Babylon (redirected from Babilu)

Babylon, village, United States

Babylon, residential village (1990 pop. 12,249), Suffolk co., SE N.Y., on Long Island, on Great South Bay; settled 1689, inc. 1893. The first U.S. wireless station was built there by Marconi.

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Babylon, ancient city, Mesopotamia

Babylon (băb`əlŏn), ancient city of Mesopotamia. One of the most important cities of the ancient Middle East, it was on the Euphrates River and was north of the cities that flourished in S Mesopotamia in the 3d millennium B.C. It became important when Hammurabi made it the capital of his kingdom of Babylonia. The patron god of Babylon, Marduk (identical with Bel), became a leading deity in the Neo-Babylonian pantheon. The city was destroyed (c.689 B.C.) by the Assyrians under Sennacherib, and its real spendor belongs to the later period of Babylonia after the city was rebuilt. The brilliant color and luxury of Babylon became legendary from the days of Nebuchadnezzar (d. 562 B.C.). The Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The walls of Babylon, its palace, and the processional way with the famous Ishtar Gate were decorated with colorfully glazed brick. Among the Hebrews (who suffered the Babylonian captivity under Nebuchadnezzar) and the later Greeks the city was famed for its sensual living. Under the rule of Nabonidus the city was captured (538 B.C.) by Cyrus the Great and was used as one of the administrative capitals of the Persian Empire. In 275 B.C. its inhabitants were removed to Seleucia, which replaced Babylon as a commercial center.

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Babylon

Ancient Middle Eastern city. The city's ruins are located about 55 mi (89 km) south of Baghdad, near the modern city of Al-Hillah, Iraq. Babylon was one of the most famous cities in antiquity. Probably first settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it came under the rule of the Amorite kings around 2000 BC. It became the capital of Babylonia and was the chief commercial city of the Tigris and Euphrates river system. Destroyed by Sennacherib in 689 BC, it was later rebuilt. It attained its greatest glory as capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire under Nebuchadrezzar II (r. 605–c. 561 BC). Alexander the Great, who took the city in 331 BC, died there. Evidence of its topography comes from excavations, cuneiform texts, and descriptions by the Greek historian Herodotus. Most of the ruins are from the city built by Nebuchadrezzar. The largest city in the world at the time, it contained many temples, including the great temple of Marduk with its associated ziggurat, which was apparently the basis for the story of the Tower of Babel. The Hanging Gardens, a simulated hill of vegetation-clad terracing, was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

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Babylon

1. the chief city of ancient Mesopotamia: first settled around 3000 bc

2. Derogatory (in Protestant polemic) the Roman Catholic Church, regarded as the seat of luxury and corruption

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Babylon

ancient city on Euphrates river; famed for its magnificence and culture. [Mid. East. Hist.: NCE, 202]

See : Luxury

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BABYLON - A development environment for expert systems. It includes frames, constraints, a prolog-like logic formalism, and a description language for diagnostic applications. It requires Common Lisp. ftp://ftp.gmd.de/gmd/ai-research/Software/.

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Babylon

(Sumerian Kadingirra, Akkadian Babilu, literally “gate of god”), in antiquity a city in northern Mesopotamia on the banks of the Euphrates; the ruins of Babylon are near the modern city of Hilla (Iraq). It was first mentioned in the legend of Sargon the Akkadian (third millennium B.C.). Babylon’s importance grew during the time of the first Babylonian dynasty (1894-1595 B.C.). Under Hammurabi it was transformed into a major political, cultural, and economic center not only of Babylonia but of all South-west Asia. About 1595 B.C., Babylon was captured by the Hittites, and about 1518 it fell under the sway of the Kassites. At the beginning of the first millennium, Assyria and the Aramaean tribes, the Chaldeans, fought for Babylon. In 732, Babylon became part of the Assyrian state. In 689 it was completely destroyed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib as punishment for an uprising. It was rebuilt about 680 by Sennacherib’s successor Esarhaddon. In 626, Nabopolassar, a Chaldean, seized power in Babylon and ruled from 626 to 604. Under Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled from 604 to 562, the city reached its golden age. A new architectural ensemble was created with magnificent palaces and mighty defensive installations. The city was captured in 539 by the Persian troops of Cyrus II. It was seized in 331 by Alexander of Macedon. Babylon was turned over in 312 to one of Alexander’s generals, the Macedonian Seleucus, who resettled most of the inhabitants of Babylon in his capital Seleucia, built near Babylon. After that Babylon lost its primacy and finally left the historical arena by the second century A.D.

R. A. GRIBOV

The archaeological diggings of 1899-1917, the testimony of ancient Greek writers, and other sources revealed what ancient Babylon looked like in the sixth century B.C. Divided into two parts (western and eastern) by the Euphrates, the city was laid out in the form of a rectangle (with an area of about 10 sq km), encircled by three rows of brick walls with massive serrated towers and eight gates. The Ishtar Gate (the main gate) was faced with blue glazed brick with stylized representations of yellow-red and white-yellow bulls and dragons in relief. The paved Procession Street led to the temple complex of Esagila with its seven-stage ziggurat Etemenanki (the so-called Babylonian tower), whose stages were painted in different colors. The temple complex was located in the center of the city. To the north was the fortress-palace of Nebuchadnezzar II with the Hanging Gardens, a row of interior courtyards, and a throne room. The throne room was faced with blue glazed bricks and had an ornamental frieze and a representation of yellow columns. To the east are the remains of a Greek theater from the fourth century B.C.

REFERENCES

Flittner, N. D. Kul’tura i iskusstvo Dvurech’ia i sosednikh stran. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958. Pages 274-77.
Koldewey, R. Das wiedererstehende Babylon, 4th ed. Leipzig, 1925.