Sinaunang Kabihasnan

Textured blue painted background. Sinaunang Kabihasnan.

Fall of the Persian Empire. Persian Empire entered a period of decline after a failed invasion of Greece by Xerxes I in 480 BC. The costly defense of Persia’s lands depleted the empire’s funds, leading to heavier taxation among Persia’s subjects. The Achaemenid dynasty finally fell to the invading armies of Alexander the Great of Macedon in 330 B.C. Subsequent rulers soughThet to restore the Persian Empire to its Achaemenian boundaries, though the empire never quite regained the enormous size it had achieved under Cyrus the Great ..

Ziggurat. Ziggurat , pyramidal stepped temple tower that is an architectural and religious structure characteristic of the major cities of Mesopotamia (now mainly in Iraq) from approximately 2200 until 500 BCE . The ziggurat was always built with a core of mud brick and an exterior covered with baked brick. It had no internal chambers and was usually square or rectangular, averaging either 170 feet (50 metres ) square or 125 × 170 feet (40 × 50 metres ) at the base. Approximately 25 ziggurats are known, being equally divided among Sumer , Babylonia , and Assyria . No ziggurat is preserved to its original height. Ascent was by an exterior triple stairway or by a spiral ramp, but for almost half of the known ziggurats, no means of ascent has been discovered. The sloping sides and terraces were often landscaped with trees and shrubs (hence the Hanging Gardens of Babylon ). The best-preserved ziggurat is at Ur (modern Tall al- Muqayyar , Iraq). The largest, at Choghā Zanbīl in Elam (now in southwestern Iran), is 335 feet (102 metres ) square and 80 feet (24 metres ) high and stands at less than half its estimated original height. A ziggurat, apparently of great antiquity, is located at Tepe Sialk in modern Kāshān , Iran . The legendary Tower of Babel has been popularly associated with the ziggurat of the great temple of Marduk in Babylon..

Babylonia. Babylonia was a state in ancient Mesopotamia. The city of Babylon, whose ruins are located in present-day Iraq , was founded more than 4,000 years ago as a small port town on the Euphrates River. It grew into one of the largest cities of the ancient world under the rule of Hammurabi. Several centuries later, a new line of kings established a Neo-Babylonian Empire that spanned from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. During this period, Babylon became a city of beautiful and lavish buildings. Biblical and archaeological evidence point toward the forced exile of thousands of Jews to Babylon around this time..

Where Is Babylon ?. The town of Babylon was located along the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq, about 50 miles south of Baghdad. It was founded around 2300 B.C. by the ancient Akkadian-speaking people of southern Mesopotamia . Babylon became a major military power under Amorite king Hammurabi , who ruled from 1792 to 1750 B.C. After Hammurabi conquered neighboring city-states, he brought much of southern and central Mesopotamia under unified Babylonian rule, creating an empire called Babylonia. Hammurabi turned Babylon into a rich, powerful and influential city. He created one of the world’s earliest and most complete written legal codes. Known as the Code of Hammurabi , it helped Babylon surpass other cities in the region. Babylonia, however, was short-lived. The empire fell apart after Hammurabi’s death and reverted back to a small kingdom for several centuries..

Neo-Babylonian Empire. A new line of kings established the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which lasted from 626 B.C. to 539 B.C. The Neo-Babylonian Empire became the most powerful state in the world after defeating the Assyrians at Nineveh in 612 B.C. The Neo-Babylonian Empire was a period of cultural renaissance in the Near East. The Babylonians built many beautiful and lavish buildings and preserved statues and artworks from the earlier Babylonian Empire during the reign of king Nebuchadnezzar II ..

Fall of Babylon. 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 of Babylon was complete when the empire came under Persian control..

Cuneiform. The earliest writing we know of dates back to around 3,000 B.C.E. and was probably invented by the Sumerians, living in major cities with centralized economies in what is now southern Iraq. The earliest tablets with written inscriptions represent the work of administrators, perhaps of large temple institutions, recording the allocation of rations or the movement and storage of goods. Temple officials needed to keep records of the grain, sheep and cattle entering or leaving their stores and farms and it became impossible to rely on memory. So, an alternative method was required and the very earliest texts were pictures of the items scribes needed to record (known as pictographs). Writing, the recording of a spoken language, emerged from earlier recording systems at the end of the fourth millennium. The first written language in Mesopotamia is called Sumerian. Most of the early tablets come from the site of Uruk , in southern Mesopotamia, and it may have been here that this form of writing was invented. These texts were drawn on damp clay tablets using a pointed tool. It seems the scribes realized it was quicker and easier to produce representations of such things as animals, rather than naturalistic impressions of them. They began to draw marks in the clay to make up signs, which were standardized so they could be recognized by many people..

Cuneiform. From these beginnings, cuneiform signs were put together and developed to represent sounds, so they could be used to record spoken language. Once this was achieved, ideas and concepts could be expressed and communicated in writing. Cuneiform is one of the oldest forms of writing known. It means "wedge-shaped," because people wrote it using a reed stylus cut to make a wedge-shaped mark on a clay tablet. Letters enclosed in clay envelopes, as well as works of literature, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh have been found. Historical accounts have also come to light, as have huge libraries such as that belonging to the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668-627 B.C.E.). Cuneiform writing was used to record a variety of information such as temple activities, business and trade. Cuneiform was also used to write stories, myths, and personal letters. The latest known example of cuneiform is an astronomical text from C.E. 75. During its 3,000-year history cuneiform was used to write around 15 different languages including Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Elamite, Hittite, Urartian and Old Persian..

Epic of Gilgamesh and The Flood Tablet. The best known piece of literature from ancient Mesopotamia is the story of Gilgamesh, a legendary ruler of Uruk , and his search for immortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a huge work, the longest piece of literature in Akkadian (the language of Babylonia and Assyria). It was known across the ancient Near East, with versions also found at Hattusas (capital of the Hittites), Emar in Syria and Megiddo in the Levant..

Epic of Gilgamesh and The Flood Tablet. The best known piece of literature from ancient Mesopotamia is the story of Gilgamesh, a legendary ruler of Uruk , and his search for immortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a huge work, the longest piece of literature in Akkadian (the language of Babylonia and Assyria). It was known across the ancient Near East, with versions also found at Hattusas (capital of the Hittites), Emar in Syria and Megiddo in the Levant. This, the eleventh tablet of the Epic, describes the meeting of Gilgamesh with Utnapishtim. Like Noah in the Hebrew Bible, Utnapishtim had been forewarned of a plan by the gods to send a great flood. He built a boat and loaded it with all his precious possessions, his kith and kin, domesticated and wild animals and skilled craftsmen of every kind. Utnapishtim survived the flood for six days while mankind was destroyed, before landing on a mountain called Nimush . He released a dove and a swallow but they did not find dry land to rest on, and returned. Finally a raven that he released did not return, showing that the waters must have receded. This Assyrian version of the Old Testament flood story is the most famous cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia. It was identified in 1872 by George Smith, an assistant in The British Museum. On reading the text he ... jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement, and, to the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself.'.

Map of the world. This tablet contains both a cuneiform inscription and a unique map of the Mesopotamian world. Babylon is shown in the center (the rectangle in the top half of the circle), and Assyria, Elam and other places are also named. The central area is ringed by a circular waterway labelled "Salt-Sea." The outer rim of the sea is surrounded by what were probably originally eight regions, each indicated by a triangle, labelled "Region" or "Island," and marked with the distance in between. The cuneiform text describes these regions, and it seems that strange and mythical beasts as well as great heroes lived there, although the text is far from complete. The regions are shown as triangles since that was how it was visualized that they first would look when approached by water. The map is sometimes taken as a serious example of ancient geography, but although the places are shown in their approximately correct positions, the real purpose of the map is to explain the Babylonian view of the mythological world..

Babylon In Jewish History. After the Babylonian conquest of the Kingdom of Judah in the sixth century B.C., Nebuchadnezzar II took thousands of Jews from the city of Jerusalem and held them captive in Babylon for more than half a century. Many Judeans returned to Jerusalem after the Neo-Babylonian Empire fell to Cyrus the Great’s Persian forces. Some stayed, and a Jewish community flourished there for more than 2,000 years. Many relocated to the newly created Jewish state of Israel in the 1950s..

Hanging Garden. Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II was said to have constructed the luxurious Hanging Gardens in the sixth century B.C. as a gift to his wife, Amytis , who was homesick for the beautiful vegetation and mountains of her native Media (the northwestern part of modern-day Iran). To make the desert bloom, a marvel of irrigation engineering would have been required. Scientists have surmised that a system of pumps, waterwheels and cisterns would have been employed to raise and deliver the water from the nearby Euphrates River to the top of the gardens. The multiple Greek and Roman accounts of the Hanging Gardens, however, were second-hand–written centuries after the wonder’s alleged destruction. First-hand accounts did not exist, and for centuries, archaeologists have hunted in vain for the remains of the gardens. A group of German archaeologists even spent two decades at the turn of the 20th century trying to unearth signs of the ancient wonder without any luck. The lack of any relics has caused skeptics to question whether the supposed desert wonder was just an “historical mirage.” However, Dr. Stephanie Dalley , an honorary research fellow and part of the Oriental Institute at England’s Oxford University, believes she has found evidence of the existence of the legendary Wonder of the Ancient World. In her soon-to-be-released book “The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced,” published by Oxford University Press, Dalley asserts that the reason why no traces of the Hanging Gardens have ever been found in Babylon is because they were never built there in the first place..

Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Dalley , who has spent the better part of two decades researching the Hanging Gardens and studying ancient cuneiform texts, believes they were constructed 300 miles to the north of Babylon in Nineveh, the capital of the rival Assyrian empire. She asserts the Assyrian king Sennacherib, not Nebuchadnezzar II, built the marvel in the early seventh century B.C., a century earlier than scholars had previously thought. Recent excavations around Nineveh, near the modern-day Iraqi city of Mosul, have uncovered evidence of an extensive aqueduct system that delivered water from the mountains with the inscription: “Sennacherib king of the world…Over a great distance I had a watercourse directed to the environs of Nineveh.” Bas reliefs from the royal palace in Nineveh depicted a lush garden watered by an aqueduct, and unlike the flat surroundings of Babylon, the more rugged topography around the Assyrian capital would have made the logistical challenges in elevating water to the gardens far easier for an ancient civilization to overcome. Dalley explains that the reason for the confusion of the location of the gardens could be due to the Assyrian conquering of Babylon in 689 B.C. Following the takeover, Nineveh was referred to as the “New Babylon,” and Sennacherib even renamed the city gates after those of Babylon’s entrances. Dalley’s assertions could debunk thoughts that the elusive ancient wonder was an “historical mirage,” but they could also prove that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are mislabeled and should truly be the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh..

Tigris and Euphrates. The two rivers where civilization began. Sigmund Freud dated the origin of civilisation to ‘the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock’. Whether that particular incident occurred in the fertile plain surrounding the Euphrates and Tigris rivers is likely to remain unclear, but histories of the world have traditionally seen Mesopotamia – from the Ancient Greek for ‘land between rivers’ and mostly contained in modern Iraq – as the area in which cities, law and agriculture first developed. Accordingly, this series ends at the beginning – of civilisation , that is, and does so by exploring the two arteries that, with the Nile, created the Fertile Crescent and sustained the ancient cultures, dynasties and empires of Sumer, Ur, Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia, perhaps watering the Hanging Gardens, possibly originating in Eden, but certainly supporting myriad settlements and peoples whose names were, to some extent, writ in water. The two rivers have their sources within 50 miles (80 km) of each other in eastern Turkey and travel southeast through northern Syria and Iraq to the head of the Persian Gulf . The total length of the Euphrates (Sumerian: Buranun ; Akkadian: Purattu ; biblical: Perath ; Arabic: Al- Furāt ; Turkish: Fırat ) is about 1,740 miles (2,800 km). The Tigris (Sumerian: Idigna ; Akkadian: Idiklat ; biblical: Hiddekel ; Arabic: Dijlah ; Turkish: Dicle ) is about 1,180 miles (1,900 km) in length. The rivers usually are discussed in three parts: their upper, middle, and lower courses. The upper courses are restricted to the valleys and gorges of eastern Anatolia , through which the rivers descend from their sources, lying 6,000 to 10,000 feet (1,800 to 3,000 metres ) above sea level . Their middle courses traverse the uplands of northern Syria and Iraq, at elevations varying from 1,200 feet (370 metres ) at the foot of the so-called Kurdish Escarpment to 170 feet (50 metres ) where the rivers empty onto the plain of central Iraq. Finally, their lower courses meander across that alluvial plain , which both rivers have created jointly. At Al- Qurnah the rivers join to form the Shatt al-Arab in the southeastern corner of Iraq, which empties into the sea..

Physical features. Having risen in close proximity, the Tigris and Euphrates diverge sharply in their upper courses, to a maximum distance of some 250 miles (400 km) apart near the Turkish-Syrian border. Their middle courses gradually approach each other, bounding a triangle of mainly barren limestone desert known as Al- Jazīrah (Arabic: “The Island”) in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and extreme northeastern Syria. There the rivers have cut deep and permanent beds in the rock, so that their courses have undergone only minor changes since prehistoric times. Along the northeastern edge of Al- Jazīrah , the Tigris drains the rain-fed heart of ancient Assyria , while along the southwestern limit the Euphrates crosses true desert. On the alluvial plain, south of the Iraqi towns of Sāmarrāʾ and Al- Ramādī , both rivers have undergone major shifts throughout the millennia, some as a consequence of human intervention. The 7,000 years of irrigation farming on the alluvium have created a complex landscape of natural levees, fossil meanders, abandoned canal systems, and thousands of ancient settlement sites. The location of tells —raised mounds under which are found the ruins of towns and cities of ancient Babylonia and Sumer —often bears no relation to present-day watercourses. In the vicinity of Al- Fallūjah and the Iraqi capital, Baghdad , the distance separating the rivers is reduced to some 30 miles (50 km), so small that, prior to its damming, floodwaters from the Euphrates often reached the capital on the Tigris. During the Sāsānian period (3rd century CE ), an elaborate feat of engineering linked the two rivers along that narrow neck by five navigable canals (the Īsā , Ṣarṣar , Malik, Kūthā , and Shaṭṭ al- Nīl canals), allowing Euphrates water to empty into the Tigris. South of Baghdad the rivers exhibit strongly contrasting characteristics. The Tigris, especially after its confluence with the silt-laden Diyālā River , carries a greater volume than the Euphrates; cuts into the alluvium; forms tortuous meanders; and, even in modern times, has been subject to great floods and consequent natural levee building. Only below Al- Kūt does the Tigris ride high enough over the plain to permit tapping for flow irrigation. The Euphrates, by contrast, builds its bed at a level considerably above the alluvial plain and has been used throughout history as the main source of Mesopotamian irrigation. The Gharrāf River, now a branch of the Tigris but in ancient times the main bed of that river, joins the Euphrates below Al- Nāṣiriyyah . In the southern alluvial plain, both rivers flow through marshes, and the Euphrates flows through Lake Al- Ḥammār , an open stretch of water. Finally, the Euphrates and Tigris join and flow as the Shatt al-Arab to the Persian Gulf..

BEFORE BABYLON. This icon of Gudea , ruler of the ancient city of Lagash which lies between the rivers, is a product of Sumer, the oldest known civilisation of southern Mesopotamia. By the time this likeness of Gudea (r.2144-2124 BC) was made, Sumer, which first developed in the fourth millennium BC, had flourished culturally and commercially for millennia and was resurgent following conquest by the Semitic-speaking Akkadian Empire. The statuette is made of expensive diorite, probably sourced from Magan (Oman)..

Where Is Persia?. The world’s first postal service. At its height under Darius the Great, the Persian Empire stretched from Europe’s Balkan Peninsula—in parts of what is present day Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine—to the Indus River Valley in northwest India and south to Egypt. The Persians were the first people to establish regular routes of communication between three continents—Africa, Asia and Europe. They built many new roads and developed.

Cyrus the Great. The Persian Empire started as a collection of semi-nomadic tribes who raised sheep, goats and cattle on the Iranian plateau. Cyrus the Great—the leader of one such tribe—began to defeat nearby kingdoms, including Media, Lydia and Babylon , joining them under one rule. He founded the first Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, in 550 B.C. The first Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great soon became the world’s first superpower. It united under one government three important sites of early human civilization in the ancient world: Mesopotamia , Egypt ’s Nile Valley and India ’s Indus Valley. Cyrus the Great is immortalized in the Cyrus Cylinder, a clay cylinder inscribed in 539 BC with the story of how he conquered Babylon from King Nabonidus, bringing an end to the Neo-Babylonian empire. Darius the Great, the fourth king of the Achaemenid Empire, ruled over the Persian Empire when it was at its largest, stretching from The Caucasus and West Asia to what was then Macedonia (today’s Balkans), the Black Sea, Central Asia and even into Africa including parts of Libya and Egypt. He unified the empire through introducing standard currency and weights and measures; making Aramaic the official language and building roads. The Behistun Inscription, a multilingual relief carved into Mount Behistun in Western Iran, extolls his virtues and was a critical key to deciphering cuneiform script. Its impact is compared that of the Rosetta Stone , the tablet that enabled scholars to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics..

TWO RIVERS. The rivers are seen here in a 10th-century map of northern Mesopotamia by the Persian geographer al- Istakhri . The eastern Tigris, on the left, is faster and shorter, at 1,850 km. Its name comes from the Sumerian word Idigna , meaning ‘swift river’. The Euphrates is 2,800 km long and its name possibly means ‘wide flowing water’ or ‘good to cross over’. Ending at the Persian Gulf, both originate in Turkey..

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON. Two visions of Babylon show the Euphrates’ importance to the city. This clay tablet maps the Tuba suburb with a branch of the river and two gates. On the reverse is cuneiform, a writing system invented by the Sumerians. Babylon was originally an Akkadian town; it grew to become the world’s largest city, arguably reaching its height in the sixth century BC under Nebuchadnezzar II, during whose rule this tablet was made. Herodotus described Babylon’s reliance on the rivers: ‘The whole Babylonian territory is cut up into channels, and the largest is navigable for ships and runs from the Euphrates to another river, namely the Tigris.’.

EAST OF EDEN. The Euphrates and Tigris are first mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Genesis: ‘A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.’ After the Pishon and Gihon, ‘the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.’ In the Book of Revelation, the sixth angel demands the release of ‘the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates’ – a scene depicted in this manuscript – after which the river is ‘dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared’..

WONDER WHERE?. As William Wordsworth wrote: ‘Babylon/ Learned and wise,/ Hath perished utterly,/ Nor leaves her Speech one word to aid the sigh/ That would lament her.’ This 18th-century print imagines the city’s most famous landmark, the Hanging Gardens, supposedly built by Nebuchadnezzar for his wife, Amytis of Media. The gardens differ from the other Seven Wonders of the Ancient World because their exact location has never been established and, as the poet says, no Babylonian text mentions them..

Persian Culture. The ancient Persians of the Achaemenid Empire created art in many forms, including metalwork, rock carvings, weaving and architecture. As the Persian Empire expanded to encompass other artistic centers of early civilization, a new style was formed with influences from these sources. Early Persian art included large, carved rock reliefs cut into cliffs, such as those found at Naqsh -e Rustam, an ancient cemetery filled with the tombs of Achaemenid kings. The elaborate rock murals depict equestrian scenes and battle victories. Ancient Persians were also known for their metalwork. In the 1870s, smugglers discovered gold and silver artifacts among ruins near the Oxus River in present-day Tajikistan. The artifacts included a small golden chariot, coins and bracelets decorated in a griffon motif. (The griffon is a mythical creature with the wings and head of an eagle and the body of a lion, and a symbol of the Persian capital of Persepolis.) British diplomats and members of the military serving in Pakistan brought roughly 180 of these gold and silver pieces—known as the Oxus Treasure—to London where they are now housed at the British Museum . The history of carpet weaving in Persia dates back to the nomadic tribes. The ancient Greeks prized the artistry of these hand-woven rugs—famous for their elaborate design and bright colors. Today, most Persian rugs are made of wool, silk and cotton..

Persepolis. The ancient Persian capital city of Persepolis, situated in southern Iran, ranks among the world’s greatest archeological sites. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. The Achaemenian palaces of Persepolis were built upon massive terraces. They were decorated with ornamental facades that included the long rock relief carvings for which the ancient Persians were famous..

Persian Religion. Many people think of Persia as synonymous with Islam , though Islam only became the dominant religion in the Persian Empire after the Arab conquests of the seventh century. The first Persian Empire was shaped by a different religion: Zoroastrianism . Named after the Persian prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra), Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. It’s still practiced today as a minority religion in parts of Iran and India.. Zoroaster, who likely lived sometime between 1500 and 500 B.C., taught followers to worship one god instead of the many deities worshipped by earlier Indo-Iranian groups. The Achaemenian kings were devout Zoroastrians. By most accounts, Cyrus the Great was a tolerant ruler who allowed his subjects to speak their own languages and practice their own religions. While he ruled by the Zoroastrian law of asha (truth and righteousness), he didn’t impose Zoroastrianism on the people of Persia’s conquered territories. Hebrew scriptures praise Cyrus the Great for freeing the Jewish people of Babylon from captivity and allowing them to return to Jerusalem . Subsequent rulers in the Achaemenid Empire followed Cyrus the Great’s hands-off approach to social and religious affairs, allowing Persia’s diverse citizenry to continue practicing their own ways of life. This period of time is sometimes called the Pax Persica , or Persian Peace..