Full Text for Babylon (Text)
IJology and the Sumerian Problem, p, 46 f.
5) Arno Poebel, Grwndzuege der 8umerisohen Grammatik, p. 1.
Babylon. 643
accepted theory that the Sumerians introduced the temple tower into
Babylonia, that the temple towers (ziggurati) were memorials of the
days when the Sumerian gods still dwelt on the peaks of the mountains
east of the Tigris, and that the Sumerians erected them with the
object of giving their gods a home on a mountain top such as they
had once occupied before they left their old home to dwell on the
plains of Babylonia. Therefore some one might assert that the
Sumerians were in Babylonia prior to the building of the tower to
which Gen. 11 refers and that consequently our suggested harmoniza-
tion of the Biblical interpretation of Babylon's name with that of the
cuneiform records was untenable. But what proof do we have that
the Sumerians were the originators of this architectural feature or
that they introduced it in the land of the two I"ivers ~ Nobody knows
whence the Sumerians came and at what period they invaded
Babylonia, and hence we are all the more justified in taking some of
those fanciful theories relating to the temple towers magno cum
grana salis.
Our suggested harmonization of Gen. 11, 9 with cuneiform in-
scriptions is merely a theory, and it is to be taken as such. For the
present it is impossible to offer a satisfactory solution based on
evidence. But let us hope that Babylon's early history will be more
and more completely unfolded and that we shall be enabled to solve
this problem to satisfaction as the excavations are continued and the
inscriptions are forced to reveal their secrets.
The earliest reference to Babylon in the inscriptions is found in
the days of SaTgon of Agade, who ruled approximately 2850 B. O.
He is said to have "removed the soil from the trenches of Babylon."6)
About 2750 Sharkalisharri, a successor to Sargon of Agade, erected
two temples in Babylon.7) This points to the city's early importance.
Under Hammurabi (ca. 2100), the energetic Amorite, Babylon gained
such a position of power and influence that from then on we may call
the land Babylonia, although that name is not used in the inscrip-
tions until 1600. Around 1250 Tukulti-Ninurta I, king of Assyria,
conquered Babylon and incorporated the Babylonian empire with the
Assyrian. Henceforth Babylonia was, for the most time, the vassal
of Assyria, and only for short intervals was she able to throw off the
yoke of Assyria and even impose her will on her oppressor. Because
of repeated rebellions in Babylon, Sennacherib in 689 completely
destroyed the city with her temple and carried Marduk, her chief
god, away to Ashur. He cut channels through the city and flooded
it with water to make its destruction so complete that no one might
6) L. W. King, CMonicles concm'ning Early Ba,bylonian Kings, Vol. I,
page 47 f.
7) Thureau-Dangin, Die 8umerischen und akkadischen KoenigsVnsohrif-
ten, page 225.
644 Babylon.
find the site of the former city and the temples of the gods. However,"
in 681 his son Esarhaddon began to rebuild it owing to the influence
of his wife, a Babylonian. But death interfered with his labors, and
his work was completed by his sons Ashurbanipal S) and Shamash-
shum-ukin.
But soon Babylon was to be visited once more. In 672 Esar""'
haddon, before he set out on his second Egyptian campaign, appointed
his son Ashurbanipal to the coregency of Assyria. In 670, soon after
his return from his successful expedition, he granted the same title
to his son Shamash-shum-ukin, localizing his sphere of activity in
Babylon. At Esarhaddon's death, Ashurbanipal was crowned king of
Assyria and its various dependencies, while his brother, Shamash-
shum-ukin, continued to rule over Babylon as the vassal of Ashur-
banipal. For seventeen years Shamash-shum-ukin remained loyal to
his brother Ashurbanipal. But then he revolted. Subsequently
Babylon was besieged, a siege which extended over years. Famine
and pestilence ravaged the city, until the inhabitants were eating the
flesh of their sons and daughtel's and gnawing their leather trappings.
In despair Shamash-shum-ukin cast himself into the fire and perished.
The city surrendered and was plundered and devastated. Vae victis!
They were carried off to Ashur, and the same sculptured bulls which
had witnessed the assassination of Sennacherib saw their tongues cut
out and the captives deprived of life. "The streets and public squares
were choked by the bodies of those who had died of hunger and
pestilence during the siege, and to them were added the slain in the
sack of the city. There was great feasting for the wolves, vultures,
and fish, for the" dogs and swine, which roamed the streets." 9)
Thereupon Ashurbanipal entrusted a certain Kandalanu with the
kingship of Babylon, unless Ashurbanipal assumed that name as
king of Babylon, a view favored by the majority of Assyriologists.
At Kandalanu's death, Nabopolassar, a Ohaldeo-Aramean and king of
the Sea Lands, was able to secure the throne of Babylon. But in 616
he revolted from his Assyrian overlord and formed an alliance with
Oyaxares, king of the Medes. The stupendous plunder obtained at
the fall of Ashur in 614 and at Nineveh in 612 was brought to
Babylon, and the city became wealthy almost overnight. It was largely
due to this great wealth that Babylon became what it was under the
active N ebuchadrezzar II, whose reign of forty-three years marks the
period of Babylon's greatest splendor, peace, and prosperity and under
whom the commerce of this great metropolis extended oyer the entire:
Near Eastern world and as far west as Ionia.10)
At this point of time we shall pause fOT a moment and study the
8) A. T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament f"om Babel, p. 99 f.
9) A. T. Olmstead, History of ASSY1·i.a, p. 475.
10) E. Unger, Babylon, die Heilige Stadt, pp.32-38.
Babylon. 645
city itself in a rapid panoramic sweep, since most of the information
which we are able to derive from the excavations at Babylon and from
other sources relate to the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar (the lower
strata of the city are still waiting to be uncovered by the spade of the
excavator) and because in his days Babylon reached the pinnacle of
her glory.
Babylon is located on the southern banks of the chocolate-colored
Euphrates, which divides the city into two main sections, into the old
city to the east and the new city to the west of the river, or into East
and West Babylon. The entire city complex formed a rectangle of
8,150 meters in circumference, the smaller sides facing northeast and
southwest. Babylon was enclosed by two strong walls, of which Unger
says: a Die I nnenmauer bestand aus Lehmziegeln [let us bear in mind
that owing to the intense heat sun-dried bricks in Babylonia become
surprisingly hard and gain great durability], war 6.50 m. dick und
hatte in regelmaessigen Abstaenden von 18.10 m. abwechselnd quer-
gestellte grosse Tuerme von 9-40 m. Front und 11.40 m. Seite und
laengsgestellte kleine Tuerme von 9.70 m. Front und 8.06 m. Seite.
Die Ziegel haben .32 m. im Quadrat. Die A ussenmauer lag vor der
Innenmauer in 7.30 m. Abstand. Die Mauer war 3.72 m. dick. In
gleichmaessigen Abstaenden von je 20.50 m. sitzen quergestellte
Tuerme von 5.10 m. fi'ront und 5.80 m. Tiele aus Lehm."ll) The two
walls were, in turn, surrounded with a moat. A third wall, similar
in character to the first two, was erected by Nebuchadrezzar around
East Babylon, not to enlarge the city area, which would thus have
gained a total circumference of 18 kilometers (ca. 11 miles), but to
protect his summer palace and the temple, both of which were situated
north of East Babylon, outside of the city walls, for the New Year's
Festival, to afford protection to the country folks and their movable
property in times of war, and to supply the city with provisions in
case of an extended siege. This third wall enclosed fields sufficient to
feed the entire population of Babylon. Also this wall was fortified by
a strong, wide moat. The whole region around East Babylon was
a huge fortified camp, and the city could not be starved any more.
The walls were pierced through by eight gates, each of which was
named after the chief god of the city to which the street led that
passed through the gate. Four of the gates led into East Babylon,
while the remaining ones gave ready access to the western part of the
city. Besides these there were about as many smaller gates (Pfoden
in contradistinction to Stadt tore ). The streets leading through the
large city gates were the processional streets of the gods of the various
Babylonian cities and towns; for once a year, during the celebration
of the Spring Festival (also called the New Year's Festival, lasting
11) E. Unger, op. ait., p. 60.
646 Babylon.
from Nisan 1 to 12), the vast army of Babylonian gods and goddesses
went in procession to the capital to pay homage to Marduk, the chief
god of Babylonia.
Like the Athenians in the days of St. Paul the Babylonians were
"in all things too superstitious," Acts 17, 22. They could boast of
53 temples dedicated to the "great gods" (ilani rabuti) besides a vast
array of altars, 180 of which belonged to Ishtar alone. The weather
god Adad (the Biblical Hadad), together with Nergal, the god of
death and pestilence, likewise owned 180 altars. Then think of the
rest of the deities and the altars put up in honor of certain stars or
stellar constellations. Such altars were erected in the temples, on the
streets, or at the crossings, giving everyone an opportunity at aU
times to offer up a sacrifice and to pray for success in his love affair,
for favorable weather, or to ward off death and pestilence, etc., ad
libitum,12)
Chief among the temples was that of Marduk, one of the largest
of the entire Tigro-Euphrates Valley. Marduk was the highest among
the Babylonian gods. In Is. 46, 1; J er. 50,2, and 51,44 he is called
Bel, corresponding to the Hebrew 'P~ and meaning "lord." That was
a very favorite term for Marduk, applied to him especially in later
times. But it already occurs around 2000 B. C. The name of Bel
designated Marduk as the lord of the Babylonian gods. Since he was
the lord, or king, of the gods, his sanctuary could have a temple tower,
a separate structure a little north of the temple, with a square base of
approximately 90 meters and consisting of seven stages, which rose in.
diminishing sizes, one superimposed upon the other, to a height of
90 meters (ca. 300 feet). It was a veritable sky-scraper, compared
with the three- or four-story buildings of Babylon, and one of the
most impressive and magnificent architectural masterpieces of an-
tiquity. This is probably the kind of tower referred to in Gen. 11.
Herodotus, in harmony with Babylonian ways of reckoning, includes
the foundation (the kigally, which represents the underworld) and
therefore speaks of eight stages. He gives the following interesting
description: "In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid
masonry, a furlong in length and breath, upon which was mised
a second tower and on that a third and so on up to eight. The ascent
to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the
towers. When one is about half-way up, one finds a resting-place and
seats, where persons are wont to sit some time on their way to the
summit. On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside
the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a
golden table by its side. There is no statue of any kind set up in the
place, nor is the chamber occupied of nights by anyone but a single
12) E. Unger, op. cit., p. 48 f.
Babylon. 647
native woman, who, as the Ohaldeans, the priests of this god, affirm, is
chosen for himself by the deity out of all the women of the land."13)
The tower was completely destroyed by Sennacherib in 689,
together with the city of Babylon, but was soon rebuilt by Esarhaddon
and Ashurbanipal. In the days of N abopolassar and N ebuchadrezzar
it had become dilapidated, but was again completely rebuilt. Finally
Alexander the Great took Babylon and determined to give the sorely
neglected structure a new lease on life by tearing down the remnants
of the old and erecting a new one on the site of the former. But
before he could even level off the tower, death interfered, and the
sanctuary never arose again. Remnants of it were still found by the
German excavators. l4)
North of the temple and its tower was the business section of
Babylon. Then followed the castle with the royal palace and the
museum, in which monuments from every country of the ancient
Orient had been collected, testifying of bygone days and the power
of the Babylonian kings and bearing eloquent testimony to the sub-
mission of their enemies. 15)
Of West Babylon little is known, as it still remains to be ex-
cavated. It was of comparatively late date and of less importance than
East Babylon and was connected with the latter by means of a mighty
stone bridge, which spanned the Euphrates about at the middle of the
city and rested on eight solid pillars. This bridge, which antedates
Nebuchadrezzar, was counted among the wonders of the ancient world.
Mention should also be made of the royal mausoleum, which was
located in the southwest corner of West Babylon and which still waits
to be unearthed. 16)
In 539 Babylon fell into the hands of Oyrus, who thus became
the "ruler of the political, commercial, cultural, and religious center
of the world. Oyrus assumed the responsibility of administering its
government, of satisfying its diverse population, and of keeping peace
with all the rest of the territory that he had conquered. The inaugura-
tion of his new liberal policy was an epoch in the history of South-
western Asia and one which for the future would, and did, distribute
rather than centralize the interests which had formerly focalized in
Babylon ... and thus marked the beginning of her decline as a world-
power." 17)
Under the successors of Oyrus, Babylon rebelled repeatedly, until
Xerxes finally destroyed the statue and the temple of Bel Marduk and
13) Book I, 182; G. Rawlinson, The History of HerorWtus, p. 67 f.
14) E. Unger, op. cit., p. 207. 191 f. R. Koldewey, op. cit., p. 189 f.
15) E. Unger, op. cit., p.227.
16) E. Unger, op.oit., p. 51. 117 f. Herodotus, I, 186. R. Koldewey,
op. cit., p. 193:II.
17) Ira M. Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament, p. 377 f.
648 Babylon.
thus put an end to insurrection in that quarter of his empire (ca. 478).
This statem€llt will bear elucidation. According to Babylonian con-
ceptions the king of Babylon was Marduk's representative, his vice-
gerent, and as such received his royal office from ::Marduk. To obtain
and to retain this position, it was essential that the king, at every
New Year's Festival, shook hands with Bel Marduk. Failure to do so
deprived him of his kinship, IS) Furthermore, according to Babylonian
religion the statue of a god is not merely a reminder of the deity, but
the respective god himself dwells in that statue and is so intimately
connected with it that destruction of the statue means the destruction
of the god, his very death! Thus by smashing the statue of Marduk,
Xerxes annihilated the great Bel ::Marduk himself, and henceforth it
was impossible for anyone to become king of Babylon, and Babylon's
independence was hopelessly lost forevermore ! Unger says: U DeT'
alte Orient ha,ftet durchaus an der 1'ealen Welt und ihren Erschei-
nungen. Der Gott ist nicht ein Geist, sondern 131' ist wir7clich und
wahrhaftig in seiner Statue vorhanden,' mit dieser Statue geht auch
131' und sein Einfluss vollsta,endig zugrunde, wie die Geschichte de1'
Statue des Mardu4k deutlich er7cennen laesst."19) Xerxes was the last
king of Babylon, and no king after him, whether Greek or Parthian,
ever bore the title "king of Babylon." The reason why none of the
Assyrian kings ever took such drastic measures may perhaps be found
in the fact that the Assyrian religion was virtually the same as that
of the Babylonians, whereas Xerxes was a follower of Zoroaster and
worshiped Ahuramazda (Ormuzd).
It was indeed a very hard blow, and Babylon's ruin was fast
approaching. However, a new era of better and happier days seemed
to be dawning when Alexander the Great defeated Darius ill and
entered Babylon in 331. Like Cyrus, Alexander paid homage to the
Babylonian gods and without delay began to rebuild Esagila, once the
temple of Marduk. His object was to make Babylon the center of his
vast empire, to unite the Orient with the Occident. Many Babylonians
assumed a Greek name in addition to their former name; and many
.of them studied Greek, and many Greeks, in turn, studied Babyloniall'
What developments the old metropolis would have made if Alexander's
plans had materialized we have no means of knowing. The young
conqueror soon died (323) and with him his plans pertaining to the
rehabilitation of Babylon. Thus died Babylon's last hope. It was
a glorious beginning, but, alas I it was a dream. 20)
Of Alexander's line there remained in Macedonia a demented
18) Th. Dombart, EsagilZa una aas grosse M araukfest zu BabylO'f!;
published in the Journal of the Society of Oriental Researoh, Vol. VIII
(1924), pp.103-122.
19) E. Unger, op. cit., p. 134.
20) Bruno Meissner, Koenige Assyriens una Bu-byIO'f!Wns, p. 284 f.
Babylon. 649
half-brother, and soon after his demise a son was born to the great
conqueror, of his wife Roxana. Conflicts among the leaders at home
put out of the way all these members of Alexander's family, even his
mother. "His generals in Babylonia," says H. J. Breasted, "found the
plans for his great Western campaign lying among his papers, but
no man possessed the genius to carry them out. These able Mace-
donian commanders were soon involved among themselves in a long
and tremendous struggle, which slumbered only to break out anew.
The ablest of them was Alexander's great general Antigollus, who
determined to gain control of all the great Macedonian's vast empire.
Then followed a generation of exhausting wars by land and sea, in-
volving the greatest battles thus far fought by European armies.
Antigonus was killed, and Alexander's empire fell into three main
parts, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, with one of his generals or one of
their successors at the head of each. In Europe, Macedonia was in
the hands of Antigonus, grandson of Alexander's great commander of
the same name. He endeavored to maintain control of Greece; in
Asia most of the territory of the former Persian Empire was under
the rule of Alexander's general Seleucus, while in Africa, Egypt was
held by Ptolemy, one of the cleverest of Alexander's Macedonian
leaders." 21)
The reign of the Seleucids, as Seleucus and his successors are
called, lasted barely two hundred years. Already in 124 Babylon was
lost to the Parthians, who, in turn, surrendered to Trajan, the Roman,
in 117 A.D.
Religious works continued to be composed in Babylon almost up
to the time of Christ, and scientific life was still in evidence, but her
political and commercial significance was lost. The greater part of
the city lay in ruins as early as the first century of our era; and for
hundreds of years her ruins furnished building-material for towns that
have been built up in her vicinity, such as Seleucia, Bagdad, and
Hilleh. "Burnt bricks, bearing the titles of the builders of ancient
Babylon, are found everywhere in the buildings of these cities."Z2)
Like Nineveh, Babylon became the dwelling-place of the beasts of
the desert, forsaken by man (cp. Is. 13, 20 f.; J er. 50, 39; 51, 37) and
buried by the dust-storms of the plain, until she was "cast out of her
grave" (Is. 14, 19) by the Germans, under Robert Koldewey, who
began excavation in 1899 and continued that work for thirteen years.
Babylon is still uninhabited, except a little section in the south-
west corner, where the tiny village Sindshar is located. Two further
villages are situated to the north and the south, but outside of the
old city area. 23) Recently the Iraq government decreed to rebuild
21) H. J. Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 446.
22) A. T. Clay, op. cit., p. 102.
23) E. Unger, op. oit., p. 1. R. Koldewey, op. cit., sketch facing p. 1.
650 ~reine 5tuhien nu~ hem @nlnterotief.
Babylon as part of an industrial project. 24) But amid the plans and
preparations to rehabilitate the long-buried city of former power and
excellency we hear the voice of the prophet Isaiah: "Babylon shall
never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to
generation," 13, 19 f.
Oriental Institute, Ohicago University. ALEX HEIDBL .
• • •
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