The eight-year war with Iran, followed by Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91, a 12-year UN embargo, the 2003 U.S. “But they failed to submit a comprehensive safeguarding plan,” she explains from her office in Amman. ( Photo by Ameer Al Mohammedaw/picture alliance via Getty Images)Īccording to May Shaer, a consultant for the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the site was submitted for nomination by the Iraqi government in 1983. But what took so long, one might ask?Īn image of mushussu, the Babylonian Dragon and sacred animal of Marduk, on the rebuilt walls of Babylon. Its new designation can only encourage Iraq’s struggling tourism industry and local economies. One can only imagine that Marduk, the supreme god of Babylon, to whom local ladies still ask for intercession at a de facto re-appropriated fertility site where a recently reconstructed medieval shrine to Imam Ali’s son sits on top of his ancient temple, is well pleased that Babylon has been officially recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are still three existing but non-functioning oil pipelines as well, two of which were built in the 1970s and 1980s and the third of which is more recent - work on it was blocked after the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage filed a lawsuit in 2012. In 1927, the British ran a railway line through the site, and in the 1980s, Saddam built a highway through part of it, along with a palace for himself, complete with a heli-pad. More recently Babylon has survived years of colonial looting, a brutal sanctions regime that encouraged cash-strapped government employees to sell artifacts to the highest bidders, and ongoing environmental challenges - not to mention the disco hit by Boney M that was once banned by Saddam for its alleged “Zionist” connotations.Ĭonstruction, too, has taken a toll over the years. (This was possibly the inspiration for the Babylon Festival, a recently revived cultural happening that began in 1987 at the time of Saddam’s reconstruction.) In 539 BCE, the ancient world’s then capital of scholarship and science fell to the Persian king Cyrus the Great. The Esaglia, the temple dedicated to Marduk, was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar and the akitu - an 11-day festival - paid homage to the god with sacrifices and the recital of an epic poem about the creation of the world and the triumph of order over chaos. After the Assyrian King Esarhaddon rebuilt the holy city, amid fear of divine retribution, Babylonians regained control in 612 BCE. Sacked by the Hittites in 1595 BCE, and conquered by the Kassites in 1570 BCE, it became a center for worship of the god Marduk for four centuries. The city is also believed to be the site of the mythical Hanging Gardens - one of the “seven wonders of the world” - said to be a legacy of King Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including the 300-foot Etemenanki ziggurat (believed to be the legendary Tower of Babel), and the building of the Ishtar Gate, the most prominent of eight gates around Babylon.īefore its glory years under Nebuchadnezzar, it was the most important city in Mesopotamia during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE). It was here that King Hammurabi produced the world’s first written law. Between 626 and 539 BCE, the city was the capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire and the largest metropolis in the world. The 2500-acre site, 50 miles south of Baghdad, comprises both the ruins of the ancient city as well as surrounding villages and agricultural areas. From its peak as the Neo-Babylonian capital under King Nebuchadnezzar through its heavy-handed 1987 reconstruction by Saddam Hussein to its post-invasion demise when American and Polish troops ran roughshod over its ruins and ISIS threatened its very existence, the ancient city has witnessed empires come and go.
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