|
| |
King Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon's Great Rebuilder
From: The British Museum
| By:
Henry W.F. Saggs |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Babylon was founded in the third millennium on the Euphrates in what is now Iraq, but the ancient and more useful term for the area is 'Mesopotamia', meaning 'between the rivers'. The Old Testament makes many references to the Babylonians, from Nineveh and the Tower of Babel, to the Flood. Henry W.F. Saggs relates the story of King Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned as king over the Babylonian empire from 605-562 BC, and was considered the greatest rebuilder of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar plays a prominent role in the history of the Israelite people, as he invaded Judah and took many of the Hebrew upper class captive into Babylon, including King Jehoiachin. |
 eremiah recognised Nebuchadnezzar as the new world power with an empire destined to endure for three generations (Jeremiah 27:7). Nebuchadnezzar was a bold and successful general, and displayed statesman-like qualities in maintaining good relations with the Medes, who had annexed the northern parts of the former Assyrian empire. He was also largely responsible for the rebuilding of Babylon as a city of such splendour that, in the view of some classical writers, its 'Hanging Gardens' and its walls were two of the seven wonders of the world. |
The Bible recounts some of Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns. Jehoiakim of Judah was less farseeing than Jeremiah, so that although he made submission to Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BC, he afterwards succumbed to Egyptian blandishments, bringing down an attack upon Jerusalem in 597 BC which ended with the deportation to Babylon of the cream of the land (2 Kings 24:10-16). Subsequently Egypt invaded Palestine, leading Judah and other minor states to change their allegiance, but upon the arrival of a powerful Babylonian army, Egypt abandoned its vassals and withdrew. Jerusalem was again besieged and after 18 months taken and sacked, with further deportations (2 Kings 25:8-12). The city was left under a native governor, who was later murdered by pro-Egyptian assassins (2 Kings 25:22-6). Nebuchadnezzar also attacked Tyre, and took it after a long siege in 571 BC (Ezekiel 26:1-28:19). Nebuchadnezzar clearly intended to hold Palestine at least as far as the Egyptian border, and Ezekiel 29:19-21, supported by a fragment of cuneiform tablet, hints that he began an invasion of Egypt, but further details are lacking. |
Nebuchadnezzar's own inscriptions describe his building operations, and German excavations provide some further details. He devoted considerable effort to strengthening the walls of Babylon. In Nebuchadnezzar's time the Euphrates ran through the middle of Babylon, with the oldest part of the city, some 220 ha (550 acres), on the east bank, and the later part, rather smaller, on the west bank. Both sides were surrounded by an inner wall and an outer wall 7 m (24 ft) apart. The inner was some 6-5 m (21 ft) thick, the outer 3.5 m (12 ft). Both walls were reinforced with towers at intervals of 18 m (60 ft), and at least eight great gates gave entry to the city. Round the outer wall, Nebuchadnezzar's father Nabopolassar, the former king of Bablyon, had begun a great moat over 12 m (40 ft) wide, and Nebuchadnezzar extended this to encircle the whole city, with much higher and thicker embankments than before. On the east side of Babylon, outside the moat, Nebuchadnezzar created a further line of defence, in the form of a third great wall strengthened with a moat. |
Nebuchadnezzar restored temples in Babylon and other cities. Inside the capital the most important buildings were Marduk's great temple of Esagila and its associated ziggurat Etemenanki nearby, the latter possibly the original of the biblical Tower of Babel, although it could have been the ziggurat of Borsippa, 15 km (9 miles) to the south. Although wrecked by Sennacherib, neither Etemenanki nor Esagila required major work, since Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal had undertaken extensive rebuilding programmes. Nebuchadnezzar did, however, show his piety by making embellishments to the ziggurat and by refurbishing Esagila with fine woods, gold and silver and precious stones. An ancient cuneiform text, in part confirmed by excavation, gives the dimensions of the ziggurat, a structure of six reducing stages with a shrine on top as a seventh; its base was approximately 91 x 91 m (about 300 ft square) and its total height the same. |
Nebuchadnezzar had several palaces in Babylon. The original palace complex (the 'Southern Palace') was by the Euphrates at the north-western corner of the old city. Nebuchadnezzar enlarged this to include five great courtyards and quarters for the garrison, administrators, the throne room, his own private quarters, and the harem. He replaced sun-dried brick with baked brick, added cedar beams for the roofing and glazed tiles for the walls, and adorned the building with gold, silver and precious stones. |
The excavators identified the northern part of this palace as the site of the celebrated 'Hanging Gardens' of classical tradition. One author, Diodorus Siculus, says that they were a tiered structure 50 cubits high--about 23 m (75 ft)--built by a king to please a Persian concubine who missed the wooded hillsides of her native land. Their base comprised massive walls with passageways between, covered by stone blocks and layers of reeds, bitumen, baked brick and lead cladding. Machinery raised water from the river to irrigate the garden on top. The excavators found a double row of seven vaulted chambers with walls thick enough to bear a massive superstructure, and proposed to see these as the base described by Diodorus. Although the dimensions would in part fit the measurements given by Diodorus, most scholars today reject this identification, largely because distance from the Euphrates would have presented problems with irrigation. One scholar suggests that tradition has here confused Babylon and Nineveh, and that the real Hanging Gardens were in the latter capital. |
Nebuchadnezzar built a second palace north of the southern palace, outside the double city wall. Because this housed ancient monuments and trophies, some scholars speak of it as a museum. Nebuchadnezzar had a third palace at the northern extremity of the city, by the outermost wall. |
Nebuchadnezzar's most impressive restoration work was the Processional Way, a roadway nearly 21 m (70 ft) wide between walls decorated with glazed tiles and a frieze of lions. This was the route along which at the New Year festival Marduk was carried from his temple Esagila through the Ishtar Gate to the Akitu temple outside the city. Near the gate itself the walls were decorated with a glazed-tile frieze of bulls and dragons, representing the gods Adad and Marduk. |
Except for a case of high treason in 594/3 BC, no unrest surfaced during Nebuchadnezzar's reign. But his son Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach of 2 Kings 25:27-30), who succeeded in 562 BC, reigned only two years before he was killed in a revolution. The man who next came to power was Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law Nergal-shar-usur (ruled 559-556 BC), named as a Babylonian magnate in Jeremiah 39:3, and known in Greek sources as Neriglissar. His main achievement was a campaign in 557 BC to protect Babylonian interests in Cilicia. His effective successor was Nabu-na'id (Nabonidus), a person of non-royal blood, who must at this time have been at least in his late fifties. |
|
| |
