We continue with our study guide on Babylon that we already started in a previous article. We continue knowing its main rulers, how was the territorial expansion of the Empire and its subsequent decline. Next, in Overstory, Babylon: economy and political organization. If you like the knowledge of ancient civilizations and dynasties, this is your blog, because we will inform you of all the steps of the past, up to the present day.
The Babylonian Empire was one of the most powerful of its time, and had its epicenter in the famous city of Babylon. This empire had two distinct phases. A first phase of splendor approximately between the years 1800 and 1600 BC. and another phase called Neo-Babylonian that spread throughout the 6th and 7th centuries BC. The end of the Babylonian Empire finally came with the invasion of the Persian king, Cyrus II “the great.”
Babylon was a very important cultural center, which collected numerous Akkadian and Sumerian traditions, cultures and knowledge. But in this case we are not going to talk about the Sumerian culture, but about its economy and its political organization.
Location of Babylon
The Babylonian Empire was located between the Syrian desert and the plateau of what is now Iran. With two rivers such as the Euphrates and the Tigris running through the plain in parallel and flooding the surface to leave a fertile alluvial land. Both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have their origin in the mountains of Armenia, they cross the country from north to south to end their journey in the Persian Gulf.
These rivers had, at the time of the Babylonian Empire different mouths not as it happens today, this is because the coast was 200 km inland compared to the current situation.
With a warm weather exempt from cold winters, fertile land, access to water sources and without borders or natural defenses, it has traditionally been a desired and often invaded place.
Political organization of Babylon
The Babylonians were a advanced civilization capable of creating great temples and a city that must have been a true paradise. From Babylon is the first written law, a special place from where the entire Empire was organized.
The king
The city of Babylon was considered owned by the god Marduk and it was this god who designated, according to the Babylonians, his representative on earth, that is, to the king. This would be in charge of administering and managing the entire empire, although he was not considered to be divine as was the case in Egypt.
The king was an intermediary between the god Marduk and the population but he did not govern alone since he lived surrounded by collaborators or what we could call noble classes, who helped and advised him in his administration.
slaves and free men
Babylonian population was divided into different estates where we could find free men and slaves. Slaves could achieve freedom if they possessed enough assets to purchase their freedom.
free menwere also divided into two types: privileged and the Muskhenum. within the privileged free men we have the social class of priests and officialswhile the muskhenum belonged to the commercial and productive sector, a sector that included merchants, peasants and artisans.
Religious Status and Beliefs
As for their religious cults, the Babylonian society was not monotheistic but on the contrary they had many deities and divinities, some being much more important than others.
Babylonian gods tThey had almost human qualities with their flaws, passions and full of feelings. Among the main gods we can find:
- Mardukthe most important of all, owner and proprietor of the city of Babylon
- unait was the sky god
- Enlil, god of air
- eagod of the waters
- WithoutGod of the moon
- sahmash son without and god of the sun
- Ishtar goddess of the planet Venus, protector of love and war.
Within religious beliefs, the Babylonians They were buried in simple graves. far from the grandiose ornaments of Egyptian tombs. Under the belief that when a man died he descended to hell where he would live feeding on the living. But if there was a social class that could achieve eternal rest, that was warriors fallen in battle.
The priests had a very important role in society and politics Babylonian since he was in charge of interpreting the wishes of the gods, with the added faculty of also predicting the future, being able to handle politics in his interest through catastrophic predictions, generating terror and increasing his power.
How was power distributed?
The Babylonian empire was ruled by a King, who was the absolute authority in the territory. In the babylon story the most prominent of them was the Hammurabi who reigned between approximately 1790 BC and 1750 BC. In addition to his importance as a conqueror, this king wrote the Hammurabi’s codewhich is the first code of written laws of the history. Note that this code already granted women the same rights as men and also contemplated the possibility of divorce.
This king was an absolute monarch. By this it is meant that he was in charge of exercising the legislative, judicial and executive power. He himself was in charge of dictating the rules, in his style, and enforcing them. Beneath his position, there was another inferior that was made up of governors and some administrators. Not all of them could be. It was a very select group and they were chosen by the king himself. After them were the mayors and councils of elders, that due to their experience, they were in charge of the local administration.
These were the only figures that actually performed the “political” work. The rest of the population was divided between free men and slaves. The slaves could buy their property. On the other hand, among Freemen there were lower class (peasants, small merchants), and upper class (usually priests or merchants who achieved great wealth).
hamurabi, He was a most illustrious sovereign, because apart from carrying out the administration of the town efficiently, he maintained the respect of part of civilization, for the rights he granted them. He fortified his capital, walling it in and extended his empire from Elam, which was in the east, to Sirius, which was in the west. But the conquests and constructions, although they were good, always stood out for how he got his subjects to live with peace and justice.
During his reign, he became the main center of trade with all the counties of western Asia. When he died, the empire did not stop, but its splendor continued to grow for two more centuries. The code of him, despite his death, the code of walled, was still working, since the base of this code rested on three indestructible foundations.
- enact justice
- put the land in order
- Seek the good of the people
With this code, reflected the protective nature that he had hamurabi towards his people and was always the first to enforce the law, according to the established rules. Here, an example of what was promulgated in its regulations.
- If someone steals something from the temple or the palace, he will die.
- If a wine seller has a short stocking, the tavern will be thrown into the river.
- If a man makes a hole in a house to break in, he will be killed and buried in front of the hole.
- If a man accuses another of a capital crime and cannot prove it, he will be punished with death.
Yes, a lot of death around here, but the rules worked and a civilization was seen, with a plausible political organization and bearable that gave fruits to a just community and that lived in peace.
Territorial expansion of Babylon
The great territorial expansion of First Babylonian Empire it was carried forward by Hammurabi. This king advanced on the Sumerian cities of the Lower Mesopotamia and later came to dominate the Upper Mesopotamiato the Assyrian city of Mari. Thanks to these achievements hammurabi’s empire went beyond Mesopotamiacovering from sea Mediterranean until Sousse (in the zone of Elam) and from the Kurdistan until the Persian Gulf, In the south. As we have said, it became one of the most flourishing empires of the time.
Economic Activities of Babylon
The economic activities that took place during the First Babylonian Empire are well known thanks to the laws of the Hammurabi’s Codewhich is a very important historical source and that helps historians to know what the economy was like during the Babylonian empire
Thanks to him we know that the base of the economy was agriculturewhich, like the other towns we have already studied (Akkadians and sumerians) depended on the construction of canals for irrigation. There was also an important development of livestock. taxes or tributes to the Empire they were paid in kind, that is, the different products in which each region worked were delivered.
The trade and technology and infrastructure development They were also very positively affected by cultural development and, especially, by the development of mathematics and engineering. On the one hand, advanced engineering knowledge was needed to be able to draw up the plans for all the dikes, dams and other large-scale works carried out at the time, collected above all from the previous knowledge of the Sumerians.
Likewise, in Babylon the sexagesimal metric systemwhich is a system very similar to our decimal system, but instead of having its base in 10, it has it in 60. Thanks to the premature development of this metric system in Babylon, it was possible to advance a lot in the development of arithmetic or algebra.
Reason for the decline of Babylon
The problems in the Empire start little after the death of King Hammurabi (second half of the 18th century BC), when various peoples subdued by the Babylonians They start to rebel. The final fall of Empire It will arrive in the 16th century when the Hittite people invade the city and destroy it. Later, a new period of splendor of the Babylonian Empire arrives, but it finally ends with the invasion by the Persian Empire, in the year 539 BC.
More of 1200 years after the reign of Hammurabi, everything that was created there, began to be modified in a scandalous way. The social structure, the architecture, the art, the science and the literature, were retouched. The social organization, It was affected. Luckily, they were only small details, since the essence was preserved.
Thanks to this information, we bring you closer to the kingdom of Babylon, a kingdom that although it was somewhat hard, created lawsrespect and imparted justice so that his people live in harmonyalthough today, history considers it as the norms of an ancient world, many lovers of lost civilizationsThey found these organizations fascinating.
Documentary about Babylon
In this complete documentary you can find much more information about the Babylonian Empire, one of the most powerful in…