WEBVTT - Where Was Babylon, and How Did It Fall?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren

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<v Speaker 1>Vogelbaum here. At the height of its glory in the

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<v Speaker 1>seventh and sixth centuries BCE, the ancient city of Babylon

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<v Speaker 1>was the largest and wealthiest in the world. Under the

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<v Speaker 1>ruthless and ambitious king Nebuchonezer the Second, the sprawling settlement

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<v Speaker 1>in what's now Iraq grew into a major city as

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<v Speaker 1>large as Chicago, boasting towering temples, ornately tiled palaces, and

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<v Speaker 1>imposing city walls thick enough that on the pathway on

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<v Speaker 1>top of them, two chariots drawn by four horses apiece

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<v Speaker 1>could pass each other side by side. According to legend,

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<v Speaker 1>it may have also been home to the Hanging Gardens

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<v Speaker 1>of Babylon, a one of the seven Wonders of the

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<v Speaker 1>ancient world, and a hubristic skyscraping temple that some historians

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<v Speaker 1>believe inspired the biblical Tower of Babel. But the glory

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<v Speaker 1>days of Babylon were short lived. As foretold by Old

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<v Speaker 1>Testament prophets, the grand ancient city fell to the Persian

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<v Speaker 1>Empire in five hundred and thirty nine BCE and slowly

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<v Speaker 1>crumbled over centuries of foreign invasions and occupations. Although Babylon

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<v Speaker 1>was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in twenty nineteen,

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<v Speaker 1>there isn't much left to see of this once unstoppable

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<v Speaker 1>empire that dazzled Greek historians and enslaved its rivals, most

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<v Speaker 1>famously the biblical Kingdom of Judah. If you took a

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<v Speaker 1>trip to Babylon today, located about fifty five miles or

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<v Speaker 1>eighty five kilometers south of Baghdad, you'd see a Taki

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<v Speaker 1>recreation built by Saddam Hussein in the nineteen seventies that's

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<v Speaker 1>been partially destroyed by decades of war. It's a sad

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<v Speaker 1>ending to such a fabled city. Nebukanezer was the most

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<v Speaker 1>famous of Babylon's rulers, but he wasn't the first, as

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<v Speaker 1>several empires rose and fell and rose again over the

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<v Speaker 1>millennia on that same coveted soil between the Tigris and

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<v Speaker 1>Euphrates rivers. The earliest king to unite warring factions into

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<v Speaker 1>a single powerful city state in southern Mesopotamia and part

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<v Speaker 1>of Assyria at now northern Iraq was the remarkable Hammurabi

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<v Speaker 1>in the eighteenth century BCE. Not only did he successfully

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<v Speaker 1>conquer or forge alliances with Babylon's fiercest enemies. During his

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<v Speaker 1>forty three year reign, he also built Babylon into a

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<v Speaker 1>showplace for innovations in engineering and justice. Hammurabi ordered the

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<v Speaker 1>construction of intricate canals to provide babylon citizens with fresh water,

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<v Speaker 1>and fortified the city's walls against invaders. He concerned himself

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<v Speaker 1>with food distribution and public safety in a city that

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<v Speaker 1>represented something entirely new, the intermingling of many people from

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<v Speaker 1>wildly different cultures. In order to keep the peace among

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<v Speaker 1>people without ties of blood or religion, Hammurabi created his

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<v Speaker 1>famous League Code, essentially a detailed list of some three

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<v Speaker 1>hundred crimes and their associated punishments, all in an if

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<v Speaker 1>then format. If a man put out the eye of

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<v Speaker 1>another man, his eye shall be put out, and so on.

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<v Speaker 1>The code didn't just cover bodily damage, though different stipulations

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<v Speaker 1>covered marriage, children, inheritance, debt, interest, and collateral. Punishments tended

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<v Speaker 1>to be harsh and even harsher on lower class perpetrators

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<v Speaker 1>than upper class ones. A copy of the code was

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<v Speaker 1>unearthed back in nineteen oh one by a French archaeologist.

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<v Speaker 1>It's inscribed on a stone pillar over seven feet or

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<v Speaker 1>two meters tall. A. Scholars still debate how the ancient

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<v Speaker 1>Babylonians would have interpreted and followed the code. Because the

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<v Speaker 1>code is so specific in the issues it addresses. A,

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<v Speaker 1>scholars think that it was a list of amendments to

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<v Speaker 1>an existing set of laws that have been lost to history.

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<v Speaker 1>But however, the code worked. Rabi's singular genius as a

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<v Speaker 1>military and domestic leader wasn't passed on to his successor.

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<v Speaker 1>Just days after Hamarabi's death, Babylon's old enemies declared their

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<v Speaker 1>independence and readied their armies for invasion. The Babylonian kingdom

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<v Speaker 1>fell to pieces, and the city wouldn't return to glory

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<v Speaker 1>for more than a thousand years. It was the Great

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<v Speaker 1>and Terrible Nebuconezzer the Second who rebuilt Babylon as a

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<v Speaker 1>magnificent tribute to the creator God Marduke. Ruling from six

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<v Speaker 1>oh five to five sixty two BCE, Nebuconezer extended the

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<v Speaker 1>Babylonian empire across Egypt, Syria, and the Kingdom of Judah,

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<v Speaker 1>where he seized Jerusalem in five ninety seven BCE, capturing

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<v Speaker 1>tens of thousands of Israelites and dragging them off to

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<v Speaker 1>Babylon as forced laborers, where the Bible tells us they

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<v Speaker 1>wept in exile by its rivers. Because of Nebukonezzer's imperialist

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<v Speaker 1>cruelty and pension for golden shrines to many gods, Babylon

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<v Speaker 1>appears as shorthand for everything ungodly in some Judaeo Christian writings.

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<v Speaker 1>In the New Testament Book of Revelation, the whore of

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<v Speaker 1>Babylon makes an appearance quote adorned with gold and jewels

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<v Speaker 1>and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full

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<v Speaker 1>of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. According

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<v Speaker 1>to historians, Nibuconezzer relocated conquered people around the empire to

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<v Speaker 1>keep them from organizing rebellions against him. Under his leadership,

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<v Speaker 1>Babylon became the biggest and most modern city in the

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<v Speaker 1>ancient world. In addition to Babylon's colossal city walls, he

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<v Speaker 1>was responsible for the stunning Processional Way, a wide thoroughfare

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<v Speaker 1>lined with ornately tiled walls depicting lions and dragons in

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<v Speaker 1>bright blues and yellows. The Processional Way led to the

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<v Speaker 1>Ishtar Gate the city's grand northern entrance. One of Nibukinezzer's

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<v Speaker 1>best known construction projects was the Temple of Marduk, which

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<v Speaker 1>sat atop a three hundred foot that's ninety meters zigarette,

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<v Speaker 1>accessible by a ramp that curved around its exterior. The

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<v Speaker 1>Greek historian Hirototus, writing centuries after Babylon's heyday, described eight

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<v Speaker 1>towers stacked on top of one another. It's not hard

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<v Speaker 1>to believe that Old Testament authors may have modeled their

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<v Speaker 1>Tower of Babel after the Marduke Temple. Meanwhile, the location

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<v Speaker 1>of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon is a matter

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<v Speaker 1>of some debate. Some historians think they may have actually

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<v Speaker 1>been built about three hundred miles that's five hundred kilometers

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<v Speaker 1>away in Nineveh by an Assyrian king. Others think the

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<v Speaker 1>gardens never existed, as no archaeological evidence of them has

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<v Speaker 1>ever been found, nor were they mentioned in contemporary Babylonian texts.

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<v Speaker 1>The first mention of the gardens was in two hundred

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<v Speaker 1>and ninety BCE, long after Nebuconesser had died. Speaking of

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<v Speaker 1>let's talk about how Babylon fell. Just a few short

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<v Speaker 1>decades after Nibakdezzar's death, Babylon was taken by the Persian

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<v Speaker 1>conqueror Cyrus the Second, who reduced the city to just

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<v Speaker 1>another outpost in his vast empire based in modern day Iran.

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<v Speaker 1>Two centuries later, Alexander the Great planned to make Babylon

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<v Speaker 1>the jewel of his Asian Empire, but ended up dying

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<v Speaker 1>in the city in three twenty three BCE. After a

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<v Speaker 1>solid sacking by the Parthians in the second century CE,

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<v Speaker 1>Babylon never made a comeback. A two millennia of looting

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<v Speaker 1>and warfare reduced Babylon to the barest of ruins. In

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<v Speaker 1>the early twentieth century, German archaeologists recovered remnants of the

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<v Speaker 1>processional way and reconstructed its blue glazed tile murals at

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<v Speaker 1>a museum in Berlin. It was Saddam Hussein who took

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<v Speaker 1>up Nibakonezzer's mantle and tried to reconstruct some of Babylon's

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<v Speaker 1>former glory, but ended up with what art historians decried

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<v Speaker 1>as disney for a despot, much to consternation of archaeologists.

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<v Speaker 1>Hussain raised city walls of thirty eight feet that's eleven

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<v Speaker 1>and a half meters, had built a Roman style arena

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<v Speaker 1>on the ruins of old Babylon. He even stamped his

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<v Speaker 1>own name on the bricks, just as Nemakonezer had done.

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<v Speaker 1>Although some of the recreations were damaged during the prolonged

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<v Speaker 1>occupations of the Iraq War from twenty three to twenty eleven,

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<v Speaker 1>many of the gaudily painted buildings remain and are open

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<v Speaker 1>to the public, including his Babylonian Palace. So what else

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<v Speaker 1>can you see in Babylon today? There are remnants of

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<v Speaker 1>brick and clay structures spread across about four square miles

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<v Speaker 1>or ten square kilometers, with notable features like the Lion

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<v Speaker 1>of Babylon statue and portions of the original ishtar gate.

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<v Speaker 1>And while Babylon itself is mainly a ruin, it's located

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<v Speaker 1>just a few miles from the modern city of Alpilla,

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<v Speaker 1>which has a population of about five hundred thousand people.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode is based on the article where was Babylon

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<v Speaker 1>and Does it Still Exist? On how stuffworks dot Com?

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<v Speaker 1>Written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio

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<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced

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<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Klang. But four more podcasts from my heart Radio,

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<v Speaker 1>visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen

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<v Speaker 1>to your favorite shows.