Babylonia

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This article is about the ancient (pre-539 BC) empires. For the region called
Babylonia by Jewish sources in the later, Talmudic period, see Talmudic Academies
in Babylonia. For other uses, see Babylonia (disambiguation).

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Babylonia
Babylonia
1895 BCE619 BCE
Capital Babylon
Government Monarchy
Historical era Bronze Age, Iron Age
Established 1895 BCE
Disestablished 619 BCE
Today part of Iraq
Part of a series on the
History of Iraq
Detail from the Ishtar Gate
Ancient Mesopotamia
Sumer Assyria Akkadian Empire Babylonia Neo-Assyrian Empire Neo-Babylonian Empire
Median Kingdom
Classical antiquity
Achaemenid Assyria Seleucid Babylonia Parthian Babylonia Roman Mesopotamia Sasanian
Asorestan
Middle Ages
Islamic conquest Rashidun Caliphate Umayyad Caliphate Abbasid Caliphate Hamdanids
Buyid amirate of Iraq Marwanids Uqaylids Al-Mazeedi Ayyubids Seljuk Empire Zengids
Ilkhanate Jalairid Sultanate Kara Koyunlu Aq Qoyunlu
Early modern period
Safavids Ottoman Iraq Mamluk dynasty
Modern Iraq
Mandatory Iraq Kingdom of Iraq Republic (195868) Ba'athist rule (19682003)
Occupation (200311) Recent history
Flag of Iraq.svg Iraq portal
v t e
Ancient history
Preceded by Prehistory
Ancient Near East
Sumer Egypt Assyria Elam Akkad Babylonia Canaan Israel and Judah Hittite Empire
Arzawa Mitanni Minoan Crete Mycenaean Greece Syro-Hittite states Hayasa-Azzi
Georgia Anatolia Armenia Neo-Assyrian Empire Urartu Neo-Babylonian Empire Medes
Classical antiquity
Greece Persia (Achaemenid)
Hellenism Rome Africa
Late Antiquity
East Asia
China Korea Japan
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Empire
Pre-Columbian Americas
Mesoamerica Olmec Maya civilization Teotihuacan Aztec Andean civilizations Chavn
culture Moche Inca empire
See also
History of the world
Ancient maritime history Protohistory Axial Age Iron Age Historiography Ancient
literature Ancient warfare Cradle of civilization
Followed by the Postclassical Era
v t e
Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in
central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). A small Amorite-ruled state
emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at this time the minor administrative town of
Babylon.[1] Babylon greatly expanded from the small provincial town that it had
originally been during the Akkadian Empire (2335-2154 BC) during the reign of
Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, becoming a major capital city.
During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called Mat Akkadi the
country of Akkad in the Akkadian language.[2][3] It was often involved in rivalry
with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia,
as well as Elam to the east, in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major
power in the region after Hammurabi (fl. c. 1792 1752 BC middle chronology, or c.
1696 1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the
earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire; however, the
Babylonian empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted back
to a small kingdom.

The Babylonian state, like Assyria to the north, retained the written Akkadian
language for official use (the language of its native populace), despite its
Northwest Semitic-speaking Amorite founders and Kassite successors, who spoke a
language isolate, not being native Mesopotamians. It retained the Sumerian language
for religious use (as did Assyria), but already by the time Babylon was founded,
this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The
earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in Babylonian and
Assyrian culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even
under its protracted periods of outside rule.

The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a clay tablet from the
reign of Sargon of Akkad (23342279 BC), dating back to the 23rd century BC.
Babylon was merely a religious and cultural centre at this point and neither an
independent state nor a large city; like the rest of Mesopotamia, it was subject to
the Akkadian Empire which united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one
rule. After the collapse of the Akkadian empire, the south Mesopotamian region was
dominated by the Gutian people for a few decades before the rise of the Third
Dynasty of Ur, which, apart from northern Assyria, encompassed the whole of
Mesopotamia, including the town of Babylon.

Contents [hide]
1 Periods
1.1 Pre-Babylonian Sumero-Akkadian period in Mesopotamia
1.2 First Babylonian Dynasty Amorite Dynasty 18941595 BC
1.2.1 Empire of Hammurabi
1.2.2 Decline
1.2.3 The sack of Babylon and ancient Near East chronology
1.3 Kassite Dynasty, 15951155 BC
1.4 Early Iron Age Native Rule, Second Dynasty of Isin, 11551026 BC
1.5 Period of Chaos 1026911 BC
1.6 Assyrian rule, 911619 BC
1.7 Neo-Babylonian Empire (Chaldean Era)
1.8 Persian Babylonia
2 Culture
2.1 Babylonian culture
2.1.1 Art and architecture
2.1.2 Astronomy
2.1.3 Medicine
2.1.4 Literature
2.2 Neo-Babylonian culture
2.2.1 Astronomy
2.2.2 Mathematics
2.2.3 Philosophy
3 Legacy
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Periods[edit]
Pre-Babylonian Sumero-Akkadian period in Mesopotamia[edit]

The extent of the Babylonian Empire at the start and end of Hammurabi's reign
Mesopotamia had already enjoyed a long history prior to the emergence of Babylon,
with Sumerian civilisation emerging in the region c. 3500 BC, and the Akkadian -
speaking people appearing by the 30th century BC.

During the 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis occurred between
Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism.[4] The
influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from
lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological
convergence.[4] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the
third millennium as a sprachbund.[4]

Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia

somewhere around the turn of the third and the second millennium BC (the precise
timeframe being a matter of debate),[5] but Sumerian continued to be used as a
sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia as late as the
1st century AD.[citation needed]

From c. 3500 BC until the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC,
Mesopotamia had been dominated by largely Sumerian cities and city states, such as
Ur, Lagash, Uruk, Kish, Isin, Larsa, Adab, Eridu, Gasur, Assur, Hamazi, Akshak,
Arbela and Umma, although Semitic Akkadian names began to appear on the king lists
of some of these states (such as Eshnunna and Assyria) between the 29th and 25th
centuries BC. Traditionally, the major religious center of all Mesopotamia was the
city of Nippur where the god Enlil was supreme, and it would remain so until
replaced by Babylon during the reign of Hammurabi in the mid-18th century BC.

The Akkadian Empire (23342154 BC) saw the Akkadian Semites and Sumerians of
Mesopotamia unite under one rule, and the Akkadians fully attain ascendancy over
the Sumerians and indeed come to dominate much of the ancient Near East.

The empire eventually disintegrated due to economic decline, climate change and
civil war, followed by attacks by the Gutians from the Zagros Mountains. Sumer rose
up again with the Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd century BC, and ejected the
Gutians from southern Mesopotamia. They also seem to have gained ascendancy over
much of the territory of the Akkadian kings of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia for
a time.