History of Iraq
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Ancient Iraq
Sumer
Akkadian Empire
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Babylonia was an ancient Semitic, Akkadian speaking nation in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi (1792- 1750 BC or fl. ca. 1696 – 1654 BC, short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former Akkadian Empire.

Babylonia retained the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use (the language of its native populace), despite its Amorite founders and Kassite successors not being native Akkadians. It retained the Sumerian language for religious use, which by the time Babylon was founded was probably no longer a spoken language. The earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in Babylonian (and Assyrian) culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even under protracted and lengthy periods of outside rule.

The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2334- 2279 BC), dating back to the 23rd century BC. Babylon was merely a religious and cultural centre at this point and not an independent state, and like the rest of Mesopotamia, it was subject to the Akkadian Empire which united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. After the collapse of the Akkadian empire, the south Mesopotamian region was ruled by Gutians for a few decades before the rise of the Sumerian third dynasty of Ur which encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including Babylon.

Following the collapse of the last Sumerian "Ur-III" dynasty at the hands of the Elamites (2002 BC traditional, 1940 BC short), the Amorites, another Semitic people, gradually gained control over most of southern Mesopotamia, where they formed a series of small kingdoms, while the Assyrians reasserted their independence in the north. During the first centuries of what is called the "Amorite period", the most powerful city states in the south were Isin and Larsa, although Shamshi-Adad I usurped the throne of Assyria and formed a short lived empire in the north. One of these Amorite dynasties founded the city-state of Babylon, which would ultimately take over the others and form the short lived first Babylonian empire, during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period.

Periods[link]

Old Babylonian period[link]

The extent of the Babylonian Empire at the start and end of Hammurabi's reign

During the third millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism.^[1] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.^[1] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a sprachbund.^[1]

Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC (the exact dating being a matter of debate),^[2] but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the 1st century.

First Dynasty, Amorite Period[link]

The independent city state of Babylon was founded by an Amorite chieftain named Sumuabum in 1894 BC. Initially Babylon was a small nation which did not control much territory, and was overshadowed by much older, powerful, and more established kingdoms like Isin, Larsa, Assyria and Elam. Babylon remained a small and minor state until the reign of its sixth ruler, Hammurabi ((1792- 1750 BC or fl. ca. 1728 – 1686 BC (short). He was a very efficient ruler, establishing a bureaucracy, with taxation and centralized government, and giving the region stability after turbulent times, thereby transforming it into the central power of Mesopotamia. One of the most important works of this "First Dynasty of Babylon", as it was called by the native historians, was the compilation of a code of laws. This was made by order of Hammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. In 1901, a copy of the Code of Hammurabi was discovered on a stele by J. De Morgan and V. Scheil at Susa, where it had later been taken as plunder. That copy is now in the Louvre.

The armies of Babylonia under Hammurabi were well-disciplined, and conquered the city-states of Isin, Eshnunna, Uruk, Mari and eventually Assyria after a protracted struggle with the Assyrian king Ishme-Dagan for control of Mesopotamia.^[3]

Babylonian tradition held the king as an agent of the Mesopotamian god Marduk, and the city of Babylon as a "holy city" where any legitimate ruler of Mesopotamia had to be crowned.^{[citation needed]}

The Babylonians, like their predecessors, engaged in regular trade with the Amorite and Canaanite city-states to the west; with Babylonian officials or troops sometimes passing to the Levant and Canaan, with Amorite merchants operating freely throughout Mesopotamia. The Babylonian monarchy's western connections remained strong for quite some time. An Amorite named Abi-ramu or Abram was the father of a witness to a deed dated to the reign of Hammurabi's grandfather; Ammi-Ditana, great-grandson of Hammurabi, still titled himself "king of the land of the Amorites". Ammi-Ditana's father and son also bore Canaanite names: Abi-Eshuh and Ammisaduqa.

But southern Mesopotamia had no natural, defendable boundaries, making it vulnerable to attack. After the death of Hammurabi, his empire began to disintegrate rapidly. Under his successor Samsu-iluna (1749-1712 BC) the far south of Mesopotamia was lost to a native Akkadian king called Ilum-ma-ili and became "The Dynasty of the Sealand", remaining free of Babylon for the next 272 years,^[4] and both the Babylonians and Amorites were driven from Assyria to the north by an Assyrian governor named Puzur-Sin, and after a civil war, a native king named Adasi seized power. However Amorite rule survived in Babylon for around 150 years, until the reign of the 15th king of the first dynasty, Samsu-Ditana, son of Ammisaduqa. He was overthrown following the "sack of Babylon" by the Hittite king Mursili I, and Babylonia was turned over to the Kassites, with whom Samsu-iluna had already come into conflict in his 6th year.

The sack of Babylon and ancient Near East chronology[link]

The date of the sack of Babylon by the Hittite king Mursilis I is considered crucial to the various calculations of the early chronology of the ancient Near East, since both a solar and a lunar eclipse are said to have occurred in the month of Sivan that year, according to ancient records.

The fall of Babylon is taken as a fixed point in the discussion of the chronology of the ancient Near East. Suggestions for its precise date vary by as much as 150 years, corresponding to the uncertainty regarding the length of the "Dark Age" of the ensuing Bronze Age collapse, resulting in the shift of the entire Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia with regard to the chronology of Ancient Egypt. Possible dates for the sack of Babylon are:

• ultra-short chronology: 1499 BC
• short chronology: 1531 BC
• middle chronology: 1595 BC
• long chronology: 1651 BC

Kassite period[link]

The extent of the Babylonian Empire during the Kassite dynasty

The Kassite dynasty was founded by Kandis or Gandash of Mari. The Kassites were a non Semitic and non Indo-European people, speaking a Language Isolate, who originated in the Zagros Mountains of what is today Iran. The Kassites renamed Babylon "Kar-Duniash", and their rule lasted for 576 years, the longest dynasty in Babylonian history.

This foreign dominion offers a striking analogy to the roughly contemporary rule of the Semitic Hyksos in ancient Egypt. Most divine attributes ascribed to the Semitic Amorite kings of Babylonia disappeared at this time; the title of God was never given to a Kassite sovereign. However, Babylon continued to be the capital of the kingdom and the 'holy' city of western Asia, where the priests were all-powerful, and the only place where the right to inheritance of the short lived old Babylonian empire could be conferred.

Babylon proved to be relatively weak under the long rule of the Kassites, and spent long periods under Assyrian and Elamite domination and interference.

It's not exactly clear when Kassite rule of Babylon began, but the Hittites from Asia Minor did not remain long after the sacking of the city, and it is likely the Kassites moved in soon afterwards. A king named Agum II ruled a state that extended from Iran to the middle Euphrates; 24 years after the Hittites took the sacred statue of Marduk, he recovered it and declared the god equal to the Kassite deity Shuqamuna. Southern Mesopotamia (The Dynasty of the Sealand) remained independent of Babylonia until Ulamburiash conquered it from Ea-gamil, a king with a distinctly Sumerian name, around 1450 BC. He began making treaties with the Egyptians then ruling in the southern Levant, and Assyria to the north. Karaindash built a bas-relief temple in Uruk and Kurigalzu I (1415 BC-1390 BC) built a new capital named after himself. After him came Kadashman-Enlil I (1390 BC-1375 BC) and Burna-Buriash II (1375 BC-1347 BC), who corresponded with the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) for the purposes of marriage and trade. He was deposed by the powerful Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I, who sacked Babylon, annexed Babylonian territory for the Middle Assyrian Empire, and installed Kurigalzu II (1345 BC-1324 BC) as ruler. The latter then also lost a war with Assyria, losing more territory in the process. His successors allied with the Hittites in a failed attempt to stop Assyrian expansion, which continued unchecked. Kashtiliash IV's (1242 BC-1235 BC) reign ended catastrophically as the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I sacked and burned Babylon and set himself up as king, ironically becoming the first native Mesopotamian to rule the state.^[5] Kashtiliash himself was taken to Ashur as a prisoner of war.

Babylon did not begin to recover until the reigns of Adad-shuma-usur (1218 BC-1189 BC) and Meli-Shipak II (1188 BC-1172 BC). War continued under subsequent kings as the Elamite ruler Shutruk-Nahhunte conquered most of Babylonia and finally overthrew the Kassites. Poetical works have been found lamenting this disaster.

Despite the loss of territory, and evident reduction in literacy and culture, the Kassite dynasty was the longest-lived dynasty of Babylon, lasting until 1157 BC, when Babylon was conquered by Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam, and re-conquered a few years later by the native Akkadian Nebuchadrezzar I, part of the larger Bronze Age collapse.

Early Iron Age[link]

The Elamites did not remain in Babylonia long, and Marduk-kabit-ahheshu (1156 BC-1139 BC) established the Second Dynasty of Isin, (the first native south Mesopotamian dynasty to rule Babylon) in a series of wars that continued under his successors. Nebuchadnezzar I (1124 BC-1103 BC) was the most famous ruler of this dynasty. He fought and defeated the Elamites and drove them from Babylonian territory, sacking the Elamite capital Susa, and recovering the sacred statue of Marduk that had been carried off from Babylon. Shortly afterwards, the king of Elam was assassinated and his kingdom disintegrated into civil war. However, Nebuchadnezzar failed to extend Babylonian territory further, being defeated by Ashur-resh-ishi I, king of the Assyrians for control of formerly Hittite controlled territories in Aramea (Syria). In the later years of his reign, he devoted himself to peaceful building projects. Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his two sons. The second of them, Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1098 BC-1081 BC) went to war with Assyria. Some initial success in these conflicts gave way to heavy defeat at the hands of Tiglath-pileser I who annexed swathes of Babylonian territory. Following this a terrible famine gripped Babylon, inviting attacks from Semitic Aramean tribes from the west. Successive kings wisely maintained peaceful relations with Assyria, but could not stem the repeated incursions from Semitic nomadic peoples, and large swathes of Babylonia were appropriated and occupied by these newly arrived Arameans, Chaldeans and Suteans.

The native dynasty, then ruled by Nabu-shum-libur was deposed after 126 years, and between 1025 BC and 977 BC Babylonia was in a state of anarchy, with seven kings divided by three foreign dynasties ruling the land. Dynasty V (1025 BC-1004 BC) was Kassite, this dynasty was replaced by Dynasty VI (1003 BC-984 BC) which was Aramean and Dynasty VII (984 BC-977 BC) which was Elamite.

Native rule was restored by Nabu-mukin-apli in 977 BC, ushering in Dynasty VIII. Dynasty IX begins with Ninurta-kudurri-usur I, who ruled from 941 BC. Babylonia remained weak during this period, with whole areas now under firm Chaldean, Aramean and Sutean control.

From 911 BC with the founding of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by Adad-nirari II, Babylon found itself under Assyrian domination and rule for the next three centuries. Babylonian territory was annexed by Assyria, and its kings were forced to pay tribute to Assyrian kings.

In 729 BC, Babylon was fully incorporated into the Assyrian Empire by Tiglath-Pileser III, who instead of allowing Babylonian kings to remain as vassals of Assyria as his predecessors had done for two hundred years, decided to rule directly himself. Revolt was eventually fermented against Assyrian domination by Merodach-Baladan, a Chaldean king of the far south east of Mesopotamia, with Elamite help. Merodach-Baladan managed to take the throne of Babylon itself between 721- 710 BC. He was ejected by Sargon II of Assyria, and fled to Elam. However Merodach-Baladan and the Elamites continued to agitate against Assyrian rule. This led to the Assyrian king Sennacherib invading and subjugating Elam and sacking Babylon, laying waste to the city. This act led Sennacherib to be murdered by his own sons while praying to the god Nisroch. His successor Esarhaddon rebuilt Babylon, and upon his death he installed his eldest son Shamash-shum-ukin as king in Babylon, and his youngest, Ashurbanipal in the more senior position as king of Assyria. Shamash-shum-ukin, after decades peacefully subject to his brother, eventually became infused with Babylonian nationalism, declaring that the city of Babylon (and not the Assyrian city of Nineveh) should be the seat of empire. He raised a major revolt against his brother, Ashurbanipal. He led a powerful coalition which included Elam, the Chaldeans, Suteans, Arameans and Arabs. After a bitter struggle Babylon was sacked and its allies vanquished, Shamash-shum-ukim being killed in the process. Elam was destroyed, and the Chaldeans, Arabs, Arameans and Suteans were violently subjugated. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was placed on the throne.^[4] Upon Ashurbanipal's death in 627 BC, his son Ashur-etil-ilani became ruler of Babylon and Assyria.

Neo-Babylonian Empire (Chaldean Era)[link]

The Neo-Babylonian Empire

Through the centuries of Assyrian domination, Babylonia enjoyed a prominent status, or revolted at the slightest indication that it did not. The Assyrians always managed to restore Babylonian loyalty, however, whether through granting of increased privileges, or military force. That finally changed after 620 BC, seven years after the death of the last great Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal in 627 BC. Assyria descended into a series of brutal internal civil wars, Ashur-etil-ilani was deposed by one of his own generals, named Sin-shumu-lishir, who also set himself up as king in Babylon. After yet another brutal civil war, Sin-shar-ishkun ousted him as ruler of Assyria and Babylonia. However, he was beset by constant unremitting civil war in the Assyrian heartland. Babylonia took advantage of this and rebelled under Nabopolassar, a member of the Semitic Chaldeans, who had settled in south eastern Mesopotamia circa 1000 BC. In 620 BC Nabopolassar seized control over much of Babylonia with the support of most of the inhabitants, with only the city of Nippur showing any loyalty to the Assyrian king.^[5] For the next 4 years he had to contend with Assyrian armies encamped in Babylonia trying to unseat him. However, the Assyrian king, Sin-shar-ishkun was plagued by constant revolt in Nineveh, and was thus unable to eject Nabopolassar.

The stalemate ended in 616 BC, when Nabopolassar entered into alliance with Cyaxares, king of the Medes and Persians, (who had also taken advantage of the anarchy in Assyria to free his peoples from the Assyrian yoke) and also the Scythians and Cimmerians. After 4 years of fierce fighting Nineveh was sacked in 612 BC after a bitter prolonged siege in which Sin-shar-ishkun was killed. The last Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II, relocated the capital to Harran where he held out until 608 BC, when he was eventually ejected by the Babylonians and their allies. A final victory was achieved at Carchemish in 605 BC, which included also defeating the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II who had belatetly tried to aid Egypt's former masters. The seat of empire was thus transferred to Babylonia for the first time since Hammurabi over a thousand years before.

Nabopolassar was followed by his son Nebuchadnezzar II, whose reign of 43 years made Babylon once more the mistress of much the civilized world, taking over a fair portion of the former Assyrian Empire once ruled by its Assyrian brethren, the eastern and north eastern portion being taken by the Medes and the far north by the Scythians. His empire included the conquering of Phoenicia in 585 BC, as well as Aramea (Syria), Israel, Judah and parts of Asia Minor and Arabia.^[6] Only a small fragment of his annals has been discovered, relating to his invasion of Egypt in 567 BC, and referring to "Phut of the Ionians".

Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus (Nabu-na'id), and the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, there is a fair amount of information available. Nabonidus and his son, the regent Belshazzar were not Chaldeans or Babylonian, but hailed from the last Assyrian capital of Harran. Information regarding Nabonidus is chiefly derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus, supplemented by another inscription of Nabonidus where he recounts his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god at Harran; as well as by a proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king of Babylonia. It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 BC) that Cyrus, the Achaemenid Persian "king of Anshan" in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, "king of the Manda" or Medes, at Ecbatana. Astyages' army betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus established himself at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the empire of the Medes. Three years later Cyrus had become king of all Persia, and was engaged in a campaign in Assyria. Meanwhile, Nabonidus had established a camp in the desert of Arabia, near the southern frontier of his kingdom, leaving his son Belshazzar (Belsharutsur) in command of the army.

In 539 BC Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, where the Babylonians were defeated; and immediately afterwards Sippar surrendered to the invader. Nabonidus fled to Babylon, where he was pursued by Gobryas, and on the 16th day of Tammuz, two days after the capture of Sippar, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." Nabonidus was dragged from his hiding-place, where the services continued without interruption. Cyrus did not arrive until the 3rd of Marchesvan (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon, and a few days afterwards the son of Nabonidus died. A public mourning followed, lasting six days, and Cambyses accompanied the corpse to the tomb.

Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel-Marduk, who was assumed to be wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus in removing the images of the local gods from their ancestral shrines to his capital Babylon. Nabonidus, in fact, had excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the religion of Babylonia in the temple of Merodach (Marduk) at Babylon, and while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods, the military party despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He seemed to have left the defense of his kingdom to others, occupying himself with the more congenial work of excavating the foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders.

The invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus was doubtless facilitated by the existence of a disaffected party in the state, as well as by the presence of foreign forced exiles like the Jews, who had been planted in the midst of the country. One of the first acts of Cyrus accordingly was to allow these exiles to return to their own homes, carrying with them the images of their god and their sacred vessels. The permission to do so was embodied in a proclamation, whereby the conqueror endeavored to justify his claim to the Babylonian throne. The feeling was still strong that none had a right to rule over western Asia until he had been consecrated to the office by Bel and his priests; and accordingly, Cyrus henceforth assumed the imperial title of "King of Babylon."

Persian Babylonia[link]

Babylonia was absorbed into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC.

A year before Cyrus' death, in 529 BC, he elevated his son Cambyses II in the government, making him king of Babylon, while he reserved for himself the fuller title of "king of the (other) provinces" of the empire. It was only when Darius Hystaspis acquired the Persian throne and ruled it as a representative of the Zoroastrian religion, that the old tradition was broken and the claim of Babylon to confer legitimacy on the rulers of western Asia ceased to be acknowledged.

Immediately after Darius seized Persia, Babylonia briefly recovered its independence under Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of Nebuchadnezzar III, and reigned from October 522 BC to August 520 BC, when Darius took the city by storm. A few years later, probably 514 BC, Babylon again revolted under the Armenian King Arakha; on this occasion, after its capture by the Persians, the walls were partly destroyed. E-Saggila, the great temple of Bel, however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a center of Babylonian religious feelings.

It has long been maintained that the foundation of Seleucia diverted the population to the new capital of Babylonia, and that the ruins of the old city became a quarry for the builders of the new seat of government, but the recent publication of the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period has shown that urban life was still very much the same well into the Parthian age.

The name of the satrapy was changed to Asuristan (Assyria) in the Sassanid period. Excepting brief interludes of Roman conquest (Roman Assyria, Roman Mesopotamia; AD 116 to 118), and a longer period of Hellenistic rule (the Seleucid Empire, 330 to 250 BC), Mesopotamia remained under Persian control until the Islamic conquest in the 630s AD.

Babylonian culture[link]

Bronze Age to Early Iron Age Mesopotamian culture is sometimes summarized as "Assyro-Babylonian", because of the close cultural interdependence of the two political centers. The term "Babylonia", especially in writings from around AD 1900, was formerly used to include Southern Mesopotamia's earliest history, and not only in reference to the later city-state of Babylon proper. This geographic usage of the name "Babylonia' has generally been replaced by the more accurate term Sumer in more recent writing.

Old Babylonian culture[link]

Art and Architecture[link]

In Babylonia, an abundance of clay, and lack of stone, led to greater use of mudbrick; Babylonian temples were massive structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains. One such drain at Ur was made of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, and of frescoes and enameled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with zinc or gold, as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones for torches were also embedded in the plaster. In Babylonia, in place of the bas-relief, there was greater use of three-dimensional figures—the earliest examples being the Statues of Gudea, that are realistic if somewhat clumsy. The paucity of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious, and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting.

Astronomy[link]

Tablets dating back to the Old Babylonian period document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year. Centuries of Babylonian observations of celestial phenomena are recorded in the series of cuneiform tablets known as the 'Enūma Anu Enlil'. The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is Tablet 63 of 'Enūma Anu Enlil', the Venus tablet of Ammi-saduqa, which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a planet were recognized as periodic. The oldest rectangular astrolabe dates back to Babylonia ca. 1100 BC. The MUL.APIN, contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting heliacal risings and the settings of the planets, lengths of daylight measured by a water-clock, gnomon, shadows, and intercalations. The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time-intervals, and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by given right-ascensional differences.^[7]

Medicine[link]

• Medical diagnosis and prognosis

The oldest Babylonian texts on medicine date back to the First Babylonian Dynasty in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū, or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa,^[8] during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069-1046 BC).^[9]

Along with contemporary ancient Egyptian medicine, the Babylonians introduced the concepts of diagnosis, prognosis, physical examination, and prescriptions. In addition, the Diagnostic Handbook introduced the methods of therapy and aetiology and the use of empiricism, logic and rationality in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of medical symptoms and often detailed empirical observations along with logical rules used in combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient with its diagnosis and prognosis.^[10]

The symptoms and diseases of a patient were treated through therapeutic means such as bandages, creams and pills. If a patient could not be cured physically, the Babylonian physicians often relied on exorcism to cleanse the patient from any curses. Esagil-kin-apli's Diagnostic Handbook was based on a logical set of axioms and assumptions, including the modern view that through the examination and inspection of the symptoms of a patient, it is possible to determine the patient's disease, its aetiology and future development, and the chances of the patient's recovery.^[8]

Esagil-kin-apli discovered a variety of illnesses and diseases and described their symptoms in his Diagnostic Handbook. These include the symptoms for many varieties of epilepsy and related ailments along with their diagnosis and prognosis.^[11] Later Babylonian medicine resembles early Greek medicine in many ways. In particular, the early treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus show the influence of late Babylonian medicine in terms of both content and form.^[12]

Literature[link]

There were libraries in most towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write,^[13] and in Semitic times, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary.

A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists of them were drawn up.

There are many Babylonian literary works whose titles have come down to us. One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sin-liqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, and it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.

Neo-Babylonian culture[link]

The brief resurgence of a "Babylonian" identity in the 7th to 6th centuries BC was accompanied by a number of important cultural developments.

Astronomy[link]

Among the sciences, astronomy and astrology still occupied a conspicuous place in Babylonian society. Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia. The zodiac was a Babylonian invention of great antiquity; and eclipses of the sun and moon could be foretold. There are dozens of cuneiform records of original Mesopotamian eclipse observations.^[14]

Babylonian astronomy was the basis for much of what was done in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy, in classical Indian astronomy, in Sassanian, Byzantine and Syrian astronomy, in medieval Islamic astronomy, and in Central Asian and Western European astronomy.^[15] Neo-Babylonian astronomy can thus be considered the direct predecessor of much of ancient Greek mathematics and astronomy, which in turn is the historical predecessor of the European (Western) scientific revolution.^[16]

During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution.^[17] This new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy.

In Seleucid and Parthian times, the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The Babylonian development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major episode in the history of astronomy.

The only Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC).^[18][19][20] Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch. He supported the heliocentric theory where the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used.

Mathematics[link]

Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited.^[16] In respect of time they fall in two distinct groups: one from the First Babylonian Dynasty period (1830-1531 BC), the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries BC. In respect of content there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Thus Babylonian mathematics remained stale in character and content, with very little progress or innovation, for nearly two millennia.^{[dubious – discuss][16]}

The Babylonian system of mathematics was sexagesimal, or a base 60 numeral system (see: Babylonian numerals). From this we derive the modern day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle. The Babylonians were able to make great advances in mathematics for two reasons. First, the number 60 has many divisors (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30), making calculations easier. Additionally, unlike the Egyptians and Romans, the Babylonians had a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values (much as in our base-ten system: 734 = 7×100 + 3×10 + 4×1). Among the Babylonians' mathematical accomplishments were the determination of the square root of two correctly to seven places (YBC 7289 clay tablet). They also demonstrated knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem well before Pythagoras, as evidenced by this tablet translated by Dennis Ramsey and dating to ca. 1900 BC:

4 is the length and 5 is the diagonal. What is the breadth? Its size is not known. 4 times 4 is 16. And 5 times 5 is 25. You take 16 from 25 and there remains 9. What times what shall I take in order to get 9? 3 times 3 is 9. 3 is the breadth.

The ner of 600 and the sar of 3600 were formed from the unit of 60, corresponding with a degree of the equator. Tablets of squares and cubes, calculated from 1 to 60, have been found at Senkera, and a people acquainted with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Austen Henry Layard at Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this could explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens.

The Babylonians might have been familiar with the general rules for measuring the areas. They measured the circumference of a circle as three times the diameter and the area as one-twelfth the square of the circumference, which would be correct if π were estimated as 3. The volume of a cylinder was taken as the product of the base and the height, however, the volume of the frustum of a cone or a square pyramid was incorrectly taken as the product of the height and half the sum of the bases. Also, there was a recent discovery in which a tablet used π as 3 and 1/8. The Babylonians are also known for the Babylonian mile, which was a measure of distance equal to about seven miles today. This measurement for distances eventually was converted to a time-mile used for measuring the travel of the Sun, therefore, representing time. (Eves, Chapter 2)

Philosophy[link]

The origins of Babylonian philosophy can be traced back to early Mesopotamian wisdom literature, which embodied certain philosophies of life, particularly ethics, in the forms of dialectic, dialogs, epic poetry, folklore, hymns, lyrics, prose, and proverbs. Babylonian reasoning and rationality developed beyond empirical observation.^[21]

It is possible that Babylonian philosophy had an influence on Greek philosophy, particularly Hellenistic philosophy. The Babylonian text Dialog of Pessimism contains similarities to the agonistic thought of the sophists, the Heraclitean doctrine of contrasts, and the dialogs of Plato, as well as a precursor to the maieutic Socratic method of Socrates.^[22] The Milesian philosopher Thales is also known to have studied philosophy in Mesopotamia.

Legacy[link]

Babylonia, and particularly its capital city Babylon, has long held a place in Abrahamic religions as a symbol of excess and dissolute power. Many references are made to Babylon in the Bible, both literally and allegorically. The mentions in the Tanakh tend to be historical or prophetic, while New Testament references are more likely figurative, or cryptic references possibly to pagan Rome, or some other archetype. The legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Tower of Babel are seen as symbols of luxurious and arrogant power respectively. A main festival for Babylonians was the Mishtkaru Buylshu, used to ward off evil spirits. Many Babylonians, mostly males, attended this festival at a young age. At this festival, priests would kill, or sacrifice, an animal, usually an ox, in order to make the gods happy. In return, the gods would presumably give permission to the people at the festival to each obtain an amulet that would protect them for the rest of their lives.

See also[link]

Ancient Near East portal

• Ancient Near East
• Assyriology
• Babylonian law
• Babylonian numerals
• Babylonian calendar
• Chaldean mythology
• Chronology of Babylonia and Assyria
• Cuneiform script
• Geography of Mesopotamia
• History of Sumer
• Kings of Babylon
• Social life in Babylonia and Assyria

Many of these articles were originally based on information from the 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ascalone, Enrico (2007). Mesopotamia: Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25266-0. 
• Bryant, Tamera (2005). The Life and Times of Hammurabi. Mitchell Lane. ISBN 978-1-58415-338-2. 
• Eves, Howard (1990). An Introduction to the History of Mathematics (6th ed.). Brooks Cole. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/978003029558|978003029558]]. 
• Ginzburg, Carlo (1984). "Morelli, Freud, and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and Scientific Method". In Eco, Umberto; Sebeok, Thomas. The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce. Bloomington, IN: History Workshop, Indiana University Press. pp. 81–118. ISBN 978-0-253-35235-4. LCCN 82049207. OCLC 9412985.  Ginzburg stresses the significance of Babylonian medicine in his discussion of the conjectural paradigm as evidenced by the methods of Giovanni Morelli, Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes in the light of Charles Sanders Peirce's logic of making good guesses or abductive reasoning.
• Leonard William (2003). Babylonian Religion and Mythology. Fredonia Books. ISBN 978-1-4102-0459-2. 
• Leick, Gwendolyn (2003). The Babylonians: An Introduction. Routledge. 
• Leick, Gwendolyn (2003). Mesopotamia. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-026574-3. 
• Lloyd, Seton (1978). The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-78007-7. 
• Mieroop, Marc Van de (2004). King Hammurabi Of Babylon: A Biography. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-2659-5. 
• Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea (2002). Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. Hendrickson. ISBN 978-1-56563-712-2. 
• Oates, Joan (1986). Babylon. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-27384-5. 
• Oppenheim, A. Leo (1977). Ancient Mesopotamia : Portrait of a Dead Civilization. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-63187-5. 
• Pallis, Svend Aage (1956). The antiquity of Iraq: A handbook of Assyriology. Ejnar Munksgaard. 
• Roux, Georges (1993). Ancient Iraq (3rd ed.). Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-012523-8. 
• Saggs, Henry W.F. (1995). Babylonians. University of Oklahoma. ISBN 978-0-8061-2765-1. 
• Saggs, Henry W.F. (1988). The Greatness That Was Babylon: A Survey of the Ancient Civilization of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-283-99623-8. 
• Schomp, Virginia (2005). Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, And Assyrians. Franklin Watts. ISBN 978-0-531-16741-0. 
• Spence, Lewis (1995). Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1-56459-500-3. 
• Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes (published twice-yearly from 2003 onwards)

External links[link]

• From under the Dust of Ages by William St. Chad Boscawen
• The Chaldean account of Genesis by George Smith
• Babylonian Mathematics
• Babylonian Numerals
• Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology
• Bibliography of Babylonian Astronomy/Astrology
• Theophilus G. Pinches, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Many deities' names are now read differently, but this detailed 1906 work is a classic.)
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Babylonia and Assyria". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Babylonian and Assyrian Religion". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
•  "Babylonia". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• The History Files Ancient Mesopotamia
• Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition, by Leonard W. King, 1918 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
• The Babylonian Legends of the Creation and the Fight between Bel and the Dragon, as told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh, 1921 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format)
• The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria; its remains, language, history, religion, commerce, law, art, and literature, by Morris Jastrow, Jr. ... with map and 164 illustrations, 1915 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF format or Readable HTML)
• Recordings of modern scholars reading Babylonian poetry in the original language (http://www.speechisfire.com).

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