * Eastsouth and * Westnorth in Chinese. [??] (east-west) also means things in Chinese. That is because, as is explained in an ancient Chinese book, "things are produced in the four cardinal regions but are called briefly as east-west; that's similar to history being called briefly as spring-autumn though it records four seasons." (Guoyu Cidian, Online) In this case east and west stand for all the four cardinal points. This points to the comparative prominence of the east-west axis over the north-south axis. Within the axis, east always comes before west and south before north. Chinese has plenty of idioms with the structures of "east ... west ..." and "south ... north. ..." There are exceptions, of course, but the proportion is too small to be cognitively significant. The comparatively more dominant status of east and south can also be understood from a political and economic perspective. Due to its geographical features, the western parts of the country were mainly deserts and barren plateaus, and the north was associated with bitterly cold weather and infertile frozen lands while in the southeast parts the fertile rice fields that were the grain barn of the country. The north and the west were important only in terms of military defense. In a culture with a long history of agricultural civilization, it is understandable that the east and the south were more preferred and more important economically, politically, and culturally.

Social Orders of Cardinal Directions Facing south adopts cultural and social significance over time in ancient China. The general pattern of traditional Chinese building complexes and room arrangements look like a square, with the front gates facing the south in order to be warmed and lighted by the sun. This pattern can be seen in residential houses, palaces and temples. The southern side of buildings has front gates, doors and wide open windows. On the north side, there are merely walls and small windows. In a building complex the main rooms face south with the wings facing east and west. There are back doors on the north sides of buildings in a complex, but they are for convenience of connection between rows of buildings. Some units do have doors facing north, but these are called the reversed houses (daoxia) (Cao, 1996, pp.29-59) and are considered atypical. The arrangement of furniture is confined and determined by this architectural pattern and so is the order of seating. In this way the practicality of facing south becomes symbolically important.

The north seat that faces south is reserved for persons with the highest social status. In the imperial court the emperor's "dragon chair" was not only significantly elevated but also invariably facing south. Court officials stood underneath his feet on the east and the west sides of the hall. Because the emperors' thrones always faced south, the phrase "facing south" came to be used as a proper noun designating an emperor. "To face south" means to become the emperor or the king. Accordingly, to face north meant to be a subject of an emperor or a king. Being bright was an adjective to praise the rule of a good emperor. As the saying goes "a good emperor faces south to listen to the discussions of national affairs and rules brightly." Such seating arrangements were copied in military and civil courts at all levels, in schools, and even in family lineages. The person who dominated the group took the north seat that was usually elevated but not as significantly as was the imperial throne. In military and civil courts it was for the official with the highest rank. In a lineage this south-facing seat was reserved for the eldest and most influential male or female member of the lineage. In schools the south-facing chair was for the teacher. The expression "facing north to somebody/something" was a figurative expression meaning to submit oneself as a subordinate, or, in the context of schools, to be a student. The phrase "the white-haired still face the north" indicates an old person who is still a student. The person with the second highest rank was positioned on the east side. The individual ranked third in the gathering was located on the west side facing the second ranking person. Then, back and forth, east and west, all the way down through for all present. In Chinese, the east is a synonym of the host whereas the west also means the guest. Custom had it that when the host and his guests entered a house, the host used the eastern stairway while the guest entered by the stairway on the west. Hence, the host is called "dong dao" (east road). The landlord is "fang dong" (east of the house); the master, "dong jia" (east family); and the hotel owner, "dian dong" (east of the hotel). To be one's treat is "zuo dong" (being the east) in Chinese. In "xi xi" (west seat) and "xi bin" (west guest, west is related to the meaning of guest. This usage, still prevailing in contemporary common language, can be traced back to an ancient custom that the host sat on the east and the guest on the west. In the system the relative spatial concepts of left and right are also interwoven with the absolute system of directions and became substitutes for east and west. The Chinese characters for left and right are [??] (zuo) and [??] (you). In older manuscripts, these are written as and . The two icons represent a hand facing different directions. Thus left and right are related to the two hands and indirectly to the two sides of the body. This substitution is no longer active in contemporary Chinese culture. However, traces of this tradition are still found in a few idioms and place names. "You di" (right lands) means west lands. "Shan zo" (left of the mountains) and "shan you" (to the right of the mountains) refers to Shandong and Shanxi provinces that are located on the east and the west sides of the Taihang Mountains respectively. In like fashion "he you" and "jiang you" (both meaning to the right of the river) designate the area west of the Huanghe River (the Yellow River) in the first case and to the west of Changjiang River (the Yangtze River) in the second. Conversely, "he zo" and "jiang zo" (both meaning to the left of the river) are the areas east of these two rivers. Like east and west, left and right are also social status indicators. Facing south, the right side is the east and the left side the west. The right seat was considered more respectable than the left one. "Lu zo" (left side of the street) is equivalent to the other side of the tracks in Anglo culture of North America. In older times, the wealthy lived on the right side of the street and the poor inhabited the left. "You xing" (right surnames), "You qi" (right relatives) and "You zhi" (right positions) referred to the aristocracy, the imperial families and the high-ranking official positions (Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 1996). The right has also taken on the meaning of being better as is in the idiom "no one is on his right," which means no one is better than he. An exception to the prominence of right is encountered in carriage where the person with the highest social status occupies the seat on the left. That is the source of the idiom "waiting with the left seat empty," which is a signal of showing respect to someone not yet present. Another pair of directional concepts are up and down. The two characters for up and down are [??] (shang) (Karlgren, 1923, p.251) and [??] (xia) (Karlgren, 1923, p.69). They are iconic signs. The long dash, the base line, represents the horizon (zhongwen.com, online). The short stroke to the right is above the horizon for shang and below it for xia. Up symbolizes high social status and down the reverse. To reinforce the imperial authority, feudal rulers elevated their thrones in the audience halls. Last but not least, the cultural significance of [??] (zhong, the center or the middle). The long history of highly centralized feudal regime stressed the cultural significance of centralization in the culture. The centralized pattern of feudal political regime is clearly embodied in the design of the capital cities and the imperial palaces. Beijing and its Forbidden City, the best-preserved imperial capital and palace, best illustrates the idea of centralization. The old city of Beijing is a fortified square with well-aligned grids running along the two axis of north-south and east-west. The imperial palace, the Forbidden City, occupies the central area of the city proper. The major palaces inside the Forbidden City line up in a row, forming a north-to-south line dividing the city into two symmetrical parts of east and west. Being at the middle is also an important philosophical concept in Chinese culture. Confucianism highly advocates the doctrine of being at the middle, or not going to the extremes, in attitudes as well as in actions. Conclusion These etymological analyses of Chinese direction terms show how observation of the celestial bodies and their impact on natural environment underlies the initial ancient Chinese definition of the cardinal directions. Comparisons with similar primitive classification systems originating in different natural environments also provide some evidence of how perception of time and space are significantly determined by the geography and landscape of the motherland. The limitations and definitions by the environment gradually come to impact other aspects of ancient Chinese livelihood as the culture developed. For instance, the environmental influences helped to define the architectural styles and structures in ancient China, which over time influenced social behavioral norms. As directions were integrated as an important part of the symbolic system, they become dominant symbols in the culture, which can be seen in the usage of directional terms in a variety of idioms and phrases as well as in many areas of the traditional culture. Medicine and divinations are two examples. Data from the study provide further evidence to support Victor Turner's theory that symbols possess bipolar meanings - one clusters around the physical and concrete, and the other the abstract and ideological. Durkheim and Mauss refuted Frazer's argument that the social relations of mean are based on logical relations between things, and argued that it is the social relations that have provided the prototype for the latter. (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963, p.82) In their article Durkheim and Mauss stressed the role of social organizations and social relations in human cognition. They believed the essential cognitive characteristics underlying the primitive classification are the same as that of the modern scientific classification, which both result from human tendencies to unify knowledge, to know as social beings and groups, and to extend the unity of knowledge to the universe. (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963, pp.81-84) In the case of cardinal directions, the Chinese characters clearly indicate the influences of the natural phenomena on people's understanding of them. The ancient Chinese architectural styles and structures were influenced by the environment, which in turn influenced the social lives of people. However, the study does not intend to deny that human beings see things from their own perspectives and understand the universe within the limitations of their perceptions. The limitations also exist for any anthropological interpretation of cultures, just as Victor Turner discussed in Forest of Symbols. It is the case in this current study as well. Generally speaking, the modern views of orientation terms are not often the same as what was originally meant in antiquity. Our understanding of the direction concepts must have drifted away from the empirical perceptions of the ancient people. Therefore, when trying to make sense of why things become what they are, sometimes it is inevitable that our understanding is limited by our perception of here and now. This is a paradox for all anthropological studies of the "other" cultures (both culture of the others, and the other culture of ourselves). Ancient Chinese culture is baffling to modern Chinese who are confronted with a similar paradox - try to understand the perceptions of the ancient Chinese but have to do it from the perspective of a modern Chinese. In this article, the author uses the four cardinal direction words and the fifth, the centrum, to present an outline of the primitive Chinese classification system. Yet it must be said that the Chinese classification system is far more complicated than what can be explained in this essay. Concepts of the Yin-Yang dichotomy, the eight trigrams, and the Five Element System are all phenomena worthy of an independent study. However, as an interesting and inseparable part of the symbolic system, the orientation words help to show the interconnections between the several important concepts of the ancient Chinese symbolic system. COPYRIGHT 2009 Institute of General Semantics

 

Copyright 2009 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

      

It is common in Mainland China (but not in Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore) to see Chinese expressions written in Pinyin, a phonetic script for the Chinese language, which uses the Latin alphabet (or "English letters", as they say in China) instead of the famous logograms. On adverts, packages and signs - Pinyin is everywhere.

 

I wonder why.

 

It's not for the Chinese people. They read only the characters, because that's what they have learned and what they are used to do. So maybe Pinyin is for foreigners? No. No foreigner can understand "Asuweilajiyunshu". Even for foreigners who know Chinese, it's most of the time easier to read the characters than the Pinyin.

 

The common form of Pinyin, as shown in this picture, cannot correctly represent the pronunciation, because Chinese is a tonal language and only if you know the "melody" of a word you can pronounce it correctly. In theory it is possible to show the tones in Pinyin with diacritics, but that is only done in dictionaries and in textbooks for people who are learning Chinese. In this example it would look like this: "Āsūwèi lājī yùnshū". That's is a bit easier to read, but few would understand it without seeing the Chinese Characters as well. It's still useless.

 

Today the most common use of Pinyin is for input of Chinese words into a digital device with a keyboard. 40 years ago, I used to believe that the increasing use of computers may ultimately result in Pinyin replacing the characters in China. I was wrong. In fact, computers have made it easier to work with the vast number of characters, because information technology is very good at managing big amounts of data. Voice recognition and AI are making input of words even easier.

 

Alright, if you really need to know: The sign says that the rightmost lane of this stretch of motorway is reserved for the rubbish truck drivers of Asuwei village. And you are not allowed to use it, unless you are one of them.

Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings) are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. The images left behind on the rocks at Petroglyph National Monument tell the stories of those people who visited long ago. American Indian and Spanish explorers were common visitors to the mesa and Rio Grande Valley. (source: nps.gov)

 

If you're ever visiting the Albuquerque area, I would highly recommend making a visit to this monument...it's well worth the short hike to see some of the more than 24,000 carved images located in the area.

 

Have a great Friday....thanks for all your visits & comments!!!!!

 

© Darlene Bushue - All of my images are protected by copyright and may not be used on any site, blog, or forum without my permission.

One of my very favorite pics. Ever.

From the exhibition Maya's:: Heersers van het Regenwoud in Drents Museum

Obuse est un bourg du district de Kamitakai, dans la préfecture de Nagano au Japon.

 

Website : www.fluidr.com/photos/pat21

"Copyright © – Patrick Bouchenard

The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work contained here in for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved."

Logogram

Close-up street portrait (outdoor half-length portrait, “full-face” view) of Raúl, an independent Mexican graphic artist and experienced researcher of ancient Maya wisdom, holding up a hand-crafted and hand-painted leporello (concertina fold) about the syllabic writing system (Maya script aka Maya glyphs) of the Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica (photo shoot: image no. 1 of 2);

Corredor Internacional del Arte, Paseo de Montejo, Mérida, Yucatán, México.

 

More context:

Adding Context to Street Portraits (photo blog),

Animating Street Portraits with Props (photo blog).

Five-pointed stars appear on the flag and in the heraldic symbolism of the United States. In the U.S. context, the stars allegedly symbolize the heavens. They stand in contrast to the vexillologically rarer seven-pointed stars.The Five pointed star has been a Muslim symbol for multiple Muslim works, most notably on flags. This might be a feature as part of the star and crescent to represent the caliphate, but also as on its own to represent the Five Pillars of Islam."Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result."The pentagram was used in ancient times as a Christian symbol for the five senses,[11] or of the five wounds of Christ. The pentangle plays an important symbolic role in the 14th-century English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which the symbol decorates the shield of the hero, Gawain. The unnamed poet credits the symbol's origin to King Solomon, and explains that each of the five interconnected points represents a virtue tied to a group of five: Gawain is perfect in his five senses and five fingers, faithful to the Five Wounds of Christ, takes courage from the five joys that Mary had of Jesus, and exemplifies the five virtues of knighthood..

A five-pointed star (☆) is a common ideogram used throughout the world. If the colinear edges are joined together a pentagram is produced.The five-pointed star, geometrically a regular concave decagon, used in flags originates from European or Western heraldry, and the golden five-pointed star has associations with military power and war. It has also become a symbol of fame or "stardom" in Western culture.In early (Ur I) monumental Sumerian script, or cuneiform, a pentagram glyph served as a logogram for the word ub, meaning "corner, angle, nook; a small room, cavity, hole; pitfall" (this later gave rise to the cuneiform sign UB ., composed of five wedges, further reduced to four in Assyrian cuneiform ).The word Pentemychos (πεντέμυχος lit. "five corners" or "five recesses"was the title of the cosmogony of Pherecydes of Syros. Here, the "five corners" are where the seeds of Chronos are placed within the Earth in order for the cosmos to appear.In Neoplatonism, the pentagram was said to have been used as a symbol or sign of recognition by the Pythagoreans, who called the pentagram ὑγιεία hugieia "health".Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and others perpetuated the popularity of the pentagram as a magic symbol, attributing the five neoplatonic elements to the five points, in typical Renaissance fashion. By the mid-19th century a further distinction had developed amongst occultists regarding the pentagram's orientation. With a single point upwards it depicted spirit presiding over the four elements of matter, and was essentially "good". However, the influential writer Eliphas Levi called it evil whenever the symbol appeared the other way up."A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates.""The flaming star, which, when turned upside down, is the hierolgyphic [sic] sign of the goat of Black Magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is the sign of antagonism and fatality. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-pointed_star#Stardom

Close-up street portrait (outdoor half-length portrait, “full-face” view) of Raúl, an independent Mexican graphic artist and experienced researcher of ancient Maya wisdom, holding up a hand-crafted and hand-painted leporello (concertina fold) about the syllabic writing system (Maya script aka Maya glyphs) of the Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica (photo shoot: image no. 2 of 2);

Corredor Internacional del Arte, Paseo de Montejo, Mérida, Yucatán, México.

 

More context:

Adding Context to Street Portraits (photo blog),

Animating Street Portraits with Props (photo blog).

Close-up natural-light street portrait (outdoor half-length portrait, “full-face” view) of Raúl, an independent Mexican graphic artist and experienced researcher of ancient Maya wisdom, holding up a hand-crafted and hand-painted leporello (concertina fold) about the syllabic Maya writing system (Maya script aka Maya glyphs) of the Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica (photo shoot: image no. 1 of 2; focus on the leporello);

Corredor Internacional del Arte, Paseo de Montejo, Mérida, Yucatán, México.

 

More context:

Adding Context to Street Portraits (photo blog),

Animating Street Portraits with Props (photo blog).

P1001835 copy

Close-up street portrait (outdoor half-length portrait, “full-face” view) of Raúl, an independent Mexican graphic artist and experienced researcher of ancient Maya wisdom, holding up a hand-crafted and hand-painted leporello (concertina fold) about the syllabic Maya writing system (Maya script aka Maya glyphs) of the Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica (photo shoot: image no. 2 of 2; focus on the subject’s eyes);

Corredor Internacional del Arte, Paseo de Montejo, Mérida, Yucatán, México.

 

More context:

Adding Context to Street Portraits (photo blog),

Animating Street Portraits with Props (photo blog).

This is the last "lettering" image I will be sharing for awhile.

My husband is absolutely obsessed with languages and writing.

Although this Mayan alphabet is similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs, there is no relation between the two (as stated below).

 

This is just a "doodle" with no specific, legible meaning.

 

Quoted from Wikipedia:

 

"Mayan script, also known as Mayan glyphs or Mayan hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found, which are identifiably Maya, date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala.

 

Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries.

 

Maya writing used logograms complemented with a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing. Mayan writing was called "hieroglyphics" or hieroglyphs by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who did not understand it but found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, to which the Mayan writing system is not at all related.

 

Modern Mayan languages are written using the Latin alphabet rather than Maya script."

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

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Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

The term "cuneiform" is very deceptive, in that it tricks people into thinking that it's some type of writing system. The truth is that cuneiform denotes not one but several kinds of writing systems, including logosyllabic, syllabic, and alphabetic scripts. In fact, "cuneiform" came from Latin cuneus, which means "wedge". Therefore, any script can be called cuneiform as long as individual signs are composed of wedges.

 

Many languages, including Semitic, Indo-European, and isolates, are written in cuneiform, as the following list shows:

 

Sumerian

Eastern Semitic, including Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian

Elamite

Eblaite

Hittite

Hurrian

Utartian

Ugaritic, in fact an alphabetic system unrelated to other cuneiform scripts except in outward appearance.

Old Persian, a mostly syllabic system with a few logograms.

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

⊙

ИN

Deflowering Eyes

Igigi

 

www.saatchiart.com/print/New-Media-Deflowering-Eyes-Inna-...

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igigi

Igigi are the gods of heaven in the mythology of Mesopotamia.

The name has unknown origin. The signs for the names, and one of the options for the etymology of the igigi are i2-gi3-gi3, which are the same signs for 5-1-1 or 5-60-60 5*(60+60)=600 which are by some traditions All the gods.

Another option is to try to interpret the words themselves. Igi means (eye) in the Sumerian language, and it used as logogram in the Akkadian language, gi stands for (penetrate sexually). Therefore, Igigi could be translated to (Eyes in the sky, the watchers, who deflower).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

 

Igigi/Igigu (a group of gods)

This Semitic term describes a group of possibly seven or eight gods. It is likely that the god Marduk was one of them, but the total membership in this group is unclear and likely changed over time.

Functions

Like the term Anunna, the term Igigu is equally complicated and in need of a comprehensive new study. Igigu, which is likely of Semitic origin, indicates a group of gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon. It is, however, not entirely clear what distinguishes the Igigu from the Anunna.

The story of Atrahasis, the Babylonian story of the Flood and a precursor to the flood story in the Gilgameš Epic (Tablet XI), offers some evidence on the relationship between the Annunaki and the Igigu. The poem begins with the lines "When the gods like men bore the work and suffered the toil, the toil of the gods was great, the work was heavy, the distress was much" (lines 1-4) (Lambert and Millard 1999 [1969]: 43). The composition continues: "The Seven great Anunnaki were making the Igigu suffer the work" (lines 5-6) (Lambert and Millard 1969 [1999]: 43). What follows is partly fragmentary, but seems to indicate that the Igigu gods did not want to work any more and therefore the Anunnaki had to find a solution. Ultimately, this led to the creation of humans, who from then on had to bear the gods' work. In this story it appears that the Igigu were subordinate to the Anunnaki (von Soden 1989: 341-2). It is unclear which deities were included in the Igigu group.

In the prologue to the famous Code of Hammurabi it is indicated that the Anunnaki elevated the god Marduk among the Igigu gods (for a translation see Roth 1997: 76-142; also see von Soden 1966: 144), but it is difficult to assess the significance of this passage.

Some mythological texts, such as the Anzu myth, speak of an assembly of the Igigu gods, but whether this might be an institutionalized assembly, as suggested by Kienast 1965: 146, remains doubtful.

Divine Genealogy and Syncretisms

As mentioned above, it is not clear how many and which gods belonged to the Igigu, although the god Marduk appears to belong to this group for certain. It is possible that the group included only seven (von Soden 1966), eight (Kienast 1965: 144) or ten (Black and Green 1998: 106) gods, but this is uncertain as well.

Other gods who may belong to this group are Ištar, Asarluhi, Naramṣit, Ninurta, Nuska, and Šamaš (Kienast 1965: 149). Some gods seem to belong to both the Anunnaki and the Igigu (Kienast 1965: 152), yet more research is needed to gain a better understanding of this situation in the first millennium BCE.

Cult Place(s)

We currently know of no cult places for the Igigu. Kienast (1965; 1976-80) has repeatedly suggested that the Igigu are only attested in literary and mythological texts. However, von Soden (1966) has brought forth some evidence that might indicate that there are very few theophoric personal names TT which invoke the Igigu, thus offering some evidence for their veneration.

Time Periods Attested

The term Igigu is first attested in texts from the Old Babylonian period (Kienast 1976-80: 40; von Soden 1989: 340) and only occurs in Akkadian contexts (Edzard 1976-80: 37). A Sumerian logographic equivalent of the term Igigu is nun-gal-e-ne, to be translated as "the great princes/sovereigns." This term is mentioned in a literary text that has been ascribed to the princess Enheduanna, daughter of king Sargon, the founder of the Old Akkadian dynasty (Inana C, ETCSL 4.7.3 l. 2). This particular composition is only attested in Old Babylonian manuscripts and it is unclear whether an older date can be proven. According to Edzard (1976-80: 39) it is possible that nun-gal-e-ne was originally an epithet of the Anunna gods that later became identified with the Igigu under influence from Akkadian.

The Igigu and Anunnaki are frequently attested in literary, mythological, and religious (incantations and prayers) texts until the end of the cuneiform tradition. The Igigu are mentioned, among others, in the Anzu myth (Foster 2005: 555-578), in Enāma eliš TT (Foster 2005: 436-486), and the Erra poem (Foster 2005: 880-913), all of which are attested in manuscripts of the first millennium BCE.

Iconography

Because this term describes a group of gods, there are no known images of the Igigu.

Name and Spellings

The etymology of this term is unclear. It has been suggested the term is of Old Akkadian (Kienast 1965: 157; 1976-80: 40) or of (Old) Amorite (von Soden 1966: 144) or possibly Arabic origins (von Soden 1989: 340). For the various spellings see Kienast 1965: 142.

Written forms:

logographic: dnun gal-e-ne, dnun-gal-meš;

syllabic and pseudo-logographic: i-gi-gu, i-gi-gi, di-gi4-gi4, di-gi4-gi4-ne, i-gi4-gu, dí-gì-gì (the latter appears first in ninth century BCE);

cryptographic: dgéš-u

Normalized forms:

Igigu, Igigi

Igigu in Online Corpora

The Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship

Nungalene in Online Corpora

The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

Further Reading

Edzard 1976-80, "[Igigu], Anunna und."

Kienast 1965, "Igigu und Anunnakku nach den akkadischen Quellen."

Kienast 1976-80, "Igigu, Anunnakku und."

von Soden 1966, "Die Igigu-Götter."

von Soden 1989, "Die Igigu-Götter in altbabylonischer Zeit."

Nicole Brisch

Nicole Brisch, 'Igigi/Igigu (a group of gods)', Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Oracc and the UK Higher Education Academy, 2012 [oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/igigi/]

Released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 3.0, 2011.

The Pennsylvania

Sumerian Dictionary

igi [EYE] (1133x: ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Lagash II, Ur III, Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian, unknown) wr. igi; i-bi2; i-gi "eye; carved eye (for statues)" Akk. īnu

psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/epsd/e2510.html

The Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project is carried out in the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. It is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and private contributions.

____________________________________

Cycles of the earth, winds, Igigi it's all here and no wonder the church has been hiding the text. The smoke sedates the Elohim (judges) they have their Territories, Not demons nor angels but IGIGI; the Watchers the little big eyed guys who have been stealing my eggs while I sleep 1-4.

archive.org/details/bookofenochproph00laur

ia802707.us.archive.org/10/items/bookofenochproph00laur/b...

The book of Enoch the prophet

by Laurence, Richard, 1760-1838

Publication date 1883

Publisher London : Kegan Paul, Trench

Collection Princeton; americana

Digitizing sponsor Internet Archive

Contributor Princeton Theological Seminary Library

Language English.

Addeddate 2008-11-12 13:13:18

Call number 185459

Camera Canon 5D

External-identifier urn:oclc:record:1041620576[WorldCat (this item)]

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watcher_(angel)#Grigori

Philo

According to PrEv 1.10.1-2 of Philo of Byblos, Sanchuniathon mentioned "some living beings who had no perception, out of whom intelligent beings came into existence, and they were called Zophasemin (Heb. șōpē-šāmayim, that is, 'Watchers of Heaven'). And they were formed like the shape of an egg."

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, volume 1, Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments

EDITED BY JAMES H. CHARLES WORTH, DUKE UNIVERSITY

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: ISBN: 0-385-09630-5 Copyright © 1983 by James H. Charlesworth All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Designed by Joseph P. Ascherl Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Old Testament pseudepigrapha.

eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/THEOL264/James%20...

____________________________________

Livius.org Articles on ancient history

www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/104-106-the-epic-of-a...

The Epic of Atraḥasis

The Epic of Atraḥasis is the fullest Mesopotamian account of the Great Flood, with Atraḥasis in the role of Noah. It was written in the seventeenth century BCE

The text is known from several versions: two were written by Assyrian scribes (one in the Assyrian, one in the Babylonian dialect), a third one (on three tablets) was written during the reign of king Ammi-saduqa of Babylonia (1647-1626 BCE). Parts are quoted in Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgameš; other influences are in the Babylonian History by Berossus (quote). These texts can be used to reconstruct the lost parts of the Epic of Atraḥasis, while the overall structure is, of course, known from the Bible.

Summary

The conditions immediately after the Creation: the Lower Gods have to work very hard and start to complain

Revolt of the Lower Gods

Negotiations with the Great Gods

Proposal to create humans, to relieve the Lower Gods from their labor

Creation of the Man

Man's noisy behavior; new complaints from the gods

The supreme god Enlil's decision to extinguish mankind by a Great Flood

Atraḥasis is warned in a dream

Enki explains the dream to Atraḥasis (and betrays the plan)

Construction of the Ark

Boarding of the Ark

Departure

The Great Flood

The gods are hungry because there are no farmers left to bring sacrifices, and decide to spare Atraḥasis, even though he is a rebel

Regulations to cut down the noise: childbirth, infant mortality, and celibacy

The translation offered here is adapted from the one by B.R. Foster.

Translation

Complaints of the Lower Gods

[1] When the gods were man

they did forced labor, they bore drudgery.

Great indeed was the drudgery of the gods,

the forced labor was heavy, the misery too much:

[5] the seven great Anunna-gods were burdening

the Igigi-godsnote with forced labor.

[Lacuna]

[21] The gods were digging watercourses,

canals they opened, the life of the land.

The Igigi-gods were digging watercourses

canals they opened, the life of the land.

[25] The Igigi-gods dug the Tigris river

and the Euphrates thereafter.

Springs they opened from the depths,

wells ... they established.

...

They heaped up all the mountains.

[Several lines missing]

[34] ... years of drudgery.

[35] ... the vast marsh.

They counted years of drudgery,

... and forty years, too much!

... forced labor they bore night and day.

They were complaining, denouncing,

[40] muttering down in the ditch:

"Let us face up to our foreman the prefect,

he must take off our heavy burden upon us!

Enlil, counsellor of the gods, the warrior,

come, let us remove him from his dwelling;

[45] Enlil, counsellor of the gods, the warrior,

come, let us remove him from his dwelling!"

[Several lines missing]

[61] "Now them, call for battle,

battle let us join, warfare!"

The gods heard his words:

they set fire to their tools,

[65] they put fire to their spaces,

and flame to their workbaskets.

Off they went, one and all,

to the gate of the warrior Enlil's abode.

...

Insurrection of the Lower Gods

[70] It was night, half-way through the watch,

the house was surrounded, but the god did not know.

It was night, half-way through the watch,

Ekur was surrounded, but Enlil did not know!

[Several lines missing; the great gods send a messenger]

The Great Gods Send a Messenger

[132] Nusku opened his gate,

took his weapons and went ... Enlil.

In the assembly of all the gods,

[135] he knelt, stood up, expounded the command,

"Anu, your father,

your counsellor, the warrior Enlil,

your prefect, Ninurta,

and your bailiff Ennugi have sent me to say:

[140] 'Who is the instigator of this battle?

Who is the instigator of these hostilities?

Who declared war,

that battle has run up to the gate of Enlil?

In ...

[145] he transgressed the command of Enlil.'"

Reply by the Lower Gods

"Everyone of us gods has declared war;

...

We have set ... un the excvation,

excessive drudgery has killed us,

[150] our forced labor was heavy, the misery too much!

Now, everyone of us gods

has resolved on a reckoning with Enlil."

[The great gods decide to create man, to relieve the lower gods from their misery.]

Proposals by Ea, Belet-ili, and Enki

[a1] Ea made ready to speak,

and said to the gods, his brothers:

"What calumny do we lay to their charge?

Their forced labor was heavy, their misery too much!

[a5] Every day ...

the outcry was loud, we could hear the clamor.

There is ...

Belet-ili, the midwife, is present.note

Let her create, then, a human, a man,

[a10] Let him bear the yoke!

Let him bear the yoke!

Let man assume the drudgery of the god."

Belet-ili, the midwife, is present.

[190] Let the midwife create a human being!

Let man assume the drudgery of the god."

They summoned and asked the goddess

the midwife of the gods, wise Mami:note

"Will you be the birth goddess, creatress of mankind?

[195] Create a human being, that he bear the yoke,

let him bear the yoke, the task of Enlil,

let man assume the drudgery of the god."

Nintu made ready to speak,note

and said to the great gods:

[200] "It is not for me to do it,

the task is Enki's.

He it is that cleanses all,

let him provide me the clay so I can do the making."

Enki made ready to speak,

[205] and said to the great gods:

"On the first, seventh, and fifteenth days of the month,

let me establish a purification, a bath.

Let one god be slaughtered,

then let the gods be cleansed by immersion.

[210] Let Nintu mix clay with his flesh and blood.

Let that same god and man be thoroughly mixed in the clay.

Let us hear the drum for the rest of the time.

[215] From the flesh of the god let a spirit remain,

let it make the living know its sign,

lest he be allowed to be forgotten, let the spirit remain."

The great Anunna-gods, who administer destinies,

[220] answered "yes!" in the assembly.

The Creation of Man

On the first, seventh, and fifteenth days of the month,note

he established a purification, a bath.

They slaughtered Aw-ilu, who had the inspiration, in their assembly.

[225] Nintu mixed clay with his flesh and blood.

That same god and man were thoroughly mixed in the clay.

For the rest of the time they would hear the drum.

From the flesh of the god the spirit remained.

It would make the living know its sign.

[230] Lest he be allowed to be forgotten, the spirit remained.

After she had mixed the clay,

she summoned the Anunna, the great gods.

The Igigi, the great gods, spat upon the clay.

[235] Mami made rady to speak,

and said to the great gods:

"You ordered me the task and I have completed it!

You have slaughtered the god, along with his inspiration.

[240] I have done away with your heavy forced labor,

I have imposed your drudgery on man.

You have bestowed clamor upon mankind.

I have released the yoke, I have made restoration."

They heard this speech of hers,

[245] they ran, free of care, and kissed her feet, saying:

"Formerly we used to call you Mami,

now let your name be Belet-kala-ili:"note

[The human population increases and their noise disturbs the gods, who decide to wipe out mankind. The god Enki, however, sends a dream to Atrahasis. When the text resumes, Enki is still speaking.]

Enki explains Atraḥasis' dream

[i.b35] "Enlil committed an evil deed against the people."

[i.c11] Atraḥasis made ready to speak,

and said to his lord:

"Make me know the meaning of the dream.

let me know, that I may look out for its consequence."

[i.c15] Enki made ready to speak,

and said to his servant:

"You might say, 'Am I to be looking out while in the bedroom?'

Do you pay attention to message that I speak for your:

[i.c20] 'Wall, listen to me!

Reed wall, pay attention to all my words!

Flee the house, build a boat,

forsake possessions, and save life.

[i.c25] The boat which you build

... be equal ...

...

...

Roof her over like the depth,

[i.c30] so that the sun shall not see inside her.

Let her be roofed over fore and aft.

The gear should be very strong,

the pitch should be firm, and so give the boat strength.

I will shower down upon you later

[i.c35] a windfall of birds, a spate of fishes.'"

He opened the water clock and filled it,

he told it of the coming of the seven-day deluge.

Atraḥasis and the Elders

Atraḥasis received the command.

He assembled the Elders at his gate.

[i.c40] Atraḥasis made ready to speak,

and said to the Elders:

"My god does not agree with your god,

Enki and Enlil are constantly angry with each other.

They have expelled me from the land.

[i.c45] Since I have always reverenced Enki,

he told me this.

I can not live in ...

Nor can I set my feet on the earth of Enlil.

I will dwell with my god in the depths.

[i.c50] This he told me: ..."

Construction of the Ark

[ii.10] The Elders ...

The carpenter carried his axe,

the reedworker carried his stone,

the rich man carried the pitch,

the poor man brought the materials needed.

[Lacuna of about fifteen lines; the word Atraḥasis can be discerned.]

Boarding of the Ark

[ii.29] Bringing ...

[ii.30] whatever he had ...

Whatever he had ...

Pure animals he slaughtered, cattle ...

Fat animals he killed. Sheep ...

he choose and and brought on board.

[ii.35] The birds flying in the heavens,

the cattle and the ... of the cattle god,

the creatures of the steppe,

... he brought on board

...

[ii.40] he invited his people

... to a feast

... his family was brought on board.

While one was eating an another was drinking,

[ii.45] he went in and out; he could not sit, could not kneel,

for his heart was broken, he was retching gall.

Departure

The outlook of the weather changed.

Adadnote began to roar in the clouds.

[ii.50] The god they heard, his clamor.

He brought pitch to seal his door.

By the time he had bolted his door,

Adad was roaring in the clouds.

The winds were furious as he set forth,

[ii.55] He cut the mooring rope and released the boat.

[Lacuna]

The Great Flood

[iii.5] ... the storm

... were yoked

Anzu rent the sky with his talons,

He ... the land

[iii.10] and broke its clamor like a pot.

... the flood came forth.

Its power came upn the peoples like a battle,

one person did not see another,

they could not recognize each other in the catastrophe.

[iii.15] The deluge belowed like a bull,

The wind resounded like a screaming eagle.

The darkness was dense, the sun was gone,

... like flies.

[iii.20] the clamor of the deluge.

[Lacuna. The gods find themselves hungry because there are no farmers left and sacrifices are no longer brought. When they discover that Atrahasis has survived, they make a plan to make sure that the noise will remain within limits: they invent childbirth, infant mortality, and celibacy.]

Mankind Punished

[iii.45] Enki made ready to speak,

and said to Nintu the birth goddess:

"You, birth goddess, creatress of destinies,

establish death for all peoples!

[iii.d1] "Now then, let there be a third woman among the people,

among the people are the woman who has borne

and the woman who has not borne.

Let there be also among the people the pasittu (she-demon):

[iii.d5] Let her snatch the baby from the lap who bore it.

And etablish high priestesses and priestesses,

let them be taboo,note and so cut down childbirth."

This page was created in 2007; last modified on 12 October 2020.

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Brain Magick: Exercises in Meta-Magick and Invocation by Philip H. Farber

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"Satana-il was the supreme leader of an extraterrestrial race that accompanied the Anunnaki in their second landing on earth.

This galactic race was physically and genetically different from the An unna ki and the Igigi. Their duty was to serve the Anu nna ki.

They rebelled against the An unna ki and broke the laws of their leader by breeding with the women of the Earth.

Contrary to the general belief, the An unna ki were not the first extraterrestrial race to marry, or the have sexual relations with the women of earth."

____________________________________

archive.org/details/img20190908220021901

Ancient Creation Myths

by Alberta Parish

Publication date 2019-09-08

Topics Enlil, Enki, Anunnaki, Sumerians, ancient myths, Babylonians, Enuma Elish, Atrahasis, Noah, Genesis Flood, Sumerian flood myth

God: The Original Slavemaster by Alberta Parish

Ever since I was a child, I have always believed in a benevolent God called Yahweh and Jehovah that biblical writers claimed created mankind for the express purpose of his will. In a Christianized Western culture, I was taught that only through Jesus Christ could I have eternal life with him and Yahweh. The epic of Atrahasis, an Akkadian tablet dating from the 18th Century BCE, gives a completely different account of mankind's creation and how the universe was formed beginning with the primordial waters.

Atrahasis was the last Sumerian king before the Great Deluge who was saved from the flood by the Anunnaki god Enki who had rulership of the great deep. According to Atrahasis, Homo Sapiens were created to serve the Anunnaki, which were extraterrestrials that landed in the Persian Gulf region about 450,000 years ago in search of gold to repair their home planet Nibiru's ozone.They made the Igigi gods, who were lower gods, mine for gold. Enlil, the ruler of earth and sky, who is also the equivalent of the biblical God Yahweh, also made the Igigi build canals, reedbeds, rivers and mountains. They built the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and after 3,600 years, rebelled against their oppressor, Enlil.

Atrahasis had recorded that the Igigi cast off their work tools and surrounded Enlil's temple demanding to be relieved of their hard labor. It was later decided that the Anunnaki would make a species that were intelligent enough to do the work that the Igigi had refused to do. This was mankind's original purpose for being created by these extraterrestrials. It was also decided that an Anunnaki had to be sacrificed to make mankind.

The epic of Atrahasis states, "They slaughtered Aw-ilu, who had the inspiration, in their assembly.

Nintu mixed clay with his flesh and blood.

That same god and man were thoroughly mixed in the clay...After she had mixed the clay, she summoned the Anunna, the great gods.

The Igigi, the great gods, spat upon the clay.

Mami made ready to speak, and said to the great gods: "You ordered me the task and I have completed it!

You have slaughtered the god, along with his inspiration.

I have done away with your heavy forced labor,

I have imposed your drudgery on man.

You have bestowed clamor upon mankind."

With the help of Enki, half-brother of Enlil, the mother goddess Nintu (i.e., Mami) formed seven males and seven females from fourteen pieces of clay. It was also after this event that the human population grew, because the first seven males and females were given the ability to reproduce. When the human population grew, Enlil complained of their noise. He then set about to reduce the population. First, he caused a drought and mankind was destroyed. But it did nothing to reduce the population. Then, pestilence followed. Still, the population continued to grow. Lastly, Enlil caused a great famine. Eventually, the people turned cannibal as a result of the famine. Finally, Enlil proposed a solution to destroy the human population through a flood.

Read the remainder of my essay at www.ancientcreationmyths.com.

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ETCSLtranslation

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© Copyright 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 The ETCSL project, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford

Updated 2006-12-19 by JE

Igigi Search the English translations

Result: 3 paragraph(s)

 

A hymn to Marduk for Abī-Ešuḫ (Abī-Ešuḫ A): c.2.8.5.1

King who gathers up the divine powers of heaven and earth, foremost son of Enki, Marduk, mighty lord, perfect hero, foremost of the Great Princes (a name for the Igigi gods), strong one of the Anuna, the great gods who have given him justice and judgment! Great prince, descendant of holy An, lord who decides destinies, who has everything in his grasp (?), wise, august knower of hearts, whose divinity is manifest, who shows concern for all that he looks upon! Your ancestor An, king of the gods, has made your lordship effective against the armies of heaven and earth.

 

A hymn to Inana (Inana C): c.4.07.3

The great-hearted mistress, the impetuous lady, proud among the Anuna gods and pre-eminent in all lands, the great daughter of Suen, exalted among the Great Princes (a name of the Igigi gods), the magnificent lady who gathers up the divine powers of heaven and earth and rivals great An, is mightiest among the great gods -- she makes their verdicts final. The Anuna gods crawl before her august word whose course she does not let An know; he dare not proceed against her command. She changes her own action, and no one knows how it will occur. She makes perfect the great divine powers, she holds a shepherd's crook, and she is their magnificent pre-eminent one. She is a huge shackle clamping down upon the gods of the Land. Her great awesomeness covers the great mountain and levels the roads.

 

The debate between Bird and Fish: c.5.3.5

"You are like a watchman living on the walls (?), ……! Fish, you kindled fire against me, you planted henbane. In your stupidity you caused devastation; you have spattered your hands with blood! Your arrogant heart will destroy itself by its own deeds! But I am Bird, flying in the heavens and walking on the earth. Wherever I travel to, I am there for the joy of its …… named. ……, O Fish, …… bestowed by the Great Princes (a name for the Igigi). I am of first-class seed, and my young are first-born young! …… went with uplifted head …… to the lustrous E-kur. …… until distant days. …… the numerous people say. How can you not recognise my pre-eminence? Bow your neck to the ground."

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A song to Ninimma (Ninimma A): translation

web.archive.org/web/20060925024833/http://www-etcsl.orien...

SEGMENT A

1-18You are the seal-holder of the treasury of the ....... You are the caretaker of the great gods, you are ....... Ninimma, you are the lady of all the great rites in the E-kur. Lady, you are the ...... of Enlil, you are the heavenly scribe. You ...... the tablet of life.

1 line fragmentary

You, who bring the best corn, are the lady of the E-sara. The surveyor's gleaming line and the measuring rod suit you perfectly. You can hold your head high among the great princes. You are ....... You are ......, the cherished one.

1 line fragmentary

......; you are exceptional in wisdom. ...... joy ....... My lady, you were exalted already in the womb; you are resplendent like the sunlight. You are suited to the lapis-lazuli crown (?); you are the heavenly ....... ...... adorned with loveliness .......

1 line fragmentary

approx. 10 lines missing

 

SEGMENT B

1-11...... like a strong (?) ....... ...... of the E-kur ...... lady ....... ...... the forceful one of Nanna ....... You are profoundly intelligent, one who knows everything. You are the shining light which fills the exalted sanctuary. You are she who ...... by Enlil. You are ....... You are ....... You are most apt for the holy susbu rites and lustration rites.

1 line unclear

Ninimma of the holy divine plans, it is sweet to praise you!

 

SEGMENT C

1You are .......

 

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Revision history

22.x.1999 : GZ : adapting translation

06.xii.1999 : JAB : proofreading

13.xii.1999 : GC : tagging

22.xii.1999 : ER : proofreading SGML

22.xii.1999 : ER : converting to HTML 4.0

7.ix.2001 : ER : header and footer reformatted; substantive content of file not changed

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Inly, Bohdan

 

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بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

LR-12159 - Seen this before with the odd one or two vertical lines and holes, but never seen hieroglyphics, unable to find a translation for it so I'll leave that up to you!

 

I can make RA the sun god and see some bird logogram or logograph after that I'm at a loss

 

Scavenger Challenge

1. Send a message of peace and love to everyone for the new year!

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

hong kong, 1972

 

calligraphy art

 

part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of nick dewolf

 

© the Nick DeWolf Foundation

Image-use requests are welcome via flickrmail or nickdewolfphotoarchive [at] gmail [dot] com

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

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Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

 

بابل (باليونانية Βαβυλών، اللاتينية Babylon، بالآرامية: ܒܒܠ). هي مدينة عراقية كانت عاصمة البابليين أيام حكم حمورابي حيث كان البابليون يحكمون أقاليم ما بين النهرين وحكمت سلالة البابليين الأولى تحت حكم حمورابي (1792-1750) قبل الميلاد في معظم مقاطعات ما بين النهرين، وأصبحت بابل العاصمة التي تقع علي نهر الفرات. التي اشتهرت بحضارتها. وبلغ عدد ملوك سلالة بابل والتي عرفت (بالسلالة الآمورية(العمورية)) 11ملكا حكموا ثلاثة قرون(1894 ق.م. -1594 ق. م.). في هذه الفترة بلغت حضارة المملكة البابلية أوج عظمتها وازدهارها وانتشرت فيها اللغة البابلية بالمنطقة كلها، حيث ارتقت العلوم والمعارف والفنون وتوسعت التجارة لدرجة لا مثيل لها في تاريخ المنطقة. وكانت الإدارة مركزية والبلاد تحكم بقانون موحد، سُنة الملك حمورابي لجميع شعوبها.وقد دمرها الحيثيون عام 1595 ق.م. حكمها الكاشانيون عام 1517 ق.م. وظلت منتعشة ما بين عامي 626و539 ق.م. حيث قامت الإمبراطورية البابلية وكانت تضم من البحر الأبيض المتوسط وحتى الخليج العربي. إستولي عليها قورش الفارسي سنة 539 ق.م وقتل اخر ملوكها بلشاصر. وكانت مبانيها من الطوب الأحمر. واشتهرت بالبنايات البرجية (الزيجورات). وكان بها معبد إيزاجيلا للإله الأكبر مردوخ (مردوك).والآن أصيحت أطلالا. عثر بها علي باب عشتار وشارع مزين بنقوش الثيران والتنين والأسود الملونة فوق القرميد الأزرق.

  

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Babylon (Arabic: بابل, Babil; Akkadian: Bābili(m);[1] Sumerian logogram: KÁ.DINGIR.RAKI;[1] Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bāvel;[1] Greek: Βαβυλών, Babylṓn) was an Akkadian city-state (founded in 1894 BC by an Amorite dynasty) of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babylon Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a large mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city itself was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

Available historical resources suggest that Babylon was at first a small town which had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained independence with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the ancient city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time an Amorite king named Hammurabi first created the short lived Babylonian Empire; this quickly dissolved upon his death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. Babylon again became the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 608 to 539 BC which was founded by Chaldeans and whose last king was an Assyrian. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of Babylon it came under the rules of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid empires.

 

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التسمية

الكلمة الإغريقية (Βαβυλών) هي تكيف اللغة الأكدية بابيلي. الاسم البابيلي بقي على ما هو عليه في الألفية الأولى ما قبل الميلاد، وتغير الاسم في بداية الألفية الثانية قبل الميلاد بما معناه "بوابة الرب" أو "مدخل الرب" من قبل عالم في التأثيل . الاسم السابق بابيليا على ما يبدو هو تكيف للغة سامية غير معروفة الأصل أو المعنى. في الكتاب العبري يظهر الاسم בבל مفسرًا في سفر التكوين (11:9) بما معناه الحيرة.

 

اصبحت مدينة بابل بعد الاحتلال مباشرا مقرا للقوات الأمريكية ثم بعد ذلك سلمت ليد وزارة السياحة و من ثم التنازع عليها مع البلدية ولان مدينة بابل مهملة بأستثناء قصر صدام حسين الذي اصبح فنقا سياحيا و الموجود بالقرب من هذه الاثار كما وان ان هناك سويتات فندقية للسياحة و الاعراس و هناك قاعة لاقامة المؤتمرات

 

[عدل]اللغة

أطلق أهل بابل على لغتهم اسم اللغة الأكادية "الأكّدية"، وذلك لأن منطقة بابل ككل كانت تُدعى عندهم "أكاد" كما يُلاحظ في نقوش كثيرة وردت فيها أسماء ملوك بابل كـ "ملك أكاد" أو "ملك أكاد وشومر". وقد اقتبس البابليون أبجديتهم من السومريين الذين أسسوا حضارتهم جنوب العراق. وقد ظلت هذه الأبجدية (المسمارية) تُستخدم في كتابة اللغة البابلية/الأكادية حوالي ثلاثة آلاف عام، أي حتى قرن واحد قبل الميلاد. اللغة البابلية سامية أصيلة، ولكن لفظها لم يشتمل على حروف التضخيم والتفخيم كما في العربية، كالطاء والظاء والضاد. ولا على حروف الحلق كالحاء والعين والهاء والغين.

 

[عدل]بابل واليهود

دخل اليهود العراق عندم تم سبيهم من قبل الآشوريين ثم البابليين حيث تم تدوين التوراة في بابل بعد السبي حيث استمدت الكثير من القوانين البابليه ودونت الكثير من تاريخ بابل والعراق بصورة عامه حيث كانت المصدر الوحيد لتاريخ وادي الرافدين قبل حل لغز اللغة المسماريه في القرن التاسع العشر

 

موجات السبي الرئيسية لبني إسرائيل كانت ثلاثا هي:

 

سبي سامريا (721 ق.م.)، حيث سبى الآشوريون اليهود وعلى رأسهم الأسباط العشرة.

سبي يهواخن(يهوياكين) (597 ق.م.)، حيث سبى نبوخذنصر 10 آلاف يهودي من أورشليم إلى بابل.

سبي صدقيا (586 ق.م.)، التي كانت علامة لنهاية مملكة يهوذا، وتدمير أورشليم ومعبد سليمان الأول. أربعين ألف يهودي تقريباً تم سبيهم إلى بابل خلال ذلك الوقت.

 

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The Greek form Babylon (Βαβυλών) is an adaptation of Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name as it stood in the 1st millennium BC had been changed from an earlier Babilli in early 2nd millennium BC, meaning "Gate of God" or "Gateway of the God" (bāb-ili) by popular etymology.[2] The earlier name Babilla appears to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic source of unknown origin or meaning.[3]

In the Hebrew Bible, the name appears as בָּבֶל (Babel; Tiberian בָּבֶל Bāvel; Syriac ܒܒܠ Bāwēl), interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean "confusion" (viz. of languages), from the verb בלבל bilbél, "to confuse".

History

 

An indication of Babylon's early existence may be a later tablet describing the reign of Sargon of Akkad (ca. 23rd century BC short chronology). The so-called "Weidner Chronicle" states that it was Sargon himself who built Babylon "in front of Akkad" (ABC 19:51). Another later chronicle likewise states that Sargon "dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon, and made a counterpart of Babylon next to Akkad". (ABC 20:18–19). Van de Mieroop has suggested that those sources may refer to the much later Assyrian king Sargon II of the Neo-Assyrian Empire rather than Sargon of Akkad.[4]

Some scholars, including linguist I.J. Gelb, have suggested that the name Babil is an echo of an earlier city name. Herzfeld wrote about Bawer in Iran, which was allegedly founded by Jamshid; the name Babil could be an echo of Bawer. David Rohl holds that the original Babylon is to be identified with Eridu. The Bible in Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the original founder of Babel (Babylon). Joan Oates claims in her book Babylon that the rendering "Gateway of the gods" is no longer accepted by modern scholars.

By around the 19th century BC, much of Mesopotamia was occupied by Amorites, nomadic tribes from the northern Levant who were Semitic speakers like the Akkadians of Babylonia and Assyria, but at first did not practice agriculture like them, preferring to herd sheep. Over time, Amorite grain merchants rose to prominence and established their own independent dynasties in several south Mesopotamian city-states, most notably Isin, Larsa and Babylon.

  

Map showing the Babylonian territory upon Hammurabi's ascension in 1792 BC and upon his death in 1750 BC

Classical dating

Ctesias, who is quoted by Diodorus Siculus and in George Syncellus's Chronographia, claimed to have access to manuscripts from Babylonian archives which date the founding of Babylon to 2286 BC by Belus who reigned as Babylon's first king for fifty five years.[5] Another figure is from Simplicius,[6] who recorded that Callisthenes in the 4th century BC travelled to Babylon and discovered astronomical observations on cuneiform tablets stretching back 1903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. This makes the sum 1903 + 331 which equals 2234 BC as the founding date for Babylon. A similar figure is found in Berossus, who according to Pliny,[7] stated that astronomical observations commenced at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently in 2243 BC. Stephanus of Byzantium, wrote that Babylon was built 1002 years before the date (given by Hellanicus of Mytilene) for the siege of Troy (1229 BC), which would dates Babylon's foundation to 2231 BC.[8] All of these dates place Babylon's foundation in the 23rd century BC; however, since the decipherment of cuneiform in recent centuries, cuneiform records have not been found to correspond with such classical (post-cuneiform) accounts.

Old Babylonian period

The First Babylonian Dynasty was established by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum in 1894 BC, who declared independence from the neighbouring city-state of Kazallu. The Amorites were, unlike the Sumerians and Akkadian Semites, not native to Mesopotamia, but were semi nomadic Semitic invaders from the lands to the west. Babylon controlled little surrounding territory until it became the capital of Hammurabi's empire a century later (r. 1792–1750 BC). Hammurabi is famous for codifying the laws of Babylonia into the Code of Hammurabi that has had a lasting influence on legal thought. Subsequently, the city of Babylon continued to be the capital of the region known as Babylonia. Hammurabi's empire quickly dissolved after his death, although the Amorite dynasty remained in power in a much reduced Babylonia until 1595 BC[9] when they were overthrown by the invading Hittites from Asia Minor.

Following the sack of Babylon by the Hittites, the Kassites invaded and took over Babylon, ushering in a dynasty that was to last for 435 years until 1160 BC. The city was renamed Karanduniash during this period. The Kassites, a people speaking a Language Isolate, originated from the Zagros Mountains to the north east of Mesopotamia in what is now Iran. However, Kassite Babylon eventually became subject to domination by Elam to the east and the fellow Mesopotamian state of Assyria to the north, both nations often interfering in or controlling Babylon during the Kassite period. The Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I took the throne of Babylon in 1235 BC, becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule there.

It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from ca. 1770 to 1670 BC, and again between ca. 612 and 320 BC. It was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000.[10]

Assyrian period

  

Sennacherib of Assyria during his Babylonian war, relief from his palace in Nineveh

Throughout the duration of the Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC to 608 BC) Babylonia was under Assyrian domination or direct control. During the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladan in alliance with the Elamites, and suppressed only by the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed, and the rubble was thrown into the Arakhtu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. This act shocked the religious conscience of Mesopotamia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib by two of his own sons whilst praying to the god Nisroch was held to be in expiation of it, and his successor in Assyria Esarhaddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death, Babylonia was left to be governed by his elder son, the Assyrian prince Shamash-shum-ukin, who, after becoming infused with Babylonian nationalism, eventually started a civil war in 652 BC against his own brother and master Ashurbanipal, who ruled in Nineveh. Shamash-shum-ukin enlisted the help of other peoples subject to Assyria, including Elam, the Chaldeans and Suteans of southern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs dwelling in the deserts south of Mesopotamia.

Once again, Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians, starved into surrender and its allies violently crushed. Ashurbanipal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation", but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was entrusted with ruling the city. After the death of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire began to unravel due to a series of bitter internal civil wars. Three more Assyrian kings Ashur-etil-ilani, Sin-shumu-lishir and finally Sin-shar-ishkun were to rule. However, eventually Babylon, like many other parts of the near east, took advantage of the anarchy within Assyria to free itself from Assyrian rule. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian Empire by an alliance of peoples, the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance. (Albert Houtum-Schindler, "Babylon," Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed.)

Neo-Babylonian Chaldean Empire

 

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Main article: Neo-Babylonian Empire

  

Detail of the Ishtar Gate

Under Nabopolassar, a Chaldean king, Babylon threw off Assyrian rule and destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 620 and 605 BC, in an alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians together with the Scythians and Cimmerians. Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (sometimes and possibly erroneously called Chaldean) Empire.[11][12][13]

With the recovery of Babylonian independence, a new era of architectural activity ensued, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II (604–561 BC) made Babylon into one of the wonders of the ancient world.[14] Nebuchadnezzar ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate – the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon. A reconstruction of The Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. All that was ever found of the Original Ishtar gate was the foundation and scattered bricks.

Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), said to have been built for his homesick wife Amyitis. Whether the gardens did exist is a matter of dispute. Although excavations by German archaeologist Robert Koldewey are thought to reveal its foundations, many historians disagree about the location, and some believe it may have been confused with gardens in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh.

Chaldean rule did not last long and it is not clear if Neriglissar and Labashi-Marduk were Chaldeans or native Babylonians, and the last ruler Nabonidus and his son and regent Belshazzar were Assyrians from Harran.

Persia captures Babylon

In 539 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, with an unprecedented military engagement known as the Battle of Opis. The famed walls of Babylon were indeed impenetrable, with the only way into the city through one of its many gates or through the Euphrates, which ebbed beneath its thick walls. Metal gates at the river's in-flow and out-flow prevented underwater intruders, if one could hold one's breath to reach them. Cyrus (or his generals) devised a plan to use the Euphrates as the mode of entry to the city, ordering large camps of troops at each point and instructed them to wait for the signal. Awaiting an evening of a national feast among Babylonians (generally thought to refer to the feast of Belshazzar mentioned in Daniel V), Cyrus' troops diverted the Euphrates river upstream, causing the Euphrates to drop to about 'mid thigh level on a man' or to dry up altogether. The soldiers marched under the walls through the lowered water. The Persian Army conquered the outlying areas of the city's interior while a majority of Babylonians at the city center were oblivious to the breach. The account was elaborated upon by Herodotus,[15] and is also mentioned by passages in the Hebrew Bible.[16][17]

Cyrus later issued a decree permitting captive people, including the Jews, to return to their own land (as explained in 2 Chronicles 36), to allow their temple to be rebuilt back in Jerusalem.

Under Cyrus and the subsequent Persian king Darius the Great, Babylon became the capital city of the 9th Satrapy (Babylonia in the south and Athura in the north), as well as a centre of learning and scientific advancement. In Achaemenid Persia, the ancient Babylonian arts of astronomy and mathematics were revitalised and flourished, and Babylonian scholars completed maps of constellations. The city was the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, the preeminent power of the then known world, and it played a vital part in the history of that region for over two centuries. Many important archaeological discoveries have been made that can provide a better understanding of that era.[18][19]

The early Persian kings had attempted to maintain the religious ceremonies of Marduk, but by the reign of Darius III, over-taxation and the strains of numerous wars led to a deterioration of Babylon's main shrines and canals, and the disintegration of the surrounding region. There were numerous attempts at rebellion and in 522 BC (Nebuchadnezzar III), 521 BC (Nebuchadnezzar IV) and 482 (Bel-shimani and Shamash-eriba) BC native Babylonian kings briefly regained independence. However these revolts were relatively swiftly repressed and the land and city of Babylon remained solidly under Persian rule for two centuries, until Alexander the Great's entry in 331 BC.

Hellenistic period

In 331 BC, Darius III was defeated by the forces of the Ancient Macedonian Greek ruler Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela, and in October, Babylon fell to the young conqueror. A native account of this invasion notes a ruling by Alexander not to enter the homes of its inhabitants.[20]

Under Alexander, Babylon again flourished as a centre of learning and commerce. But following Alexander's death in 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, his empire was divided amongst his generals, and decades of fighting soon began, with Babylon once again caught in the middle.

The constant turmoil virtually emptied the city of Babylon. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia, where a palace was built, as well as a temple given the ancient name of Esagila. With this deportation, the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later, it was found that sacrifices were still performed in its old sanctuary.[21] By 141 BC, when the Parthian Empire took over the region, Babylon was in complete desolation and obscurity.

Persian Empire period

Main article: Babylonia (Persian province)

Under the Parthian, and later, Sassanid Persians, Babylon (like Assyria) remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until after 650 AD. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their homeland as Babylon. Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the Babylonian Talmud, the Gnostic Mandaean religion, Eastern Rite Christianity and the religion of the prophet Mani. Christianity came to Mesopotamia in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and Babylon was the seat of a Bishop of the Church of the East until well after the Arab/Islamic conquest.

Arab conquest

In the mid 7th century AD Mesopotamia was invaded and settled by the Arabs who brought with them Islam. A period of Arabisation and Islamification followed. Babylon was dissolved as a province and Aramaic and Church of the East Christianity eventually became marginalised, although both still exist today (more so however among the Assyrians of northern Iraq) as does Mandeanism. A Babylonian/Mesopotamian/Assyrian identity is still espoused by the ethnically indigenous Mesopotamian and Eastern Aramaic speaking members of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Church of the East to this day.

Biblical narrative

 

In Genesis 10:10, Babylon is described as a neighboring city of Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.[22]

Archaeology

   

Babylon in 1932

The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.

These include:

Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.

Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.

Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.

Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.

  

The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.

While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.

The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[23][24] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[25] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[26]

Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[27] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[28][29]

Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[30][31]

A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[32][33][34][35][36][37]

Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[38]

In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[39] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[40][41]

It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[42][43]

Reconstruction

   

World Monuments Fund video on conservation of Babylon

  

Plan of the city of Babylon during the time of the king Nebuchadnezzar II, 600 BC.

In 1983, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be under the city by now), investing in both restoration and new construction. He inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq". This recalls the ziggurat at Ur, where each individual brick was stamped with "Ur-Nammu, king of Ur, who built the temple of Nanna". These bricks became sought after as collectors' items after the downfall of Hussein, and the ruins are no longer being restored to their original state. He also installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to the ruins, and shored up Processional Way, a large boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture about 2,600 years old.

When the Gulf War ended, Saddam wanted to build a modern palace, also over some old ruins; it was made in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He named it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was ready to begin the construction of a cable car line over Babylon when the invasion began and halted the project.

An article published in April 2006 states that UN officials and Iraqi leaders have plans for restoring Babylon, making it into a cultural center.[44][45]

As of May 2009, the provincial government of Babil has reopened the site to tourism.

  

Panoramic view over the reconstructed city of Babylon

 

Effects of the U.S. military

 

US forces under the command of General James T. Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were criticized for building the military base "Camp Alpha", comprising among other facilities a helipad, on ancient Babylonian ruins following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

  

US Marines in front of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, 2003

US forces have occupied the site for some time and have caused irreparable damage to the archaeological record. In a report of the British Museum's Near East department, Dr. John Curtis describes how parts of the archaeological site were levelled to create a landing area for helicopters, and parking lots for heavy vehicles. Curtis wrote that the occupation forces

"caused substantial damage to the Ishtar Gate, one of the most famous monuments from antiquity [...] US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more than 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists [...] Add to all that the damage caused to nine of the moulded brick figures of dragons in the Ishtar Gate by soldiers trying to remove the bricks from the wall."

A US Military spokesman claimed that engineering operations were discussed with the "head of the Babylon museum".[46]

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, said that the "mess will take decades to sort out".[47] In April 2006, Colonel John Coleman, former Chief of Staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered to issue an apology for the damage done by military personnel under his command. However he claimed that the US presence had deterred far greater damage from other looters.[48]

Babylon in popular culture

 

Due to the importance of Babylon in its time as well as the stories in the Bible the word "Babylon" in various languages has acquired a generic meaning of a large, bustling diverse city. As such, the word "Babylon" is used for various entertainment events or buildings. For example, sci-fi series Babylon 5 tells a tale of a multi-racial future space station. Babilonas (Lithuanian name for "Babylon") is also a name for a major real estate development in Lithuania.

In Age of Empires you can play 8 Babylon campaigns. Babylon is mentioned in the history section and in the victory aftermath campaigns.

  

شكرا لويكيبيديا

Thanks For Wikipedia

 

www.ancientscripts.com/oldpersian.html

 

The palace of king Darius I the Great in Persepolis was built by Darius, but only a small portion of the palace was finished under Darius' rule. It was completed after his death in 486 by his son and successor Xerxes, who called the house a Taçara, "winter palace", in Antiquity. Its ruins are immediately south of the Apadana.

 

Like many other parts of Persepolis, Tachara Palace has reliefs of tribute-bearing dignitaries. This palace was one of the few structures that escaped destruction in the burning of the complex by Alexander.

 

Henri Michaux

 

Ideogramas en China

 

a Kim Chi

 

Trazos en todas las direcciones. En todos los sentidos comas, rizos,

corchetes, acentos, se diría, a cualquier altura, a cualquier nivel;

desconcertantes zarzal de acentos.

 

Arañazos, roturas, verticales que parecen haber sido detenidas de repente.

 

Sin cuerpo, sin formas, sin contornos, sin simetría sin un centro, sin

recordar nada conocido.

Sin regla aparente de simplificación, de unificación, de generalización.

Ni sobrios ni depurados ni despojados.

Cada uno como dispersado,

tal es el primer momento*1

 

Ideogramas sin evocación.

 

Caracteres variados para nunca acabar.

La página que los contiene: un vacío lacerado.

Lacerado por múltiples vidas indefinidas.

 

Hubo, sin embargo, una época en que los signos eran aún parlantes, o casi,

ya alusivos, mostrando más que cosas, cuerpos o materias, mostrando grupos,

conjuntos, exponiendo situaciones.

 

Hubo una época. Hubo otras. Sin querer simplificar ni abreviar, cada una con

la tarea de desviar por su propia cuenta, se puso, enredando las pistas, a

manipular los caracteres de manera que los alejara aún más de un nuevo modo

de legibilidad primitiva.

 

Pasaje

El gusto por ocultar ha triunfado. La reserva, la prudencia ha triunfado, la

retención natural, la instintiva tendencia china a borrar sus huellas, a

evitar encontrarse al descubierto.

 

El placer de estar oculto ha triunfado. Así lo escrito en lo sucesivo

resguardado, secreto; secreto entre iniciados.

 

Secreto difícil, amplio, costoso al compartir, secreto para formar parte de

una sociedad dentro de una sociedad. Círculo que, durante siglos y siglos,

va a permanecer en el poder. Oligarquías sutiles.

 

El placer de abstraer ha triunfado.

El pincel permitió el paso, el papel facilitó el pasaje.

 

Lo real original, lo concreto y los signos que estaban cerca, y desde ese

momento se podía cómodamente abstraerse de ellos, abstraer, ir rápido,

rápido con bruscos trazos que se deslizan sin resistencia sobre el papel y

permiten de otro modo ser chino.

 

Abstraerse había ganado.

Ser mandarín*2 había ganado.

 

Primeramente modificados con prudencia, en el naciente irrespeto y la

alegría que «así iba bien», que siempre se seguía...

 

Llevados por la irresistible imprudencia de la búsqueda, los inventores -los

de un segundo tiempo- aprendieron a separar el signo de su modelo (a tientas

deformándolo, sin osar aún categóricamente cortar lo que une la forma al

ser, el cordón umbilical de la semejanza) y así se separaron, habiendo

rechazado lo sagrado de la primera relación «escrito-objeto».

 

La religión en la escritura retrocedía. La irreligión de la escritura

comenzaba.

 

Desparecidos, los caracteres «sentidos», inclinados sobre la realidad;

desaparecidos del uso, de la lengua; no desaparecidos de la piedra de las

antiguas tumbas y de los vasos de bronce de las antiguas dinastías, no

desaparecidos de los huesos adivinatorios.

Más tarde, buscados en todos los puntos del Imperio Medio, los caracteres de

antaño, cuidadosamente reunidos, vueltos a copiar, fueron interpretados por

los letrados. Un inventario, un diccionario de los signos de origen

aparecía.

 

¡Reencontrados!

y se reencontraba al mismo tiempo la emoción de las tranquilas

y serenas y tiernas grafías.

 

Los caracteres resucitados en su intención primera revivían.

 

A la luz de esto cualquier página escrita, cualquier superficie cubierta de

caracteres, se vuelve hormigueante y abundante...

llena de cosas, de vidas, de todo lo que existe en el mundo...

en el mundo de China.

 

llena de lunas, llena de corazones, llena de puertas.

llena de hombres que se inclinan.

que se retiran, que se disputan, que hacen las paces

llena de obstáculos

llena de manos derechas, de manos izquierdas

de manos que se estrechan, que se responden, que se unen

para siempre

llena de manos frente a frente,

de manos de guardia, de manos ocupadas.

 

llena de mañana

llena de puertas

llena de agua que cae gota a gota de las nubes

llena de barcas que cruzan de una orilla a otra

llena de levantamientos de tierra

llena de crisoles

y de arcos y de fugitivos

y llena de calamidades

y llena de ladrones que llevan bajo el brazo objetos robados

y llena de codicias

y llena de discusiones

y llena también de palabras sinceras

y llena de reuniones

y llena de niños nacidos con fortunas

y llena de huecos en la tierra

y de ombligos en el cuerpo

y llena de cráneos

y llena de fosas

y llena de pájaros de paso

y llena de recién nacidos -¡cuántos recién nacidos!-

y llena de metales en las profundidades del suelo.

 

y llena de vírgenes

y llena de vapores que suben de los pastizales y de los pantanos

y llena de dragones

llena de demonios que erran en el campo

y llena de todo lo que existe en el universo

así o reunido de otro modo

elegido a propósito por el inventor de signos

para estar juntos

escenas para reflexionar

escenas de toda clase

escenas para ofrecer un sentido, para ofrecer muchos,

para proponerlos al espíritu

para dejarlos emanar

grupos que derivan en ideas

o que se convierten en poesía.

 

Una parte del primer tesoro permanecía perdida. Etimologías seguras

permanecen sin embargo lo suficiente para que un letrado consumado en

numerosos casos reconozca de paso los orígenes y reciba, en el momento de

trazar los caracteres en su forma actual, una inspiración que viene de

lejos.

 

Por alejado que esté del antiguo, el carácter nuevo, puede reanimar el

objeto por la palabra.

 

Sin otro saber, bastaría -gracias a sus sutiles trazos matizados.

 

El chino, lengua hecha para la caligrafía *3 . la que induce, que provoca

el trazado inspirado.

 

El signo presenta, sin forzar, una ocasión de volver a la cosa, al ser que

sólo tiene que deslizarse dentro, al paso, expresión realmente expresiva.

 

Por largo tiempo el chino había experimentado, como en otros terrenos, el

encanto de la semejanza; primeramente la cercana, luego la semejanza lejana,

luego, la composición de los elementos semejantes.

 

Barrera también. Había sido preciso saltarla.

 

Incluso la de la más lejana semejanza. Carrera sin retorno.

Semejanza definitivamente hacia atrás.

 

Los chinos estaban llamados a otro destino.

 

Abstraer es liberarse, desatascarse.

 

El destino del chino en la escritura era la absoluta ligereza.

 

Los caracteres evolucionados convenía más que los caracteres arcaicos a la

velocidad, a la agilidad, a la viva gestualidad. Cierta pintura china de

paisaje requiere velocidad, sólo se puede hacer con la misma distensión que

la pata del tigre que salta (Sin embargo para eso hay que estar recogido,

concentrado, sin tensión.*4 )

 

De manera semejante el calígrafo debe primeramente recogerse, cargarse de

energía para liberarse de ella y seguidamente, descargarse de ella. De un

golpe. *5

 

El saber, los «cuatro tesoros» del cuarto de la literatura (el pincel, el

papel, la tinta, el tintero) es considerable y complejo.

Pero después...

 

La mano debe estar vacía con el fin de no obstaculizar el influjo que le es

comunicado. Debe estar lista para el menor impulso como para la mayor

violencia. Soporte de efluvios, de influjos.

 

...De una cierta manera semejante al agua, a lo que ella tiene de más fuerte

y liviano, de menos perceptible, como son sus pliegues*6 , que siempre

fueron tema de estudio en China.

 

Imagen del alejamiento: el agua que no se ata, siempre lista a

instantáneamente partir de nuevo, agua que incluso antes de la llegada del

budismo, hablaba al corazón del Chino. Agua, vacía de forma.

 

Yi Tin, Yi Yang, tche wei Tao

Un tiempo Yin, un tiempo Yang

He ahí la vía, he ahí el Tao.

 

Vía por la escritura.

 

Ser calígrafo, como se es paisajista. Mejor. El calígrafo es en China la sal

de la tierra.

 

En esta caligrafía -arte del tiempo, expresión del trayecto, de la carrera-

lo que suscita la admiración (fuera de la armonía, de la vivacidad, y

dominándolas) es la espontaneidad, que puede llegar hasta el estallido.

No imitar más a la naturaleza. Significarla. Por trazos, impulsos.

Asceta de lo inmediato, del rayo.

 

Tal como ellos son actualmente, alejados de su mimetismo de otros tiempos,

los signos chinos tienen la gracia de la impaciencia, el vuelo de la

naturaleza, su diversidad, su manera inigualable de saber plegarse, volver a

saltar, erguirse.

 

Como hace la naturaleza, la lengua en China propone a la vista, y no decide.

 

Su poco de sintaxis que deja adivinar, recrear, que deja lugar a la poesía.

De lo múltiple sale la idea.

 

Caracteres abiertos en varias direcciones.

 

Equilibrio.

 

Toda lengua es un universo paralelo. Ninguna con más belleza que la china.

 

La caligrafía la exalta. Ella perfecciona la poesía; es la expresión que

hace el poema válido, que avala al poeta.

 

Justa balanza de los contradictorios, el arte del calígrafo, marca y paso,

es mostrarse al mundo -semejante a un actor chino que entra en escena, dice

su nombre, su lugar de origen, lo que le ha pasado y lo que acaba de hacer-,

es rodearse de razones de ser, procurar su justificación. La caligrafía: se

hace patente por la manera en que se trata a los signos, en que se es digno

de su saber y se es de verdad un letrado. Por ahí, se estará... o no

justificado.

 

La caligrafía, su papel mediador, y de comunión, y de suspenso.

 

¿Qué le hubiera sucedido, en Occidente, a una lengua tuviese sólo una

parcela de las posibilidades caligráficas de la lengua china? Las épocas

barrocas que le seguirían y los descubrimientos de los individualistas, las

rarezas y extravagancias, excentricidades de toda clase...

 

La lengua china era capaz de ello. Ofrece en cualquier parte ocasiones para

la originalidad. Cada carácter proporciona una tentación.

 

Sin en autores diversos, se toma, separándolo del texto y de su contexto, un

carácter fácilmente reconocible, naturalmente bello y lleno de sentido, la

palabra corazón por ejemplo, tan alejados como estén sus trazos

constitutivos, por más que sea para recordarlo, éste sin embargo va a

revivir, por su trazado, en cualquier escriba una vida particular. Se lo

puede observar, en uno, en otro, en cada uno y por todas partes diferente.

Corazón generoso o valiente, o corazón que quiere hacer creer, o corazón

alrededor del cual sería bueno vivir, corazón pleno de paz profunda, corazón

condescendiente y cálido, o corazón que no se turba por nada, que siempre

sale adelante, o corazón liviano que no se fijará, o temeroso, o corazón

sumiso, o bien corazón que con nada parte, o corazón entrometido, o corazón

en espera, corazón que busca la aventura, o corazón seco, o plácido, o al

contrario que nada detiene, o corazón decididamente alerta, perfecto que,

incluso sobre una fibrosa hoja de papel de arroz, podrá vivir aún siglos y

dejarse admirar.

 

A cualquier calígrafo la propiedad del corazón, la vida del corazón le es

ofrecida. Pero no por la originalidad, sino filtrada, y a quien no se le

permite más que transparentarse.

 

Es mal visto, bajo y vulgar exhibirse.

 

La «justa proporción», el «justo lugar», es lo único que importa.

 

Y la página perfecta es la que «parece trazada de un solo trazo».

 

La China virtuosa, ocupada por la armonía, no habría apreciado lo ridículo.

 

La escritura debe tener una virtud tonificante. Ella es una conducta.

 

Mostrar un bello equilibrio, uno que sea ejemplar. Aun los apasionados que

fueron llamados «locos de caligrafía», y que perdían en ella el beber y el

comer y el sueño y el equilibrio de una vida, cuando retomaban el pincel,

trazaban caracteres exentos de desequilibrio, henchidos al contrario de un

soberbio y nuevo equilibrio.

 

El orden superior es dinámico.

 

Así la escritura china, salvada a la vez del barroco*7 , y de la rigidez,

trampas de las caligrafías.

China, país donde se meditaba sobre los trazado de un calígrafo, como en

otro país se meditará sobre un mantra, sobre la sustancia, el principio, o

sobre la Esencia.

 

Caligrafía junto a la cual, simplemente, permanecemos como junto a un árbol,

a una roca, a una fuente.

 

1 * Lo que, pareciendo letras ilegibles, fue comparado con pasos de

insectos, con inconsistentes huellas de patas de pájaros en la arena,

continúa llevando, sin cambiar, siempre legible, comprensible, eficaz, la

lengua china , la lengua viva más vieja del mundo.

2 * Reducidos, deformados como están, esos caracteres ilegibles para

centenares de millones de Chinos, sólo eran letras muertas. Mantenidos fuera

del círculo de los letrados, los campesinos, ciertamente los miraban sin

comprenderlos, pero no sin sentir que eran para ellos, esos signos ligeros,

parientes de los techos curvos, de los dragones y personajes de teatro;

también de los dibujos de las nubes, y generalmente de los paisajes de ramas

floridas y hojas de bambú que habían visto y apreciaban en imágenes.

3 Antes que caligrafía, arte de la escritura. En las otras lenguas,

excepto el árabe, la caligrafía cuando existe no es más que la expresión de

un tipo psicológica o, en las grandes épocas, de un modo ideal a menudo

religiosa. Existe rigidez, compostura recta, uniformemente recta, que hace

de las líneas son palabras, corsé de nobleza, de liturgia, de gravedad

puritana.

4 * La meditación, el recogimiento ante el paisaje puede durar veinte

horas y la pintura sólo algunas decenas de minutos. Pintura que deja lugar

al espacio.

5 * La distensión del tigre -Incluso en la religión. En el Tch`an, en el

Zen- es la intantaneidad de la iluminación que allá golpea.

6 * Pliegues profundos, pliegues finos, arrugas del agua que fluye, o

que ha caído en cascada, y que vuelve gorgoteando a la superficie. Los

pintores son célebres por sus pliegues de agua, y el admirable Wang Wei

mismo lo es por haber encontrado el pliegue "de la lluvia y de la nieve".

7 * Caligrafía salvaje.

En Japón últimamente se han tomado grandes libertades y encontrado nuevas

alegrías de desmesura con la caligrafía.

Estas libertades podrían -¿quién sabe?- dispersarse un día en el Asia china.

 

Traducción y prólogo de Jorge Miralles para Torre de Letras, La Habana, 2008

Pictografías, ideogramas, y otros movimientos: una breve antología

 

Trazos para una contra-escritura

abstraer, ir rápido, rápido con bruscos trazos...

 

En 1937 la galería Paul Magné, antigua galería de la Pléiade, del boulevard

San Michel anunciaba del 3 al 23 de junio las Gouaches d`Henri Michaux, pese

a las reticencias de su amigo Jean Paulhan, quien en aquel entonces ocupaba

el puesto de redactor en jefe de La N.R.F que, por aquellos años, era uno de

los centros más influyentes de la literatura y del pensamiento en Europa.

Michaux tuvo su debut como pintor después de diez años de incertidumbres y

tensiones entre escritura y pintura. La primera debido significar, desde sus

primeros libros Les rêves et la jambe (1923) y Qui je fus (1927) hasta

Voyage en Grande Garabagne (1936), la búsqueda de una aventura y de un

espacio de representación donde las palabras le llevaran a remontar el

límite de lo real, en consonancia, el imaginario del escritor no podía

lidiar con aquel otro mundo o experiencia (viajes por América y por el

Extremo Oriente, de ahí sus otros dos libros: Ecuador (1929) y Un barbare en

Asie (1933), este último traducido por Jorge Luis Borges) sin antes

agotarlos y proporcionar, a través de su escritura, un espacio interior que

luego se transformaría en signos.

De modo que al hablar de la pintura de Michaux, paradójicamente, uno se ve

enfrentado a la lectura de su escritura donde una segunda ventana se abre Au

pays de la Magie (1941), Ici, Poddema (1946), Plume (1938) para mostrarnos

los trazos de un mundo enigmático y, al mismo tiempo, fascinante. En el que

muchas veces esos animales fantásticos, insectos, plantas y monstruos

-propios del zoo michauxiano- apenas adquieren una forma definida, acabada,

sino que más bien son fragmentos de rostros, manchas diluidas, aguafuertes

que traslucen, desde una lejanía interior, la apariencia de lo real. El

espejismo de la caligrafía china y de las rupturas del lenguaje no son más

que provocaciones que se anexan a ese espacio y a su incesante voluntad

creadora por superar las barreras de contención de la crítica literaria y de

los movimientos de vanguardia.

Tanto es así, que la obra de Michaux permanece inclasificable a pesar de sus

conexiones (Paul Klee, Max Ernst y Giorgio de Chirico) con los surrealistas

y de su radicalismo a favor de un lenguaje abstracto (Wolfgang Schulze). En

más de una ocasión se declaró un solitario, al punto que hoy pudiera leerse

dentro de la tradición de los moralistas franceses:

 

Es un combate sin cuerpo para el cual es preciso prepararte, de tal

forma que puedas enfrentarlo en cualquier caso, combate abstracto que, al

contrario de otros, se aprende mediante el ensueño. (Poteaux d`angle

[Postes angulares], 1971)

 

Henri Michaux marcó rápidamente su disensión del grupo surrealista -así como

renegó, tempranamente, de su origen belga y su familia- al cual se refiere

en una carta dirigida a Francis J. Carmody el 7 de abril de 1951 donde,

apropósito de una pregunta que le hiciera un profesor norteamericano de paso

por París, declaró:

 

El surrealismo es un grupo y un movimiento del cual nunca he formado parte.

Jamás he colaborado, por poco que sea, en sus actividades, en sus

manifiestos, en sus revistas. Ellos nunca me han considerado como uno de

los suyos, ni citado. Hemos, ellos como yo, cuidadosamente evitado estar

reunidos, sin hostilidad, por otra parte... (Henri Michaux, J.P.Martín)

 

A pesar de ello, Michaux sentía una gran admiración y respeto por algunos de

los escritores y artistas surrealistas, tal es el caso de

Antione-Marie-Joseph Artaud, a quien había apoyado como integrante del

comité des amiés d´Artaud (dirigido por el pintor Jean Dubuffet) y con

quien, coincidentemente, compartía experiencias como el uso de las drogas

(LSD, peyote y hongos alucinógenos) y los viajes -experiencias del espíritu

y finalmente literarias. Por otra parte Artaud había publicado, el mismo año

de la primera exposición de Michaux, en La Nouvelle Revue Française, Un

vogaye au pays des Tarahumaras; además, el autor de Lontain intérieur (1938)

había prolongado la primera edición de Poisson Soluble de André Breton y

codirigido la revista de la literatura belga Le Disque vert en la que sus

amigos Franz Hellens y Camille Goemans eran fervientes seguidores de las

corrientes francesas de vanguardia.

Según nos cuenta, en su biografía sobre Henri Michaux, Jean-Pierre Martin

(ed.N.R.F. Gallimard, 2000) la aversión por el origen belga y sus conexiones

con el surrealismo se pusieron a prueba una vez que tuvo las primeras

referencias de la obra de Magritte quien, en noviembre de 1964, había

expuesto sus cuadros en la galería Iola y los había hecho acompañar con un

texto de A. Breton: Envergure de René Magritte. Sin embargo para Michaux,

que poco o casi nada había reparado en aquellas pinturas, "que las había

visto sobre todo en fotografías, en blanco y negro", constituyó "una

revelación" y "un llamado a la escritura".

De ahí que En rêvent à partir de peintures énigmatiques al proponer una

escritura, a través de la pintura, de inicio -desde una perspectiva, en

total complicidad con el autor de Affrontements (1972), fuera del cuadro

donde se desfigura al pasar por la grafía y se transforma una vez más en

signos- a una contra-escritura donde "lo que alguna vez fue visto" es

nuevamente evocado por su condición residual. De manera tal que los objetos,

el paisaje o "lo representado" es, antes de ser leído, un trazo.

 

Y dice Michaux citando a Magritte:

 

Cualquiera que sean los trazos, las palabras, los colores dispuestos en una

página, escribía R. M. (con Retórica), la figura que se obtiene está siempre

llena de sentido.

 

La primera versión de En rêvent... fue publicada en diciembre de 1964 en el

Mercure de France, pero ya desde los años cincuenta, Michaux aparece, dentro

de la crítica de arte, como uno de los iniciadores de Tachisme de la escuela

de París (Wols, Jean-Paul Riopelle, George Mathieu, Jean Fautrier y Camille

Byren) que, bajo la tutela del crítico Michel Tapié, daba renombre a un arte

no figurativo: "abstracción lírica" o "expresionismo abstracto", en el que

la mancha tiene un rol importante y donde el pintor no controla la forma

sobre el cuadro, sino, más bien, la energía empleada en los gestos al

manipular la pintura sobre el lienzo; por otra parte, conoce a los pintores

graphistes -de origen belga- Cristian Dotremont y Pierre Alechinsky que

incursionan en los orígenes de la escritura ("mi finalidad es la unidad de

inspiración verbal gráfica") y que, motivados por equivalentes gráficos como

la glosolia y los logogramas, exponene a finales de los años setenta en

París. De hecho fue P. Alechinsky quien, un día de 1978, convidó a Henri

Michaux a visitar una exposición de Dotremont y, para sorpresa de su amigo,

"se creyó plagiado" y luego, al "distinguir, a través de las pinceladas y

las bandas de tinta, las transcripciones de Dotremont, que les fueron

presentadas como una suerte de caligrafía ("Yo exagero lo escrito", decía

Dotremont), HM se calmó. Terminó por sonreír: ¿logogramas? Entonces es otra

cosa."

Sí, en opinión de Jean Gérad Lapacherie, puesto que lo que Michaux

propone es finalmente un acercamiento a la caligrafía china a través de su

propia práctica de pintura abstracta. Interpretaciones "poéticas" o

"literarias" de ideogramas que habían sido analizados por sinólogos como

Víctor Segalen y René Etiemble, abren un nuevo diálogo sobre el Oriente y,

en particular, la literatura occidental encuentra otras formas de

acercamiento a una escritura radicalmente diferente, cuyos símbolos -al

contrario del alfabeto latino- no señalan, necesariamente, a la lengua.

 

Unas veces, la escritura china -observa Lapacherie- está

interpretada como si sus signos fuesen imágenes de objetos. Es la

interpretación "figurista", que defienden los Jesuitas de Cantón, Etiemble

o, de vez en cuando, Segalen. Otras veces, está compuesta por símbolos

abstractos, que remiten, como las cifras y los símbolos matemáticos, a las

ideas, los conceptos o las operaciones. Es la interpretación algebrista, la

de Wilkins y la de Leibniz o, en menor grado, la de Claudel. (Henri Michaux

et les Idéogrammes, J.G. Lapacherie)

 

Tanto Paul Claudel (Idéogrammes occidentaux , ed. Gallimard, 1965), Henri

Michaux (Idéogrammes en China, ed. Fata Morgana, 1975) como Roland Barthes

(L´Empire des signes, ed. Skira-Flammarion, 1970) recuperan -Es necesario

señalar, dentro de la poesía francesa -aunque con una marcada diferencia de

fuentes e influencias-, los Caligramas e ideogramas de Guillaume Apollinaire

(1880-1918). Ver, Modenidad de Apollinaire, Saul Yurkievich, ed. Losada,

Buenos Aires. (pp.170'182)- al mismo tiempo que extienden sus límites- la

tradición interpretativa de la escritura china que había comenzado en

occidente con los jesuitas en el siglo XVIII y, sobre todo, con Athanasius

Kircher: China monumentis (1967), obra de la que se sirvió Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz para su teoría del lenguaje y de la que el autor de Mouvements

(1952) se separa, alejándose de ambas tesis: la figurista y la algebrista,

para regresar a la caligrafía china y, por mediación de ella, a la pintura

abstracta o contra-escritura. Sin embargo, a Michaux le tomó más de

cuarenta años, entre un libro y otro (de Un barbare en Asie, 1933 a

Idéogrammes en China, 1975), salir de la abstracción algebrista -como apunta

J-G. Lapacherie- y pasar a otra abstracción: "lírica, informal, caligráfica,

gestual, pictural". Es por ello que tras su primer viaje a China en 1932, se

dedicó al estudio de la literatura china y a la práctica de diferentes

estilos de escrituras: "escrituras sigilosas; inscripciones arcaicas en

fragmentos de hueso o carapachos de tortugas; escrituras antiguas

(ta-tchuan); escrituras oficiales, llamadas de funcionarios; y, sobre todo,

la famosa cursiva "cao shu" o, en la antigua transcripción ts`ao-tseu,

llamada también escritura de hierba."

Michauz debió experimentar, a través de estas escrituras arcaicas, una

búsqueda que lo aproximaba -como infatigable viajero del mundo interior:

"anti Pierre Loti, anti Paul Morand"- a las profundidades de otros mundos,

al abismo de su propio imaginario, sin duda; pero , mientras cada arañazo o

contoneo de la mano fue trazando, delineando un movimiento nuevo,

sorpresivamente nos acercaba, a medida que borraba las palabras y los

caracteres chinos sobre el papel, a aquellas insondables profundidades donde

alguna vez -¡sabe Dios cómo!- tiró el ancla un experto marinero (al igual

que Joseph Conrad y Herman Merville, Michaux se hizo marino) y nos abrió las

puertas de un arca perdida por donde emergieron ¿a lo real? Personajes y

criaturas extrañas, se nos hicieron, por fin, visibles: Émangolones, Zygelas

notatas, Orbuses, el Ouglab, Nijidus y Rocodis...; o, tal vez él, como otros

tantos viajeros a fuerza de querer habitar mundos desconocidos (...el país

de la Magia, por ejemplo), de querer vivir permanentemente límites

imposibles (los sueños, las drogas), de querer cruzar fronteras prohibidas

-aun cuando fuese dado pensarlo como real- (el imaginario), no nos trajo de

vuelta más que los restos de una escritura indescifrable, manchas, signos

encriptados en la naturaleza como aquellos que, según Bruno Roy citado por

J-P Martin, un día le llevaron -con ochenta años- a un zoológico de

Barcelona a ver a un gorila albino, bautizado con el nombre de Flocon de

neige y allí estuvieron, durante más de una hora, los dos, observándose.

Nunca sabremos con certeza qué interés pudo motivarle, qué reacciones

provocó en el visitante ensimismado que contemplaba frente a una jaula, ¿era

él o Flocon de neige quien registraba los movimientos, las piruetas, los

signos? ¿Cuál de ellos se anticipaba en un aprendizaje? ¿Buscaba el escritor

alejado de lo humano, en un tiempo mítico, descifrar sus primeros

movimientos? El restaurador -como buen humano- cierra la brecha moral,

antepone sobre el papel, un impulso que se vuelve naturaleza y escritura:

 

En tus primeros dibujos de niño cuando comenzabas a

garabatear, ponías en la forma humana los brazos a tu manera. Salían de la

cabeza, del pecho, de todas partes. Brazos hacia lo alto, hacia lo ancho,

brazos para estirarte, para extenderse, para extenderte más, llevarte a la

aventura, brazos de la fortuna sin saber dónde van a llegar, brazos al azar.

 

Y más adelante agrega, refiriéndose a los primates, en la misma página:

 

El chimpancé, como tú, desde que le ponen una tiza entre

los dedos, se consagra por completo a lo que los hombres adultos llaman

garabatos. Aproximativos torbellinos que no cesan. Eso es lo que él tiene

que hacer, que decir, sin fin, sin detenerse una vez que ya lo ha

encontrado. (Poteaux d`angle, 1971 [Postes angulares])

 

Pero no por ello, el pintor de Gouaches... o el escritor -cómo clasificar a

Michaux?- nos libera del misterio ni de la complicidad de su obra. Lecture

par H. Michaux de huit lithographie de Zao Wou-Ki, 1950 trazó, en

colaboración con el pintor y amigo Zhao Wuji, un puente -aparentemente

separado por extremos opuestos- entre dos mundos, a través del cual se fue

abriendo paso, al tiempo que, escritura y pintura, se convertían en un solo

gesto (movimiento bautizado por la crítica de arte con el nombre: "action

painting" y en el que se asocia a Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark

Rothko), en un solo texto -o contra-escritura- que más tarde le llevaría

hasta límites insospechados. Algo que después sería retomado por otros

escritores y pintores, como es el caso, en 1976, del poeta René Char y del

pintor Wilfredo Lam a propósito de una serie de poemas "ilustrados" para una

exposición en Le point cardinal, la misma galería donde Henri Michaux -al

igual que los pintores cubanos Jorge Camacho y Joaquim Ferrer- había

expuesto sus litografías. Aquellas manchas, gestos, signos o palabras

incomprensibles para algunos lectores y sobre todo para el amigo Jean

Paulhan tuvieron, como contrapartida, la insaciable curiosidad de un viajero

infatigable de "mundos interiores", en primer lugar; y luego, la complicidad

-que por aquel entonces se trataba sólo de pequeños sellos editoriales- de

dos editores apasionados y de su perspicaz visión de un libro, Bruno Roy

(ed. Fata Morgana) y René Bertelé (col. Calígrafo, ed. Gallimard),

conquistaron -a pesar del temerario pronóstico comercial-, junto con el

escritor belga, una tierra desconocida y aún indescifrable. Henri Michaux

nos legó para siempre, a través de sus trazos, las sombras chinescas de un

país mágico: el libro, éste con el que ahora -erróneamente, una vez más-

intentamos cruzar el límite tangible de lo real, es decir, tender un puente

para aproximarnos, aunque fuese brevemente, al imaginario de uno de los

poetas más radicales e inclasificables del siglo XX. O, como diría André

Gide (Découvrons Henri Michaux, 1941) sobre el autor de esta inconclusa

antología:

 

Sensación o pensamiento, él la sigue, sin

preocuparse de que parezca extraña, rara o incluso descabellada. La prolonga

y, como la araña, se cuelga a un hilo de seda,

dejando que el aliento poético lo arrastre, él

mismo no sabe a dónde, con todo su ser abandonado, nos hace recordar lo que

dijo Nietzche: "somos perfectamente

sinceros sólo en nuestros sueños".

 

Jorge Miralles

La Habana, 2008

 

Es necesario un obstáculo nuevo para un nuevo saber. Vela periódicamente

para provocarte los obstáculos, obstáculos para los cuales debes encontrar

una defensa... y una nueva inteligencia.

 

Sé capaz en cualquier sitio que te encuentres de reconocer tu eje.

Después percibirás.

 

El pensamiento antes de ser obra es trayecto.

 

El hombre transforma su cólera de tal manera que nadie la reconoce. Pero él,

siendo sensato, la reconoce... a veces.

 

....Tontos por haber sido inteligentes demasiado temprano, tú, no te

precipites hacia la adaptación.

Siempre guarda un poco de inadaptación.

 

Lo real original, lo concreto y los signos que estaban cerca, y desde ese

momento se podía cómodamente abstraerse de ellos, abstraer, ir rápido,

rápido con bruscos trazos que se deslizan sin resistencia sobre el papel y

permiten de otro modo ser chino.

 

Abstraer es liberarse, desatascarse.

 

Sin otro saber, bastaría, -gracias a sus sutiles trazos matizados.

 

Desaparecidos, los caracteres arcaicos que emocionaban el corazón.

Desaparecidos, los signos sensibles que colmaban a sus primeros lectores.

 

Desparecida la veneración, la ingenuidad, la primera poesía, la ternura en

la sorpresa del original, "encuentro", desaparecido el trazado aún

"piadoso", la tranquila cursiva.

(Intelectuales ausentes y sus vivos trazados, aún por llegar, sus trazados

de intelectuales... describa).

 

etiquetas: poesía art-S

Das bekannte Logo der Londoner U-Bahn, ein roter Kreisring mit einem quer darüber liegenden blauen Balken, wurde 1908 von Harold Stabler entworfen (die Metropolitan Railway hingegen hatte das "Diamond and Bar"-Logo, ein diamantförmiges Logo mit Balken). 1916 überarbeitete Edward Johnston das Logo im Auftrag des „London Passenger Transport Board“. Es ist in jeder Station, aber auch in und auf den einzelnen Zügen, Bussen, Straßenbahnen und auf den Fahrplänen zu sehen. Entweder ist es in den Stationen auf Schildern angebracht oder zum Teil sogar durch Mosaik-Technik in die Wand der Tunnelröhren eingearbeitet. Auf dem blauen Balken steht in Großbuchstaben entweder der jeweilige Stationsname oder das Wort „Underground“.

 

Johnston entwickelte den Sans-Serif-Schrifttyp Johnston Typeface, der ab 1916 für das Logo verwendet wurde; die Schrift bildete die Vorlage für die von Eric Gill in den 1920ern entwickelte Gill Sans. Die heute benutzte Schriftart ist eine überarbeitete Version, die unter dem Namen "P22 Johnston Underground" vom Schriftarten-Hersteller P22 type foundry vertrieben wird. Mit der Zeit entwickelte sich das Logo ebenso zu einem markanten Erkennungsmerkmal für die U-Bahn und London selbst wie der Slogan „mind the gap“ (s. u.). Diese beiden Merkmale sind auf zahlreichen Fanartikeln vereint.

 

Transport for London ist dafür bekannt, dass sie die unautorisierte Benutzung wie z. B. das Kopieren des Logos gerichtlich verfolgen lässt. Trotzdem entstehen weltweit immer wieder zahlreiche Kopien, da sich das Logo bei London-Fans großer Beliebtheit erfreut.

 

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#Das_Logo

Pomegranate juice from Turkey.

 

Exactly 3,500 years ago in the city of Thebes there lived a man called Ineni, with a garden renowned far a wide, much like Luis Borja. Except he wasn't exactly like Luis, because he happened to be the overseer of the building works of the GOD-EMPEROR of the World; the Pharaoh Tuthmosis I. Ineni made sure that in the Hereafter his garden would be just as glorious as in life, for in his tomb his garden was painted in detail, so as that Anubis would make sure to incorporate it in the strange dark eternity that comes to the deserving spirits of the dead in the Afterworld. All the species were neatly inventoried next to the painting, so Anubis wouldn't accidentally forget anything! And so we know how an ancient garden looked like and which species grew within.

Ineni the Builder thought 5 pomegranate trees would just about do the trick (he likes palms the best, he needs 321 of those; afterwards his favourite is Ficus species. Another difference between Luis and Ineni is that although Aloe (pronounced 'ht-'w3') was well known to the ancient Egyptians, Ineni didn't seem to think they were interesting enough to garden for the rest of eternity (Ineni is probably thinking: 'dammit! I knew I forgot something!' right now)).

 

Akkadian:

---Old Akkadian [~2500-2000BC]: Possibly* ? pronounced 'armannu', but this may mean 'fruit tree' in general.

---Assyrian Neo-Akkadian [~1300BC]: '...' pronounced 'nurmû', alternatively sometimes called ? pronounced 'lurimtu'.

Amharic: ሩማን transliterated 'ruman' (pronounced 'roman' according to some)

Ancient Egyptian: see here, pronounced 'in-hmn'

Arabic: رمان, pronounced 'ram-an' (Old Andalusian Arabic), ﺎن‎مـ‎ر‎, pronounced 'rummân' (Modern Egypt)

Aramaic: ...?**, ? pronounced 'rummānā'

Armenian: Նուռ transliterated 'nowo' (ISO9985 (divergent from older schemes))

---Classical Armenian [405-1800AD]: Նուրն pronounced 'nurn' (?, bad source, re-transliterated by me using Hübschmann-Meillet)

Avestan [~1000BC]: ? pronounced 'hadhânaêpatayå' (for tree), ? pronounced 'baresman' (for twigs); (?, unclear, names 'in Zand', may be 12-13th century Pazend or Avesta): رورمنا pronounced 'rormanā', رومنا pronounced 'romnā'

Azeri: Nar Kolu (fruit), Nar Ağacı (tree)

Coptic: Ⲉⲣⲙⲁⲛ, pronounced 'irman'

Corsican: Mela granata

Farsi: انار pronounced 'anār' (fruit) or pronounced 'ana'ra' (tree), نار pronounced 'nār' (fruit), درخت انار pronounced 'nār-pestan' (tree), ناربن pronounced 'nār-bon' (tree), رمان pronounced 'romman' or 'rummān' (fruit), رانا pronounced 'rānā' (fruit, rare (eastern?) synonym), ناردان pronounced 'nār-dan' (seeds, dried arils), فرند pronounced 'firind' (seed), ارمنین pronounced 'armanīn' (wild pomegranate), ضبر ẓabr' (pomegranate, among many other meanings), انحفطینا pronounced 'anḥaft̤īnā' (flower), اونانیس pronounced 'aunānīs' (bud)

Ge'ez: ኣሩራን pronounced 'ʿarurān' (for tree; may also mean a field, a big tree, or wild date palm. Traditionally believed to be derived from Greek ... ('arouran'= field), however, this may not be the root for all meanings of the word, see Coptic, Akkadian). The word ጵርዮን (pronounced 'pəryon') has been misunderstood to mean 'pomegranate', but actually means 'saw' or 'holm oak' (Quercus ilex).

Greek:

---Attic: Ῥοἀ, sometimes Ῥοιἀ (tree), Κύτινος pronounced 'khootinos' (flower). From Theophrastus [~340–290BC], who admittedly was from Lesbos and has been criticized on his use of Attic (Leontion).

---Koine Greek: βαλαύστιον pronounced 'balaústion' (for flower of wild plant). Attested in Dioscorides, Galen and papyri [1-130AD];

------Egyptian Koine [130-200AD, names from Egyptian papyri]: Ῥόα pronounced 'rhóa' (tree), Κύτινος pronounced 'khootinos' (flower), Σίσιον pronounced 'sísion' (rind of fruit).

------Byzantine Koine [1020's, names from the Suda]: Ῥοιά (tree, fruit), Σίδειος Καρπός (fruit)

---Modern Greek: In modern Greek the plant is known as Ροδιά, pronounced 'rothiá'.

Harari: ? pronounced 'rummán', ?ማን pronounced 'roman', ?ማን? pronounced 'romanách' (pl.) (Arabic, á, as in "father.", or Adaric)

Hebrew:

---Modern Hebrew: רימון מצוי , pronounced 'rimun m'u'? (tree), הרימון נגזר, pronounced 'h'rimun ngzr'? (fruit).

Hittite: The logogram orthography is more attested in the corpus than the syllabic equivalent. Pomegranate is only attested in later writings.

---New-Hittite [~1430–1180BC]:

------Logogramic: 'giš-NU-ÚR-MA', or 'giš-NURMA' pronounced 'nurati' ('giš' is a 'determinant' used in the cuneiform script to denote the word is a fruit from a woody tree/shrub, and is not pronounced). An akkadogram.

------Syllabic: '...', 'nu-ra-ti-i-in' or 'nu-ra-ti-in', pronounced 'nurati' (stem?) or 'nuratin' (sing.?)

Hurrian [~2100-1300BC]: ? pronounced 'nuranti'

Italian: Melograno

---Venetian: Malgaragno, also Magragno, Pomoingranà, Pomogranà

Kurdish:

---Kurmanji: Hinar, Henar, Énar***

---Sorani: ھەنار pronounced 'h'nar'

Latin: Malum Punicum, Malum Granatum, Balaustium (for flower)

Mazanderani/Tabari: انار

Oromo: Romaanii

Pashto: انار

Portuguese: Romã, Romãzeira, Romanzeira, Romanzeiro

Sidetic/Pamphylian [~500BC]: '...' (Sidetic script is as yet undeciphered) pronounced 'side'

Tigrinya:? pronounced 'remmān' (from Schwienfurth [1880's-90's] as 'Abyssinian', very possibly Tigré, but based on demographics and dominant languages in Italian administered areas and the relatively restricted extent of Schweinfurths travels in Abyssinia (he only visited northwest Eritrea) most, if not all, the plant names he recorded were almost certainly in Tigrinya).

Turkish: Nar

 

*Apparently known by Hopf, Maria and Zohary, Daniel. in 'Domestication of plants in the old world: the origin and spread of cultivated plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile Valley' (3rd ed.); Oxford University Press; 2000, pp. 171. ISBN 0-19-850356-3. The source I have used is rather bad

**In the Babylonian Talmud.

***? from 1910's German work

Note: The writing of names/words in non-Akkadian/Sumerian languages using cuneiform, such as Hurrian or Hittite, can be tricky in that they may be written either phonetically/syllabically or as ideograms/logograms. In this latter case the Akkadian/Sumerian spelling of a word is substituted for the native one, these are known as 'akkadograms' or 'sumerograms'. It is like one would write "I have an POMME" in English, but read this as "I have an apple": The sequence of letters P, O, M, M & E have combined into a symbol for "apple". "&" is actually an ideogram used in English for "and". Huzvarishn are analogous ideograms based on Aramaic found in pahlavi script used to write middle Persian. Furthermore, words are written with the addition of a further 'determinant' or 'determiner', another logogramic symbol. This is not pronounced but used to denote the type of word. These determinants are themselves a subset of ancient sumerograms. What one reads is thus often completely different from what one pronounces. In modern transliterations of cuneiform into the Latin alphabet, logogram words are written in capitals -normal for sumerograms or italic for akkadograms, while determinants are written in superscript in front of the word.

Note 2: These names came with the qualifier "in Zand" in the Persian dictionary I used. The word 'pazend' is now known to mean the 1,800-1,350 years old commentary in Middle Persian upon the Avesta written in the same script used to write the (dead) Avestan language some 1,800 years ago. However, when these works were first transcribed into western European languages 200 years ago the term was confused= 'zand' was used to mean Avestan language itself and 'Pa-zand' was used as the name of the Middle Persian language. Although the dictionary I used here was written 100 years ago, after the mistake became apparent, it is most likely written according to the old paradigm, thus these words are supposed to be Avestan. I must still corroborate these words with the actual text. The words are problematic; I do not see them in my copies of newer Avestan dictionary, and the clear later Semitic nature of the names makes it unlikely to actually be Avestan, but more likely Middle or New Persian, or even Pahlavi ideograms (in Aramaic). Zand in the Persian context might also refer to the (brief) Zand dynasty or the region of Zand, where the Luri language is spoken to some extent, thus these words might conceivably be Luri words from Zand, but this seems unlikely in respect to the rest of the text of the dictionary (it doesn't explain the occurrence of 'in Zand' so often in entries, nor the occurrence of the word 'Pa-zand').

Note 3: Flickr won't display unicode for cuneiform...

Note 4: Pronunciation and orthography for Ancient Greek is all wrong. I transliterated using Modern Greek, and Ancient Greek script lacked minuscules, having only capital letters. Also check Latin orthography (no letter 'U', right?).

 

Native Distribution: Thought to be native to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, & India (Kashmir, Himalayas).

Nepal? Turkmenistan?

The plant was probably first brought into cultivation in what is now Iran (based on land-race/cultivar diversity), at least some time before 4,500 years ago, when it was first mentioned in Sumerian cuneiform tablets in modern day Iraq. From Mesopotamia it seems to have spread west into the Levant, where it was eaten in the city of Jericho (now in the West Bank, Palestine) 4,000 years ago and north into the southern Caucasus by 3,000 years ago. It is first attested in Egypt about 3,900 years ago, but 3,500 years ago it was still seen pretty novel in Thebes (the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III is said to have introduced the fruit from Palestine after he conquered the lands of the Canaanites 3,400 years ago, although that story is untrue), so Ineni was a collector of some sort!

Alternatively, according to the Talmud, spies sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan brought clusters of grapes, pomegranates and figs back with them.

According to Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287BC), in Egypt new and sweeter varieties were bred.

Phoenicians traders possibly spread the fruit further across the Mediterranean area by 3,000 years ago.

 

Note that a similar diffusion occurred towards the east to China and Siam, the pomegranate arrived in China from Central Asia in about the second century B.C..