The Walls of Babylon. A New Interpretation of a Wonder of the Ancient World 

Authors

  • Juan-Luis Montero Fenollós Universidade da Coruña

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53351/ruhm.v6i12.342

Keywords:

babylon, Nebuchadrezzar II, military architecture, mud-brick, myth

Abstract

Babylon is one of the most famous cities of pre-classical Antiquity, whose memory has remained alive in Europe thanks to descriptions in the Old Testament and by Greco-Roman historians and geographers. The origin of the mythical and imagined Babylon lies on these ancient texts and on its later reading and interpretation. A good example of this is the city wall, recognized by Strabo and Philo of Byzantium as a wonder of the ancient world. However, facing this “dreamed eastern city” is the historical Babylon, which has been hidden under the myth. 

A century after the end of archaeological excavations in Babylon, led by Robert Koldewey (1899-1917), the city walls required a renewed study free of preconceived ideas. The main conditioning factor to overcome is our dependence on what German archaeologists did (with more or less success), which is almost absolute when it comes to interpreting and reconstructing urbanism and the defense system of a capital with almost two thousand years of history. The historical sequence of the walls of Babylonia is based on cuneiform texts and not on stratigraphic data. In general, these documents are late copies, lack provenance, do not have an accurate dating nor were they found in situ. 

Despite the limitations that affect the available documentation on the walls of Babylon, we are defending a new interpretative proposal of them. The three walls of the interior enclosure represented on the same plan by the German researchers have led to confusion, because they are not contemporary. The walls called in the cuneiform texts Imgur-Enlil and Nimetti-Enlil had to function as a single defensive wall of more than 17 m in total thickness, at least since the Kassite period (15th century BC), and not as two autonomous and independent walls. The third wall, the so-called moat wall, was later built, in Neo-Babylonian times (6th century BC), to reinforce and replace the old system.

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Author Biography

Juan-Luis Montero Fenollós, Universidade da Coruña

Juan Luis Montero Fenollós (Lorca, 1968) es doctor en Historia por la Universidad de Barcelona (1996) y ha sido investigador del Instituto del Próximo Oriente Antiguo de la misma universidad (hasta 2001). En la actualidad es profesor de Historia Antigua en la Facultad de Humanidades e Documentación de la Universidade da Coruña. 

Entre 2005 y 2011 ha dirigido el Proyecto Arqueológico Medio Éufrates Sirio en colaboración con la Dirección General de Antigüedades y Museos de Damasco. 

 Ha recibido, en 2004, el premio Concepción Arenal de investigación en Humanidades por el proyecto “Tras las huellas de la torre de Babel”. Este proyecto ha constituido la base de la exposición “Torre de Babel. Historia y mito”, organizada en 2010 en el Museo Arqueológico de Murcia, de la que ha sido el comisario. 

En 2009 fue nombrado Caballero de la Orden de las Palmas Académicas, máxima condecoración que concede el Ministerio de Educación de la República Francesa. 

Desde 2016 es director de la misión arqueológica de la UDC en Palestina.

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Published

2017-12-30

How to Cite

Montero Fenollós, J.-L. (2017). The Walls of Babylon. A New Interpretation of a Wonder of the Ancient World . Revista Universitaria De Historia Militar, 6(12), 20–49. https://doi.org/10.53351/ruhm.v6i12.342

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 12 (2017): Arquitectura e instituciones militares: política, cultura y sociedad

Section

Dossier

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