Babylon

Open on the map

Babylon is a UNESCO World Heritage site in Iraq, the city on the Euphrates by Hillah, about 85 km south of Baghdad, the capital of Hammurabi and later of Nebuchadnezzar II, inscribed in 2019. Pyramason catalogues it as PYR-175053 at 32.54178, 44.43164 (32°32'30.4"N 44°25'53.9"E).

Genesis tells of a tower on the plain of Shinar whose top would reach unto heaven, and Babel is Babylon. Herodotus counted eight tiers on the tower; Berossus wrote that Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens for a homesick queen.

The measured side: Robert Koldewey dug here from 1899 to 1917, and the Ishtar Gate stands rebuilt in Berlin, 14 m high. The tower was real: Etemenanki, Marduk's ziggurat, on a foundation about 91 m square, and Nabopolassar's own cylinder promises a summit to rival the heavens. A tablet counts seven stages, not eight, and its height of about 90 m is argued down to about 60 by the scholars who study it. Alexander died here in 323 BCE while the ruin was being cleared. No trace of the Hanging Gardens has been found at Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions never mention one, and in 2013 Stephanie Dalley placed them at Nineveh. On the Pyramason map the ziggurat's record lies 0.8 km from the Ishtar Gate's.

There are 39 other catalogued sites within 5 km of it, 48 within 25 km and 76 within 50 km. That density is itself the finding: this is not an isolated monument but part of a worked landscape.

The record

What is around it

• Greek Theater0.2 km
• Kullab0.2 km
• Marduk Gate0.3 km
• Ekitušgirzal0.5 km
• Emašdari0.7 km
• Ehilikalamma0.8 km
• Emah0.8 km
• Eniggidrukalamasuma0.8 km
• Zababa Gate0.8 km
• TE.E0.9 km

Updates from the atlas

The shirt

The Babylon site-emblem tee: the monument, its geometry, and these exact coordinates printed beneath.

Further reading

English Wikipedia  ·  Journal: Babylon: The Gate Is Real, the Gardens May Not Be