Babylonia (/ˌbæbɪˈloʊniə/) 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 the minor administrative town of Babylon.[1] It was merely a
small provincial town during the Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) but greatly expanded
during the reign of Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC and became a major
capital city. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called "the
country of Akkad" (Māt Akkadī in Akkadian).[2][3]

Babylonia

māt Akkadī (Akkadian)

1895 BC – 539 BC

The extent of the Babylonian Empire at the start and end of

Hammurabi's reign

Capital Babylon

Common languages Akkadian

Religion Babylonian religion

History

• Established 1895 BC
 • Disestablished 539 BC

Today part of  Iraq

 Syria

It was often involved in rivalry with the older state of Assyria to the north and 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. The Babylonian empire, however, rapidly fell apart
after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom.
Like Assyria, the Babylonian state retained the written Akkadian language (the language
of its native populace) for official use, despite its Northwest Semitic-speaking Amorite
founders and Kassitesuccessors, 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 (2334–2279 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 restored order to the
region and which, apart from northern Assyria, encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia,
including the town of Babylon.

What is Babylon known as today?

Babylon is the most famous city from ancient Mesopotamia whose ruins lie in modern-day Iraq
59 miles (94 kilometres) southwest of Baghdad. The name is thought to derive from bav-il or bav-
ilim which, in the Akkadian language of the time, meant 'Gate of God' or `Gate of the Gods' and
`Babylon' coming from Greek.
Babylonia was a state in ancient Mesopotamia. The city of Babylon, whose
ruins are located in present-day Iraq, was founded more than 4,000 years
ago as a small port town on the Euphrates River. It grew into one of the
largest cities of the ancient world under the rule of Hammurabi. Several
centuries later, a new line of kings established a Neo-Babylonian Empire
that spanned from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. During this
period, Babylon became a city of beautiful and lavish buildings. Biblical
and archaeological evidence point toward the forced exile of thousands of
Jews to Babylon around this time.

Where Is Babylon?
The town of Babylon was located along the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq,
about 50 miles south of Baghdad. It was founded around 2300 B.C. by the ancient
Akkadian-speaking people of southern Mesopotamia.
Babylon became a major military power under Amorite king Hammurabi, who ruled
from 1792 to 1750 B.C. After Hammurabi conquered neighboring city -states, he
brought much of southern and central Mesopotamia under unified Babylonian rule,
creating an empire called Babylonia.
Hammurabi turned Babylon into a powerful and influential city. He created one of
the world’s earliest and most complete written legal codes. Known as the Code of
Hammurabi, it helped Babylon surpass other cities in the region.
Babylonia, however, was short-lived. The empire fell apart after Hammurabi’s death
and reverted back to a small kingdom for several centuries.

Akkadian (llišānum akkadītum) or Assyro-Babylonian was a Semiticlanguage

(part of the Afro-Asiatic language family) that was spoken in ancient Iraq. The
first-known Semiticlanguage, it used the cuneiform writing system from
ancient Sumer.

Texts written in the ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE, (q.v.) between the 3d millennium bc and roughly the time
of Jesus Christ. Most Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform tablets deal with science, economics, administrative policies (in the
form of letters), and law, including one of the greatest of all legal documents, the Code of Hammurabi
(see HAMMURABI, CODE OF,). A wide variety of purely literary genres, however, also exists. Among them are
epics and myths; historical chronicles and royal annals; historical romances in poetic form; hymns and prayers,
incantations and rituals, and texts dealing with magic and divination; collections of proverbs and precepts; disputations
such as fanciful literary debates between animals, trees, or the like; and remarkable poetic narratives dealing with the
problem of human misery.

Most of this body of literature is in the Babylonian dialect of the southern part of
Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Those texts written in the Assyrian dialect of the north
consist of historical inscriptions, business documents, oracles and rituals, and official
letters; existing literary texts in Assyrian are copies or adaptations of Babylonian originals.
The preservation of Assyro-Babylonian literature is, in fact, due to Ashurbanipal, king of
Assyria, who sent scholars to Babylonia to copy old Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform tablets;
thousands of these transcriptions (many now in the British Museum in London) were
collected in his library at Nineveh.

The longest Babylonian epic poems are the Creation Epic and the GILGAMESH EPIC,
(q.v.). The former, consisting of seven tablets, deals with the struggle between cosmic
order and primeval chaos. The secular Gilgamesh Epic, written about 2000 bc on 12
cuneiform tablets, concerns the hero's fruitless search for immortality. Masterfully woven
together from an older series of separate Sumerian tales, this epic poem had great
popular appeal in antiquity. It is of interest to modern biblical scholars because of its
reference to a Noah-like character who survived a great flood. See DELUGE,.

The Epic of ZÛ tells of the theft of the Tablets of Destiny from the gods by the evil bird ZÛ
and of their recovery by the warrior god Ninurta. The search for the “plant of birth“ by the
shepherd Etana, who ultimately founded the first dynasty after the deluge, is related in
the Epic of Etana. Among other Babylonian epics and myths are The Descent of Ishtar to
the Nether World; Atrahasis, which deals with human sin and its punishment through
plagues and the deluge; and Nergal and Ereshkigal, concerning the marriage of the
divinities who ruled the netherworld.

Other important works are The Babylonian Theodicy, a poetic dialogue about a Job-like
“righteous sufferer“; a satirical dialogue, The Master and His Obliging Servant; and a
recently discovered folktale, The Poor Man of Nippur, which seems to be the ancestor of
one of the stories in the Arabian Nights.

Among significant historical romances in poetic form are The Cuthaean

Legend, concerning the defeat of King Naram-Sin (r. about 2255-2218 bc) of Akkad; The
King of Battle, dealing with a military expedition to Anatolia led by Sargon I (r. about 2335-
2279 bc) of Akkad; and The Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta,describing the defeat of the
Babylonians by the Assyrians. E.I.G., EDMUND I. GORDON, Ph.D.