The ancient city

Evidence of the topography of ancient Babylon is provided by excavations, cuneiform texts, and descriptions by Herodotus and other Classical authors. The extensive rebuilding by Nebuchadnezzar has left relatively little archaeological data in the central area earlier than his time, while elsewhere the water table has limited excavation in early strata. The reports of Herodotus largely relate to the Babylon built by Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was the largest city in the world, covering about 4 square miles (10 square km). The Euphrates, which has since shifted its course, flowed through it, the older part of the city being on the east bank. There the central feature was Esagila, the great temple of Marduk, with its associated ziggurat (a tower built in several stages) Etemenanki. The latter, popularly known as the Tower of Babel, had a base 300 feet (91 meters) on a side, and its seven stages, the uppermost a temple in blue glaze, reached a total height equal to that of its base. Four other temples in the eastern half of the city are known from excavations and a larger number from texts. Along the Euphrates, particularly in the neighborhood of Esagila, were quays for trading vessels, and textual evidence that Babylon was an entrepôt for trade with south Babylonia points to the existence of warehouses. The river was spanned by a bridge, on brick piles with stone capping, to the western half of the city. The streets were laid out on a grid, with the main axis parallel to the river. From Esagila northward passed the paved Processional Way, its walls decorated with enameled lions. Passing through the Ishtar Gate, adorned with enameled bulls and dragons, it led to the Akitu House, a small temple outside the city that was said to be visited by Marduk at the New Year festival. West of the Ishtar Gate, one of eight fortified gates, were two palace complexes that covered about 40 acres (16 hectares) with their fortifications.

East of the Processional Way lay an area that since the time of Hammurabi had contained private dwellings built around central courtyards. A massive double wall, protected by a fosse (ditch), enclosed the city on both sides of the Euphrates. Beyond the city walls to the east an outer rampart of triple construction, 11 miles long (18 km), met the Euphrates south and north of the city, enclosing another palace at the rampart’s northern junction. Between the inner and outer defenses was irrigated land with a network of canals, some going back to the time of Hammurabi. Greek tradition refers to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a simulated hill of vegetation-clad terracing over a vaulted substructure that in Hellenistic times was deemed one of the Seven Wonders of the World. German archaeologist Robert Koldewey discovered a unique series of foundation chambers and vaults in the northeastern corner of the palace at Babylon, which some suggest may have functioned as part of the substructure of the Hanging Gardens; others theorize that the garden site, constructed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib, in fact lay at his capital, Nineveh. However, with no confirmed remains of the gardens yet uncovered, speculation regarding their location and mechanism continued into the 21st century.

The present site

The present site, an extensive field of ruins, contains several prominent mounds. The main mounds are (1) Babil, the remains of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in the northern corner of the outer rampart, (2) Qasr, comprising the palace complex (with a building added in Persian times), the Ishtar Gate, and the Emakh temple, (3) Amran ibn Ali, the ruins of Esagila, (4) Merkez, marking the ancient residential area east of Esagila, (5) Humra, containing rubble removed by Alexander from the ziggurat in preparation for rebuilding, and a theater he built with material from the ziggurat, and (6) Ishin Aswad, where there are two further temples. A depression called Sahn marks the former site of the ziggurat Etemenanki. A larger-than-life-size basalt lion, probably of Hittite origin and brought to Babylon in antiquity, stands north of the Ishtar Gate.

Archaeology

After minor surveys and excavations by the British scholar Claudius James Rich (1811 and 1817), the British archaeologist and sometime diplomat Austen Henry Layard (1850), the French Orientalist Fulgence Fresnel, the German Assyriologist Jules Oppert (1852–54), and others, a major archaeological operation began under Koldewey for the German Oriental Society in 1899 and continued unbroken until 1917. In the course of his excavation of the structures mentioned, Koldewey also discovered cuneiform inscriptions, statues, stelae (pillars), terra-cotta reliefs, cylinder seals, pottery, glassware, and jewelry. Further brief investigations were made by the German Archaeological Institute in 1956 under Heinrich J. Lenzen at the Greek theater and in 1966 under H.J. Schmidt at the site of Etemenanki. Restoration of the Emakh temple and of part of the Ishtar Gate, the Processional Way, and the palace complex was begun in 1958 by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities, which also built a half-size model of the complete Ishtar Gate at the entrance to the site. The original gate has been on display at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum since 1930.

Beginning in 2003, warfare in Iraq had a devastating effect on a number of antiquities and archaeological sites throughout the country, some of which were looted or damaged. In 2003 the presence of coalition forces based at the archaeological site initially protected the Babylon complex from looting; however, the subsequent establishment of a military encampment among the ruins caused significant damage, including leveling and contamination, prior to the site’s return to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture in 2005. In January 2009 the World Monuments Fund—in collaboration with Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and with funding from the U.S. Department of State—announced a new conservation plan for the site of the ancient city.