What continent was ancient Babylon on?

Asia

Old Babylon

Old Babylon was also known as one of the "four ancient civilizations" along with ancient China, ancient Egypt, and ancient India.

Old Babylon is the world’s earliest civilization - Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia, Greek means the land between the two rivers.) The civilization (also known as the Mesopotamia civilization) originated from the Tigris River The river basin between Tigris and Euphrates - Sumer region (middle and lower reaches). Mesopotaya is the location of ancient Babylon, in today's Iraq.

It entered civilization in 3500 BC, and the Mesopotamian civilization was at its peak from 4000 BC to 2250 BC. The Old Testament calls it the "Land of Shinar". The fertile soil accumulated along the banks of the two rivers due to river flooding was known as the "Fertile Crescent" in history (the area in South America that is as famous as the "Golden Triangle" can be called the "Crescent of Sin"). Since the two rivers do not flood regularly like the Nile, the time must be determined by observing celestial phenomena. The Sumerians living in the lower reaches invented the lunar calendar, using the moon's waxing and waning as the standard for timing, and divided the year into 12 months with 354 days. They also invented the leap month and arranged the 11 days that differed from the solar calendar. Divide an hour into 60 minutes and use 7 days as a week. He is also able to solve the four arithmetic operations of fractions, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and solve quadratic equations of one variable, and invented the decimal and hexadecimal methods. They divided the circle into 360 degrees and knew that π was approximately 3. It can even calculate the area of ??irregular polygons and the volume of some cones.

In 4000 BC, the Sumerians were the first to invent ideographic and signifying hieroglyphs, because most of these writings were carved on bricks, stones or black basalt. On the clay tablets, "the strokes are heavy and the impressions are deep", which are in the shape of a sharp wedge and resemble a wooden wedge, so they are called cuneiform writing.

The Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon are one of the seven wonders of the world. Legend has it that this garden was built for the princess by the king at that time.

The subsequent Nile River Civilization and Indus River Civilization developed with the promotion of the Mesopotamia Civilization. The Greeks learned mathematics, physics, and philosophy from there; the Jews learned theology from there and spread it to the world; the Arabs learned architecture from there, and used it to educate the entire medieval barbaric Europe.

About 2000 BC, the Amorites established the Kingdom of Babylon with the city of Babylon as its capital. In 1792BC, Hammurabi ascended the throne, conquered the Sumerians and Akkadians, unified the Mesopotamian plains, and promulgated the "Code of Hammurabi", which was the first in the world It is a relatively complete written code, but it is not the earliest. The earliest one is called "Urnam Code". There are 282 articles in the Code of Hammurabi, which are engraved on a black basalt pillar 2.25 meters high.

In 689BC, the Kingdom of Babylon was destroyed by Assyria. In 605BC, the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom destroyed Assyria. Later, the temple priest group came to power and was finally destroyed by Persia on the Iranian Plateau in 538 BC. The civilization of the ancient Mesopotamia came to an end as an independent whole.

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The sorrow of ancient Babylon!

Mesopotamia (Greek: the place between the two rivers) in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins gave birth to the history of mankind around the 19th century BC (during the Xia Dynasty of China). The earliest civilization - the ancient Babylonian civilization; because there were no natural barriers in this area, the diversified cultural development trends of Ancient Babylon were produced.

The place between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is called "Mesopotamia", which means "between the two rivers". Each spring, when the snow on the plateau melted, these two rivers overflowed in Mesopotamia. Especially in the downstream area, the terrain is low and almost completely submerged. A Babylonian myth that has been passed down to this day vividly reflects this situation: An ancestor of a Babylonian king dreamed that he met an immortal. God told him that the flood would submerge the earth to punish mankind for its sins. Because he had always been very devout to God, God wanted to rescue him. This man obeyed God's instructions, built an ark, and moved his whole family on board, along with several animals and some seeds. Not long after, dark clouds filled the sky, darkness enveloped the earth, violent storms came, and torrential floods drowned all life, leaving only the ark floating on the boundless water. On the seventh day, the wind died down and the river calmed down. At this time, the ark drifted to a mountain. The people on the boat released the animals from the ark and scattered the seeds on the mountains. Life on the earth began again. The myths of many human nations are influenced by this ancient legend of Babylon. The famous story of Noah's Ark in the West also evolved from this legend: a man named Noah built an ark according to God's command, and the whole family sat on it and escaped the flood. When the flood waters receded, Noah sent out a dove. Soon, the dove flew back with a newly twisted olive leaf in its mouth, letting Noah know that the flood had receded and everything was restored to life. Later, Westerners took doves and olive branches as symbols of peace.

Of course, neither gods nor doves of peace can bring people true peace and happiness.

To defeat floods, we have to rely on people themselves. In their struggle against floods, the Babylonians learned to build embankments, dams, and canals to create rivers. When the floods were subdued, they, like the Egyptians, enjoyed the benefits of regular river flooding. The flooding brought a lot of silt, making the soil on both sides very fertile. Coupled with the strong sunshine and abundant water here, crops are harvested every year. It is said that wheat was first grown in Babylon.

The Assyrians living north of Babylon were very powerful. In the 8th century BC (China had entered the Spring and Autumn Period), Assyria became a huge military empire. Babylon was conquered by it, and Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Egypt were all included in its territory. Except for Greece and Italy, almost all the Mediterranean coast is occupied by it. The capital of Assyria was called Nineveh, and many magnificent palaces were built there.

In 612 BC, the Chaldeans living in Babylon united with the Medes in the east to attack Adda. They charged into Nineveh armed with bloody spears and shields. The entire city was massacred, even the children were not spared. The last king of Assyria, Sinsalishikon, was burned to ashes along with his palace. From then on, this huge empire and its capital disappeared from the face of the earth.

There are two large piles of barren hills beside the Tigris River, which are said to be the ruins of Nineveh. In 1845, the Englishman Rayad excavated two Assyrian palaces here and discovered the famous huge statues with a human head and an ox body with wings and many exquisite stone carvings. Later, he continued to dig and excavated 28 more palace halls in three years. However, this is not Nineveh, but another Assyrian city called Kara. The real Nineveh is sixty or seventy kilometers north of Kara. In 1849, Rayad discovered the ruins of the great palace of King Sinuki (more than 700 BC) here. This palace was burned by the Medes. Many of the clay tablets, inscribed with pictures and cuneiform inscriptions, also show signs of fire damage. The two libraries of the palace are filled with large and small clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing. The largest piece is 3 meters long and more than 2 meters wide, and the smallest one is less than 1 inch long, with only one or two lines of text engraved on it. These clay tablets are Assyrian books from more than 2,500 years ago. They are rich in content, including knowledge in history, law, religion and natural science. A few years later, archaeologist Lassam discovered the palace hall and another palace library of King Ashurbanipal. The clay tablets collected in the library are engraved with many myths about Assyria and Babylon. Assyrian palaces were built by thousands of slaves, most of whom were prisoners plundered by the Assyrians in wars. When slaves worked, some wore chains and shackles, and some were firmly tied to each other with iron ropes. There were soldiers with weapons watching beside them. Pictures reflecting these scenes have also been unearthed. The large number of artifacts unearthed in Nineveh allow us to clearly understand the history of the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire.

The Chaldeans defeated Assyria and established a new country in Babylon. In order to distinguish it from the ancient Babylonian Kingdom that was destroyed by Assyria, people called it the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar, the new Babylonian king, built the capital city of Babylon into a fortress-like city. Its scale is spectacular even by today's standards. The city is square, with each side 22.2 kilometers long. The wall surrounding the city is approximately 8.5 meters high and is made of bricks and painted walls. Four-horse chariots can run along the wide walls. There are 100 gates made of copper throughout the city. There is also a deep moat around the city wall. The Euphrates River flows under the city wall and passes through the city. There is also a large royal palace in the city of Babylon. A "hanging garden" was built in the palace, which was called one of the seven wonders of the world by later generations.

During the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar (605 BC - 562 BC), Babylon was the most powerful country. He led troops to attack Syria, sent troops to Palestine, captured Jerusalem, destroyed the Jewish Kingdom, and forced the Jews to move to Babylon as slaves, becoming the "Babylonian prisoner." In his later years, he also invaded Egypt. In these decades, the population of Babylon reached more than 100,000, and there were merchants from all over Asia. The slave economy developed greatly. However, behind the strength, crises have lurked. The conquered foreigners' hatred and resistance to the Babylonian slave owners continued to occur. The poor and peasants of the own nation became slaves due to bankruptcy, which intensified the domestic class contradictions. The slave-owning class Internal conflicts for power and profit are also becoming increasingly fierce. After Nebuchadnezzar's death, the domestic political situation immediately became turbulent. In 6 years, 8 kings were deposed and two of them were killed. To the east, the increasingly powerful Persian Empire conquered Babylon's ally Media, forming a situation where a large army was suppressing Babylon.

The slave owners of Babylon were busy fighting for power and enjoying themselves. They thought that their city walls were so tall and strong that no one could break them. They never imagined that the enemy would use the Euphrates River that ran through the city wall to invade. One night, a young prince in Babylon was holding a carnival party. Cyrus, the king of Persia, ordered a dam to be built in the Euphrates River and the water in the river was released to one side of the dam. His army sneaked into the city from the other side of the drained riverbed and captured Babylon without a fight. It is said that some Babylonian merchants acted as intermediaries for the Persians. This incident occurred in 538 BC (the late Spring and Autumn Period of China).

The Neo-Babylonian Kingdom, which existed for only 88 years, perished.

The prosperity of Babylon, the wonders of Babylon, the high bronze gates of Babylon and its "hanging gardens" have all been turned into piles of barren hills and wasteland. The ruins of Babylon were gradually excavated starting in 1899, allowing its past to be studied more accurately. However, the excavation work encountered difficulties. The impact of underground water put the ancient city of Babylon in danger of being completely destroyed. How to lower the river water level has become a research topic for experts in many countries.

However, what always worries people is that in this ancient and magical land, along with civilization, wars have never stopped. This land that is very suitable for human habitation is said to be the prototype of the Garden of Eden in the Bible. However, perhaps precisely because of its superior geographical location, it has also constantly become a stage for politics and war. When Baghdad has become the most exquisite city in the world, the whole of Europe is still in a state of barbarism. It was once a world-famous metropolis and the hometown of One Thousand and One Nights. Its achievements in science, philosophy and literature are unparalleled in the history of civilization. Rare. Looking at the history of the rise and fall of the Mesopotamia River Basin for thousands of years, which war did not destroy civilization?

Note: Ancient Babylon is the name for the birthplace of civilization; Mesopotamia is the location of ancient Babylon today.

An ancient country bred in the Fertile Crescent

There is a narrow strip of land in western Asia. From the map, it looks like a crescent moon, and the land is fertile, so it is called the "Fertile Crescent". To the east of the Fertile Land, the Euphrates and Tigris rivers run parallel. Known as the Mesopotamia. The river here floods regularly, often causing disasters, but the silt left behind after the water recedes is beneficial to agricultural production.

After 3500 BC, the Sumerians established many small slave states in the southern Mesopotamia. In the 18th century BC, King Hammurabi of the ancient Babylonian Kingdom unified the two river basins and established a centralized slave state.

In order to protect the interests of slave owners, Hammurabi formulated a code, known as the Code of Hammurabi in history. It is the first relatively complete written code in ancient times that exists in the world.