The Ancients - Nebuchadnezzar

Episode Date: May 14, 2023

One of the most famous Babylonian Kings - Nebuchadnezzar II was a legendary ruler who appears in biblical stories, cuneiform texts, and was immortalised in monumental architecture. Ruling Babylon at it's imperial height, and commanding an empire that spanned from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, his strength and might is unchallenged. But what do we actually know about the man who ruled over one of the greatest empires of the ancient world?In the first episode of our new series delving into Babylon's mysterious history - Tristan chats to Professor Paul-Alain Beaulieu to explore Nebuchadnezzar's early life and his rise to kingship. Examining the defining conquests of this period, the cosmopolitan city-centre he created, and deciphering the monumental architecture erected in his honour - what is there to learn about Babylon in this period, what legacy did Nebuchadnezzar leave behind?If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program,

they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, well, we're kicking off our special Babylon mini-series today. We're starting it with a massive figure, arguably the most well-known king who ruled ancient Babylon. He's known from the Bible and also from a whole range of cuneiform inscriptions. He was Nebuchadnezzar, King Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled Babylon during its imperial height. He created an empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Persian

Gulf. And in today's episode, we're interviewing Professor Paul-Alain Beaulieu from the University of Toronto all about Nebuchadnezzar. We'll be looking at his early life, his rise to the kingship, his conquests, and ultimately, we're going to be focusing in on Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon. What his Babylon looks like, this cosmopolitan centre of empire. We're going to be looking at the architecture, the great monumental constructions that Nebuchadnezzar oversaw. We're going to be talking about art, about colour, and so much more. It is absolutely fascinating, and I really do hope you enjoy. So without further ado, here's Paul Allant.

Paul Allant, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. Thank you. Now, it's time for our Babylon series, and Nebuchadnezzar, of all figures in Babylonian history, maybe is it fair to say infamously because of his portrayal in the Bible, he's one of the most well-known figures or kings from ancient Babylon. He is, yes. Mainly because of the Bible and also of the Greek tradition. So, in fact, before the rediscovery of cuneiform text in the 19th century, he was one of the very few Babylonian kings that we knew about. For example, we didn't know about Hammurabi, who's the other famous Babylonian king. We definitely, as you say, he's right up there with Hammurabi, and he's predating the

discovery of cuneiform. Well, let's delve into it straight away. Start with the background. When roughly are we talking with Nebuchadnezzar? Well, he reigned from 605 until 562 BC, of course. You know, he had a very long reign, 43 years, one of the longest reigns of any Babylonian king. And he was the son of Nabopolassar, who was the founder of the Neo-Babylonian state, who reigned from 626 to 605. And so Nebuchadnezzar's life before he comes to the kingship, before 605 BC, during the reign of his father Nabopolassar, what do we know about his early years? We don't know all that much about the background of the family in general.

So Nabopolassar, in his inscriptions, tells us that he was the son of a nobody. So, of course, we have to take this with a grain of salt. This might be a rhetorical stance to highlight his election by the god Marduk, the god of Babylon. There are documents from Uruk. Uruk was the main southern city in Babylonia, the second most important city after Babylon. And there are documents from there which seem to indicate that Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar had official functions in Uruk in the latter days of the Assyrian Empire. And they may have been of Chaldean origin. The Chaldeans were

a group of West Semitic peoples who came, invaded Mesopotamia, you see, in the first millennium BC, and they settled in Babylonia, and they espoused, you know, the cause of Babylonian independence against the Assyrians. So they may have had official functions in the temple at Uruk, the temple of the goddess Ishtar. And do we know anything about Nebuchadnezzar's actual accession to the kingship? Is it an easy accession or does he have to fight for the crown? No, no, it's an easy accession. You see, his father was ill in the last year of his reign.

And Nebuchadnezzar was entrusted with military operations in the north, mop-up operations against the Assyrians and the Egyptians. And so when his father died, he rushed to Babylon and he was crowned king. So there was no problem with the succession. And how powerful exactly is Babylon at that time when his father dies? It's a transitional period. Basically, Babylon rebelled against Assyrian overlordship in 626, so it declared its independence and then allied itself with the Medes, who were an Iranian-speaking people, you see, who had been partly subjected to the Assyrians too. So, they ganged up together, and there's a civil war that raged in Babylonia for several years against the new Assyrian king, Sin-Sharu Ishkun and Nabopolassar. And finally, they ousted the Assyrians from Babylonia, they allied

themselves with the Medes, and, you know, the coup de grâce, you know, to the Assyrian empire occurred in 612 when they captured the city of Deneve, which was the capital of the Assyrians. But after that, the Assyrians tried to continue in northern Syria around the city of Haran, which was the second capital of the Assyrian Empire in the north. And in 605, they were ousted by the Babylonians. So does it almost feel, I mean, it feels like that wider geopolitical context, it's so important when understanding the rise of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. The fact that, as you say, the Assyrian Empire, its zenith has been and gone, it's very much on a steep, steady decline. And it's almost into this vacuum that Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon emerges as the new superpower.

Yes. In fact, the entire efforts of Nebuchadnezzar were basically to rush, to acquire as many of the Assyrian territories as he could to recenter the new empire on Babylon. And in fact, if you look at Herodotus, you see, who lived in the 5th century, he talks about Babylon as the last capital of Assyria. Because from the Greek perspective, there was little difference between the two. Because in fact, Babylon did become the last capital of a Mesopotamian empire. So it was Assyria continuing in Babylon. And so what do we know about this rapid race to acquire these Assyrian territories? What do we know about Nebuchadnezzar's almost immediate military expansion once he succeeds to the kingship?

Fortunately, I mean, we don't have many sources for the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in terms of political documents, but we do have a chronicle that covers the first 11 years of his reign. From year 11 until year 43, we have no chronicle. So we know what happened at the beginning of his reign. And basically, these are campaigns in the Levant, in Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, mostly in order to repel the Egyptians, who are trying also to reconstruct their former empire in the Levant. So basically, what he does is to conquer all these areas until the Egyptians are back beyond the Sinai Peninsula. So the Levant almost becomes a battleground between these two powers,

you see, the Babylonians and the Egyptians. And so is that why places such as Jerusalem really become almost, I guess, a melting pot for lots of clashes in Nebuchadnezzar's reign? Yes, absolutely. And here the Bible is an important source, an important historical source, Yes, absolutely. And here, the Bible is an important source, an important historical source, because, of course, the last chapters of the Book of Kings, as well as other parts of the Bible, like the Book of Jeremiah and Chronicles, give us really very accurate historical information, you see, on the dealings of the Egyptians with the Judean king, the king of Judah, to repel Nebuchadnezzar from these areas. So basically, the Egyptians are trying to prop up these small kingdoms of the Levant against Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar,

in the first 10 years of his reign, is busy basically controlling these areas, either destroying cities or vassalizing others. And Jerusalem is part of that. Well, Paul-Alain, I think it's fair for us to focus, therefore, on Jerusalem, given it has such prominence. I mean, what, therefore, is the story of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest or conquests of Jerusalem? Basically, again, our main source is the Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles. So, they corroborate each other that in the year 597, Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem and lays siege on the city and successfully defeats, you see, they have to surrender, basically. And what he does is not destruction

in 597. Basically, he takes the Judean king, Jehoiakim, and exiles him to Babylon. And then he installs a new king called Sidkiahu, Zedekiah, as a vassal. What will happen later is that being propped up by the Egyptians or encouraged by the Egyptians, Zedekiah will rebel against Nebuchadnezzar 10 years later. And then Nebuchadnezzar comes a second time in 587-86, the chronology is not certain, then captured Jerusalem and destroys it completely. And that's the end of the kingdom of Judah. And is that also the time when the first temple is destroyed too? That's when the first temple is destroyed, yes, in 587-586. Because originally in the first capture, Nebuchadnezzar just wanted a vassal in Judah.

And I must ask, therefore, this doesn't seem like this will therefore give Nebuchadnezzar a positive depiction in the Bible. Paul Allen, how is Nebuchadnezzar depicted in the Bible? It's a very complex story. In fact, an entire book could be written about that because there are two Nebuchadnezzars in the Bible. There's the Nebuchadnezzar of history and there's the Nebuchadnezzar of legend.

And also Nebuchadnezzar of history, and there's the Nebuchadnezzar of legend. And also, Nebuchadnezzar becomes a theological figure, which interplays with these two aspects. So, it's very complicated. As far as the historical Nebuchadnezzar is concerned, our main sources are Jeremiah, the end of the Book of Jeremiah, and the Book of Kings. The figure of Nebuchadnezzar is ambiguous. He is presented, of course, as a conqueror, you know, he destroys the temple and all that. But at the same time, as was the case, you know, in ancient times, this was seen as a punishment sent by God against Jerusalem to atone for its sins. So, Nebuchadnezzar is seen also as the instrument of God who punishes Jerusalem and punishes its monarchy for having neglected their duty to God.

So, in fact, if you look at the book of Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar is not presented necessarily as always as a negative figure. So, he also has a positive side. So he's a human king, you know, a conqueror with good and bad sides. Right, because that is so fascinating to highlight, because I think sometimes we think of the name, and because of the Bible, because of maybe how we were raised, we might think immediately that Nebuchadnezzar is an infamous name. But almost, this is what you're saying there, I just want to repeat it, because it is fascinating, that Nebuchadnezzar was almost an instrument of God punishing those for their impiety in the past.

Yes. So he's part of a sacred history. If we move to the end of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest, if he does a lot of action in the Levant and Jerusalem and other cities of the area, by the time he's completed his age of conquests, almost, how far does the Babylonian Empire stretch? Okay, so the Babylonian Empire stretches from the Sinai, from the city of Gaza, you see, which was the endpoint, up north to southern Asia Minor, areas like Calicula. It's a bit more complicated when we reach the Iranian plateau. So, probably

the boundary of the Babylonian Empire followed the foothills of the mountains, you see, which begin the Iranian plateau. So, it's basically pretty much like the Assyrian Empire, but on a slightly smaller scale. Eventually, under the last Babylonian king, under Nabonidus, who will be the last king of Babylon, the empire expands into northern Arabia. And Nabonidus even takes up residence for 10 years in northern Arabia. So it's basically as large as the Assyrian empire, but in slightly other directions. And right at the heart of this empire, I'm presuming, therefore, the capital is Babylon. The capital is Babylon. Everything is centered on Babylon. Anding therefore, the capital is Babylon. The capital is Babylon.

Everything is centered on Babylon. And the ruler is the king of Babylon. So that's the main title. But has Babylon ever been this powerful before in its long and prestigious history? This feels really big for the city. Yeah, it's almost unreal, you know, for Babylon, which had never been, I mean, it had been a substantial kingdom. Its first climax was under Hammurabi and his immediate successor, Samsu-i-Luna, who basically controlled much of Iraq. But they never controlled the Levant or any other area. So, and after that, you know, the Babylon was Babylonia, you know, the kingdom Babylon, was limited to southern and central Iraq. But suddenly, under Nebuchadnezzar, it becomes an empire. And that's at the very end of the history of Babylon as an independent political entity.

So, it's really the climax of Babylon, which happens at its very end. And I see words here, I've got it in my notes here, like how Babylon becomes a world capital. Now, I see that phrase mentioned a couple of times, but what do we mean by that, Paul and I? Yes, of course, the world was smaller in those days. So, there are two aspects to this. First, there is a religious aspect in that at the end of the second millennium BC, aspect in that at the end of the second millennium BC, Babylon created a new theology for itself. And at that time, an anonymous author wrote the Babylonian Epic of Creation, which basically retold the story of the creation and organization of the world by Marduk, the god of Babylon. And Marduk creates Babylon as the center of the cosmos, as the center of the world and

of the universe, and as a station between the underworld, the heavens, and the earth for the gods to travel. So, Marduk creates Babylon. And in fact, under Nebuchadnezzar, you have this rhetoric in his royal inscriptions, which are mostly building inscriptions, that is refounding Babylon, almost. It's a new act of creation. So, he's putting the final touch to the work of Marduk. So, there's a cosmological, religious aspect to this.

The other aspect, of course, is that, you know, you control this vast empire, and immediately, of course, everything flows to Babylon. So, you know, commercial networks, military what Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon looks like as this world capital. What types of sources do we have surviving to learn more about this city under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar? Basically, we have three sources. One is the archaeology. Babylon was excavated by the Germans from 1899 to 1917, And this is still our main source, you see, for what Babylon looked like in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. We also have the royal inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar, which are the largest corpus of any Babylonian king. And of course, these inscriptions are mostly building inscriptions. They don't talk about political events at all. And of course, building inscriptions. They don't talk about political events at all. And of course, there's a whole rhetoric you see of, you know, flattering the king with epithets and then talking about the

gods and about all these constructions in Babylon. So, that's a very important source for, you know, the aspects of Babylon, you know, what Babylon looked like in his time. And often they match the archaeology. And we also have a third source, which are mostly from cuneiform tablets. So we have a very important text, which is called Tintir equals Babylon, which is a traditional Babylonian text, which describes the city of Babylon.

So it gives the names of its gates, its streets, its temples, and so on. So that's quite an important source. And also, we have administrative texts which talk about building some of these structures. That's limited, but we do have some of this. Those cuneiform tablets, they sound so, so important and full of rich information, learning more about the city, therefore. Can we focus on that particular text that you highlighted there that reveals more almost about the urban layout of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar?

Yes. So this Tintir equals Babylon was an earlier text. It was composed probably in the late second millennium. But it does tell us, you know, that Babylon had eight gates, each name after a god, including the gate of Ishtar, which was the main entrance to the city. It tells us about, you see, its numerous temples, its main thoroughfares, which also had names, and gives us all the epithets of the city. So it's almost like a hymn to the city also. And of course, a lot which is in there can be corroborated, you see, by the archaeology.

So it all fits together. And therefore, if we focus on another archive of cuneiform texts, which seems to reveal more about the place itself, there's one in particular which seems to be discovered in Nebuchadnezzar's palace. I think you know which archive I'm talking about, because this seems to reveal more about the whole nature of Babylon. What is this archive? Okay, this archive, unfortunately, you see, we don't have, we would like to have a are dependent on the palace or employees or functionaries. So they don't tell us anything about the politics of the time. But they do tell us, and most of them are still unpublished, although they've been described in the catalog.

Most of them are still unpublished, although they've been described in the catalog. There's one which was published in 1939 by a German as a rheologist, which is very important because it's a distribution of foodstuff to the exiled Judean king, Jehoiakim. So that's a wonderful corroboration of the biblical account that Jehoiakim was taken to Babylon as captive. So, that is very important. The other texts talk about various important figures in the palace. One of them is actually called Nabunahid, which is almost certainly the future King Nabonidus, who was already a very important functionary at the court of Nebuchadnezzar. He was not part of the royal family. Also, these texts tell us a great deal about the cosmopolitan nature of Babylon, because we have distributions of foodstuffs to Greeks, you know, Ionians, they're called, you know, Yawanu, Carians, you know, and various other people who are, you know, part of this vast administration. So, they were either mercenaries

or traders, visitors, and so on. So, it gives us a small glimpse, but an important one, on the cosmopolitan reach, you see, of Babylon in that period. And these were not necessarily war captives. They were people who went there of their own free will. Over on the Warfare podcast by History Hit, we bring you brand new military histories from around the world. Each week, twice a week, we release new episodes with world-leading historians, expert policymakers, and the veterans who served from the greatest tanks of the Second World War.

And so what are you actually trying to get out of your tank? You're trying to get manoeuvrability and you're trying to get a really big gun. Your Tiger and your Panther are there to dominate the battlefield, primarily on the Eastern Front and in North Africa and all that sort of stuff. But by the time they're actually coming in in decent numbers, that moment has already passed. Through to new histories that help us understand current conflicts. Any invader any attacker any adversary will exploit gaps within society it was true then it's true today

but the finns signaled that they were united and i think that's what the ukrainians should signal today too subscribe to warfare from history hit wherever you get your podcasts and join us on the front lines of military history. So can you imagine, therefore, it's almost like how we like to portray places like Roman Pompeii or Athens in the 5th century BC, how the evidence is there that people came to these places from all across the known world and beyond. Can we imagine, therefore, in Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, if you're walking down one of the main streets, potentially, you know, traders from all of these different places, people from all of these different places speaking different languages, walking down this ancient world capital? And this could be actually the origin of the Tower of Babel story. Let's go into that, yes. In Genesis 11, you have this confusion of tongues, you see,

which is imposed by God as punishment that, yes, it was a very cosmopolitan city, you know, by nature. So, you know, yes, but at that time, we have to realize that Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon was a bit like London or Paris in the late 19th century. There were imperial capitals with fantastic architecture, you see, and people from all over the world. Or Rome, you know, under the early emperors. Well, let's focus on that architecture now, because does it seem once he's done these military conquests, Nebuchadnezzar, he's keen to enhance Babylon as this great centre, and is one of the great ways that we know that he did this through the building of monumental constructions. Yes. So he was extremely ambitious architecturally. Again, there's a religious

aspect to that because he's creating, he's refounding, you know, the cosmic capital, the cosmological capital, not only the capital of an empire. So these works, the archaeology of Babylon is very complicated, but basically the walls and the gates of the city were, you know, redone in grandiose fashion, especially the Gate of Ishtar. And the Gate of Ishtar was done at least twice under Nebuchadnezzar, maybe even three times. He rebuilt the palace inside the walls, and he built another palace outside the walls, which we call the North Palace, which was partly excavated only by the Germans, you know, in the early 20th century. But, you know, there are restorations of temples all over the place, complete rebuilding of the

ziggurat of the god Marduk, the Etemenanki, which again probably gave rise to the legend of the Tower of Babel in the Bible. So yes, I mean, there was no, he spared no effort to make Babylon into a very large and impressive showcase, imperial showcase. Well, shall we focus therefore on the Etemenanki first of all, as you say, this might be the influence for the Tower of Babel. What do we know about his rebuilding of this incredibly sacred, massive temple? Well, he speaks about it in his royal inscriptions. So he talks about rebuilding the Etemenanki and gives a very cursory description of it. But we also have later documents. There's one document in particular from the Hellenistic period, from the Seleucid period, which describes the dimensions, gives the dimensions, you see, of the Etemenanki.

Of course, the Etemenanki has completely disappeared. All we have now are the foundations. You see, we have the layout of the Ziggurat because it was pillaged, you know, for hundreds of years for its bricks, and there's nothing left of it. So, but, you know, it was 90 meters by 90 meters by 90 meters, more or less. So, a very high tower for the times, more than 350 feet high. So, that's an extremely high structure. So, it must have been extremely impressive, especially as Babylon lies in a very flat plain. So, to have this tower rising above the city must have been a very impressive sight. There's even a stele that was discovered by the German excavators, and part of it was stolen from the excavation, was found back about 20 years ago in a private collection and was joined with the other

fragment, which describes Nebuchadnezzar standing in front of the ziggurat. And there's an inscription below it, which is an inscription of the king describing the building of the ziggurat. The authenticity has been disputed by some, but I think it's a real object. As I'm guessing, and I think we'll get back to this as we talk more and more about this architecture, in regards to a lot of the archaeology and a lot of the architecture that is mentioned at Babylon, there is still much debate in scholarly circles about what the function or the whereabouts of certain things were, I'm presuming. Of course, yes. Well, we have the issue of the famous hanging gardens, and the archaeology is very complicated again. So the Gate of Ishtar, the way it our mind will immediately be brought to that beautiful

coloured reconstruction in Berlin. But what, therefore, did the Ishtar gates look like? Was it covered with this colour, with these depictions of lions and so on? What do we know? Yes, the gate of Ishtar as such, yes, the later version that Dimbukonetsar finally decided on in the final, you know, the final two decades of his reign looked like, you know, what you see in Berlin. So it was definitely covered with these blue colored glaze bricks that were an innovation of that time. So they added cobalt ore to the glaze to make it shiny and blue. So that was a new thing, probably, as far as we know. And there were two gates, actually. There was the main gate, the first gate that you see in Berlin, which is smaller.

And behind it, there was a larger gate, larger version of that same gate. Because the wall was double. So Babylon was surrounded by a double wall. So to go to the entire gates was about 50 meters long, 150 feet, more than 150 feet. So you had to go through almost like a tunnel, you see, to go through the walls. So the one you see in Berlin is the smaller one. The larger one has never been reconstructed.

And in fact, what they found, what you see if you go to the site of Babylon, is the earlier version. to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

Of the gate, you see, and the walls, which are covered with these two mythical animals in relief, but not in glazed bricks. So it's simply, you know, normal mud brick. And at some point, Nebuchadnezzar decided to redo that and to raise the Torah Fair. And then he built a second version of the gate, which was in flat bricks, but depicting the two animals, but colored bricks, glazed bricks. And then finally, there was a third one, which went back to the first design of bricks in relief, but glazed bricks in relief. And that's what you see in Berlin. But that didn't survive in its end at all. This was reconstructed from thousands of fragments that were found on the site. So that's when the

archaeologists realized, well, there was a later rebuilding, you know, following the first one and the second one, but combining the two. The first one in relief, but on glazed bricks, and the second one flat, but with glazed bricks. So finally decided, no, it has to always be better with Bucanetzar in a sense. So finally decided, well, you know, I must do a third one with bricks in relief, but glazed bricks. These glazed bricks, Paul-Alain, my mind immediately goes to somewhere like Persepolis, where they colour in the parts of the Apadana to show how colourful it originally was. Was colour a big thing, an important part of Nebuchadnezzar's monumental constructions, his architecture?

Do we know much about the colours? Were there different kinds of glazed brick colours also added to various building projects of Nebuchadnezzar? What do we know about that? Well, colour was important because he talks about colors. He talks about these lapis lazuli colored bricks, you see. So obviously it was very important for him. But also it's not only the Gate of Ishtar, it's also the processional way was decorated.

The base of the processional was decorated with lace bricks and striding lions. Lion is the symbol of the goddess Ishtar. On the gate itself, you had the dragon of the god Marduk, the Mushrushu, and the bull of the god Adad, who was associated with Marduk. But also, inside the royal palace in Babylon, what we call the south palace, the main palace, the main courtyard, which led to the throne room, was the entire facade of the throne room was decorated with glazed bricks also, which depicted, again, striding lions and also stylized palm trees. So it's a very beautiful abstract design.

That, again, had collapsed completely. It was reconstructed. So the reconstructions that you see in books, they're all right, but it may have looked somewhat different, you see. But I mean, we have the general idea because they found actually one panel completely collapsed on the floor that allows us to have an idea, you see, of the whole thing. That allows us to have an idea, you see, of the whole thing. Do we think, therefore, that these palaces primarily had a defensive purpose?

Or did they serve multiple purposes? Or do we still not know that much about what activities would have gone on within the palaces? Yeah, about the North Palace, we know very little. About the South Palace, well, it was the residence of the king. It's a very large palace. So there were functionaries, you know, servants, you know, there were the private quarters for the royal family and so on. But we don't know anything about what happened in the palace because we don't, it's not like the Assyrian palaces where we have tons of texts that tell us what happened there. But in the palace at Babylon, you know, it's mostly guesswork.

Fair enough, fair enough. I mean, do we know much about their architectural layout away from, let's say, the main throne room and the courtyard? We have the entire layout of the south palace. So the German excavators were able to clear everything. So we have the plan of the palace. That is not a problem. The problem with reconstructions, in fact, the palace was rebuilt under the late Saddam Hussein, you see, the late president of Iraq.

But the problem is the elevation of the walls because we have no idea about this, you know, how high they were. And also, usually we do things with crenellations on top, like the Gate of Ishtar has been reconstructed with crenellation. But this is mostly taken from Assyrian examples. In Babylonia, we don't know if they had those crenellations. So it's partly speculative, but the layout of the palace, the plan, is accurate. This is verified by excavations. I have to therefore ask about the Hanging Garden of Babylon, always associated with Nebuchadnezzar from the surviving literary sources. But whereabouts was this Hanging Garden supposed to be? Well, of course, this is a legendary feature, part of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. First, I must say that all important capitals had royal gardens. There were certainly royal

gardens in Babylon, because know, because we know there were in Assyria and earlier, you know, most capitals had some kind of garden. So, there were gardens there, definitely. In fact, there's even a small document from the reign of an earlier king called Marduk-a-Pla-Idina, that's the Merodak-Baladan of the Bible, reigned at the end of the 8th century. And it's a tablet which describes plants that are in the royal garden in Babylon. So there was a garden. Now, about the hanging gardens,

of course, Nebuchadnezzar doesn't talk about these gardens in his royal inscriptions. There are no mentions of them in that period. Herodotus, you know, in the 5th century, doesn't talk about the gardens in his description of Babylon, which is mostly from hearsay, but apparently, so it was not worth mentioning for him. The earliest source is in the writings of the Babylonian priest Berossus, who wrote in the 3rd century, you see, in the early part of the third century. So, that's centuries after Nebuchadnezzar.

And he wrote, in Greek, an account of the culture and history of the Babylonians, which, according to tradition, was presented to the Seleucid ruler Antiochus I, the second Seleucid ruler. So, he talks about the Hanging Gardens, attributes them to Nebuchadnezzar, and he locates them in the North Palace. So that's very clear for him. And he says that Nebuchadnezzar built them. Of course, when we say Hanging Gardens, in fact, if you'll read Berossus, he says terraced gardens. So it's gardens built on high terraces, stone terraces. And then he says that Nebuchadnezzar built them for his wife, who was of Median origin. This is the only information we have about Nebuchadnezzar's wife. So because she longed for the mountainous landscape of Media, you see, of the Iranian

plateau. So whether that is true or not, we don't know. So he mentions them. And later on, you have other Greek writers, you know, mention these hanging gardens. It became a big thing, you see, for the Greeks. And it was associated with all these marvels, architectural marvels you could see. And of course, the walls of Babylon were also another wonder of the world. So it became a legend. And this is why we talk about them. So they may not have been particularly spectacular if they existed. So we have no hard proof of their existence.

It's possible that there were such gardens. I mean, I'm not. The only problem is logistical, is how you have to water the gardens if they were built on high terraces. So you have to bring the water up because there's not much rainfall in that region, not enough to have, you know, a natural garden. So you constantly have to irrigate. But how do you irrigate on terraces? Well, that's a logistical problem. Earlier, you know, Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, when he describes his gardens in Nineveh, talks about something which looks like the Archimedes crew, that you have this device to bring water up.

They may have used that. They may have used other devices that we don't know. But again, it's a problem. Personally, I would tend to believe that Berossus says the truth. You see that there was still in Babylon remains of these terrace gardens of Nebuchadnezzar. When he describes the building of the North Palace, he describes it as a mountain. Some have claimed that this was the beginning of this legend, you see, of mountain-like gardens for the wife of Nebuchadnezzar.

But, you know, to build things like a mountain is a topos also in Mesopotamia. So, you build walls that are as high as a mountain. So So frankly, I mean, in the end, we don't know. But, you know, I would tend to add some credence, you see, to Berossus, who is very often quite accurate, especially when he talks about the Neo-Babylonian Empire. So he has a long paragraph, which survives in the writings of Josephus, because we don't have the original of Berossus. And what he says is quite well-informed, so I would tend to add credence to that. This man, it is so fascinating how this figure, Nebuchadnezzar, as you mentioned earlier in our chat, this is quite late in Mesopotamia's ancient

history, in the ancient history of Babylon, and yet it's when Babylon reaches its prominence. And it's remarkable how it's under this one ruler during this quite short time that Babylon is transformed so drastically with its architecture, with its color, into this world capital. This is such a huge moment in ancient history, isn't it? Yes, it is. You know, there was a window of opportunity for Babylon. Yes, it is. You know, there was a window of opportunity for Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar must have been a man of great military and political talent. We know almost nothing about him, in fact. You know, he has no personal voice. There are only a few letters from him that are sent to temples, you see, that have survived, you know, in Uruk. But they don't tell us anything about Nebuchadnezzar, the man. But

obviously, I mean, there's no doubt that he had vast capabilities. He has a statement. He had vision, but his vision did not last. So unfortunately, because the Persians eventually conquered the Babylonian Empire. Yeah. So what exactly happens to Nebuchadnezzar? You also mentioned earlier that Nabonidus, the last Babylonian ruler, seems to have been alive during Nebuchadnezzar's rule. So it seems like whatever happens to Nebuchadnezzar, his empire and the prominence of Babylon, it doesn't last very long. It doesn't last because there was a crisis after the death of Nebuchadnezzar. He was succeeded by one of his sons, Amal Marduk, who was assassinated after two years.

And then power was seized by Nebuchadnezzar, who was very probably the son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar. So he had married a woman named Kashaya, who was the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. It's not 100% sure, it's like 90% sure. And Nebuchadnezzar was a military man 100% sure, it's like 90% sure. And Nebuchadnezzar was a military man. He stemmed from an Aramean background. So Arameans were another group of West Semitic speakers who had settled in Babylonia. And he reigned only four years.

And after his death, he was followed by his son, Labashimarduk. But there was a conspiracy to remove Labashimarduk after a few weeks of reign. And then they put the conspirators, put on the throne this man Nabonidus, who was already an old man, probably. And Berossus even talked about that. You know, Berossus says that the conspirators agreed to put Nabonidus on the throne. So, you know, Nabonidus may not have instigated the conspiracy necessarily, but he was a member of a group that decided, okay, it's you who's going put Nabonidus on the throne. So, you know, Nabonidus may not have instigated the conspiracy necessarily, but he was a member of a group that decided, okay, it's you who's going to be king.

And he was unrelated to the royal family. He was of Assyrian-Aramian background. We know that his mother came from Haran, which was the last capital of the Assyrian Empire. And then she settled in Babylon later and she served the kings. And she's probably the one who introduced her son to Nebuchadnezzar. And I mean, it's almost certain that the Nabonidus mentioned in the documents

from the palace of Nebuchadnezzar is the same Nabonidus, the usurper who becomes king later, you see. So Nabonidus was a man certainly of great ability also. After all, he expanded the empire in North Arabia, but he may have been a rather strange person, you see. So, he had conflicts with the priesthood, with, you know, high functionaries and everything. So, he stayed 10 years in the Oasis of Tema in North Arabia, and put his son, Belshazzar in charge in Babylon. That's the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel later. But finally, the empire collapsed

overnight in 539 because there was this other empire being built on the Iranian plateau by the Persians that expanded very rapidly during the reign of Nabonidus. And finally, the Babylonian Empire was conquered overnight, surprisingly, by the Persians. So that's the end of ancient Mesopotamia as an independent political entity. Well, Paul Allen, I think that feels like a brilliant place to end it, especially as we've got another episode coming soon about the Cyrus C cylinder and cyrus and all of that which is very exciting as mentioned this has been great and it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today thank you well there you go there was professor paul alon bolia explaining all about nebuchadnezzar

kicking off our special babylon-series this May. I hope you enjoyed the episode. We gave a bit of a hint in that episode, talking about the hanging gardens of Babylon. Oh, don't you worry, that's coming up very, very soon. What do we know about this enigmatic ancient wonder? Now, last things from me, you know what I'm going to say, but if you have been enjoying the ancients

and you want to help us out where you know what you can do, you can leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps us as we continue to grow the podcast and to keep on going every week, week in, week out, sharing these amazing stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible. But that's enough from me and I will see

you in the next episode.