This article is a continuation of my previous article, Mesopotamia- Sumerian And Akkadian Cultures, and is completely based on the little knowledge I could gather from seeing the great British Museum in London. I had the rare opportunity to visit the British Museum in London in April 2023, and I was breathless to see the exhibits. This civilization has intrigued me since my childhood, and if we plan to travel to Iraq, Iran, or Syria, we will hardly get any remnants of the past. Only Saddam Hussein had taken some interest in recreating the model of Babylon in Iraq, too, for his self-aggrandizement to the status of kings of Babylonia.
A staggering galaxy of galleries showcases ancient artifacts from civilizations around the world that have existed on Earth to date. I spent three days here from 9 AM to 5 PM, and I think I might still miss a few galleries. I think no other museum can so responsibly have rare collections of the same depth, breadth, beauty, and significance for generations to come. This mammoth collection must be a heaven and Mecca for history lovers.
Mesopotamia was the settlement of different civilizations, like the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Persians, contemporaneously or one after another. These civilizations lived in this region from seven millennia BC to the middle of the 6th century BC.
The earliest villages (6500–4200 BC) in Mesopotamia were in northern Iraq and Syria, in areas where there was enough rainfall to grow crops and raise animals. Later, irrigation using canals allowed settlements to develop further south. As farming developed, people began to live in one place and developed rituals, religions, and new skills. Houses were built using plaster and sun-dried mud bricks.
As they became settled, communities began to create distinctive styles of pottery and show their status through traded goods and possessions. Rare items, such as obsidian, a type of volcanic glass from Turkey, were traded over long distances.
After the Akkadians in Mesopotamia, we now move to the great Babylonia.
In about 2000 BC the Third Dynasty of Ur collapsed, and Mesopotamia split into a number of small city-states. Among these, Babylonia rose to prominence for the first time during the reign of Amorite (Central Syria and Northern Mesopotamia) King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). In the 29th year of his reign, Hammurabi launched a series of military campaigns, defeated the king of Elam in southwestern Iran, and conquered the most powerful states in southern Mesopotamia. He then turned his attention to the north and ultimately captured and destroyed the city of Mari. Babylon became the political, cultural, and religious centre of a vast empire. Cuneiform texts reveal that this was the time of extensive agricultural reform, thriving trade, and literary and scientific progress.
Babylonian Empire
Civilization – Babylon
Period -1900–1600 BC
Region – East of Iran, Levant region (modern-day Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and NE Syria), Central Mesopotamia
Founder – Amorite semitic speaking people
Origin – Akkad
Prominent kings – Hammurabi
Religion – Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Deities – Shamash, Marduk
Language – Akkadian
Fall – Assyrians, 1595 BC by Hittites
Monuments –
As per the British Museum, after the death of Hammurabi, the empire gradually fragmented. However, Babylon remained an important city until it was sacked in 1595 BC by Hittites from central Turkey.
The code of Hammurabi is a diorite stele (monument), weighing 4 tons, carved in about 1760 BC. Hammurabi is shown at the top, standing with one hand raised, in front of Sun God Shamsh. The god wearing the horned headdress of the deities, has sun rays rising from the shoulders. He is holding out the rod and ring symbols of justice towards Hammurabi.
The stele below is inscribed on both sides with 3500 lines that record Hammurabi’s achievements, followed by a list of 282 laws. The law deals with a variety of subjects, including commercial, property, and family laws. Many of the laws are based on the principle of punishment, ‘an eye for an eye’.
Between 2000 and 1600 BC southern Mesopotamia was a centre of intellectual innovation and literary activity. New versions of traditional myths and legends were created, while in scribal schools, students mastered both Sumerian and Akkadian by copying and recopying traditional texts. Apprentice scribes were also required to master a range of mathematical skills.
As per the ancient texts of Babylonia, Baru was a specialist priest who was skilled in reading the omen by examining the lever and lungs of sacrificed sheep. He would ask a particular question, and the answer would be supplied by the interpretation of individual markings or the overall shape of the liver and lungs.
The baru played an important part in decision-making at all levels but particularly where the king was concerned. No military campaign, building work, appointment of an official, or matters of the king’s health would be undertaken without consulting the baru. There were models on clay liver, which indicated
the omen, and this model was used to compare with the actual sacrificial sheep lever. The god’s presence in the offering of the man was also determined by seeing the liver of a sheep. The organs of the sacrificial sheep were believed to reveal the decisions and intentions of the god. These texts were also used to confirm whether God was present when the sacrifice was made. It seems this practice of sheep organ was also passed on to Persians and Greeks as well.
In contrast to numerous magical texts, which reveal the importance attached to the supernatural in everyday life, medical texts offer strictly practical remedies.
The famous tablet of stone recounts how the ancient statue of the sun god Shamash in the Sippar temple was destroyed by Assyrians under the rule of Ashurnasirpal II. Following the discovery of a clay image of the original, King Nabu-apla-iddina (886–853 BC) commissioned a new Shamsh statue in gold and lapis lazuli. The scene carved on the tablet celebrates the king’s triumphal installation of his new statue. Shamsh is shown seated on his shrine, holding the rod and ring of justice. In front of him is the sun symbol on an altar, which has long served his place.
Babylon Story of Flood – The tablet is one of the three that contained the epic of Atrahasis, the hero of the Babylonian flood story. It recounts how the god made several attempts to destroy humanity, which had been making too much ‘noise’ for their comfort. Eventually, God arranged for a flood to drown the world. The God of Wisdom, Enki, surreptitiously warned his devotee Atrahasis of what was to happen, thereby enabling him to make a boat in which he, his household, and his animals were saved so that the world could be saved.
The golden age of Mesopotamian trade – Mesopotamia had few natural resources and had always relied on trade. From about 2000 BC, constant rivalry between city states created competition, encouraged trade, and brought great riches. Trade reached its height during the old Babylonian period under King Hammurabi. After his death in 1750 BC, the trade dwindled. Traders exported textiles, luxury goods, and food. Imports included stone and exotic animals. The main import was metal. Bronze was used for making containers, tools, and weapons. Copper was imported from Oman and further east via Dilmun (Bahrin) in the central Persian Gulf. Tin probably came from Afghanistan via Iran.
These are a selection from an impressive group of 86 copper alloy and bronze tools and farming implements found together at Kutalla (modern Tell Sifr city). This is a rare example of an entire set of agriculture tools from around 2000 BC.
The Kassites and their successors – From around 1500 BC, after the fall of old Babylonia, southern Mesopotamia was controlled by Kassite rulers who came from the mountains to the north-east. The newcomers maintained the city of Babylon as their capital. After the clashes with the Assyrians and Elamites, the last Kassite king was defeated in 1155 BC. Leaders of the Chaldaen and Aramaen tribes then played an increasingly important political role in southern Mesopotamia. Kassites left little impact on the culture of the area. They adopted Babylonian traditions, including cylinder seals and Cuneiform writing. There are no known texts in the Kassite language, only individual words and names. The few tablets found in Kassite period give the Babylonian equivalents for major Kassite gods and individual words like heaven, earth, king, and protection.
A kudurru was a type of stone document used as a boundary stone and as a record of land grants to vassals by the Kassites and later dynasties in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 7th centuries BC. A copy of these boundaries was kept in temples as an official record. These were made in southern Mesopotamia from Kassite period onwards.
Writing on this boundary stone describes the military service of the chariot commander Ritti-Marduk, who campaigned in Elam (South Iran) for king Nebuchadnezzar I. It records the summer campaign, the suffering of thirsty horses, and the confusion of the battle. In reward, the residents of the district, administered by Ritti-Marduk were exempted from taxes and legal obligations. The sun, moon, and star symbolise the gods Shamsh, Sin, and Ishtar, who guarantee that king rewards are permanent.
The second boundary stone from left records a royal gift of land to an officer who distinguished himself in campaign against Assyria.
Assyrian Empire
After 1500 BC, much of northern Mesopotamia came under the control of the kingdom of Mitanni. The Mitanni were an Indo-Iranian people who ruled a kingdom in northern Mesopotamia from about 1500–1360 BC. By 1300 BC, priest-kings in the city of Ashur extorted their political power, taking control of the Mitanni heartland. Drought and other crises then reduced the area under Assyrian control to the city-states of Ashur and Nineveh around 1200 BC. The kingdom did not expand again until 300 years later, during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC).
The eight-sided prism records the military achievements of King Tiglath-Pileser I (1114–1079 BC) in Syria and the Mediterranean coast, as well as his prowess at hunting. It was buried at one corner of a ziggurat (temple tower) at Anu-Adad Temple, Ashur, Northern Iraq. Foundation records like this were designed to be read by the gods and later generations forever.
During this time, in the 1300s BC, Assyria broke away from Babylonia. The Assyrians were great warriors. They conquered lands in Mesopotamia and in what is now Turkey. The last great Assyrian king was Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC). He created the first organized library in the ancient Middle East. The library was located in the grand Assyrian city of Nineveh. Its collection included works of science and religion, dictionaries, and Mesopotamian legends—all recorded on thousands of clay tablets. The Assyrian empire ended soon after Ashurbanipal died.
The last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668–630 BC), created the world’s first library to contain all knowledge in his palace at Nineveh. These tablets provide an unparalleled glimpse into the world of Assyria and Babylonia, The library also contained the great literary works written in Mesopotamia, including the Epic of Gilgamesh (the Sumerian king), divination, astrology, medicine, and mathematics.
Assyrian king Ashurbanipal was always proud of being literate and boasted of his learnedness. Some of these texts were written in his own hand, others are about him. His sister and his wife also learned to write. Able scribes used to make copies of these tablets and also used to present them to the king.
The Ashurbanipal’s library was destroyed and burned by a vengeful army of Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC. Some 20,000 clay tablets survived the destruction. A translated digital print of Ashurbanipal’s tablet is made available by the British Museum for study. Link is http://oracc.org/asbp .Thanks to scholars around world who contributed in this.
Civilization – Assyrian
Period – 2100-609 BC
Region – southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria
Founder – Puzur-Ashur I
Origin – During this time, in the 1300s BC, Assyria broke away from Babylonia.
Prominent kings – Ashurbanipal ( the last king)
Deities – Ashur was the national god. It was also the name of the Assyrian capital city.
Religion – Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Language – Aramaic, influenced by Akkadian
Fall – Babylonians and Medes (Iranian people)
Followed by – Neo-Babylonian
Monuments –
Neo-Babylonian Empire
The Neo-Babylonian Empire, or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia until Faisal II of Iraq (1958 AD) in the 20th century. The Assyrian king in North Mesopotamia wished to control trade routes east into Iran, leading Assyrian armies into conflict with Babylonian leaders. Assyrian troops sacked Babylon in 689 BC and again in 648 BC. In 626 BC, the Babylonian king Nabopolassar drove the Assyrians out of South Mesopotamia and freed Babylon from the direct rule of the Assyrians for more than a century. He began the transformation of Babylon into a magnificent cosmopolitan city, finally completed by his son Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC). Thus, a second Babylonian dynasty (Neo-Babylonian) arose in the 1100s BC, though it did not last long.
The relief shows Babylonian prisoners in a camp. Some hold bundles, others tend the fire, talk, or drink from an animal container. To the left, an Assyrian soldier stands guard.
Why the Hanging Gardens were built – Though it is not yet established that the Hanging Gardens did really exist or are a myth,. This tablet is one of a series that chronicles important events between 747 BC and 280 BC. This text concerns the year 615–609 BC and includes an account of the destruction of Assyrian capital, Nineveh.
In 614 BC, a treaty was drawn up between the Babylonian king Nabopolassar and Cyaxares, king of Medes. This probably included the marriage of Nabopolassar’s son Nebuchadnezzar II, to Cyaxare’s granddaughter. She so longed for her mountainous homeland that Nebuchadnezzar built her the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, to become one of the seven wonders of the world.
The joint forces laid siege to Nineveh in 612 BC. The great city fell and was plundered, and so began the era of Babylonian rule over most of the Middle East.
The empire of King Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC) stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and from the Caucasus to northern Arabia. Nebuchadnezzar II undertook massive building work in his capital, Babylon. The procession way, Ishtar Gate, and Palace throne room are his most significant works. Facades made from brightly colored glazed bricks were intended to astonish the visitors. These works displayed the might of the city and the kings, who controlled unlimited resources and were backed by a powerful state religion. At the new year, parades along the procession way celebrated the god Marduk’s (sun) triumph over the forces of chaos, securing Nebuchadnezzar’s dominion of the empire for another year.
If we visit Babylon in Iraq today, we will see the prototype model of Babylon city. Nothing but old remnants exist.
Tower of Babel (600–400 BC), Babylon, southern Iraq. The monumental ziggurat (temple tower), Etemenanki, was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II. This tower had seven levels and was used by the king to be as close as possible to Marduk, the sun god of Babylon. In the biblical book of Genesis, this tower is mentioned, as they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens…”.
Civilization – Neo-Babylonian
Period – 626 BC – 539 BC
Region –
Founder – Nabopolassar
Origin –
Prominent kings – Last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia until king Faisal II of Iraq in the 20th century
Deities –
Religion – Ancient Mesopotamian religion
Language – Aramaic
Fall – Cyrus the Great, king of Persia
Monuments – Hanging Gardens of Babylon (no remnants exists now and are probably a myth)
The last Babylonian ruler, Nabonidus, tried to exalt and promote God and decrease the status of Marduk, the state god of Babylonia. For this, Nabonidus fell foul of the priesthood of Marduk. All bureaucrats went against him, and subsequently, he had to be absent for 10 years in Arabia and leave his son Belshazzar as
regent. The absence of a real king meant that the crucial New Year Festival, held at the time of the spring equinox, could not be celebrated. When Nabonidus finally returned to Babylon, his reign was doomed. In 539 BC, the city was conquered by Cyrus the Great to become the territory of the Persian Empire. This ended the rule of last native king of Mesopotamia. However, under the Persians and later the Macedonians, Babylon remained an important city until 300 BC.
Epilogue
There were two great contemporary civilizations in the Near East region : the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. Though Mesopotamian civilization was three millennia older than Egyptian, the artefacts found from the Halaf period (4800 BC) confirm the fact that the Mesopotamians were developed, but Egyptian civilization advancement started later in the period of Menes (3100 BC) and Pharaoh Dojer, who built the first stepped pyramid on the plateau of Saqqara.
If the Mesopotamians were more on the side of science and mathematics, so were the Egyptians.
If the construction of the pyramid of Giza, mummification science, was a miracle, then the concept of maintaining a library by the Assyrians and Hanging Garden, a code of law by Babylonian, was not far behind. Mummification was not at all a custom in Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamians treated their gods above all, Egyptians treated themselves either as gods or messengers of God. They built mortuary temples for their godification. The entire purpose of Egyptian religion was to maintain “maat” (truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice). The temples were made as a means to link the public to God and sustain “maat” through rituals. Mesopotamians built mammoths
ziggurats to appease God and take their blessings. If anything went wrong, they feared, it was the wrath of God. In the later period, Pharaohs buried their statues inside the divine temples: these were called mortuary temples by Egyptologists, while Mesopotamian kings never did so.
There was a culture of marrying sisters, half sisters, or even daughters in Egyptian Pharaohs, it was not in Mesopotamians. In spite of the fact that both civilizations were not very far apart, there was a huge contrast between the two civilizations, and that amazes.
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