Babylon

Babylon was built with lots and lots of bricks.

It had two thick walls around it, with a ditch outside. A grand street led to a gate. Shiny bricks with lions on them lined the street. A tall stepped tower stood in the middle of the city.

King Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon with workers brought from many lands. Its streets were laid out in a grid, like squares on graph paper, with the main streets running beside the river. A bridge on brick pillars crossed the Euphrates.

A thick double wall with a ditch outside went all the way around the city, and an outer wall 18 kilometers long protected even more land. There were eight strong gates. A paved street called the Processional Way had walls covered in shiny glazed bricks showing lions. In the older part of the city stood a ziggurat, a giant tower built in steps.

Most of what is known about the city's plan comes from Nebuchadnezzar's rebuilding, which left relatively little earlier material in the center; elsewhere a high water table limits digging into early layers. His Babylon covered about 10 square km. Streets ran on a grid with the main axis parallel to the Euphrates, which was spanned by a bridge on brick piles capped with stone, and quays along the river served trading boats.

A massive double wall, protected by a ditch (fosse), enclosed the city on both banks, with eight fortified gates. East of the city, a triple outer rampart 18 km long met the river north and south and enclosed irrigated land and canals. The paved Processional Way was lined with walls of glazed brick lions and passed through a gate decorated with glazed bulls. In the older eastern half stood the great temple Esagila and its ziggurat Etemenanki: Britannica gives it a base 91 m (300 ft) on a side and seven stages rising to a height equal to its base. Two palace complexes with their fortifications covered about 16 hectares.

Archaeologists dig very carefully to find old things.

At Babylon, they found writing on clay, statues, pots and jewelry. Each find tells us how people lived long ago. People are working hard to keep the old city safe.

Explorers made small digs at Babylon in the 1800s. Then, from 1899 to 1917, the German archaeologist Robert Koldewey led a huge dig that did not stop for 18 years. His team found writing in cuneiform, the wedge-shaped script of Mesopotamia, as well as statues, carved stone pillars, seals, pottery, glass and jewelry.

Ancient Greek tradition tells of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a hill of plants on terraces. Koldewey found vaulted rooms that some people think held up the gardens, but no one has found remains that prove where the gardens were. Today Iraq protects the site, and UNESCO says it urgently needs careful conservation, because damage can happen at any time, especially when it rains.

After surveys by Claudius James Rich (1811 and 1817), Austen Henry Layard (1850) and others, Koldewey excavated for the German Oriental Society without a break from 1899 to 1917, recovering cuneiform inscriptions, statues, stelae, terra-cotta reliefs, cylinder seals, pottery, glassware and jewelry. Greek tradition counted the Hanging Gardens, terraced planting over vaulted foundations, among the Seven Wonders; Koldewey's vaults in the palace's northeast corner are one candidate, others place the gardens at Nineveh, and no confirmed remains have been found.

From 2003 a military camp on the ruins caused leveling and contamination before the site was returned to Iraq's Ministry of Culture in 2005; the World Monuments Fund and Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage announced a conservation plan in 2009. UNESCO describes the site's condition as critical, threatened by illegal building, dumped and burned trash and pollution, under a management plan endorsed in 2018.