Historical elements in the formation of the Babylonian Empire.
Babylon It was located in what is currently the Iraqi region. Semitic groups such as Akkadians and Amorreos, from a country called Martu arrived under Sumerian control. This event indicates the decline and fall of the III Dynasty of the Empire of UR and the birth of the Babylonian Empire, which would be developed, with intermittent, between 2003 and 539 AC and was one of the great empires that dominated the region of Mesopotamia. The amorreos managed to impose their dynasties in the main Mesopotamian cities and the most important became Babylon, (Bávilou, means “Gate of God”).
The city, occupied by the Amorreo King Sumuabum (18941881 AC), founder of the new dynasty became a great political, religious, economic and cultural center. Its next four successors, created the most important love kingdom in the entire region that would reach its maximum splendor with the figure of Hammurabithe most important king of the First Dynasty of Babylon, which reigned between 1792 and 1750 AC the cement and forged the bases of the Babylonian empire. During his reign he established the Acadia Language as an official language, and as a religion the cult of God Marduk. With his mandate, the city of “Babirum”, Babylon, (the Babel cited in the Bible), acquires great power becoming the capital of a new empire whose domain and influence would cover the entire region of Mesopotamia.
King Hammurabi made several temples build, some elders for the older gods and others of smaller and importance for the minor gods. The city made a great religious center. The laws of Hammurabi, they were rather provisions of the will of this king and among them highlights the famous law of the “eye for eye”.
These laws known as (the Hammurabi Code) were written in a stone column and influenced the civilizations of the nearby East even after the death of Hammurabi until after the hititas ended this first civilization of Babylon, in the year 1595 AC these laws were subsequently adapted over time for the biblical texts.
At Julio’s request a blog reader who wanted to know more about the subject I wrote an article specifically about Hammurabi’s laws
I also wrote another article at the request of a reader about The scientific and technical advances of Babylonian culture. Here their contributions are also addressed in terms of medicine and astronomy. Do not stop visiting it.
Cylinders and mud tablets cooked with cuneiform writing.
During the first empire the production of cylinders increased to seal printed documents and clay tablets cooked. Numerous texts elaborated in this method of cuneiform writing have been rescued from the Babylonian culture which have provided valuable information with which it was possible to document aspects of their history, traditions and culture. Many of these texts went to Assyrian hands during the conquest of Babylon for this culture, they boasted the number of texts in cuneiform writing they possessed that they had managed to snatch the Babylonians.
In the cities of Mari and Ebla More than 17000 clay tablets with commercial data and on customs of the region were rescued. For these tablets it has been known that the product they exported mostly were the fabrics and that large amounts of gold and silver that came from the taxes of the minor cities under their domain were at their disposal to use it both in the maintenance of cities and the army and military bells. His way of controlling the increase in diseases and treatments for them based on the resources that nature itself offers was known.
There are talk in these clay tablets found in Babylon of persecutions that were organized into items to recover the evaded slaves as well as the taxes that were charged to transport through the Euphrates River. These ceramic tablets that are still being found in the Iraqi region today, have provided information on almost all spheres of the life of this culture but also in general in the Mesopotamia region, covering aspects that range from politics, economy, religion, medicine, music, poetry, dances and how much aspect it may need to know about a culture.
A conglomerate of specialists work hard in a career against clock to decipher, read and document this information. By taking the tablets from the places of origin in which they have been in certain physical conditions; They begin to deteriorate quickly by contacting the air. The content of these tablets quickly moves to holographic impressions that allow digitizing the information contributing to preserve it without having to manipulate the original tablets, at the time that specialists from all over the world are sent to those who can contribute from a multidisciplinary point of view a valuable opinion.
From the works found we see how the favorite theme is that of the legend of Gilgamesh, the hero of an old Mesopotamian epic, showing it in struggle with buffalo and lions. This popular theme in Mesopotamia was widened in Babylon as we saw previously in Sumeria and Assyria.
With the death of King Hammurabi, his successors had to face the pressure of the Kasitas tribes; that conquered the southern area towards the 1600 BC also to the uprising of the entire South of Sumer and finally, to the attack of the hititas, sent by Murshil I.
The first Babylonian empire after all these events decays and the elimination of the love dynasty occurs, giving culmination to this first empire. It is a time of combatant kingdoms where struggles for power and territorial control are continuous with years of struggles and intrigues mainly between Assyrians and Babylonians.
Babylon is occupied by the Assyrians for a relatively long period of time and the struggles and instability also continue when the Chaldeans came to conquer the cities of Babylon emerging then the dynasty known as Caldea or neo Babylonianthis is considered the last splendor of culture in Babylon.
Architecture
Although the first flowering period of the city of Babylon prior to its destruction was very important from the architectural point of view in the period neo Babylonian Variety and splendor occur in the artistic representations that would have its continuity to the fall of the Empire. In this prolonged period that begins in 2000 to C. some artistic advances of great importance for the history of art are observed, among which are the improvement of the use that occurs in architecture to the arch and the vault; which were already used above but that would be perfected during the empire neo Babylonian.
This is the time of the construction of the fabulous palaces of Nebuchadnezzar, an important king of Babylon who ordered the construction of numerous important buildings. This king is also attributed to the high merit in the flowering of Babylon. The same left that what other kings had not been able to do it had achieved it in testimony found on the clay tablets recorded with cuneiform writing.
The characteristics of art in the Babylonian culture are closely related to the construction materials available in their environment. The stone was scarce of course but the mud, abundant. There were hardly corpulent trees from which to get the necessary beams to use them effectively in construction. Following these limitations, the constructions are carried out in adobe and brick fundamentally in stone very similar to how the Sumerians did. The arc and vault roof is used mainly in the construction of large palaces.
Adobe is used for external terraces and thick walls. The walls were made of adobe or molded bricks, (whose posterior assembly made it possible to build gigantic walls with large ceramic reliefs in cooked mud and stone pieces containing reliefs and inscriptions that were called Kudurrus).
The Kudurrus were blocks of stones, generally Black Diorita, which were intended to delimit the farms. Inscriptions were made in them where the limits of the property are described and terrifying conjurations of malefice are thrown for those who try to change their limits. They were sculpted in the Kudurrus of culture Babylonian The images of the gods or the animals that represented them to be more imposing and move away more effectively to the offenders who tried to invade the property.
The pendant gardens of Babylon
There is a well -known legend about the splendor of a high building known as “the pendant gardens of Babylon” and seem to have been rather a terrace building with many plants grown in them. The gardens really did not hang in the sense of being suspended by strings or anything similar.
It seems that translation misunderstandings have configured the legend as it has been told over time. Anyway and so far since there is no proper reliable documentation by hand, at least another other than the descriptions of Greek historians, it has not yet been possible to clarify the true facts about this mythical building with garden.
However, there is an interesting description of the Greek geographer. He described the gardens around the first century ac and wrote that they consisted of a vaulted terraces one on top of the other and supported on pillars in the form of a bucket, I also explain that these were hollow and stuffed with earth to allow the sowing trees to be sown. I add that pillars, vaults and terraces with cooked bricks and asphalt were built.
For the interest that arouses the theme of the myths and legends of Babylon and specifically the mythical gardens publish an article at the request of the reader Hector Daniel in this blog specifying more about this that they can visit in the following link: Babylon. Myths and legends
Recently studies made to locate the possible correct location of the gardens have thrown new light on the fact that these were probably not in Babylon. It is still on the part of historians, archaeologists and specialists to carry out even more studies to know what is the truth about these mythical and magnificent Babylon Jardines that have overflowed the imagination of humanity for centuries.
Visit the link about myths and legends to read more about these new ones …