BABYLON

Babylon has been selected by Roberto Amati in relation to the real history of european integration, then enlisted in the People, Dates, Places and Events category, accompanied by own fact SHEET useful to the comprehension, completed of historical MAPS AND IMAGES or with a direct linking to the related Blog contents dedicated to the entire history of european integration and the future of Europe.

Babylon is one of the most important place related to the history of european integration and will probably have influence on the future of United europe, even if that ancient city does not exist anymore. Where is Babylon? It was located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia within modern-day Iraq state, about 85 kilometres (55 miles) south of modern day Baghdad city. Babylon probably had been founded by the hero Gilgamesh in honour of Marduk, the bull God "creator" of Earth and humanity from argyl, by listening at the eastern myths: there had been invented cosmology, astronomy, astrology, magic and the ancient esoteric knowledges (Gnosis), transmitted by the Chaldean magicians of Babylon to the ancient secret societies and possessed still nowadays by freemasonry!

In first times, Babylon city was a religious and cultural centre subjected to the Akkadian Empire founded by King Nimrod, head of the Akkad civilty and ancestor of the Dragon priests and the HolyGrail dinasties among the european genealogies (read this article). Then became the main seat of financers and bankers of the Eastern ancient world, so that Babylon earned a great influence for centuries on the culture and behaviours of the whole mediterranean and european civilties of Egypt (in low reign), Syria, Phoenicia, Israel, Greek and Middle East, inheriting the Sumeri civilty after the new order established by the sky gods. The city became part of a small independent city-state at the rise of the first Babylonian Empire (known as the Old Babylonian Empire) in the XVII century B.C. under King Hammurabi (who wrote the first known laws code of History!), when it was the largest city in the world!

Nevertheless, the myth narrows that Babylon had been destroyed by God (Enlil with the fleed?) around XII century B.C. remaining a legendary place, that in Jewish tradition symbolizes an oppressor against believers, while in Christianity it repesents worldliness and evil. Indeed, the Book of Apocalypse of the Bible refers to Babylon centuries after it ceased to be a major political center but the city is personified by the "Whore of Babylon", riding on a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns, drunk of the blood of the righteous. This because in 586 B.C. Nabucodonosor II king of Babylon conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Salomon Temple and deported Juda and Levi tribes, who had been erudited to Gnosis by the Chaldean priests, before to get back and refound the Temple (Ezra Reform) and start the Judaism/Rabbinism (Jews became the God's people). Even is to remember the iconic biblical image of the Tower of Babel that represented for Christians the maximum point of confusion on Earth.

Under king Nabopolassar, Babylon had escaped Assyrian rule and when the allied Medo-Babylonian armies destroyed the Assyrian Empire between 626 BC and 609 BC, Babylon thus became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (sometimes called the Chaldean) and kept starting a complete rebuilding of the imperial grounds, including the Etemenanki ziggurat together with the construction of the Ishtar Gate, the most prominent of eight gates around Babylon whose reconstruction is located in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. By reading the legends, king Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, considerede one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The influence of "Babylon the great" on the eastern civilties depended deeply on the Great Mother Virgo lunar cult of Ishtar and on the Bel(o)-Sol divine figure: in their city temples had been practiced abominations and rituals emulated everywhere in the ancient mediterranean world for long time.

After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city passed under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, Sassanid, and Muslim empires: the last known habitation of the town dates from the XI century A.D., when it was referred to as the "small village of Babel". After having conquered the Persian Empire, Alexander moved the capital of his empire to Babylon with the intention to put it in the centre of the Ecumene (οίκουµένη) and there he died!

Anyway, Babylon represents a main step of the humankind culture still now thanks to the traces in cuneiform texts found elsewhere in Mesopotamia, the references in the Bible, the descriptions in other classical writing (especially by Herodotus) and as one of the UNESCO Wordl Heritage since 2019 A.D.. Among its treasury there are: the Kasr, also called Palace or Castle, that was the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of king Nebuchadnezzar II; Amran Ibn Ali, seated about 22 meters high and at the south of the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk; the temples of the pantheon of gods originated in Babylon as Marduk, Ishtar and Bel, all discovered by excavations started in early XIX century. Since 1921 A.D., Babylon became part of the Iraq state that started the official excavation sites and the cultural age, with the project that reinforced the Processional Way, the Lion of Babylon and an amphitheater constructed in the city's Hellenistic era.

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