Babylon city and legend: the rise and fall of one civilization's great city.* OBJECTIVE Students should understand * how Babylon, the capital city of two Mesopotamian kingdoms, played a crucial role in the ancient world. * the importance of Mesopotamia in the story of human civilization. * WORD TO KNOW civilization: an advanced state of a people's intellectual, cultural, and material development, marked by the extensive use of writing and record-keeping, the appearance of complex political and social institutions, and progress in the arts and sciences. * TEACHING STRATEGY Ask: "What do you know about the ancient city of Babylon? What really happened there?" * BACKGROUND Historians differ over the timing of what we think of as civilization. Many peoples wandered in and out of Mesopotamia before the Sumerians established what is generally considered the first civilization, around 3500 B.C. About 12 city-states had risen up in Sumer by the third millennium B.C., including Ur, home of the Jewish patriarch Abraham. Ancient Sumerian texts speak of the creation of the world, an initial paradise, and a terrible flood that engulfed the Earth as the result of a king's sin. * CRITICAL THINKING COMPREHENSION: The ancient city of Babylon once stood near the site of what present-day capitol? (Baghdad, Iraq) MAKING INFERENCES: Why was the Code of Hammurabi The Code of Hammurabi was a comprehensive set of laws, considered by many scholars to be the oldest laws established; they were handed down four thousand years ago by King Hammurabi of Babylon. an important step in the development of civilization? (A codified cod·i·fy tr.v. cod·i·fied, cod·i·fy·ing, cod·i·fies 1. To reduce to a code: codify laws. 2. To arrange or systematize. system o flaws establishes civic order by setting standards for people's behavior and for how violations are punished.) * ACTIVITY MAKING A MAP: Have students create a map of Iraq and surrounding countries, overlaying the sites of cities and kingdoms of Mesopotamia. STANDARDS SOCIAL STUDIES, GRADES 5-8 * Time, continuity, and change: How ancient Babylonians contributed to the rise of Western civilization Noun 1. Western civilization - the modern culture of western Europe and North America; "when Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he said he thought it would be a good idea" Western culture (such as setting up the first legal code). * Science, technology, and society: How the Babylonians' interest in predicting the future by the stars led to the science of astronomy. RESOURCES * Mehta-Jones, Shilpa, Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Crabtree, 2004). Grades 6 & up. * Schomp, Virginia, Ancient Mesopotamia (Scholastic Inc., 2005). Grades 6 & up. WEB SITES * Babylon (& related links) infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0805624.html * British Museum British Museum, the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. : Mesopotamia www.mesopotamia.co.uk/menu.html For centuries, it has been a symbol of great glory, and even greater evil. Today, when U.S. tanks rumble over the sands south of Baghdad, Iraq, they raise dust from its ruins--and destroy its precious artifacts artifacts see specimen artifacts. . It is Babylon, the once-magnificent city of Mesopotamia (see map). Mesopotamia was in the "Fertile Crescent Fertile Crescent, historic region of the Middle East. A well-watered and fertile area, it arcs across the northern part of the Syrian desert. It is flanked on the west by the Mediterranean and on the east by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and includes all or parts " region between the Tigris and Euphrates Tigris and Euphrates is a German strategy board game designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 1997 by Hans im Glück in German (as Euphrat und Tigris). rivers. Historians often call it the "cradle of civilization This article is about society beginnings. For the beginning of humanity before writing, see History of the world. For other uses, see Cradle of Humankind (disambiguation). " because farming and animal herding developed there earlier than anywhere else--nearly 8,000 years ago. The first important societies of Mesopotamia, called city-states, were constantly at war. About 1792 B.C., a king named Hammurabi seized control of southern Mesopotamia. His capital was a city on the Euphrates River Euphrates River Turkish Firat Nehri Arabic Nahr al Furat River, Middle East. The largest river in Southwest Asia, it rises in Turkey and flows southeast across Syria and through Iraq. called Babylon. Under Hammurabi, Babylon became one of the ancient world's great centers of culture, trade, religion, and law. The famous Code of Hammurabi is one of the earliest and most influential systems of laws. Soon after Hammurabi's death in 1750 B.C., the kingdom of Babylonia began to fall to invaders. But Mesopotamians remembered the former greatness of Babylon, the city. Then, around 605 B.C., a new ruler claimed its heritage. He called himself Nebuchadnezzar (nehb-uh-/euhd-NEHZ-uhr) II. City on the Plain Nebuchadnezzar was a man in a hurry. Conquering his neighbors, he seized control of important trade routes from the Persian Gulf Persian Gulf, arm of the Arabian Sea, 90,000 sq mi (233,100 sq km), between the Arabian peninsula and Iran, extending c.600 mi (970 km) from the Shatt al Arab delta to the Strait of Hormuz, which links it with the Gulf of Oman. to the Mediterranean Sea Mediterranean Sea [Lat.,=in the midst of lands], the world's largest inland sea, c.965,000 sq mi (2,499,350 sq km), surrounded by Europe, Asia, and Africa. Geography The Mediterranean is c.2,400 mi (3,900 km) long with a maximum width of c. . With the wealth of this second Babylonian Empire, he built the Babylon of legend. "In magnificence there is no other city that approaches it," wrote Herodotus (hih-ROD-uh-tuhs), the great Greek historian. Herodotus described a fortress of towers, temples, palaces, and grand avenues designed for gods and wealthy citizens. Rising dramatically above the plain of Mesopotamia were walls thick enough, Herodotus claimed, for a four-horse chariot to turn around on top of them. Inside the walls, a huge ziggurat ziggurat (zĭg`  răt), form of temple common to the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The earliest examples date from the end of the 3d millenium B.C. dominated the skyline. Scholars
believe that it served as the model for the Bible's Tower of Babel Babel (bā`bəl) [Heb.,=confused], in the Bible, place where Noah's descendants (who spoke one language) tried to build a tower reaching up to heaven to make a name for themselves. .
The city's many other marvels of engineering included the
multilevel mul·ti·lev·el adj. Having several levels: a multilevel parking garage. Adj. 1. multilevel - of a building having more than one level "Hanging Gardens." Water for the gardens was pulled up from the Euphrates by an ingenious pump system. The Greeks called the Hanging Gardens one of the Seven Wonders of the World Seven Wonders of the World, in ancient classifications, were the Great Pyramid of Khufu (see pyramid) or all the pyramids with or without the sphinx; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, with or without the walls; the mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Artemision at Ephesus; . Babylon was also the source of much of the ancient world's advanced learning. The Babylonians were obsessed ob·sess v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es v.tr. To preoccupy the mind of excessively. v.intr. with predicting the future by the stars. This passion led to some of the first maps of constellations and the foundations of modern astronomy (study of the stars and the universe). Babylonian mathematicians helped introduce the 60-minute hour, the 4-week month, and the 360-degree circle. By the Rivers of Babylon In 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish kingdom of Judah
The Bible has much to say about Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar. The stories of Daniel and the prophesies (predictions) of Jeremiah came from those dark days. To the captive Jews, Babylon was a wicked city that worshipped false gods. One of the most famous Psalms describes the sorrow and shame of the imprisonment Imprisonment See also Isolation. Alcatraz Island former federal maximum security penitentiary, near San Francisco; “escapeproof.” [Am. Hist.: Flexner, 218] Altmark, the German prison ship in World War II. [Br. Hist. : "By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." The Jews were finally freed after the Persians conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. When they returned home, however, they took the influence of Babylon with them. The Bible's accounts of the creation and the flood were probably influenced by Mesopotamian myths. Other important cultural developments, including Hebrew script and the Jewish calendar Jewish calendar n. The lunisolar calendar used to mark the events of the Jewish year, dating the creation of the world at 3761 b.c. See Table at calendar. Noun 1. , were developed as a result of the captivity. Most important, according to H. G. Wells, historian and author of The War of the Worlds, Babylon was where the Jews first started to develop their own traditions. "The people who came back to Jerusalem ... were a very different people," Wells wrote. "They had learned civilization." A Great City Falls Nebuchadnezzar died in 561 B.C., after ruling for 44 years. That was the beginning of the end for Babylon. Bitter rivalries divided the people of the city. In 539 B.C., Cyrus the Great Cyrus the Great (sī`rəs), d. 529 B.C., king of Persia, founder of the greatness of the Achaemenids and of the Persian Empire. According to Herodotus, he was the son of an Iranian noble, the elder Cambyses, and a Median princess, daughter of of Persia captured Babylon without a struggle. Throughout the ages, historians, dreamers, and tyrants have preserved the legend of Babylon. Alexander the Great planned to base his empire there, and died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar in 323 B.C. Twenty-three centuries later, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein installed a huge portrait of himself and Nebuchadnezzar at the entrance to Babylon's ruins. Time and the desert sands have taken their toll on the once-mighty city. Yet its legend has refused to die. In the cradle of civilization, a battle for the soul of Iraq continues to rage. Words to Know * artifacts: objects of historical significance that were produced by humans. * Mesopotomia (MESS-uh-push-TAY-mee-uh); a region of Asia that included present-day Iraq and parts of Syria and Turkey. Its name means "between rivers." * ziggurat: a tower built in stair-step stages. * Zion: a symbol of Jerusalem and the Jewish homeland. WORD MATCH 1. artifact A. study of the stars 2. ziggurat B. prediction 3. astronomy C. expel 4. deport D. tower 5. prophecy E. significant object Word Match, p. 14 1. E; 2. D; 3. A; 4. C; 5. B THINK ABOUT IT Where did the culture of the Babylonians come from? How did it spread? * Use a word or phrase from this list to correctly complete each sentence. Alexander the Great, Baghdad, Cyrus the Great, Daniel, Hammurabi, Hanging Gardens, Herodotus, Iran, Ishtar Gate, Greece, Jeremiah, Mesopotamia, Nebuchadnezzar II, Red Sea, Tower of Babel, ziggurat 16. Western civilization began in--an area whose name means "between rivers." 17. Babylonia's King--established one of the earliest codes of law. 18. King--of the second Babylonian Empire conquered the Jewish kingdom of Judah. 19. Babylon's--was said to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. 20. In 539 B.C., a weakened Babylon was easily captured by--of Persia. 16. Mesopotamia 17. Hammurabi 18. Nebuchadnezzar II 19. Hanging Gardens 20. Cyrus the Great |
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