BAB'YLON (Gk. The Hebrew form and general designation of the city in Mesopotamia, which. from about B.C. 2300, was the capital of the country known as Babylonia (Map: Turkey in Asia, L 6). The etymology proposed for Babylon in the eleventh chapter of Genesis connects it with a stem signifying 'to con fuse.' In reality, Babylon is a combination of two words, hub = gate and ihr = god, and henee appears in Babylonian inscriptions as Bab-ili i.e. 'gate of God' (or, perhaps, 'gate of the gods' ). How much older Babylon is than the date above given, we do not know hut it appears certain that it is far from being the oldest city in Baby lonia.
It comes into prominence with the union of the South Mesopotamian States under one head, c.2300 n.e. This was aceomplished by Hammur alibi, the sixth member of a dynasty which had its scat in the city of Babylon. From this time on, Babylon becomes the most important centre in the Euphrates valley, and the political supremacy leads also to making the pagan god of Babylon, Marduk, the head of the Babylonian pantheon. The period of greatest glory of Babylon is be tween me. 1800 and the fall of the .Neo- Babylonian :Monarchy (n.c. 538). During this period, rulers vied with one another in beautifying the city by structures within the religious precinct, and in fortifying it by strengthening its walls. The gen eral building material being clay, repairs in the temples, palaces, and walls became frequently necessary. The chief temple was that sacred to Marduk; hut grouped around the seven-staged tower E-temen-an•i, 'foundation-stone of heaven and earth,' and the temple known as E-sugi/a, 'the lofty house,' were shrines and sanctuaries of numerous other gods.
In B.C. 689, Sennaeherib, the King of Assyria, destroyed the city, hut under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar it rose to now glory. It. is this
second Babylon that beeanie the famous city celebrated by classival writers, around which legends cluster. Extensive mounds covering the site of ancient Babylon are situated about 50 miles south of Bagdad. on the east bank of the Euphrates. They consist of four distinct por.
tions. called by the natives Babil. el-lvasr, Antramilm-ali, covering in all a terri tory of about 50 square miles. These ruins are now being systematically excavated by German explorers, a beginning having been made in 1899 at el-Kasr, beneath which the remains of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar and the temple have been discovered. The results show that, while in IlerodotuA's account (Book I.
I,8-187 ( there are some exaggerations, the city merited the admiration and envy it excited. Its palaces and temples were huge structures on which the skill of ancient civilization was lavished; its marts brought the products of the entire known world together, and traders of many nations gathered in its streets. The site of the 'hanging gardens'—a creation of Nebuchadnezzar —has been located with tolerable certainty- at the northern end of the city; and it turns out that this construction, reckoned among the marvels of the world, was a series terraces, heaped up of earth-mounds, and laid out as a beautiful park. It is a commonly accepted account that Babylon extended over the west bank of the _Euphrates.
For the history of Babylon, which is closely bound up with that of the country of which it was so long the capital, see BABYLONIA.