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The 2000-year story of Babylon sees it moving from a city-state to the centre of a great empire of the ancient world. It remained a centre of kingship under the empires of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids and the Parthians. Its city walls were declared to be a Wonder of the World while its ziggurat won fame as the Tower of Babel. Visitors to Berlin can admire its Ishtar Gate, and the supposed location of its elusive Hanging Garden is explained. Worship of its patron god Marduk spread widely while its well-trained scholars communicated legal, administrative and literary works throughout the ancient world, some of which provide a backdrop to Old Testament and Hittite texts. Its science also laid the foundations for Greek and Arab astronomy through a millennium of continuous astronomical observations. This accessible and up-to-date account is by one of the world's leading authorities.
To present the Babylonian evidence, cuneiform texts and archaeological remains, for the Achaemenian rule over the satrapy Babairuš is to write a history of Mesopotamia. To write a history of Mesopotamia during these two hundred years would moreover necessitate the complete and critical utilization of contemporary and later classical sources. The cuneiform evidence of Achaemenian rule not only confirms the sequence of Persian rulers as known from Old Persian inscriptions and from Greek writers, but adds important chronological refinements. The student of Mesopotamian history can also rely on the inscriptions often written or stamped on bricks destined for temples, palaces, city walls, etc. In Mesopotamia as elsewhere historical events have left their imprints on literary creations and, conversely, literary creations have been used for political purposes. This chapter discusses the problems connected with the co-regency of Cyrus and Cambyses. Mesopotamian sources provide very little written evidence for Darius I, apart from the mention of his name in the Uruk kinglist.
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