Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. At the height of its glory in the
Speaker 1: seventh and sixth centuries BCE, the ancient city of Babylon
Speaker 1: was the largest and wealthiest in the world. Under the
Speaker 1: ruthless and ambitious king Nebuchonezer the Second, the sprawling settlement
Speaker 1: in what's now Iraq grew into a major city as
Speaker 1: large as Chicago, boasting towering temples, ornately tiled palaces, and
Speaker 1: imposing city walls thick enough that on the pathway on
Speaker 1: top of them, two chariots drawn by four horses apiece
Speaker 1: could pass each other side by side. According to legend,
Speaker 1: it may have also been home to the Hanging Gardens
Speaker 1: of Babylon, a one of the seven Wonders of the
Speaker 1: ancient world, and a hubristic skyscraping temple that some historians
Speaker 1: believe inspired the biblical Tower of Babel. But the glory
Speaker 1: days of Babylon were short lived. As foretold by Old
Speaker 1: Testament prophets, the grand ancient city fell to the Persian
Speaker 1: Empire in five hundred and thirty nine BCE and slowly
Speaker 1: crumbled over centuries of foreign invasions and occupations. Although Babylon
Speaker 1: was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: there isn't much left to see of this once unstoppable
Speaker 1: empire that dazzled Greek historians and enslaved its rivals, most
Speaker 1: famously the biblical Kingdom of Judah. If you took a
Speaker 1: trip to Babylon today, located about fifty five miles or
Speaker 1: eighty five kilometers south of Baghdad, you'd see a Taki
Speaker 1: recreation built by Saddam Hussein in the nineteen seventies that's
Speaker 1: been partially destroyed by decades of war. It's a sad
Speaker 1: ending to such a fabled city. Nebukanezer was the most
Speaker 1: famous of Babylon's rulers, but he wasn't the first, as
Speaker 1: several empires rose and fell and rose again over the
Speaker 1: millennia on that same coveted soil between the Tigris and
Speaker 1: Euphrates rivers. The earliest king to unite warring factions into
Speaker 1: a single powerful city state in southern Mesopotamia and part
Speaker 1: of Assyria at now northern Iraq was the remarkable Hammurabi
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century BCE. Not only did he successfully
Speaker 1: conquer or forge alliances with Babylon's fiercest enemies. During his
Speaker 1: forty three year reign, he also built Babylon into a
Speaker 1: showplace for innovations in engineering and justice. Hammurabi ordered the
Speaker 1: construction of intricate canals to provide babylon citizens with fresh water,
Speaker 1: and fortified the city's walls against invaders. He concerned himself
Speaker 1: with food distribution and public safety in a city that
Speaker 1: represented something entirely new, the intermingling of many people from
Speaker 1: wildly different cultures. In order to keep the peace among
Speaker 1: people without ties of blood or religion, Hammurabi created his
Speaker 1: famous League Code, essentially a detailed list of some three
Speaker 1: hundred crimes and their associated punishments, all in an if
Speaker 1: then format. If a man put out the eye of
Speaker 1: another man, his eye shall be put out, and so on.
Speaker 1: The code didn't just cover bodily damage, though different stipulations
Speaker 1: covered marriage, children, inheritance, debt, interest, and collateral. Punishments tended
Speaker 1: to be harsh and even harsher on lower class perpetrators
Speaker 1: than upper class ones. A copy of the code was
Speaker 1: unearthed back in nineteen oh one by a French archaeologist.
Speaker 1: It's inscribed on a stone pillar over seven feet or
Speaker 1: two meters tall. A. Scholars still debate how the ancient
Speaker 1: Babylonians would have interpreted and followed the code. Because the
Speaker 1: code is so specific in the issues it addresses. A,
Speaker 1: scholars think that it was a list of amendments to
Speaker 1: an existing set of laws that have been lost to history.
Speaker 1: But however, the code worked. Rabi's singular genius as a
Speaker 1: military and domestic leader wasn't passed on to his successor.
Speaker 1: Just days after Hamarabi's death, Babylon's old enemies declared their
Speaker 1: independence and readied their armies for invasion. The Babylonian kingdom
Speaker 1: fell to pieces, and the city wouldn't return to glory
Speaker 1: for more than a thousand years. It was the Great
Speaker 1: and Terrible Nebuconezzer the Second who rebuilt Babylon as a
Speaker 1: magnificent tribute to the creator God Marduke. Ruling from six
Speaker 1: oh five to five sixty two BCE, Nebuconezer extended the
Speaker 1: Babylonian empire across Egypt, Syria, and the Kingdom of Judah,
Speaker 1: where he seized Jerusalem in five ninety seven BCE, capturing
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of Israelites and dragging them off to
Speaker 1: Babylon as forced laborers, where the Bible tells us they
Speaker 1: wept in exile by its rivers. Because of Nebukonezzer's imperialist
Speaker 1: cruelty and pension for golden shrines to many gods, Babylon
Speaker 1: appears as shorthand for everything ungodly in some Judaeo Christian writings.
Speaker 1: In the New Testament Book of Revelation, the whore of
Speaker 1: Babylon makes an appearance quote adorned with gold and jewels
Speaker 1: and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full
Speaker 1: of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. According
Speaker 1: to historians, Nibuconezzer relocated conquered people around the empire to
Speaker 1: keep them from organizing rebellions against him. Under his leadership,
Speaker 1: Babylon became the biggest and most modern city in the
Speaker 1: ancient world. In addition to Babylon's colossal city walls, he
Speaker 1: was responsible for the stunning Processional Way, a wide thoroughfare
Speaker 1: lined with ornately tiled walls depicting lions and dragons in
Speaker 1: bright blues and yellows. The Processional Way led to the
Speaker 1: Ishtar Gate the city's grand northern entrance. One of Nibukinezzer's
Speaker 1: best known construction projects was the Temple of Marduk, which
Speaker 1: sat atop a three hundred foot that's ninety meters zigarette,
Speaker 1: accessible by a ramp that curved around its exterior. The
Speaker 1: Greek historian Hirototus, writing centuries after Babylon's heyday, described eight
Speaker 1: towers stacked on top of one another. It's not hard
Speaker 1: to believe that Old Testament authors may have modeled their
Speaker 1: Tower of Babel after the Marduke Temple. Meanwhile, the location
Speaker 1: of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon is a matter
Speaker 1: of some debate. Some historians think they may have actually
Speaker 1: been built about three hundred miles that's five hundred kilometers
Speaker 1: away in Nineveh by an Assyrian king. Others think the
Speaker 1: gardens never existed, as no archaeological evidence of them has
Speaker 1: ever been found, nor were they mentioned in contemporary Babylonian texts.
Speaker 1: The first mention of the gardens was in two hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety BCE, long after Nebuconesser had died. Speaking of
Speaker 1: let's talk about how Babylon fell. Just a few short
Speaker 1: decades after Nibakdezzar's death, Babylon was taken by the Persian
Speaker 1: conqueror Cyrus the Second, who reduced the city to just
Speaker 1: another outpost in his vast empire based in modern day Iran.
Speaker 1: Two centuries later, Alexander the Great planned to make Babylon
Speaker 1: the jewel of his Asian Empire, but ended up dying
Speaker 1: in the city in three twenty three BCE. After a
Speaker 1: solid sacking by the Parthians in the second century CE,
Speaker 1: Babylon never made a comeback. A two millennia of looting
Speaker 1: and warfare reduced Babylon to the barest of ruins. In
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, German archaeologists recovered remnants of the
Speaker 1: processional way and reconstructed its blue glazed tile murals at
Speaker 1: a museum in Berlin. It was Saddam Hussein who took
Speaker 1: up Nibakonezzer's mantle and tried to reconstruct some of Babylon's
Speaker 1: former glory, but ended up with what art historians decried
Speaker 1: as disney for a despot, much to consternation of archaeologists.
Speaker 1: Hussain raised city walls of thirty eight feet that's eleven
Speaker 1: and a half meters, had built a Roman style arena
Speaker 1: on the ruins of old Babylon. He even stamped his
Speaker 1: own name on the bricks, just as Nemakonezer had done.
Speaker 1: Although some of the recreations were damaged during the prolonged
Speaker 1: occupations of the Iraq War from twenty three to twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: many of the gaudily painted buildings remain and are open
Speaker 1: to the public, including his Babylonian Palace. So what else
Speaker 1: can you see in Babylon today? There are remnants of
Speaker 1: brick and clay structures spread across about four square miles
Speaker 1: or ten square kilometers, with notable features like the Lion
Speaker 1: of Babylon statue and portions of the original ishtar gate.
Speaker 1: And while Babylon itself is mainly a ruin, it's located
Speaker 1: just a few miles from the modern city of Alpilla,
Speaker 1: which has a population of about five hundred thousand people.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article where was Babylon
Speaker 1: and Does it Still Exist? On how stuffworks dot Com?
Speaker 1: Written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. But four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
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