The Greeks however were rather the reverse: they set out to provide topographical descriptions. The most influential biblical reference to Babylon however is in the Book of Revelations, where Babylon is conflated with Rome as the symbol of all evil - a symbol which has been taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Archaeologically however the biblical accounts are not very satisfactory for although they are replete with lamentations they are rather light on their topographical details. The story is all told in II Kings and II Chronicles and also in Jeremiah with the story completed in Ezra. Babel is presumably Babylon and the Tower was presumably a ziggurat and this part of Genesis must therefore be dated to the 6th century BC when the Jews were in exile and saw ziggurats and mud brick construction.īabylon forms the heart of the Jewish story, for in 597 and again in 587 the Jews were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and carted off into exile in Babylon, though when the Babylonians were in turn conquered by Cyrus the Persian in 539 BC, he decided that all the conquered people were more trouble than they were worth so he sent them all back home and the Jews returned to Jerusalem where they built the second temple. First and foremost among these is the Bible where it makes its first appearance in Genesis Book XI where the descendants of Noah learnt to make baked bricks and built a tower up to heaven, which so disconcerted the Lord God that he decided to sabotage their efforts by disrupting their language, and whereas before everyone had spoken the same language, they found themselves all speaking different languages and the Tower of Babel was abandoned. Many of the glazed bricks with their distinctive blue colouring were taken back to Berlin where the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way were reconstructed to form the prize exhibit of the great Berlin Museum.īabylon however is more than just an archaeological site, it is a place of history and legend. Koldewey was a superb excavator, one of the first excavators to learn to excavate the mud brick walls of which classical Babylon was built, and in massive well-funded excavating seasons he uncovered much of the centre of Babylon in its greatest period in the 6th century BC.

Here are my thoughts.īabylon was excavated between 18 by a German team under Robert Koldewey. It gave me the opportunity to read, so I so took with me a book on Babylon by Michael Seymour which we had been sent for review. Recently I had the good fortune to spend a week in France doing babysitting duties with my grandchildren at my son’s house near Toulouse.

Where is babylon today