<p><strong>Babylon</strong>, on the Euphrates River, was founded about 2000 BC by the Amorites from Syria. By the 18th century BC Babylon controlled a large empire in the heartland of early civilisation, but in 1595 BC it was invaded and destroyed.&nbsp;</p><p>Hundreds of years later, in the 7th century BC, Nabopolassar became king. He and his son Nebuchadnezzar made Babylon rich, powerful, and famous again.</p><p>Image: T<em>he Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, attended by his queen and servants. They are sitting in the beautiful Hanging Gardens of Babylon, part of his massive rebuilding program.</em></p>

Who were the Babylonians?

<figure><img src="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/archaeologyandhistory/rights-exempt/history-magazine/2018/11-12/nebuchadrezzar/01-might-and-mane.adapt.1190.1.jpg" width="800" height="419"></figure><div><span>Who is really ‘first in line’ for the vaccine? It depends on your state.</span></div><p><i>Far-off lands, distant mountains, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, steep trails, unopened paths, where motion was impeded, where there was no foothold, difficult roads, journeys without water, I traversed, and the unruly I overthrew; I bound as captives my enemies; the land I set in order and the people I made to prosper.</i></p><div class="caption"><span itemprop="caption">A cylindrical stela covered with close-written Akkadian inscriptions, details the three new palaces built by Nebuchadrezzar II. It was buried in the hopes that fure kings would discover it.</span></div><div class="caption"><small itemprop="author" class="caption">
                            
                                Photograph by Erich Lessing/Album
                                
                            
                            
                        </small></div><p>Vassal states would pay heavy annual tribute to Babylonia and feed its growing treasuries with: “silver, gold, costly precious stones, bronze, palm­wood, cedar­wood, all kinds of precious things, to my city Babylon I brought.”</p><p>Nebuchadrezzar II was a war­rior by necessity, but a builder by disposition.The funds collected from his states helped fi­nance his civic improvements. Nebu­chadrezzar focused much of his build­ing energies on restoring Babylon to its former glory. Years of war with the Assyrians the century before had led to the destruction of Babylon in 689 B.C. Neb­uchadrezzar II was following in the footsteps of his namesake, the first Nebu­chadrezzar, who, centuries before, had exalted Babylon over other cities, such as Nippur.</p><p>Continuing the work begun by Nabopolassar, the king built a great moat, defensive walls, and canals. He refurbished temples and sanctuaries, paved the Processional Way, and embellished his own legendary palace. Toward the end of his reign, around 575 B.C., he built what is probably Babylon’s iconic ancient landmark: the Ishtar Gate, decorated with cobalt glazed brick reliefs.</p><div class="caption"><span itemprop="caption" dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">The splendid Ishtar Gate, as it may have looked in Nebuchadrezzar's time, welcomed people to Babylon with its cobalt blue splendor. </p>
</span></div><div class="caption"><small itemprop="author" class="caption">
                            
                                Photograph by SOL 90/Album
                                
                            
                            
                        </small></div><p>In so doing, both Nebuchadrezzars exalted the god Marduk, Babylon’s patron deity, over other gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon. Inscrip­tions exalt Nebuchadrezzar II as the "favorite of the god Marduk," the king of the universe, who has “no enemy from the horizon to the sky,” creating a bond of greatness linking, god, king, and the city of Babylon.</p><div class="caption"><span itemprop="headline" class="caption">Glory to Marduk and Nabu</span></div><div class="caption"><span itemprop="caption">A sixth-century B.C. seal shows a priest praying before symbols of Marduk, patron of Babylon, and Nabu, god of writing and learning. Nebuchadrezzar’s name invokes the latter.</span></div><div class="caption"><small itemprop="author" class="caption">
                            
                                Photograph by Erich Lessing/Album
                                
                            
                            
                        </small></div><p>If the favor of the god was regarded as crucial to the city, a more mundane resource—water—was also central to Babylon’s preeminence. The biblical Psalm 137, in which the Hebrew captives sit and weep “by the waters of Babylon,” may be a refer­ence to Babylon’s irrigation canals, the lifeblood of its economy and strength. Inscriptions pre­sent Nebuchadrezzar’s canal system as a labor of Herculean proportions: “Alongside Babylon, great banks of earth I heaped up. Great floods of destroying water like the great waves of the sea I made flow around it.”</p><p dir="ltr">This irrigation system may have fed one of Nebuchadrezzar’s most famous and mys­terious accomplishments: the <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130531-babylon-hanging-gardens-nineveh-seven-wonders/" dir="ltr">Hanging Gardens of Babylon</a>, a wonder of the ancient world. De­scriptions of this palatial complex say it had five courtyards, residences for the king and his con­sorts, and an ornate throne room. The gardens allegedly held species of every tree and plant from the empire. Ancient Greek historian Herodotus described it as the “most magnificent building ever erect­ed on earth.” Ancient sources do not provide an exact location for the gar­dens, nor have archaeologists found remains, leading some to wonder if they ever existed at all.</p><div class="caption"><span itemprop="name" class="caption">Solving an Ancient Tablet's Mathematical Mystery</span></div><div class="caption" dir="ltr">
                                        
                                        
                                            <span itemprop="caption" dir="ltr">WATCH: A new interpretation of an ancient tablet may show that the Babylonians had mastered trigonometry, pushing back the foundation of that subject more than a millennium.</span>
                                        
                                        
                                    </div><h2><b>Life in exile</b></h2><p>Nebuchadrezzar’s name echoes down through time not only due to his restoration of Babylon but also for his place in Judeo­ Christian Scripture. He plays a major role in several important episodes in the Old Testament, including the sacking of Jerusalem and the 70-year exile of the Jewish people to the city of Babylon.</p><p>After the defeat of the Egyptians and Assyr­ians at Carchemish in 605, the kingdom of Ju­dah and the city of Jerusalem fell under Baby­lonian control. Like other vassal states, Judah had to pay tribute to Babylonia. Unhappy with this arrangement, Judean kings rebelled several times, but Nebuchadrezzar’s retribution was swift and brutal. Babylonian forces razed Jeru­salem and destroyed the Tem­ple. Powerful Judeans were also captured and forcibly deported to Babylon three times: in 597, 587, and 582 B.C.</p><h3>Deportation and Destruction</h3><div class="caption">Chaldean prisoners are captured by Assyrians on a seventh-century B.C. stone relief from the palace of Sennacherib, Nineveh.</div><div>Photograph by UIG/Album</div><p>Razing a city following its conquest was standard practice in ancient Mesopotamia. Exactly the same fate had befallen Babylon when the Assyrians took it a century before the siege of Jerusalem. When the Chaldeans revolted, the Assyrian king Sennacherib laid siege to Babylon in 690 B.C. and defeated the rebels. “The corpses of men with no one to bury them filled the squares of Babylon,” an inscription relates. Sennacherib exacted a more terrible punishment on the survivors: Babylon’s temples were destroyed, their ruins flooded, and even the city’s topsoil was hauled away. Like the Jews of Jerusalem, the Chaldean nobility of Babylon were also taken from the city into exile.</p><p>In the Bible, the Prophet Jeremiah warns these Judean kings that God is unhappy because they have permitted the return of pagan worship. They must return to the ways of God, or risk his vengeance: God will use “Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, [God’s] servant,” to “bring [the Babylo­nians] against this land and its inhabitants, and ... will utterly destroy them” (Jeremiah 25:9). The Judeans, however, fail to heed Jeremiah’s warnings, and the Babylonians descend.</p><div class="caption"><span itemprop="headline" class="caption">People of the Book</span></div><div class="caption"><span itemprop="caption">Jewish communities in Babylonia and Palestine each created their own Talmud, a book of Jewish law, history, and scholarship. In its pages, shown in a 17th-century edition below, Jews would find an indispensable guide to their heritage no matter where they lived.</span></div><div class="caption"><small itemprop="author" class="caption">
                            
                                Photograph by Nathan Benn/Getty Images
                                
                            
                            
                        </small></div><p>Jeremiah was spared, but most of Judah’s sur­vivors went into exile in Babylonia. The pain of separation from home runs through the books of the Bible devoted to this time, resulting in some of its most beautiful passages. In his al­legory of the Exile, Ezekiel casts Nebuchadrez­zar as a “great eagle, with great wings and long pinions, rich in plumage of many colors.” The eagle­ king is presented as an instrument of God, who carries away the Jews and plants them as a seedling in “fertile soil; a plant by abundant wa­ters, he set it like a willow twig” (Ezekiel 17:3­5). The experience profoundly shaped Jewish reli­gious and national identity.</p><p>Hebrew culture took root and flowered in Bab­ylon as the exiles built a community centered on religious life. Despite later being allowed to return to rebuild Jerusalem, many Jews stayed in Babylon. For centuries, the Babylonian com­munity was a strong center of the Jewish faith. The Babylonian Talmud, one of the central texts of Jewish religious law and theology, was pro­duced there.</p><h3>Power of Faith</h3><div class="caption">A relief from a fourth-century A.D., sarcophagus lid, depicting a Jewish exile in Babylon refusing to worship the gods of Nebuchadrezzar II.</div><div>Photograph by RMN-Grand Palais</div><p>In the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book of Daniel recounts Nebuchadrezzar’s treatment of the Jewish captives in Babylon. A story in its third chapter, depicted on the relief above, tells of a miracle that happened when Nebuchadrezzar orders the Jewish exiles to worship an idol. They refuse, and the king orders them thrown into a fiery furnace, but they emerge unscathed. Astonished, the king decrees toleration of their faith.</p><p dir="ltr">Nebuchadrezzar died in 561 B.C. He was suc­ceeded by three, short­-lived weak <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/09-10/searching-for-semiramis-assyrian-legend/" dir="ltr">rulers</a>, the last of which, a child king, was murdered by Nabonidus, the last of the Chaldean rulers. Despite this violent power grab, Nabonidus was a scholarly man uninterested in politics, which cost him his throne. In 539 B.C. Cyrus the Great of Persia used Babylon’s canals to breach the city and seize it. The long reign of the Persians began, the Jew­ish exile was ended, and Babylon began a new chapter under new rulers, still regarded as the greatest city in the ancient world.<br dir="ltr"> </p>

The Bible depicts Nebuchadrezzar II and his city as doomed, but to his own people, he restored Babylon to glory.

history

History

<p><i>Far-off lands, distant mountains, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, steep trails, unopened paths, where motion was impeded, where there was no foothold, difficult roads, journeys without water, I traversed, and the unruly I overthrew; I bound as captives my enemies; the land I set in order and the people I made to prosper. </i> </p>

<p>Vassal states would pay heavy annual tribute to Babylonia and feed its growing treasuries with: “silver, gold, costly precious stones, bronze, palm­wood, cedar­wood, all kinds of precious things, to my city Babylon I brought.” </p>

<p>Nebuchadrezzar II was a war­rior by necessity, but a builder by disposition.The funds collected from his states helped fi­nance his civic improvements. Nebu­chadrezzar focused much of his build­ing energies on restoring Babylon to its former glory. Years of war with the Assyrians the century before had led to the destruction of Babylon in 689 B.C. Neb­uchadrezzar II was following in the footsteps of his namesake, the first Nebu­chadrezzar, who, centuries before, had exalted Babylon over other cities, such as Nippur. </p>

<p>Continuing the work begun by Nabopolassar, the king built a great moat, defensive walls, and canals. He refurbished temples and sanctuaries, paved the Processional Way, and embellished his own legendary palace. Toward the end of his reign, around 575 B.C., he built what is probably Babylon’s iconic ancient landmark: the Ishtar Gate, decorated with cobalt glazed brick reliefs. </p>

<p>The splendid Ishtar Gate, as it may have looked in Nebuchadrezzar's time, welcomed people to Babylon with its cobalt blue splendor. </p>

<p>In so doing, both Nebuchadrezzars exalted the god Marduk, Babylon’s patron deity, over other gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon. Inscrip­tions exalt Nebuchadrezzar II as the "favorite of the god Marduk," the king of the universe, who has “no enemy from the horizon to the sky,” creating a bond of greatness linking, god, king, and the city of Babylon. </p>

<p>If the favor of the god was regarded as crucial to the city, a more mundane resource—water—was also central to Babylon’s preeminence. The biblical Psalm 137, in which the Hebrew captives sit and weep “by the waters of Babylon,” may be a refer­ence to Babylon’s irrigation canals, the lifeblood of its economy and strength. Inscriptions pre­sent Nebuchadrezzar’s canal system as a labor of Herculean proportions: “Alongside Babylon, great banks of earth I heaped up. Great floods of destroying water like the great waves of the sea I made flow around it.” </p>

<p>This irrigation system may have fed one of Nebuchadrezzar’s most famous and mys­terious accomplishments: the <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130531-babylon-hanging-gardens-nineveh-seven-wonders/">Hanging Gardens of Babylon </a>, a wonder of the ancient world. De­scriptions of this palatial complex say it had five courtyards, residences for the king and his con­sorts, and an ornate throne room. The gardens allegedly held species of every tree and plant from the empire. Ancient Greek historian Herodotus described it as the “most magnificent building ever erect­ed on earth.” Ancient sources do not provide an exact location for the gar­dens, nor have archaeologists found remains, leading some to wonder if they ever existed at all. </p>

<p>Nebuchadrezzar’s name echoes down through time not only due to his restoration of Babylon but also for his place in Judeo­ Christian Scripture. He plays a major role in several important episodes in the Old Testament, including the sacking of Jerusalem and the 70-year exile of the Jewish people to the city of Babylon. </p>

<p>After the defeat of the Egyptians and Assyr­ians at Carchemish in 605, the kingdom of Ju­dah and the city of Jerusalem fell under Baby­lonian control. Like other vassal states, Judah had to pay tribute to Babylonia. Unhappy with this arrangement, Judean kings rebelled several times, but Nebuchadrezzar’s retribution was swift and brutal. Babylonian forces razed Jeru­salem and destroyed the Tem­ple. Powerful Judeans were also captured and forcibly deported to Babylon three times: in 597, 587, and 582 B.C. </p>

<p>Razing a city following its conquest was standard practice in ancient Mesopotamia. Exactly the same fate had befallen Babylon when the Assyrians took it a century before the siege of Jerusalem. When the Chaldeans revolted, the Assyrian king Sennacherib laid siege to Babylon in 690 B.C. and defeated the rebels. “The corpses of men with no one to bury them filled the squares of Babylon,” an inscription relates. Sennacherib exacted a more terrible punishment on the survivors: Babylon’s temples were destroyed, their ruins flooded, and even the city’s topsoil was hauled away. Like the Jews of Jerusalem, the Chaldean nobility of Babylon were also taken from the city into exile. </p>

<p>In the Bible, the Prophet Jeremiah warns these Judean kings that God is unhappy because they have permitted the return of pagan worship. They must return to the ways of God, or risk his vengeance: God will use “Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, [God’s] servant,” to “bring [the Babylo­nians] against this land and its inhabitants, and ... will utterly destroy them” (Jeremiah 25:9). The Judeans, however, fail to heed Jeremiah’s warnings, and the Babylonians descend. </p>

<p>Jeremiah was spared, but most of Judah’s sur­vivors went into exile in Babylonia. The pain of separation from home runs through the books of the Bible devoted to this time, resulting in some of its most beautiful passages. In his al­legory of the Exile, Ezekiel casts Nebuchadrez­zar as a “great eagle, with great wings and long pinions, rich in plumage of many colors.” The eagle­ king is presented as an instrument of God, who carries away the Jews and plants them as a seedling in “fertile soil; a plant by abundant wa­ters, he set it like a willow twig” (Ezekiel 17:3­5). The experience profoundly shaped Jewish reli­gious and national identity. </p>

<p>Hebrew culture took root and flowered in Bab­ylon as the exiles built a community centered on religious life. Despite later being allowed to return to rebuild Jerusalem, many Jews stayed in Babylon. For centuries, the Babylonian com­munity was a strong center of the Jewish faith. The Babylonian Talmud, one of the central texts of Jewish religious law and theology, was pro­duced there. </p>

<p>In the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book of Daniel recounts Nebuchadrezzar’s treatment of the Jewish captives in Babylon. A story in its third chapter, depicted on the relief above, tells of a miracle that happened when Nebuchadrezzar orders the Jewish exiles to worship an idol. They refuse, and the king orders them thrown into a fiery furnace, but they emerge unscathed. Astonished, the king decrees toleration of their faith. </p>

<p>Nebuchadrezzar died in 561 B.C. He was suc­ceeded by three, short­-lived weak <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/09-10/searching-for-semiramis-assyrian-legend/">rulers </a>, the last of which, a child king, was murdered by Nabonidus, the last of the Chaldean rulers. Despite this violent power grab, Nabonidus was a scholarly man uninterested in politics, which cost him his throne. In 539 B.C. Cyrus the Great of Persia used Babylon’s canals to breach the city and seize it. The long reign of the Persians began, the Jew­ish exile was ended, and Babylon began a new chapter under new rulers, still regarded as the greatest city in the ancient world.<br> </p>

Who was Nebuchadrezzar, Babylon's builder king?

Who were the Babylonians?

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