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The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and being firmly established through the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in ...
Mar 12, 2024 · The Neo-Babylonian empire was an ancient kingdom that stretched from Palestine to Persia. It is known perhaps best from the accounts of its second king, Nebuchadnezzar II, in the Hebrew Bible and for the role it played in the Babylonian captivity. It rose to power after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian empire and fell to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great. The Neo-Babylonian period is ...
- Overview
- A Neo-Babylonian dynasty
- Architecture
By Dr. Senta German
"I, Nebuchadnezzar . . . magnificently adorned them with luxurious splendor for all mankind to behold in awe."
Nebuchadnezzar II, Inscription plaque of the Ishtar Gate
The chronology of Mesopotamia is complicated. Scholars refer to places (Sumer, for example) and peoples (the Babylonians), but also empires (Babylonia) and unfortunately for students of the Ancient Near East these organizing principles do not always agree. The result is that we might, for example, speak of the very ancient Babylonians starting in the 1800s B.C.E. and then also the Neo-Babylonians more than a thousand years later. What came in between you ask? Well, quite a lot, but mostly the Kassites and the Assyrians.
The Babylonians rose to power in the late 7th century and were heirs of the urban traditions which had long existed in southern Mesopotamia. They eventually ruled an empire as dominant in the Near East as that held by the Assyrians before them.
This period is called Neo-Babylonian (or new Babylonia) because Babylon had also risen to power earlier and became an independent city-state, most famously during the reign of
.
In the art of the Neo-Babylonian Empire we see an effort to invoke the styles and iconography of the 3rd millennium rulers of Babylonia. In fact, one Neo-Babylonian king,
The Neo-Babylonians are most famous for their architecture, notably at their capital city, Babylon.
largely rebuilt this ancient city including its walls and seven gates. It is also during this era that Nebuchadnezzar purportedly built the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" for his wife because she missed the gardens of her homeland in Media (modern day Iran). Though mentioned by ancient Greek and Roman writers, the "Hanging Gardens" may, in fact, be legendary.
The Ishtar Gate (today in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) was the most elaborate of the inner city gates constructed in Babylon in antiquity. The whole gate was covered in
glazed bricks which would have rendered the façade with a jewel-like shine. Alternating rows of lion and cattle march in a relief procession across the gleaming blue surface of the gate.
Additional resources
The Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
People also ask
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Mar 13, 2024 · Babylon, one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia ( Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium bce and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries bce, when it was at the height of its splendor. Its extensive ruins, on the Euphrates River ...
Feb 2, 2018 · The Neo-Babylonian Empire, like the earlier Babylonia, was short-lived. In 539 B.C., less than a century after its founding, the legendary Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. The fall ...
The rise of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty. In November of the year 626, Babylon’s throne was seized by a man called Nabopolassar. His origins are uncertain. Inscriptions refer to him as ‘the son of a nobody’, though there is some evidence to suggest that he was the son of a governor of Uruk under the former Assyrian administration, and may ...
Dec 6, 2023 · This period is called Neo-Babylonian (or new Babylonia) because Babylon had also risen to power earlier and became an independent city-state, most famously during the reign of King Hammurabi. In the art of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, we see an effort to invoke the styles and iconography of the 3rd-millennium rulers of Babylonia.
