New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq

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He was followed by Sumu-la-El, Sabium, and Apil-Sin, each of whom ruled in the same vague manner as Sumu-abum, with no reference to kingship of Babylon itself being made in any written records of the time. [10] Sin-Muballit was the first of these Amorite rulers to be regarded officially as a king of Babylon, and then on only one single clay tablet. Under these kings, Babylonia remained a small nation which controlled very little territory, and was overshadowed by neighbouring kingdoms that were both older, larger, and more powerful, such as; Isin, Larsa, Assyria to the north and Elam to the east in ancient Iran. [11] The Elamites occupied huge swathes of southern Mesopotamia, and the early Amorite rulers were largely held in vassalage to Elam. House to house fighting continued in Nineveh, and an Assyrian general and member of the royal household, took the throne as Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC). He was offered the chance of accepting a position of vassalage by the leaders of the alliance according to the Babylonian Chronicle. However, he refused and managed to successfully fight his way out of Nineveh and to the northern Assyrian city of Harran in Upper Mesopotamia where he founded a new capital. The fighting continued, as the Assyrian king held out against the alliance until 607 BC, when he was eventually ejected by the Medes, Babylonians, Scythians and their allies, and prevented in an attempt to regain the city the same year.

Dynasty of Isin: Ishbi-Erra Shu-Ilishu Iddin-Dagan Ishme-Dagan Lipit-Eshtar Ur-Ninurta Bur-Suen Lipit-Enlil Erra-imitti Enlil-bani Zambiya Iter-pisha Ur-du-kuga Suen-magir Damiq-ilishu Prism of Sennacherib (705–681 BC), containing records of his military campaigns, culminating with Babylon's destruction. Exhibited at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The most common form of business partnership recorded from Neo-Babylonian sources is called the harrānu, which involved a senior financing partner and a junior working partner (who did all the work, using the money provided by the senior partner). Profit from such business ventures were divided equally between the two partners. The idea allowed rich individuals to use their money to finance businesses by capable individuals who might not otherwise have had the means to carry out their trade (for instance second sons who had not inherited as much money as first-born sons). Records show that some junior partners worked their way up through their businesses to eventually become senior partners in new harrānu arrangements. [71] Mark, Joshua J. (2016). "The Marduk Prophecy". World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved 9 December 2019.During the 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis occurred between Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. [4] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. [4] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a sprachbund. [4] The Neo-Babylonian Empire retains a notable position within modern-day cultural memory due to the unflattering portrayal of Babylon and its greatest king, Nebuchadnezzar II, within the texts of the Bible. The biblical coverage of Nebuchadnezzar focuses on his military campaign against the Kingdom of Judah and particularly the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, which resulted in the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the subsequent Babylonian captivity. Babylonian sources describe Nebuchadnezzar's reign as a golden age that transformed Babylonia into the greatest empire of its time. Jonker, Gerdien (1995). The Topography of Remembrance: The Dead, Tradition and Collective Memory in Mesopotamia. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-10162-3.

Hallo, W.; Simpson, W. (1971). The Ancient Near East. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. pp.48–49. Gzella, Holger (2015). A Cultural History of Aramaic: From the Beginnings to the Advent of Islam. Leiden-Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-28510-1. King Ilu-shuma ( c. 2008–1975 BC) of the Old Assyrian period (2025–1750 BC) in a known inscription describes his exploits to the south as follows: Userkaf Sahure Neferirkare Kakai Neferefre Shepseskare Nyuserre Ini Menkauhor Kaiu Djedkare Isesi UnasMesopotamia had already enjoyed a long history prior to the emergence of Babylon, with Sumerian civilization emerging in the region c. 5400 BC, and the Akkadian-speaking Semitic people who would go on to form Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia appearing somewhere between the 35th and 30th century BC. [3] Babylonia ( / ˌ b æ b ɪ ˈ l oʊ n i ə/; Akkadian: 𒆳𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠, māt Akkadī) was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Akkadian populated but Amorite-ruled state c. 1894 BC. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad" ( Māt Akkadī in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. [1] [2] It was often involved in rivalry with the older ethno-linguistically related state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi ( fl. c. 1792–1752 BC middle chronology, or c. 1696–1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and reverted to a small kingdom centered around the city of Babylon. Ptolemy I Soter Ptolemy Keraunos Ptolemy II Philadelphus Arsinoe II ♀ Ptolemy III Euergetes Berenice II Euergetis ♀ Ptolemy IV Philopator Arsinoe III Philopator ♀ Ptolemy V Epiphanes Cleopatra I Syra ♀ Ptolemy VI Philometor Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator Cleopatra II Philometor Soter ♀ Ptolemy VIII Physcon Cleopatra III ♀ Ptolemy IX Lathyros Cleopatra IV ♀ Ptolemy X Alexander Berenice III ♀ Ptolemy XI Alexander Ptolemy XII Auletes Cleopatra V ♀ Cleopatra VI Tryphaena ♀ Berenice IV Epiphanea ♀ Ptolemy XIII Ptolemy XIV Cleopatra VII Philopator ♀ Ptolemy XV Caesarion Arsinoe IV ♀ The Scythians and Cimmerians, erstwhile allies of Babylonia under Nabopolassar, now became a threat, and Nebuchadnezzar II was forced to march into Anatolia and rout their forces, ending the northern threat to his Empire.

Oelsner, Joachim; Wells, Bruce; Wunsch, Cornelia (2003). "Neo Babylonian Period". In Westbrook, Raymond (ed.). A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law Vol. 1. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12995-5. Main articles: Revolt of Babylon (626 BC) and Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empire Locations of some major Mesopotamian cities.

The latest dated document written in accordance with the old scribal tradition in Akkadian cuneiform is from 35 BC and contains a prayer to Marduk. The latest known other documents written in Akkadian are astronomic predictions (e.g. planetary movements) for the year 75 AD. The way the signs are written in these astronomic texts means that readers would not have to be familiar with Akkadian to understand them. [44] If the Akkadian language and Babylonian culture survived beyond these sparse documents, it was decisively wiped out c. 230 AD with the religious reforms introduced in the Sasanian Empire. By this time, the ancient Babylonian cult centres had already been closed and razed. Some temples had been closed during the early Parthian period, such as many temples in Uruk, whilst others lingered on to near the end of the Parthian Empire, such as the Esagila in Babylon. [45] Legacy of Babylon [ edit ] Partial view of the ruins of Babylon in modern-day Iraq. Babylonia remained in a state of chaos as the 10th century BC drew to a close. A further migration of nomads from the Levant occurred in the early 9th century BC with the arrival of the Chaldeans, another nomadic northwest Semitic people described in Assyrian annals as the "Kaldu". The Chaldeans settled in the far southeast of Babylonia, joining the already long extant Arameans and Suteans. By 850 BC the migrant Chaldeans had established their own small land in the extreme southeast of Mesopotamia. Babylon, like the rest of ancient Mesopotamia, followed the Ancient Mesopotamian religion, wherein there was a general accepted hierarchy and dynasty of gods and localized gods who acted as patron deities for specific cities. Marduk was the patron deity of the city Babylon, having held this position since the reign of Hammurabi (18th century BC) in Babylon's first dynasty. Although Babylonian worship of Marduk never meant the denial of the existence of the other gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon, it has sometimes been compared to monotheism. [50] The history of worship of Marduk is intimately tied to the history of Babylon itself and as Babylon's power increased, so did the position of Marduk relative to that of other Mesopotamian gods. By the end of the second millennium BC, Marduk was sometimes just referred to as Bêl, meaning "lord". [51] Hammurabi is also famous as a lawgiver. His code of laws was carved in stone and a copy survives. The laws were extremely harsh by modern standards. If a surgeon performed an operation and caused the patient’s death his hand was cut off. If an architect built a house and it collapsed and killed the owner the architect was put to death.

Roux, Georges (1992). Ancient Iraq. Penguin Books Limited. pp.532–534 (Chronological Tables). ISBN 978-0-14-193825-7. Radner, Karen (2019). "Last Emperor or Crown Prince Forever? Aššur-uballiṭ II of Assyria according to Archival Sources". State Archives of Assyria Studies. 28: 135–142. The temples of southern Mesopotamia were important as both religious and economic centers. The temples were chiefly institutions for caring for the gods and for conducting various rituals. Because of their religious significance, temples were present in all major cities, with trade and population growth being stimulated by the presence of a temple. Workers within the temples had to be "fit" for service and were not slaves or temple dependents (unlike those who served the temples by cultivating food and other supplies). These temple workers, who created the clothes used by the deity's cult, cleaned and moved around the statues of the deities, maintained the rooms within the temple and performed the important rituals, represented the skilled and free urban elite of Babylonian society and were paid through leftovers from meals intended for the gods, barley and beer. [53] Justice [ edit ] Tablet concerning a legal dispute over barley, from Uruk and dated to the reign of Nabonidus (544 BC). Exhibited at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Porter, Barbara N. (1993). Images, Power, and Politics: Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy. American Philosophical Society. ISBN 978-0-87169-208-5.