One of the most important cities of Mesopotamia, whose name originally meant "the gate of the gods". The Hebrews understood the name differently: "therefore is the name of it called Babel; because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth" (Gen 11:9).
Babylon is the Greek form of the name Babel. The greatness of Babylon began during its 1st Dynasty, especially in the reign of Hammurabi (17th century B.C.), the sixth king of that line.
Hamurabi is noted for the Hamurabi Code, the earliest known set of written laws.
The 'Code of Hammurabi' contains no laws having to do with religion. The basis of criminal law is that of equal retaliation, comparable to the Semitic law of "an eye for an eye." The law offers protection to all classes of Babylonian society; it seeks to protect the weak and the poor, including women, children, and slaves, against injustice at the hands of the rich and powerful.
The Code of Hammurabi consisted of a collection of the laws and edicts of the Babylonian King Hammurabi, and the earliest legal code known in its entirety. A copy of the code, engraved on a block of black diorite nearly 2.4 m (8 ft) high, was unearthed by a team of French archaeologists at Susa, Iraq, formerly ancient Elam, during the winter of 1901-2. The block, broken in three pieces, has been restored and is now in the Louvre in Paris.
Composition of the Code:
The divine origin of the written law is emphasized by a bas-relief in which the king is depicted receiving the code from the sun god, Shamash. The quality most usually associated with this god is justice. The code is set down in horizontal columns of cuneiform writing: 16 columns of text on the obverse side and 28 on the reverse. The text begins with a prologue that explains the extensive restoration of the temples and religious cults of Babylonia and Assyria. The code itself, composed of 28 paragraphs, seems to be a series of amendments to the common law of Babylonia, rather than a strict legal code. It begins with direction for legal procedure and the statement of penalties for unjust accusations, false testimony, and injustice done by judges; then follow laws concerning property rights, loans, deposits, debts, domestic property, and family rights. The sections covering personal injury indicate that penalties were imposed for injuries sustained through unsuccessful operations by physicians and for damages caused by neglect in various trades. Rates are fixed in the code for various forms of service in most branches of trade and commerce.
The code is particularly humane for the time in which it was promulgated; it attests to the law and justice of Hammurabi's rule. It ends with an epilogue glorifying the mighty works of peace executed by Hammurabi and explicitly states that he had been called by the gods "to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil." He describes the laws in his compilation as enabling "the land to enjoy stable government and good rule," and he states that he had inscribed his words on a pillar in order "that the strong may not oppress the weak, that justice may be dealt the orphan and the widow." Hammurabi counsels the downtrodden in these ringing words: "Let any oppressed man who has a cause come into the presence of my statue as king of justice, and have the inscription on my stele read out, and hear my precious words, that my stele may make the case clear to him; may he understand his cause, and may his heart be set at ease!"
During Hamurabi's reign and that of his son numerous temples were built there and irrigation channels were excavated but then the city suffered a rapid decline. It revived again in the 13th century B.C. but continued to suffer frequent onslaughts, resulting in destruction, at the hands of the rising Assyrian Empire. It was not until the downfall of Assyria that Babylon, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar II, rose again to the status of the most important city in Mesopotamia. Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered the city, which then became part of the Persian Empire. In 331 B.C. Babylon was conquered by Alexander the Great, who attempted to rebuild the venerated but decaying city. With his untimely death its long decline set in and on into the Roman period.
The ruins of babylon form a vast triangle and extend over an area of more than 3 1/2 square miles (9 sq. km). The whole area was surrounded by walls, while on the west the city was defended by the Euphrates River. Tell Babil, which has preserved the ancient name, rises in the northern part of this triangle. Several additional mounds scattered over the area concealed some of the more important monuments. A huge bridge over the river connected old Babylon with the new city, built under Nebuchadnezzer II. In the excavations of Tell babil extensive remains of his palace were discovered. It consisted of several large courts around which were grouped countless halls, rooms, stores and so on. The same palace was still further enlarged by subsequent rulers, especially Artaxerxes III Ochus. A monumental passageway led to the palace from the east, terminating in the third court, adjoining which was the magnificent throne hall. The walls of this vast hall were lined with bricks enameled in white, light blue, yellow and red on a dark blue ground. Another huge palace was discovered in a mound in the northeastern quarter of the city. It consisted of a narrow passage, along which were grouped two lines of rooms, seven in each group. The excavators believed these were the gardens of Queen Semiramus otherwise known as the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" famous in classical literature. Inscribed clay tablets were found here on which were written the portions of food allotted to foreign artisans and important captives, among them Jehoiakim, the King of Judah.
Along the eastern side of the two palaces ran a ceremonial street connected with the inner city by the famous Ishtar Gate, decorated with enamel bricks on which wild oxen and legendary animals were depicted. The street led into the most sacred part of the city, where the most venerated shrines were situated. In the center of a huge court 1200 feet by 1500 feet (365 m by 460 m) stood the temple of Marduk, named E Sag Ila, and the "Tower of Babel". Owing to the rise in the level of the ground water the excavators were unable to penetrate the strata pertaining to the Babylon of Hamurabi but remains of the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods did come to light.
The story of the Tower of Babel is told in Genesis (11:1-9). This building is generally identified with the ziggurat, the tower which rises in the center of the court of the temple of Marduk. Isaiah referred to the glories of the city (Isa 13:19) and prophesied its downfall (Isa 13:20-22; 14:7-23). Babylon is referred to as the first city which was built by men and Jeremiah (51:7) describes it as "a golden cup in the Lord's hand".
In the NT, in I Peter 5:13 and in the Book of Revelation, Babylon is a code-word for Rome as the seat of the Roman Empire which claimed divine honors for the emperor (idolatry) and was oppressing the people of God. The Book of Revelation prophecies the fall of Babylon and its destruction and, referring to Babylon, says "For true and righteous are his judgements because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her" (Rev 19:2).
Babylonian society consisted of three classes represented by the awilu, a free person of the upper class; the wardu, or slave; and the mushkenu, a free person of low estate, who ranked legally between the awilu and the wardu. Most slaves were prisoners of war, but some were recruited from the Babylonian citizenry as well. For example, free persons might be reduced to slavery as punishment for certain offenses; parents could sell their children as slaves in time of need; or a man might even turn over his entire family to creditors in payment of a debt, but for no longer than three years.
Babylonians developed an abstract form of writing based on cuneiform symbols. Their symbols were written on wet clay tablets which were baked in the hot sun and many thousands of these tablets have survived to this day. It was the use of a stylus on a clay medium that led to the use of cuneiform symbols since curved lines could not be drawn. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the Babylonian's calculating skills was their construction of tables to aid calculation.
The Babylonians had an advanced number system, in some ways more advanced than our present system. It was a positional system with base 60 rather than the base 10 of our present system. Now 10 has only two proper divisors, 2 and 5. However 60 has 10 proper divisors so many more numbers have a finite form.
For mathematical and arithmetical purposes they used the Sumerian sexagesimal system of numbers, which featured a useful device of so-called place-value notation that resembles the present-day decimal system. Measures of length, area, capacity, and weight, standardized earlier by the Sumerians, remained in use.
The Babylonians divided the day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes, each minute into 60 seconds. This form of counting has survived for 4000 years.
