NOTES

Chapter 1 A city and its ghosts

1See Matthews 2003a: 10 for the example of Telloh.

2Koldewey 1914: v.

3Klengel-Brandt 1995: 19.

Chapter 2 Ancient Babylon

1The earliest possible reference to the city – a text whose author is the Ensí (governor) of a city called Ba₇-ba₇ (BAR.KI.BAR), and which mentions the construction of a ‘temple of Marduk’ – dates to the first dynasty of Ur, c.2500 BC (Sollberger 1985). André-Salvini (Babylone: 28), explains the probable etymology of a link to the name of Babylon (Akkadian Bâbilu or Bâbilim). Occasional early references to the city's patron deity, Marduk, as the son of the sun god Shamash, suggest that Babylon was originally a satellite in the political orbit of the sun god's city, Sippar (Lambert 2011).

2The temple of the supreme god Enlil at Nippur was a shared concern of Mesopotamian cities, hence its regular receipt of large offerings from them. The Ur III period texts list Babylon as making annual offerings of sheep, goats, cows, tamarisk wood and beer (the latter in particularly large quantity), as well as corvée labour for the harvest of temple lands (Renger 1979; Sollberger 1985).

3With the expansion of many settlements in the fourth millennium BC, but especially the city of Uruk. It is increasingly clear, however, that large-scale settlements also began to appear in northern Mesopotamia at around the same time.

4Charles 1988.

5See, for example, chapters in Rothman 2001.

6Histories 1.193. The date-palms remain a distinctive characteristic of the landscape and economy today.

7The case made for cooperative irrigation projects as a spur for the rise of organized states (specifically despotic states) by Wittfogel (1957) was highly influential but became increasingly untenable as evidence emerged that irrigation systems employed in the earliest cities and states were much smaller projects (Adams 1966, 1970). Increasing evidence for very early urban development at Tell Brak in Syria, based on rain-fed agriculture, also weakens the case for irrigation as a primary cause for urbanization (Oates et al. 2007; Ur et al. 2011). For the developed system of the mid–late third and early second millennium see Adams 1981: 1–11; Charles 1988; Pemberton et al. 1988; Steinkeller 1988; Renger 1990; Pollock 1999: 28–34; Postgate 1994: 173–90.

8See, for example, Herodotus' description of the legendary queen Nitocris changing the course of the Euphrates: ‘by cutting channels higher upstream she made it wind about with so many twists and turns that now it actually actually passes a certain Assyrian village called Ardericca three separate times […]. In addition to this she constructed embankments on both sides of the river of remarkable strength and height, and a long way above the city, close beside the river, dug a basin for a lake some forty-seven miles in circumference’ (Histories 1.185).

9Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104 BC). The sack of Susa occurred in 1110 BC.

10Or so the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi implies.

11About whom very little is known. Lambert (1974) suggests that their capital, E'uruku(g) or Uruku(g), may have been al-Hiba (Lagash).

12Specialists generally refer to such texts as collections rather than codes, since the latter term tends to suggest a complete and systematic treatment, rather than a collection of particular examples (VerSteeg 2000: 13).

13For example the laws of Lipit-Eshtar, a king of the first dynasty of Isin, produced c.1930 BC (Roth 1997: 23–35; Babylone no. 15), or those ascribed to Ur-Nammu (2112–2095 BC or his son Shulgi (2094–2047 BC) (Kramer 1954; Roth 1997: 13–22, 36–59; Canby 2001).

14For a current view of the monument's importance see André-Salvini 2003.

15Brinkman 1974: 396, no. 7.

16Adams 1981; Richardson 2007: 17.

17Clayden 1996.

18See esp. Collins 2008; Aruz et al. 2008, 2013.

19On Babylonian participation in the Amarna correspondence see Westbrook 2000.

20Grayson 1975: 175–6.

21Kravitz 2010: 125–6.

22Grayson 1987: 245.

23Shutruk-Nahhunte's son, Kudur-Nahhunte, was forever condemned in Babylonian literature for the act (Oates 1986: 97).

24Foster 2005: 350–401. The date of composition is uncertain as the epic is known only through later texts, however both content (the centrality of Babylon and Marduk) and language suggest a date in the late second millennium BC (Lambert 1984). See now Lambert 2013: 439–44.

25Oates 1986: 223. On Chaldean and Aramean tribes in Babylonia and their ongoing conflicts with Assyrian power, see Fales 2011.

26Frame 1992: 38.

27Ousting the short-lived king Marduk-zakir-shumi II, whom the rebellion had initially brought to power (Brinkman 1973: 91).

28Parpola 1972.

29Brinkman 1973: 93.

30In this respect it was successful, at least temporarily. There was no further rebellion during Sennacherib's reign (Frame 1992: 53).

31Luckenbill 1924: 83–4.

32Brinkman 1983, 1984: 67–8. A notable exception is Nabonidus' frank description of the destruction and removal of Marduk's statue (Langdon 1912: 270–2).

33Babylonian chronicles and the Ptolemaic Canon both refer to this period as ‘kingless’ (Brinkman 1984: 69).

34There is a possibility that the statue was actually destroyed and a replacement fashioned in Nineveh under Esarhaddon before its ‘return’ from Ashur to Babylon under Ashurbanipal (Frame 1992: 56–7).

35Grayson 1975: 131.

36Brinkman 1984: 34.

37Frame 1992: 67 for discussion of the date; Borger 1956: 14–26 for Esarhaddon's account of the destroyed city and its rebuilding.

38Brinkman 1984: 73.

39Brinkman 1984: 103–4.

40Harper 1892–1914: no. 972.

41Cogan and Tadmor 1981: 232–3.

42Steiner and Nims 1985; André-Salvini in Babylone: 394.

43See Chapter 3.

44British Museum, BM 124945–6, from room M of the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Barnett 1976: 46–7, pl. 35; Novotny and Watanabe 2008.

45According to Berossus he was a brother of Shamash-shuma-ukin, and therefore also of Ashurbanipal (Schnabel 1968 (1923): 269–70). It is not impossible that Kandalanu is merely a throne name of Ashurbanipal, or a statue that represented Ashurbanipal at key Babylonian cultic events such as the New Year (Oates 1965: 158–9; Reade 1970: 1). Two earlier Assyrian kings who had held the Babylonian kingship, Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser V, are known by the strange names of ‘Pul(u)’ (also in the Old Testament, 2 Kings 15.19; 1 Chronicles 5.26) and ‘Ulayu’, respectively, in the Babylonian chronicles and king-lists (Kuhrt 1995a: 580); however these are rather different cases in terms of the sources in which they appear (Frame 1992: 303–4).

46There is also a strong argument for dating Ashurbanipal's death earlier, in 631 BC (Na'aman 1991), which if correct would confirm that Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu were not one and the same (Zawadzki 1995).

47Grayson 1975: 19, 99.

48Burstein (1978: 26) suggests that Nabopolassar may be the same individual as ‘Bupolassaros’, a general of Assyrian forces according to Berossus.

49Wiseman 1985: 7.

50Brinkman 1984: 110. The source identifying Nabopolassar as a king of the Sealand (Hunger 1968: no. 107) is of much later (Seleucid) date, while biblical and classical sources seem to use ‘Chaldean’ simply as a synonym for ‘Babylonian’.

51Jeremiah 52.30.

52For a general overview of the Assyrian practice and its development see Grayson 1995.

53Yamauchi 2002: 365.

54British Museum, BM 45690. Lambert 1965; Taylor in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 66–7.

55See, for example, the East India House Inscription (British Museum, BM 129397) and inscription from the Ishtar Gate (Vorderasiatisches Museum, SMB, Berlin).

56Amel-Marduk (biblical Evil-Merodach) is a throne name. It is thought that as prince Amel-Marduk was the Nabu-shuma-ukin known from a highly unusual prison lament (Finkel 1999).

57Pritchard 1969: 309.

58Dougherty 1929: 73.

59Josephus, Against Apion 1.147–9.

60The king's background is discussed by Dougherty (1929: 16–28). Nabonidus' famous claim to be the son of a nobody has also been translated (as in the quotation above) as ‘the lonely one who has nobody’ and as ‘the only son who has nobody’.

61Histories 1.74.

62Pritchard 1969: 562.

63Pritchard 1969: 311–12.

64Pritchard 1969: 561.

65Beaulieu 1993: 243.

66Gadd 1958: 56–9; Wiseman 1991: 246.

67DSS 4Q242.

68Kinnier Wilson and Finkel 2007: 18–20.

69Schaudig 2001: 563–78.

70This is a debatable point, but the emphasis placed on the akitu festival by texts such as the Verse Account and Cyrus Cylinder suggests that it did have a special importance.

71Nabonidus Chronicle (Pritchard 1969: 305–7).

72Cited in Josephus, Against Apion 1.152–3, although see the alternative account of Xenophon (Cyropedia 7.5.30), describing Nabonidus' murder in the palace by two of Cyrus' nobles.

73The others were Persepolis in Persia, Susa in Elam and Ecbatana in Media. Although themselves separated by hundreds of miles and lying in different provinces, the four capitals were nonetheless all positioned relatively near the centre of the vast empire.

74Announcing the discovery to the Royal Society in November 1879, Henry Rawlinson mistakenly presented the Cylinder as excavated at Birs Nimrud. Rassam was able to correct him, having seen the report of the Royal Society meeting in the following day'sTimes. From Rassam's correspondence it is clear that the Cylinder was discovered during excavations at Babylon's Amran mound (Rassam refers to Jumjuma, apparently meaning the southern part of this mound, although the name is more properly that of the modern village, now Djimijma, lying a short distance to the south, from which many of the workmen came).

75For the history of the Achaemenid period, including Babylon's role, see Briant 2006.

76Support but not direct corroboration. Notwithstanding the existence of several bogus translations online, the text of the document does not mention Jerusalem or the Judaeans. The passage in question speaks of returning gods and their personnel to their temples, and although the return of the Judaeans to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple there is surely the result of the same policy, the examples actually mentioned in the text of the Cyrus Cylinder are all Mesopotamian. At the same time, however, the text of the Cyrus Cylinder shows striking parallels with parts of the Second Isaiah account. For a tabular comparison of the relevant sections see Smith 1963: 416. Smith argues that a divergence between the two accounts on events following the fall of Babylon is the result of the Second Isaiah text having been produced prior to the capture of the city, based on Persian propaganda that also formed the basis of the (post-conquest) Cyrus Cylinder. It is true that the violence of the conquest prophesied in Second Isaiah diverges substantially from the Cyrus Cylinder, describing a sack that the latter is at pains to deny:

I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

(Isaiah 45.2–3)

77For which reason a copy of the Cylinder is displayed in the United Nations building in New York. The cylinder also remains a highly potent political symbol in contemporary Iran. On the Cylinder in general see now Curtis 2013 and Finkel 2013.

78The story of Xerxes' wrath in Greek sources (Arrian, Anabasis 3.16.4–5, 7.17.1–3) may be exaggerated, but Waerzeggers (2003/4) argues that there is strong evidence for a major disruption in the archives. For an opposing view, see Briant 2006: 544–5.

79Though Kuhrt cautions some scepticism regarding the accounts of successive conquerors – Sargon, Cyrus, Alexander – being welcomed into Babylon by cheering crowds (Kuhrt 1990).

80British Museum, BM 36761. Sachs and Hunger 1988: no. 330.

81Briant 2005: 17. On the other hand we should be clear that Alexander did not adopt many of the formal trappings of the Achaemenid Great King, and seems to have seen his role differently (Fredricksmeyer 2000).

82‘On entering Babylon Alexander directed the Babylonians to rebuild the temples Xerxes destroyed, especially the temple of Baal, whom the Babylonians honour more than any other god […]. At Babylon he met the Chaldaeans, and carried out all their recommendations on the Babylonian temples, and in particular sacrificed to Baal according to their instructions’ (Arrian, Anabasis 3.16.4–5). Here ‘Baal’ is Marduk. The latter was commonly referred to simply as Bel, ‘lord’, leading Greek writers to believe this was the actual name of the god.

83Plutarch, Alexander 54.3–55.1; Arrian, Anabasis 4.10.5–4.12.5; Curtius, History of Alexander 8.5.5–24.

84Plutarch (Alexander 54.5–6) and Arrian (Anabasis 4.12.3–5) describe how Callisthenes avoids performing proskynesis before Alexander, while elsewhere (Arrian, Ababasis 4.10–11; Curtius, History of Alexander 8.5.13–21) he is described as arguing publicly that Alexander should receive neither divine honours nor proskynesis. For discussion of the affair see Bosworth 1988: 284–6, 1995: 77–90; Atkinson 1994: 201.

85If indeed it was: Diodorus and Arrian locate the funeral at Babylon, Plutarch and Justin do not. McKechnie (1995) argues that the pyre at Babylon is pure invention, its ultimate origin lying in Ephipphus of Olynthus' The Funeral of Alexander and Hephaestion, of which only fragments survive, and conveyed via Ptolemy. The main basis for this scepticism, however, is a conflict beween Diodorus Bibliotheke Historica 17.115 and 18.4. The latter suggests that the pyre, or possibly a permanent momument, had not yet been built at the time of Alexander's death. (The theory has Ptolemy colluding in a fictional account of Hephaestion's death in order to support his own transport of Alexander's body to Alexandria.) The sources agree, however, on a lavish monument and funeral, and the former had surely been begun in some form. The details he gives for the pyre may well be false but if, as seems to be the case, Diodorus used Cleitarchus and Ptolemy as sources, the presumption should remain that Hephaestion's funeral really did take place at Babylon. Here I follow Lane-Fox (2004), who places the pyre at Babylon but doubts both the physical descriptions and whether it was ever completed.

86Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheke Historica 17.115.1.

87Bibliotheke Historica 17.115.2–4.

88Bibliotheke Historica 17.114.1. The astronomical cost of the funeral is given by Diodorus as 12,000 talents, while Plutarch (Alexander 72.3) and Arrian (Anabasis 7.14.8) put the figure at 10,000 talents.

89In Diodorus the death of Hephaestion and the royal honours he receives are used to presage the death of Alexander, although the other accounts (Plutarch, Arrian, Justin) do not make the same use of this device (McKechnie 1995: 420). In Arrian (Anabasis7.24.1–3), Diodorus (Bibliotheke Historica 17.116.2–4) and Plutarch (Alexander 73.7–9) there is also what sounds very much like the Babylonian procedure of killing a ‘substitute king’ to divert an ill-omen – probably misunderstood by Alexander as a bad omen in itself (Boiy 2004: 113).

90Suspicion fell almost immediately upon the family of Antipater, a suspicion actively fanned by Alexander's mother Olympias. Plutarch, Arrian, Quintus Curtius Rufus and Justin all record a story in which Cassander brought the poison to be administered by Iolaus at the house of Medius of Larissa (Bosworth 1971: 112–14). Against this, however, can be weighed the time that elapsed (itself disputed) between the banquet and Alexander's sickening, and the further days that passed before his death. It has been pointed out that a poison that could act so slowly and still guarantee death was almost certainly beyond the technical capacity of ancient poisoners (Lane-Fox 2004).

91Strabo, Geography 16.1.

92Though the extent to which existing cultures and traditions could be said thereby to have become Hellenized is a different question. Mesopotamian institutions and civic life show substantial continuity with earlier periods, and despite the presence of outward signs in names and artworks recent commentary on the subject has tended to support Sack's view that ‘only a light veneer of hellenism coated institutions in the important city-states of Babylonia’ (Sack 1990: 117).

93On the division of empire, Seleucus at Babylon and the founding of Seleucia on the Tigris see Boiy 2004: 117–37.

94Ibn Hauqal, Surat al-Ardh (Hilprecht 1903: 13).

95Foster 2005: 436–86. See now Lambert 2013.

96For example, Pritchard 1969: 267. The name Sargon means ‘true king’, as a result of which it is widely assumed that Sargon was a usurper.

97Musée du Louvre Sb 4.

98Grayson 1975: 149.

99Aka the Esagila Chronicle. Grayson 1975: 43–5, 141–51; Glassner 2004: 263–9. Another version of the story exists in the Chronicle of Early Kings (Grayson 1975: 45–9, 152–6; Glassner 2004: 268–71).

100Not that the situation is entirely clear. The text reads, ‘… Bel […] he dug up the dust of its pit […] In front of Agade he made another city and cal[led] it Babylon’ (Grayson 1975: 149). In this case ‘Agade’ (or Akkad) is probably Babylon (the city has many names, of which Akkad is one of the more common), but there is no denying that the situation is confusing. An alternative interpretation (although the two are not wholly incompatible) is that the text describes a symbol of Akkad's dominance over Babylon, and that this is the hubristic act which angers Marduk. Grayson (1975: 153–4) cites descriptions of Shalmaneser I, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal in which the conqueror sets up a mound of dust from the conquered city next to his own city.

101Grayson 1975: 149. The Chronicle of Early Kings also mentions famine:

He dug up the dirt of the pit of Babylon and
made a counterpart of Babylon next to Agade.
Because of the wrong he had done the great lord Marduk became angry and wiped out his family by famine.
They (his subjects) rebelled against him from east to west
and he (Marduk) afflicted him with insomnia.

(Grayson 1975: 153–4)

102As shown in a compendium of ancient signs with contemporary equivalents and secret numbers, written in the Neo-Babylonian period or later (Pearce 1996; Finkel in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 83–7).

103Little is known of Cyrus' own religious beliefs. It is often assumed that he worshipped Ahura Mazda and practised a form of Mazdaism similar to that of later Persian kings, but no direct evidence exists for this.

104Kuhrt 1990.

Chapter 3 Tyrants and wonders: The biblical and classical sources

1The latest documents of all, which are undated, may date to the third century.

2Genesis 11.1–9.

3Considine 2003: 3; Freedman et al. 1992: I, 561; Gérard 1989: 120–1.

4Descendants of Shem (Genesis 11.10–25) and descendants of Terah (Genesis 11.26–32).

5Freedman et al. 1992: I, 561–2 (where on the basis of the strongly anti-Babylonian slant an Israelite origin for the text is also preferred); O'Connell 2003: 129.

6Lambert and Millard 1969; Dalley 1989: 1–38.

7Guinan 2002: 24.

8Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1.109–19.

9Jewish Antiquities 1.113, following the implication of Genesis 10.8–10 that it is Nimrod who first settles in the land of Sumer. Inconsistencies in the two texts show that Genesis 10 and 11 were originally separate units, although clearly their juxtaposition in Genesis is deliberate and structured (O'Connell 2003: 128).

10Jewish Antiquities 1.118.

11For examples see George 2005–6.

12On George Smith, see pp. 158–60, this volume.

13Genesis 10.6; 10.9.

14See Levin 2002 for two arguments on Nimrod: (1) that ‘Cush’ should be the Mesopotamian city name Kish, and that its misunderstanding as Cush explains Nimrod's attribution to the otherwise African lineage of Ham; and (2) that the Genesis passage on Nimrod ultimately relates to the mythologized biography of Sargon of Akkad.

15Genesis 10.10–12.

16On the debate, see Freedman et al. 1992: VI, 1012–19.

17Psalms 137.1–9.

18Larsen 1996: 278.

19Jullien and Jullien 1995: 23.

202 Kings 25.1–21.

212 Chronicles 36.17–21.

22Jeremiah 52.3–30.

23Finkelstein and Silberman 2002: 48–71.

242 Kings 25.27–30.

25Keck and Tucker 1992: 14.

26See Chapter 2.

272 Chronicles 36.22–3/Ezra 1.1–3.

28Ezra 1.3–4.

291 Esdras 2.3–7. NB – Esdras is the Greek form of Ezra used in the Apocrypha. Ezra is the supposed author of 1 and 2 Esdras, which continue the historical narrative from 2 Chronicles and end on the only apocalyptic sequence in the Apocrypha in 2 Esdras.

30Stoyanov 2000: 49–50.

31Isaiah 14.12–17.

32The chronology of the oracles against the nations in First Isaiah is complex, since the text weaves a core of eighth- to seventh-century BC oracles against Assyria, Egypt, Damascus, Israel and Judah together with later, exilic material on Babylon, Persia, Moab and Tyre (Freedman 1992: III, 485–6; Hill 2003: 596). An exilic origin makes political sense and would imply Nebuchadnezzar or the Neo-Babylonian kings generally. However, see Sweeney (1996: 232) for the alternative view that Isaiah 14 is part of the much earlier body of core material, and that the ‘king of Babylon’ should be equated with the eighth-century BC Assyrian king Sargon II.

33McGinn 1998: 7.

34Collins 1998: 87–8. There are further reasons for believing that the combined text takes its final form in the 160s BC, since it is widely agreed that the text refers to the period of Antiochus' persecution of traditionalist Jews following the Maccabean rebellion.

35Both Cyrus himself and the Median king Astyages have been suggested as possibilities.

36The early part of the Book of Daniel explains how ‘some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility – young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king's palace’ (Daniel 1.3–4) received training in the scribal arts and preparation for a life at the Babylonian court.

37Collins 1998: 86–7. Whether this truly is the same Daniel as the prophet of the Exile is disputed, however, as the name occurs as dan'el in Ezekiel as opposed to daniyyel in Daniel (Lucas 2000: 68).

38See pp. 24–5, this volume.

39The Verse Account of Nabonidus records that ‘[As for his …] they tore out its image; [from all mon]uments his name was obliterated’ (Pritchard 1969: 312–15). A surviving stela of Nabonidus, its inscription carefully removed, may show the policy in action (Finkel in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 165).

40Daniel 3.25.

41Daniel 3.29.

42Daniel 4.

43See p. 25, this volume.

44See pp. 24–5, this volume.

45Kinnier Wilson and Finkel 2007: 18–20.

46Sack 1991: 103.

47Daniel 5.30–1. See note 35 above on Darius the Mede.

48Sachau 1879: 297.

49Dougherty 1929: 11–13.

50Daniel 5.23–8. Mene, tekel and parsin refer to the currency weights mina, shekel and half-shekel. Peres, the singular of parsin, also refers to Persia.

51Daniel 11.40.

52Daniel 11.2–4. The prophecy has been reinterpreted to suit political and religious agendas throughout history, most famously Moscow's claim to be the ‘third Rome’ and defender of Christianity following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

53Jeremiah 50.39–40.

54Though brief references to the historical Babylon and the Exile do appear: Matthew 1.11, 12, 17; Acts 7.43. The reference at 1 Peter 5.13 is probably symbolic of Rome in the same manner as the Babylon of Revelation (Freedman 1992: I, 565).

55Apparently completed during the reign of Domitian, AD 81–96.

56Revelation 17.1–6.

57Dronke 1986: 71.

58Jeremiah 51.7.

59Histories 1.

60Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheke Historica 2.

61Histories 1.178–9.

62Herodotus' 200 cubits is around 102 m (for a comparison of the dimensions given by classical authors see Babylon: Myth and Reality: 115). Marincola (2003: 633) suggests a Homeric reference to ‘hundred-gated Thebes’ (Iliad 10.383). The exact locations of some of Babylon's eight gates are not known, but their names and relative positions on the inner city wall are well established from textual sources (see George 1992).

63Oates 1986: 148.

64Mellor 1999: 7.

65Aristotle, Generation of Animals 756b7. See Grant 1970: 52.

66Sayce 1883.

67Sayce 1883: xi–xii.

68Tanner 1992: 4.

69Particularly relevant here is MacGinnis 1986, a point-by-point reassessment of Herodotus' account which concludes that a large proportion of his description holds up very well against what is known archaeologically and from the cuneiform sources.

70Reade 2000: 198.

71Dalley 1994, 2002, 2003b.

72Hyginus, Fabulae 233.

73Pliny, Natural History 19.19.49.

74Budge 1920: 297.

75Reade 2000.

76Reade 2000: 198.

77Van De Mieroop 2004.

78Dalley 2003a. There seem at least to have been significant family connections between the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian courts, while to a non-Mesopotamian it is probable that the empire – still ruled from Iraq, and covering similar territory – seemed to change very little.

79Dalley 2003b: 179; 2008.

80No one doubts that both cities had royal gardens. In the case of Babylon, however, the surviving evidence is limited a single text (BM 46226), describing plants in the garden of Marduk-apla-iddina II (Brinkman 1964; Wiseman 1983: 142–3; Finkel inBabylon: Myth and Reality: 110).

81Dalley 2003b.

82Kuhrt and Sherwin-White 1987: 69–78.

83Although the Achaemenid-period form of the ritual is unknown. This is significant since the later (Hellenistic) period ritual of the same name differs greatly from its Neo-Babylonian forbear. For the akitu festival in general see Bidmead 2002.

84‘At that time [Sayce's, writing in 1883] the Assyrian reading of the name written ^dNIN.LÍL had not been established. Now we have found out that it was read Mulissu in Assyrian […] Herodotus’ Mylitta can be accepted as a genuine piece of information' (Dalley 2003b: 172–4).

85Arieti 1995: 181–7.

86Redfield 2002: 24–5.

87Histories 1.196.

88Arieti 1995: 183–4.

89Judging that ‘The agonistic – and antithetical – character of the story marks it as quintessentially Greek’ (McNeal 1988: 63).

90McNeal 1988: 71.

91On points of comparison between Babylonian and Hippocratic medical traditions see Geller 2004.

92See note 84 on Aphrodite/Mulissu/Mylitta.

93Histories 1.199.

94Histories 1.178.

95Diodorus, Bibliotheke Historica 2, covering Ctesias, Persica 1–5/6; Photius, Bibliotheke codex 72, covering the last 17 books of the Persica. See now Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010 for an edition and commentary including all the surviving fragments.

96Megasthenes' Indica, Diodorus, Bibliotheke Historica 2.35–42; Agatharchides, Diodorus, Bibliotheke Historica 3.18–43 (Gilmore 1888: v).

97Murphy 1989: ix.

98Budge 1920: 297.

99Stevenson 1997: 2.

100Roux 2001: 147.

101Llewellyn-Jones and Robson: 2–3.

102Bibliotheke Historica 2.2.1.

103Bibliotheke Historica 2.2.3.

104It has been suggested that the Greek legend may have its origin in the career of the Middle Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243–1207 BC) and the foundation of his eponymous capital, Kar Tukulti-Ninurta (Oates 1986: 96).

105Bibliotheke Historica 2.3.2–4.

106Bibliotheke Historica 2.8.6–7.

107Dalley 2003b: 183.

108Bibliotheke Historica 2.8.4.

109Koldewey 1914: 129–31.

110These links were deep and pervasive, but perhaps the most striking uses of Babylonian and Assyrian models in Achaemenid royal architecture are the glazed-brick reliefs of the palace of Darius I at Susa and the winged bulls of Persepolis respectively.

111Histories 1.185.

112Geography 16.1.2.

113Grayson 1991: 138–9. The possibility that elements of Naqia/Zakutu can be found in legends of Semiramis has been discussed by Lewy (1952) and by Nougayrol and Parrot (1956). An alternative suggestion is that Nitocris' legend originates in the person of Adda-Guppi, the formidable mother of Nabonidus (Grayson 1982: 244). Röllig (1969) considers both possibilities.

114Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians 30.

115The story is mentioned by a daughter of Minyas:

Her joyful sisters bid her to begin,
but which of the many stories that she knows
should she relate? Long she pondered, doubtful:
your story, Babylonian Derceto?
A woman who, as Syria supposes,
was changed into a scaly thing that swims
now in a little pool? Or how her daughter,
transformed into a dove of purest white,
spent her last years perched on lofty towers?

(Metamorphoses 4.71–9)

116Grayson 1982: 243–4.

117Sammuramat also had a stela dedicated to her in the so-called Stelenreihen at Ashur. That she should be accorded such an honour is not actually unique: other stelae do bear inscriptions of women (Schram 1972: 519). Nonetheless it is sufficiently exceptional for the stela to remain a significant piece of circumstantial evidence for her importance. She is also included in a stela of Adad-nirari III, where her name follows that of her son the king (Grayson 1982: 275).

118Weinfeld 1991.

119Bibliotheke Historica 2.20.2.

120Bibliotheke Historica 2.21, 23.

121Bibliotheke Historica 2.22.1.

122Bibliotheke Historica 2.21.1–2.

123Aeschylus, Persians.

124See p. 172, this volume.

125Bibliotheke Historica 2.23.1–2.

126Bibliotheke Historica 2.26.4.

127Bibliotheke Historica 2.27.1–2.

128Bibliotheke Historica 2.27.2.

129Kuhrt 1995b: 57.

130Kuhrt 1995b: 57.

131André-Salvini in Babylone: 394.

132Shamash-shuma-ukin's name also survives, as ‘Saosdouchinos’ in the Ptolemaic Canon, and ‘Samoges’ in Berossus (Oelsner 2012).

133Van De Mieroop 2004: 4.

134Dalley 2003b.

135Dalley 2003b: 181.

136Josephus, Against Apion 1.129–31. An account of Berossus' creation story does survive in sufficient detail to confirm that it is the Babylonian creation story familiar from Enuma Elish, with Marduk's battle with Tiamat; his creation of the world from her body; and his creation of the stars and planets and of humanity. FGrHist 685F 1a–b.

137See Verbrugghe and Wickersham 1996: 8.

138Kuhrt 1995b: 63.

139Athenaeus of Nacrautis, Deipnosophistae 639c; Stephens and Winkler 1995a: 26. Parpola (1993: xxx–xxxi, n. 16, 17) argues that this ‘Sakaia’ is probably not the substitute king ritual, for which the term is also used in Greek sources, but may refer to part of the Babylonian New Year festival in one of its later forms. De Breucker (2011: 642–3) also suggests an origin in a real, but unidentified, Babylonian ritual.

140Plutarch, Erotikos 753d–e.

141Bibliotheke historica 2.20.3–5. The Athenaeus referred to here is otherwise unknown.

142Arnaud-Lindet 1990–91: vii; Brumble 1998: 302.

143Orosius, History Against the Pagans 1.4.6–8.

144Orosius gives Babylon 1164 years from its re-foundation by Semiramis (following the Genesis destruction of Babel) to its fall to Median forces and Rome 1164 years from its foundation to its sack by Alaric (Laistner 1940: 252).

145Sack 1991: 35.

146Against Apion 1.146–53; Eusebius, Praeparatorio Evangelica 9.

147Alexander Polyhistor, On the Jews, cited in Eusebius, Praeparatorio Evangelica 9.

148Against Apion 1.146–9.

149The ancient practice of counting in full regnal years is generally also used by modern historians. Therefore, e.g., Nebuchadnezzar II came to the throne in 605 BC, but his first full regnal year was 604; thus his dates are given elsewhere in this book as 604–562. Berossus takes this into account, and so his dates better match the true reigns based on date of accession.

150Against Apion 1.150–3.

151Though see Dalley's argument that Nebuchadnezzar and Sennacherib were confused in later histories (Dalley 2003b: 179).

152‘… in the third book of his History of Chaldaea, where he censures the Greek historians for their deluded belief that Babylon was founded by the Assyrian Semiramis and their erroneous statement that its marvellous buildings were her creation. On these matters the Chaldaean account must surely be accepted’ (Josephus, Against Apion 1.142–3). This summary also suggests that Berossus identified Semiramis as Assyrian, making it effectively the only recorded Babylonian comment on the queen and her identity.

153Van der Spek 2008.

154Josephus, Against Apion 1.141; see Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 10.11.

155Discussed in Reade 2000.

156Eusebius, Chronicon 46; Armenian Chronicon, pp. 44, 53.

157There is a theory that Berossus' mention of the gardens itself is a later insertion by Alexander Polyhistor. I think it more likely that Berossus is tying up a loose end for non-Babylonian readers, showing where the Greek Hanging Gardens story fits in the Babylonian history and correcting Persian (Ctesias) to Median for the identity of Nebuchadnezzar's queen. Accepting a later insertion, however, would only strengthen the argument that Berossus did not invent the story of Nebuchadnezzar's marriage to Amyitis for the sake of a neat fit with the Hanging Gardens story.

158That Ctesias would confuse Media with Persia in his account demands an explanation: he knew Iran and the Achaemenid Empire at first hand. I agree with van der Spek (2008) that he does not confuse the two, but rather records a Persian variant of the story, with a Persian princess.

159Gropp 1998: 23. The stories in question are those of Cyrus and Mandane, Semiramis and Zariadres and Cyrus the Younger and Syennesis' wife.

160Although Cleitarchus might have had less direct access to the same story. Pliny the Elder claims that Cleitarchus went to Babylon with Alexander, but more likely he relied (as is known) on other sources (e.g. returning soldiers) who had. He may have ‘corrected’ Ctesias regardless of whether he had access to an alternative version, much as Ctesias can be shown to have done with Herodotus.

161If this event is not real it is still notable that Berossus records the information from some existing source.

162Souda Ξ.49.

163Stephens and Winkler 1995a: 23.

164Doro Levi judged that despite undergoing a substantial transformation, ‘persons and elements of the old legend are still recognizable’ (Levi 1944: 423), also pointing out several respects in which the novel is unusual: ‘It rests upon a historical basis; love is not the result of a fortuitous meeting, but the fruit of long intercourse and of mutual inclination. Nor are fortuitous and aimless the adventures and wanderings of the hero, but dictated by high political and ethical reasons; the woman does not seem to follow her beloved in his travels, but to remain within the domestic walls waiting for his return’ (Levi 1944: 424). This last is not absolutely clear, but assuming that it is correct it actually hinders the argument that the novel's departures from the norm can be attributed to the earlier legend: the Semiramis of Ctesias, after all, did follow Ninus to war. See also Kussl 1991: 84–95.

165McCall 1998: 185.

166Ninus as part of a genealogy: ‘Agron, son of Ninus, grandson of Belus, great-grandson of Alcaeus’ (Histories 1.7); Semiramis as a notable contributor to Babylon's defences (Histories 1.185).

167Frustratingly, this problem recurs in pictorial representations: two surviving Roman mosaics appear to depict the story. That in Alexandretta names Ninus but is damaged and does not show the female figure. In the Antioch mosaic (now held by Princeton University) it is probable that either the painting held by a reclining male figure – almost certainly Ninus, on comparison with the Alexandretta mosaic (Levi 1944) – or the standing female figure represent Semiramis, but here no figures are labelled. Even ancient citations of the novel cannot help us: an apparent reference in Lucian (Pseudologista 25) also mentions only Ninus!

168‘Derkeia’ (Ninus fragment A.iv.14–15), from Derceto (Diodorus, Bibliotheke Historica 2.4.9).

169One such account is recorded in Diodorus (Athenaeus, in Bibliotheke Historica 2.20.3); see also Plutarch, Erotikos 753d–e.

170Stephens and Winkler 1995a: 23.

171Photius, Bibliotheke, codex 94.

172Stephens and Winkler 1995b: 179.

173Souda I.26.

174Photius, Bibliotheke, codex 94.

175Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.87–227.

176Metamorphoses 4.87–91.

177A prominent landmark in the Babylon of classical imagination. Though he is as fictional as Pyramus and Thisbe, we nonetheless have a description of Ninus' tomb: ‘Semiramis buried Ninos in the capital city, and over him she reared up an enormous mound, nine stades in height and, as Ctesias says, ten in width. Therefore since the city lay in a plain beside the Euphrates, this earthwork appeared from many stades away exactly as an acropolis; and they claim it exists until today, even though the Medes raised the city of Ninos when they overthrew the dominion of the Assyrians’ (Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheke Historica 2.7).

 The height of the tomb is an impossible 1.6 km, but as Murphy (1989: 10) notes, the description otherwise answers very well to that of a large tell marking the ruins of any long-lived Mesopotamian city – perhaps even one of the huge mounds of Nineveh itself.

Chapter 4 The Earthly City: Medieval and Renaissance approaches

1The same is not true of transmission in other fields such as medicine, astronomy and divination, where cuneiform sources were copied and translated into Greek and Aramaic for several centuries more.

2Spiegel 1975: 316.

3Spiegel 1975: 316.

4See Freedman and Spiegel 1998 on the course of twentieth-century debates.

5Villalba Ruiz de Toledo 2006: 31.

6Hudson 1981: 2.

7Hilprecht 1904: 13.

8Also known as the Sefer Masa‘ot or Libro de Viages. The supposition that Benjamin was a merchant is based on the expertise and interest in businesses and commercial matters shown in his account (Magdalena nom de Déu 2006: 22).

9McCall 1998: 186.

10As was already recognized by Adler (1907: 43). Lundquist (1995: 69) observes that Benjamin may have followed the same identification in the Talmud.

11Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary 102.

12Itinerary 102.

13Asher 1840–1: xi.

14Asher 1840–1: xii. In this connection it is important to note that attempts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to suggest Rabbi Benjamin never left Tudela (his account was seen as ‘an attempt to aggrandize the real number and to represent under bland colours the state of the Jews in remote countries’ [Asher 1840–1: xiii]) were part of a broader anti-Semitic position which Asher was quick to discredit and dissociate from his own claim.

15Magdalena nom de Déu 2006: 24.

16Signer 1983: 15.

17See Irwin 2006 for a history of European academic Arabists.

18Marco Polo, Travels 7. It should be noted, however, that it has been questioned whether the chapter divisions and rubrics used in most editions of the Travels and taken from text F (the Parisian Ms considered the most reliable and authentic of the surviving versions) are original, as the arrangement is absent in other versions (Latham 1958: 28).

19Travels 7/Latham 1958: 51, 52.

20Chiesa 2002: 6.

21Chiesa 2002: 13–14.

22Chiesa 2002: 10; Yule also thought the detour from Yazd unlikely.

23Odoric, Relatio 4.

24Telfer 1879: xxvii.

25Telfer 1879: xviii-xix.

26Telfer 1879: xix.

27Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger 34.

28Bondage and Travels 15.

29Bondage and Travels 34.

30‘Schatt’ = Shatt (ﺷﻂ), ‘coast’. The Arabic name of the Tigris, in Schiltberger's time as now, is Dijla (ﺩﺟﻠﺔ). The branch of the Euphrates passing through Babylon is known as the Shatt al-Hillah, whilst the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates farther south is today called the Shatt al-Arab.

31Bruun 1879: 167.

32Bruun gives ‘prison’, although Arabic ﺭﺑﻂ (rabat), ‘to bind,’ and ﻣﺮﺑﻮﻂ (marbut) ‘bound’, suggest bonds of Nimrod as an alternative translation.

33Itinerary 102.

34Relation 4.

35Bondage and Travels 34.

36Rauwolf 1583: 204.

37Manwaring et al. 1825: 46.

38Korte 2000: 23–4.

39Mandeville, Travels 6.

40Travels 6.

41Travels 6. Baghdad in the fourteenth century was indeed ruled by the ‘King of Persia’, in the form of the il-Khanate, founded by Ghengis Khan's grandson Hulagu and initially subordinate to the Great Khans ruling the entire Mongol world. By Mandeville's time the system had broken down, with rival successor states (in Iraq and western Iran the powerful Jalayirids) competing within the il-Khanate.

42Ooghe 2007: 234.

43Rauwolf 1583: 203.

44Rauwolf 1583: 204, my translation.

45Hilprecht 1904: 14. It was Claudius Rich, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who realized that in general what many of his predecessors had taken for ruined buildings were in fact disused canals.

46Eldred 1903 (1592): 298.

47The route seems first to have been described by the Portugese scholarly traveller Pedro Texeira (Ooghe 2007: 239). Four eighteenth-century accounts of the route Aleppo to Basra are reproduced in Carruthers 1929. Apparently the desert route greatly reduced the danger of bandits and the expense of charges levied by tribes through whose territory the river passed.

48Budge 1925: 60.

49Hilprecht 1904: 14.

50Eldred 1903 (1592): 299. The comparison is picturesque, although for the proper effect it should be remembered that Eldred was writing well before the great fire of London in 1666, and hence before Christopher Wren had designed the present St Paul's cathedral, built 1675–1710. A model of the St Paul's Eldred had in mind – whose steeple was of greater height even than Wren's dome, though of a far smaller and less imposing mass – is displayed in the Museum of London.

51Manwaring et al. 1825.

52Cartwright 1633.

53Tavernier 1676–7: 214.

54Manwaring et al. 1825: 51–2.

55Ooghe 2007: 236.

56If any Islamic architectural model can be claimed to have influenced European depictions, it might be the square-towered minaret of the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo, which would have been seen by greater numbers of Europeans. Even this, however, seems to me unnecessary to explain the medieval images.

57Blunt 1953; Invernizzi 2000, 2001.

58Invernizzi 2000: 643–4. For the life and achievements of Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, whose work in Iran pre-empted that of Della Valle in several respects, see Córdoba 2006.

59Budge 1925: 16.

60Invernizzi 2000: 648.

61Ooghe 2007: 240.

62Invernizzi 2000: 646.

63Kircher 1679.

64Della Valle 1650–63. A further publication appeared in the nineteenth century (Della Valle 1843) and from this an abridged English translation has been produced (Bull 1989). For Italian edition and commentary see Invernizzi 2001.

65For a drawing of this seal, see Tabouis 1931: 5.

66Christoph Fernberger, Reisetagebuch: 58; Ooghe 2007: 237.

67Lewis 1964: 11.

68Lewis 1964: 10.

69‘That was the first thing that I ever learned from him: that even ideas can be tidied up to look like a salad rather than a stew. He hated mishmash. “The very seas would lose their shores,” was a quotation from Ovid he was fond of, and he was much given to dividing ideas and keeping them apart’ (Watson 1995: 230).

70Bloomfield 1958: 75.

71Natural History 7.2.

72Korte 2000: 22.

73Kendall 1978: 145.

74Kendall 1978: 146–7.

75Although it should be acknowledged that in the longer term the work would have been preserved without this translation, as Syriac and Armenian versions have also survived.

76Rebenich 2002: 27.

77Laistner 1940: 243.

78Kelly 1975: 86.

79Rebenich 2002: 52.

80Bourke 1995: 295; Mommsen, T. E. 1995: 359.

81Kaufman 1995: 75–6.

82Daniel 7.7–8.

83Pratt 1965: 31; Mommsen, T. E. 1995: 352–5.

84Brown 2000 (1967): 248.

85Lancel 2002: 396.

86Augustine, The City of God 5.15.

87The City of God 14.1.

88The City of God 14.28.

89Lancel 2002: 401.

90Bittner 1999: 356.

91A possible second reference, to the Tower of Babel, is Sura An-Na?l (The Bees) 28–9, describing God's punishment in the form of a collapsing building (Janssen 1995: 138).

92Al-Baqarah 102.

93Vernay-Nouri in Babylone: 380.

94Omission of Arabic sources is a recurring problem in the study of the reception of Near Eastern antiquity. Here I am deeply indebted to the excellent study of Janssen (1995), which collects and discusses the medieval Arabic sources on Babylon.

95Sachau 1879: v–vi.

96The frequent occurrence of the name Bel in diverse contexts reflects Greek confusion over what was actually a Babylonian term meaning ‘lord,’ applied to many gods but most often used as a synonym for Marduk.

97Al-Biruni, Al-Athar al-Bakiya 87.

98In al-Biruni's scheme called Thonos Konkoleros.

99Al-Athar al-Bakiya 87; Sachau 1879: 100.

100Al-Athar al-Bakiya 88. This attribution is never made in any of the European sources.

101This is not Nebuchadnezzar I, but probably the early Neo-Babylonian king Nabonassar (747–734 BC).

102The younger of the two (Bibliothéque nationale de France, department des Manuscrits, Arabe 1489, f.161v) is a close sixteenth-century copy of the older (University of Edinbugh Library, Ms 161, f.134b), which dates to AD 1307 (707 ah). Soucek 1975: 145–7;Babylone: 421; Babylon: Myth and Reality: 149.

103Yaqut 1.447–9; Janssen 1995: 197.

104Lewis 1982: 158.

105Yaqut 4.798; al-Himyari 357. Janssen 1995: 166.

106Janssen 1995: 197.

107Yaqut 1.770; al-Himyari 73. Janssen 1995: 193.

108Janssen 1995: 193, citing the Arabian Nights.

109Al-Bakri 136.

110Janssen 1995: 136.

111Collins and Al-Tai 1994: 105.

112Janssen 1995: 163–4.

113Cohen 1967: xiii.

114Chazan 1988: 42.

115Cohen 1967: 168.

116Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Kabbalah 1.123–42.

117Sefer ha-Kaballah 1.148–9.

118Sefer ha-Kaballah 1.19–23.

119Baron 1972: 342–3.

120Vernay-Nouri in Babylone: 391. Ferdowsi reconciled earlier legends in which Zahhak was a monster with those that treated him as human. An incident in which he is tricked by the evil spirit Ahriman causes the human Zahhak of the Shahnahmeh to sprout snakes from his shoulders.

121Hamza Isfahani, cited by F. Richard in Babylone: 392.

122Al-Tha'alibi, cited by F. Richard in Babylone: 392.

123Barnett 1982: 314.

124A possible historical origin for Ara is the Urartian king Aramu (858–844 BC), whose kingdom was invaded and capital captured by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (859–824 BC).

125The corpus of medieval manuscript images relating to Babylon is vast. For a variety of examples see Babylone: 399–414.

126British Library Add. Ms 11695, ff.228v–229. Seymour in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 158–9; Williams 1994–2003: vol. 4, Ms 16, pp. 31–40, Figs 332a–b.

127Bible of Etienne Harding, Bibliothèque Municipale, Dijon. The root of the Hebrews’ representation of children is their description as ‘young men’ or ‘youths’ in the biblical account.

128Augsburg School, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego. Oil on panel, Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA.

129For example, Nebuchadnezzar questions Daniel and his companions, Master of Marradi, Florence 1480–1500; Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar's first dream, Erasmus Quellinus, Flemish, mid–late seventeenth century.

130For example, Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar, Salomon Koninck, Dutch, mid-seventeenth century; Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's first dream, Mattia Preti (Il Calabrese), Calabria, mid–late seventeenth century.

131With the exception of that of Erasmus Quellinus, which resembles later romanticist images of Eastern courts, the settings of those examples listed above appear European.

132Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Giovanni di Paulo, Tuscany c.1450. In Dante, Commedia. British Library Ms Yates Thompson 36.

133Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem, Great Bible (Vulgate), England 1405–15. British Library Ms Royal 1E.1X.

134British Library Ms Add. 18,850, f.17v. That a book of hours should contain an image of the Tower of Babel is unusual. It was one of four full-page miniatures depicting scenes from Genesis added later, when the book was given to the young King Henry VI.

135Examples in Babylone: 410–11.

136The tapestries were produced by Nicolas Bataille and Robert Poinçon after designs by Hennequin de Bruges, also known as Jean de Bondol. For the tapestries see Muel 1996; for the manuscript sources on which the images are based see Henderson 1985.

137A further c.40 m of tapestry, constituting 30 of the original 100 scenes, has not survived.

138Haskell 1993.

139Often in the still not particularly accessible form of sculptures on column capitals, although an exception is a twelfth-century mosaic depicting the building of the Tower of Babel at Monreale Cathedral, Sicily.

140On Chaucer's version see Spisak 1984.

141The long hair of Venus may be a reference to the virtuous Semiramis, and thus a compliment to the unusually named Semiramide Appiani, for whose marriage to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Medici the painting was produced. Michalski 2003; Seymour inBabylon: Myth and Reality: 119.

142Mahon 1949; Seymour in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 118–22.

143Judith 1.5.

144Lewis 1964; see above, pp. 97–8.

145Auerbach 1952: 6.

146Dante, Inferno 12.104–5.

147Inferno 4.129.

148Inferno 28.

149Dante, Paradiso 23.130–5.

150Purgatorio 32.130–60.

151Inferno 5.52–60.

152Brumble 1998: 308.

153Laistner 1940: 250.

154Dante, Paradiso 10.118–20.

155Dronke 1986: 95.

156Dante follows the historical Virgil (Aeneid 12.899–900) in thinking people were physically larger before the Flood (Levine 1967: 457).

157Inferno 31.76–81.

158Janssen (1995: 157–72) finds a similar dissonance in Nimrod's representation in the medieval Arabic sources.

159Paradiso 4.13–15.

160Bartrum 1999: 165.

161In fact borrowed from an earlier drawing by Dürer of a Venetian lady (Carey 1999: 138).

162Revelation 17.4.

163Revelation 18.21. One carries a millstone to be cast down into the sea, symbolizing that Babylon will no longer make bread. It is presumably the other angel who cries ‘Babylon the great is fallen’.

164Revelation 19.11.

165Parshall 1999: 102.

166Notable examples include series by Hans Burgkmair, Georg Lemberger and Jean Duvet.

167Chastel 1984: 99; Allard in Babylone: 440.

168The earlier of the two surviving oil on panel paintings, dated 1563, is held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the second, dated c.1568, at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam. A third painting, made in Rome and painted on ivory, recorded in the inventory and will of the Croatian miniaturist Giulio Clovio, is lost (Mansbach 1982: 43).

169Van Mander 1604, reproduced in English translation in Grossman 1955: 7–9.

170De Tolnay 1935.

171For a recent general examination of Bruegel's circle and influences see Zagorin 2003.

172According to Carel van Mander the drawings were burned ‘because some were too critical or sarcastic’ (quoted in Sybesma 1991: 467).

173Sullivan (1991) demonstrates Bruegel's use of Latin and Greek proverbs, including specific instances of material drawn from Erasmus' Adages.

174Sullivan 1991: 460.

175c.1567, oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

176c.1610, oil on canvas, Thomson Collection, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

177Ferber's (1966) argument that a central figure in The Massacre of the Innocents represents Ferdinand Alvares, Duke of Alba, known for his harsh governorship of the Spanish Netherlands, is one of the more compelling reasons to interpret several of Bruegel's works as containing veiled attacks on Spain and the Catholic hierarchy, despite the fact that one of his significant patrons was Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granville, Philip II's regent in the Spanish Netherlands from 1567.

178Mansbach 1982: 48, who also suggests (though without strong evidence) that another layer of meaning in the figure may be a reference to Alexander the Great and his attempted rebuilding of Babylon's ziggurat as described by Arrian (Anabasis 7.17) and Strabo (Geography 16.1).

179It seems certain that the Rotterdam panel has been cut down on all sides (Lammertse 1994: 402–3), although one would have to imagine a quite dramatic reduction to remove a foreground figure group. If we do imagine such a major alteration, Lucas van Valckenborch's first two major works on the Tower of Babel, produced c.1568, may give some clue as to the original composition of Bruegel's Rotterdam painting, which they followed. If this is correct then later views of the Tower in a much broader landscape,c.1595, would have been Valckenborch's own innovation.

180The very existence of so many arguments over meaning in Bruegel's paintings suggests that they were ambiguous even in their own time. Kavaler (1999) argues strongly that Bruegel deliberately produced works that were ambiguous, raising problems and questions for the viewer.

181Seipel 2003. Again, we do not know what has been cut from the scene, but this would fit well with the idea that the absence of Nimrod from the scene represents political caution.

182This image itself is no simple illustration of the Genesis account. The Tower is not explicitly destroyed in Genesis at all; this elaboration is found first in Josephus (see Chapter 3). The depiction of its destruction is not uncommon, but stranger is an inscription reading ‘Genesis 14’. Genesis 14 does not refer to Babel or Babylon at all; the Tower of Babel is found in Genesis 11, and indeed it appears that this was what the original etched inscription read. The number 4 is an alteration. The amended inscription is almost certainly intended to make a link with Revelation 14, and thus to the dramatic destruction of Babylon as an allegory for Rome (Armstrong 1990: 105–14).

183Ten Brink Goldsmith 1992: 208.

184Grimani Breviary, Biblioteca nazionale Marziana, Venice, Ms Lat. I, 99 (2138); Kren and McKendrick 2003: no. 126; Farnese Hours, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms M. 69.

185The world landscape genre is investigated in depth by Gibson (1989).

186Mansbach (1982) maintains that the Rotterdam Tower, rising above the clouds, is a firmly optimistic piece, describing the lighting of the Tower as bucolic. I prefer the standard interpretation of the light as ominous, combining with the darkening sky and gathering clouds to imply that the moment of reckoning is imminent, but the utopian interpretation is also possible and it is not unlike Bruegel to incorporate two contradictory lines of thought into a single, ambivalent composition. I would suggest, however, that a utopian meaning could not easily be primary in the picture, since the viewer can be expected to bring to the painting a definite understanding of the Tower of Babel as a lesson in the dangers of hubris and the punishment of pride.

187Hankins 1945: 364. For example, Matthias Gerung's parallel images of the Fall of Babylon and Fall of the Catholic Church (Bartrum 1999).

188These images are collected and discussed in Wegener 1995.

189Lundquist 1995: 70.

190Budge 1925: 63.

191Kircher 1679.

192Findlen 2004: 4.

193Grafton 2004: 183.

194Kircher 1679: vol. 1: 14.

195Bibliotheke Historica 2.2.1.

196Kircher 1679: vol. 1: 106.

197Kircher 1679: vol. 1: frontispiece, 43. In another hunting scene with Ninus (Kircher 1679: vol. 1: 57), Semiramis is also shown in Roman robes and with a placid expression, although even here she is depicted as active and aggressive, in the act of shooting at a leopard.

198As mentioned in Chapter 3, Kuhrt and Sherwin-White (1987) argue that this is a misinterpretation of the textual sources.

199De Winkel 2006: 255–8.

200The figure at right is drawn directly from Veronese's Rape of Europa of 1580 (Starcky 1990: 74). The most prominent of the figures in the left-hand group is a portrait of Rembrandt's wife Saskia.

201Goetz 1938: 287–8.

202For studies of Jewish connections and influence in Rembrandt's work see Zell 2002; Nadler 2003.

203Sanhedrin 22a.

204Evidence of Rembrandt's association with Menasseh is hotly disputed, and indeed the Belshazzar's Feast inscription itself has been the focus for much of this debate. Alternative Christian sources for the inscription have been proposed (Schwartz 2006, 2011); however, my colleague Irving Finkel and I can now offer what we believe is compelling evidence that Rembrandt consulted a Jewish scribal source, in all probability Menasseh ben Israel (Finkel and Seymour in preparation).

205The impression that the table itself is tipping, and a generally increased sense of the figures recoiling from the writing, owes to the fact that the painting has at some stage been cut down and its orientation slightly changed (Bomford et al. 2006: 113–14).

Chapter 5 Discoveries and fantasies: Enlightenment and modern approaches

1Budge 1925: 61.

2Also known as Ahmed ibn Lütfullah. Müneccimbaşı himself, however, was reliant on the same biblical and classical sources as European scholars.

3Otter 1768: vol. 2: 209–11.

4And indeed contemporaries, noting that the accounts of Edward Ives (1773) and G. A. Olivier (1789–90, 1801) did not make contributions of the same order (Hilprecht 1904: 20–1).

5Hilprecht 1904: 18.

6Niebuhr 1774–8.

7Rich 1839: 301. See also Reade in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 27.

8Beauchamp 1790–1800: 13.

9McClintock 1995: 1–4.

10Stanley 1998 (1886): 42.

11Rich 1813, 1815, 1839.

12Rich 1815: 5.

13Budge 1920.

14Rich 1815: 1–2.

15Rich 1815: 15.

16Rich 1815: 26.

17Rennel 1800.

18Ker Porter 1821–2; Buckingham 1827; Keppel 1827.

19Rich 1815: 29.

20Rich 1815: 17, referring to Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7. The Cyropedia is largely an imaginative exercise, and in reality very little is known of Cyrus' early life or education. Ancient Mesopotamian warfare did at times involve the diversion of water sources, but in this case the story conflicts directly with the Babylonian and Persian accounts, which suggest that Cyrus entered the city of Babylon freely following the defeat of the Babylonian army at Opis.

21Gazin-Schwartz and Holtorf 1999.

22Rich 1815: 29.

23Reade 1999: 57.

24Koldewey 1914: 160. The Arabic name transliterated as Mujelibè/Mudshallibeh seems to be مجلبة (mujaliba), from جلب (jalaba), ‘tumult, turmoil’.

25Rich 1815: 26.

26Discussed by Reade (2000: 196).

27Rich 1815: 34.

28Rich 1818.

29Rich 1839.

30Gadd 1936: 11.

31Adelson 1995.

32The massive Assyrian excavation projects of the mid-nineteenth century have been given excellent historical coverage, particularly in Mögens Trolle Larsen's The Conquest of Assyria and Nicole Chevalier's La Recherche Archéologique Française au Moyen-Orient, whose subject matter it will only be possible to sketch here. For a broad history of archaeology in the Ottoman Empire that gives full weight to Ottoman perspectives and action, see Bahrani, Çelik and Eldem 2011. Ottoman–French diplomacy is well covered by Chevalier 2002. For Mesopotamia, see also Bernhardsson 2005; Malley 2012.

33Chevalier 2002: 21.

34For the competing attitudes to non-classical sculpture and its relevance to the Museum's collections in the early nineteenth century see Jenkins 1992: 56–74; Moser 2006.

35There were strong signs even before his departure from England that Layard's legal career would be brief. He had worked as a clerk at the solicitor's office of his uncle Benjamin Austen, but the work did not suit him and his departure in 1839 to seek employment as a barrister in Ceylon was also motivated by a desire to travel and explore. Beyond even this there is a disjunction between Layard's cosmopolitan childhood in France and Italy and the narrower professional world of his uncle. The journey itself was obviously a large part of Layard's purpose, and indeed he was commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society to research the terrain through which he travelled (Parry 2006).

36Reade 1994: 121.

37Layard 1849a: vol. 1: 13–14.

38Holger Hoock (2007) rightly stresses that although private funding tended to underpin British excavations, they received a great deal of logistical support for free from the British army and navy, as well as the crucial help of the diplomatic service in obtaining permissions to excavate and to export antiquities. For two much larger studies of of the relationship between the state, military and cultural activity, especially collecting, in the British Empire see Jasanoff 2005; Hoock 2010.

39Russell 1997: 120.

40Layard 1849a; Botta 1849.

41Layard 1849a: vol. 2: 173–4.

42Jenkins 1992: 68.

43Layard 1849a: vol. 2: 287–8.

44Studied by Jenkins (1992).

45Henry Rawlinson to Sir Stratford Canning, British Museum Original Correspondence 36, 30 August 1846; quoted at greater length in Jenkins 1992: 156.

46Waterfield 1987: 13–14.

47Reade 1987: 48.

48Reade 1998: 915.

49Bohrer 1989, 1992, 1998, 2003. On the reception of the Assyrian discoveries in England more broadly, see now Malley 2012.

50Bohrer 1992: 85.

51Layard 1852.

52Layard 1849b.

53Layard 1853a.

54Phillips 2004: 109.

55Comission des sciences et ars d'Égypte 1809–18.

56Koldewey 1913, discussed in Chapter 6.

57Layard was a remarkably talented draughtsman; his original drawings are held in the Department of the Middle East, British Museum.

58See Richard Hingley's Roman Officers and English Gentlemen, which discusses both this point (Hingley 2000: 156) and the role of ancient Rome in British imperial identity more generally.

59Hingley 2000.

60Jenkins 1992; Moser 2006.

61See Curtis 2010 for examples and a survey of Cooper's work with Layard.

62The joins from reassembly can be seen clearly on the largest of the winged bulls at the British Museum, from Khorsabad. Each of the reassembled statues weighs approximately 16 tonnes.

63Oppert 1863: vol. 1. The excavators were criticized at the time for failing to pay the necessary bribes or negotiate their passage with local tribal leaders (Matthews 2003: 9).

64In the present we can cite the problems of looted clay tablets, which without conservation rapidly deteriorate, and the removal, again through looting in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq war, of metal roofing installed to protect exposed parts of the Assyrian palace sites. The consequences of mud-brick architecture going without the maintenance it would in better times have received can also be seen at sites across the country.

65Layard 1853b: 499–500. Layard was positive, however, about the usefulness of the more detailed survey due to be undertaken by Felix Jones for the East India Company. This was produced in 1855 but is lost; another was produced by Jones’ successor, W. B. Selby (Selby 1859).

66‘There is no doubt that, by imagining a square large enough to include the smaller mounds scattered over the plains from Mohawill to below Hillah on one side of the river, and the Birs Nimroud at its south-western angle on the other, the site of a city of the dimensions attributed to Babylon might be satisfactorily determined. But then it must be assumed, that neither the outer wall nor the ditch so minutely described by Herodotus ever existed’ (Layard 1853b: 492).

67See p. 83, this volume, for the relevant passage. To me the information does not seem clear enough to identify Tell Babil as the site intended, however, and it is certain that multiple locations at and near Babylon have been associated with the story. Reade (inBabylon: Myth and Reality: 23) thinks the mound of Ibrahim Khalil near Birs Nimrud a more likely candidate for Benjamin's Fiery Furnace.

68Layard 1853b: 505. For Harut and Marut, see p. 104, this volume. NB that the site is not necessarily the same `pit of Daniel' with which the burial of Harut and Marut was associated in the medieval Arabic sources.

69Layard 1853b: 506.

70Layard 1853b: 506.

71Layard 1853b: 506.

72Now British Museum N.2050. Layard 1853b: 508; Babylone: 140.

73Layard 1853b: 509–26.

74Layard 1853b: 527–8.

75Kemball 1864; Reade 1999: 57–8; Mitchell 2008.

76Rassam revives both the comparison to St Paul's Cathedral and the vitrification question, writing that ‘it is against common sense that a huge tower like that of Birs Nimroud could be subjected to artificial heat after it was built. The tower must have been originally at least 200 feet high; and to build a furnace to envelope it would be just like trying to cover a solid mass equal in size to the whole dome of Saint Paul's Cathedral with one huge furnace, and subjecting it to artificial heat for the purpose of vitrifying it!’ (Rassam 1884: 16)

77On Rassam's career see Rassam 1897; Reade 1986a, 1986b, 1993, 1999, in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 74–80; Seymour 2013a.

78‘While Rassam's excavations in the Babylon area continued without interruption for some three and a half years, with work usually proceeding at two or three sites at once (notably Babylon, Borsippa, Sippar) and sometimes at other sites too, he was himself personally present in the region for little more than ten months out of all this time (9 February 1879, the day work began–24 March 1879, 23 May 1880–9 June 1880, 20 November 1880–3 May 1881, 22 April 1882–25 July 1882, the day work ended)’ (Reade 1986a: 105–6).

79Julian Reade (1986a, 1993) has done much to restore Rassam's reputation, which in his own lifetime suffered particularly from accusations made against him by E. A. Wallis Budge.

80Reade 1986b: xxi.

81See Reade 1986b, and in Babylon: 74–80.

82Rassam 1897: 363.

83Rassam 1897: pl. facing p. 224. See also Reade 1986a: 106–11 and pl. 13. Rassam's plans and sketches were not usually of this quality, however, and again the trustees failed to supply him with professional assistance, in this case in the form of an artist or illustrator.

84Rassam explains why this was the case, at least for the Kasr mound: ‘I found it would only be a waste of money and labour to excavate at Imjaileeba, or kasir [Kasr], because from the deep ditches existing, and the nature of the rubbish which had been thrown up, I was convinced that there could be no ancient remains of any value left there, so I contented myself with having a trial at its centre for a week, and abandoned it for other localities not far distant which had not been so much turned up. These were the other ruins of the city called Omran [Amran] and Jimjima [Jumjuma], and in both these spots I was amply rewarded for my labours in Babylon’ (Rassam 1881: 214–15).

85Timothy Larsen (2013) discusses Layard's religious views, arguing that his interest in Assyria was primarily that of an art historian and connoisseur. Both Layard's own writings on Assyria and his later career lend support to this view.

86Rassam 1894: 19–20.

87Rassam 1894: 17. The reference is to Charles Vallancey (c.1726–1812), whose antiquarian interests in Ireland resulted in novel theories on the spread of languages. He argued for an Eastern (Semitic or Persian) origin for Irish language and civilization, but does not seem to have been taken seriously by scholars of his own day; the brilliant orientalist William Jones assisted him with Indian questions, but in a letter describes him as ‘very stupid’ (in Cannon 1970: vol. 2: 768, cited in Vance 2008). By the time of Rassam's Babylonian excavations a century later the use of Vallancey as an authority would have seemed highly anachronistic.

88Le Strange 1905: 187.

89Grotefend 1824.

90The script actually consists of 36 phonemes (syllabic and alphabetic characters) and eight logograms, as opposed to the hundreds of signs used in other cuneiform scripts.

91He writes ‘Zend’, meaning either the Pazend and Pahlavi commentaries on the Avesta known by the same name, or Avestan, the language of the Avesta themselves.

92Weißbach 1938; Borger 1980–3.

93Layard 1849a: vol. 1: xxv.

94For chronology and a detailed study of Rawlinson's contribution see Daniels 2009.

95Rawlinson 1898.

96See Daniels 1994 and Larsen 1997 for comparisons between the work of the two scholars.

97A prism carrying an inscription of Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076 BC), British Museum, BM 91033.

98Histories 3.61–5.

99The division of British Museum antiquities departments over time is explained in Wilson 2002 (see especially p. 379, where the dates of the divisions are presented diagrammatically). Under the present structure, all material from ancient Mesopotamia is the responsibility of the Department of the Middle East.

100British Museum K 3375, excavated at Nineveh.

101The best is that of George (2003a), who has also produced the authoritative scholarly edition (George 2003b).

102Audi 1998: 250.

103Plato, Republic 439d.1–4, cited in Giustiniani 1985: 167. This seems to me to be a binary division, a reading which agrees with those of Penner (1992: 129) and Williams (1973: 169, 1997: 58), however Giustiniani reads it as tripartite, consisting of ‘the rational soul, the emotional soul, the appetitive soul’ (Giustiniani 1985: 167).

104Aristotle, Poetics 1451a. See Finley 1975: 11; Bartky 2002.

105Whittaker 1926: 204; Levin 1966: 23.

106Avis 1986: 137.

107Shanks 1992: 16.

108Bacon 1996 (1605): 32.

109Thomas 2004: 16–18.

110Descartes 1996 (1637): 47.

111Vico 1999 (1744): 1.

112Herrera 2001: 77–8.

113Lapeyrère 1656.

114Schnapp 1996: 222.

115Voltaire 1814 (1748).

116Voltaire 1749.

117Voltaire 1768.

118Ginzberg 1989: 116.

119Voltaire 1768: 184; anonymous translation from Voltaire 1969 (1768): 127.

120Pierse 2003: 79.

121Lucian, True Stories.

122Bowerstock 1994: 6.

123Allard in Babylone: 447. On the city's earliest attestations and the probable etymology of the name, see André-Salvini in Babylone: 28; Lambert 2011.

124Frye 1951.

125Hagstrum 1964: 78.

126Blunt 1943: 192.

1271795/c.1805. Three versions of the image exist, the best-known of which is held by Tate Britain, London. See Butlin 1990 for bibliography.

128Wind 1938.

129Blake 1979 (1790).

130The large prints of Nebuchadnezzar and Newton, the Marriage of Heaven and Hell plate, Dürer's image of St John Chrysostomos and a woodcut produced by Weiditz that also influenced Blake are reproduced together in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 166–9.

131Blake 1979 (1818).

132The Everlasting Gospel 2.5–12.

133Butlin 1981: no. 523; Carey 1999: no. 5.34.

134The three pen and watercolour sketches, dated 1806, 1808 and 1809, are part of the Stirling Maxwell Collection, Pollock House, Glasgow Museums.

135Goldsmith 1993: 142. For Babylon in Victorian apocalyptic see Seymour in 2013a.

136Seymour 2013a.

137The Destruction of Sennacherib 1.1–4.

138Originally from the preface to Milton, and set to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916.

139‘By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept’ 2.1–6.

140Gleckner 1967: 207–8.

141Although in Don Juan Byron himself was to mention those few finds that had made their way back to England from Mesopotamia, noting that ‘Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has got, and written lately two memoirs upon't’ (Don Juan 5.62).

142Delitzsch and Taglionis 1908.

143Auguste Amiet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu, Nabuchodonosor, 1836; Antonio Cortesi, Nabuccodonosor, 1838.

144For a summary see Seymour 2013b.

145On settings for Babylon in the theatre and opera, and particularly Nabucco, see Allard in Babylone: 476–81; Nadali 2011.

146Reliefs from Ashurnasirpal's Northwest Palace at Nimrud are in fact quite widely dispersed, with single pieces or small groups held in many locations worldwide. See Cohen and Kangas 2010, Paley 1976 and Russell 1997. For a full study of the reliefs' arrangement see Paley 1981–1992.

147The jewellery is now held by the British Museum (BM 105111–105128, 115656), to whom it was bequeathed by Lady Layard. Barnett 1978; Rudoe 1987; Collon 1995.

148Russell 1997: 9. The discovery by John Malcolm Russell of half a relief panel that had earlier been mistaken for a cast of itself in the Nineveh Porch – now the tuck-shop of Canford School – led to a very rare legal sale. The panel fetched £7.7 million at auction, at the time making it the most expensive antiquity ever sold (Russell 1997: 192).

149Russell 1997: 121.

150Wealth and social standing do not necessarily rise in parallel, however, and the marriage might have cost the aristocratic Lady Charlotte something in terms of status. Despite his wealth, the connection with John Guest still amounted to marrying into trade (John 2004).

151Russell 1997: 121–2.

152Lundquist 1995: 177.

153Wilde 1998 (1894): ll. 283–7.

154Hankins 1945: 366.

155Wilde 1998 (1894), ll. 1066–8.

156Bahrani 2001b: 141.

157McClintock 1995.

1581827, Musée du Louvre.

159Bahrani 2001b: 146.

160Busst 1967.

161Cowling 2004: 15.

162Said 1978, 1993; Nochlin 1989.

163Layard 1852: 52.

164Thompson and Hutchinson 1929.

165Moser 1998.

166Kuhn 1970.

167Young 1990: 49.

168Since Sennacherib, known from the Old Testament, was the grandfather of Ashurbanipal, equated at the time with the Sardanapalus known only from classical sources.

169The most important example being the debate between Rich and Rennel in the early nineteenth century (see above, pp. 135–7).

170Woolley 1937 (1930): 15.

Chapter 6 The German experience: Excavation and reception

1Layard 1849a, 1852, 1853b.

2Layard 1849b, 1853a.

3On Koldewey's life, work and personality more broadly see Andrae 1952 and now Wartke 2008.

4Sachau 1900; Rogers 1900: 247.

5Hauser 2001: 214.

6Mommsen, W. J. 1995: 120.

7Williamson 1998 (1986): 53.

8Mommsen, W. J. 1995: 151.

9Marchand 1996: 193.

10Marzahn in Babylon: Wahrheit: 67.

11Bohrer 2003: 280.

12Bohrer 2003: 280.

13On the railway and Germany's broader imperial ambitions see McMeekin 2010.

14Marchand 1996: 191.

15Koldewey 1914: vi. Page references in this chapter are to this English edition; pagination differs slightly in the German original (Koldewey 1913).

16Haskell 1993: 217–35; see also Wengrow 1999: 599, noting the significance of ceramics from the massive Délégation Française en Perse excavations at Susa, contemporary with Koldewey's work at Babylon.

17Rich 1818. Herodotus gives the walls an impossibly large circuit of 480 stades (89 km), and other classical authorities give figures not much lower: Diodorus, Quintus Curtius Rufus and Strabo offer figures ranging from 360 to 368 stades. Modern estimates of the city's extent and boundaries varied so greatly that even in the mid-nineteenth century Jules Oppert was able to put forward a proposal that matched the enormous circuits described by classical authors (Oppert 1863). This plan described a perfect square so large as to contain not only all the major mounds of Babylon but also Birs Nimrud, actually the separate ancient city of Borsippa (Reade in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 113).

18Strommenger and Stucky 1977: 10.

19As well as Koldewey 1913, 1914, discussed in this chapter, see especially Koldewey 1911, 1918, 1931–2; Wetzel 1930; Wetzel and Weißbach 1938.

20The major changes occurring in German scholarship at this time, the ‘de-throning of the classical’, the rise of technical subjects and non-classical backgrounds in organizations such as the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, and the impact of the natural sciences have been brilliantly analysed by Marchand (1996, 2009).

21Pollock 1999: 17.

22Andrae and Boehmer 1989.

23Koldewey 1914: 73–4.

24Koldewey 1914: 195–6. He does, however, hold to the idea that ‘so lofty a temple would be welcomed by the Babylonian astronomers as a platform for their observations’ (1914: 195). It is probable that use of this sacred structure was extremely restricted, confined to particular religious functions and personnel. The vantage point might indeed have been useful for astronomers, but was probably not accessible.

25Andrae 1922. Micale and Nadali (2008) trace the development of a stratigraphic approach in excavation and recording in Koldewey's work. On methodological innovations see also van Ess 2008.

26Micale and Nadali 2008, who also note that ‘These section drawings are, however, architectural sections aiming more at the identification of a building than at a sequence of archaeological deposits’ (2008: 411).

27King 1919: 15.

28King 1919: 15.

29See Dalley 2003.

30Budge 1920: 300–3.

31On the ziggurat's archaeology and treatment in cuneiform texts see Schmid 1995; George 2005–6. For a modern aerial photograph of the ruin see Babylon: Myth and Reality: 21.

32Koldewey 1914: 95–6.

33Diodorus, Bibliotheke Historica 2.10.1–6; Josephus, Against Apion I.141, Jewish Antiquities 10.11; Strabo, Geography 16.1.5; Curtius, History of Alexander 5.1.5.

34Koldewey 1914: 130.

35Koldewey 1914: 46.

36Koldewey 1914: 46.

37Keppel 1827: 123; see Myers 1875: 211.

38Koldewey 1914: 160–2.

39Koldewey 1914: 160.

40Illustrated London News 1854. The casket is now held by the British Museum, BM 1976,0903.1. Rudoe 1994a: no. 127, 1994b: 260–3, pl. 1.

41Lloyd 1980: 174. The ‘new standard’ took some time to become the norm. The German excavations do not resemble those of any other nation working in the Middle East prior to the First World War, nor were they quickly matched in the interwar period (Micale and Nadali 2008: 409).

42Winstone 2004 (1978): 215.

43Nagel 1976: 69.

44Delitzsch 1889b, 1912, 1914a, 1914b.

45Kucklick 1996.

46Delitzsch 1881.

47Delitzsch 1898.

48Delitzsch 1899.

49Bohrer 2003: 287.

50For a selection of Illustrated London News coverage of archaeology see Bacon 1976.

51Delitzsch 1902, 1903a, 1905, and collected in English translation 1903b, 1906. On the lectures see Johanning 1988; Larsen 1989, 1995; Lehmann 1994, 1999; Arnold and Weisberg 2002; Bohrer 2003: 286–96.

52Delitzsch 1902.

53Larsen 1989: 189.

54Larsen 1989: 200.

55Bohrer 2003: 290.

56Delitzsch 1903.

57The passage is Isaiah 63.1–6.

58Delitzsch 1903b: 148–50; German original Delitzsch 1903a: iv–v.

59Delitzsch 1920, 1921. He advocated that the Old Testament should be replaced in a new German Christianity by Wilhelm Schwaner's Germanen Bibel (Schwaner 1905), in which are collected the thoughts on divine matters of German heroes of the past (Delitzsch 1921: 97, cited in Arnold and Weisberg 2002: 446).

60It should be noted that in later life the exiled Kaiser continued to follow Delitzsch's views, including his claim in Die grosse Täuschung that Jesus was not a Jew (Arnold and Weisberg 2002: 449).

61Delitzsch 1905.

62Delitzsch 1905: 32–7.

63See Chapter 2.

64Delitzsch 1904: 57–66.

65Delitzsch and Taglionis 1908.

66Bohrer 2003.

67Renger 1999a: 1.

68On Sardanapalus' origins, see p. 66, this volume.

69Bibliotheke Historica 2.23.

70Gilmore 1888: 3; see also pp. 59–60, this volume. If anything, Ctesias' reputation is only improving today, with a better understanding of his oral sources and their value as a window onto the culture of the Achaemenid court (Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010).

71See Chapter 3.

72Andrae 1961: 181; Bohrer 2003: 300.

73Bohrer 2003: 303.

74Bilsel 2012: 176.

75Nagel 1976: 57.

76Nagel 1976: 69. See also Andrae's own account, where he makes clear his feeling that the opening and display of the collections was long overdue (Andrae 1930). On the early history of the Vorderasiatische Abteilung see Crüsemann 2000a.

77On the question of ‘authenticity’ in this and the other major architectural reconstructions at the Pergamonmuseum see Bilsel 2012.

78Andrae 1902.

79Klengel-Brandt 1995: 18.

80Andrae 1927a, 1927b. For the negotiations surrounding the ownership and disposal of antiquities excavated in Iraq before 1914 that followed the First World War see Bernhardsson 2004: 72–92. As well as Babylon, large quantities of material had been excavated by German teams prior to the war at Ashur and Samarra. For a more detailed account of the case of Babylon see Crüsemann 2000a: 184–9; Salje 2008.

81Which officially became the Vorderasiatische Museum not with the 1927–8 move into the Pergamonmuseum but later, in 1953 (Crüsemann 2000b: 3).

82Nagel 1976: 69.

83Hauser 2001: 215.

84Budge 1925: 293.

85Delitzsch 1899.

86Wylie 1982, 1989.

87Delitzsch 1921: 59–66.

88Schwaner 1905.

89Niewyk 1980: 49.

90Lloyd 1980: 175–6.

91Cottrell 1959: 47.

92Macaulay 1953: 40.

93Lloyd 1980: 178. Lloyd, it should be noted, is a thoroughly biased commentator in this respect, belonging as he does to a tradition of engaging popular writing in English studies of ancient Mesopotamia that runs through Mallowan, Woolley, Budge, Layard and even beyond, to travellers such as Robert Ker Porter.

94Morgan 2004: 89.

95Schnapp 2000: 166–7.

96Marchand 1996: 213.

97Dalley 1994, 2003b; Foster 2004; Reade 2000.

98Larsen 1995: 105.

99Delitzsch's Assyrische Grammatik/Assyrian Grammar, published simultaneously in German and English (Delitzsch 1889a, 1889b), formed a cornerstone of Assyriology for the next century.

100Bohrer 2003: 299.

Chapter 7 The Library of Babel: Babylon and its representation after the excavations

1Hobsbawm 1994.

2Herrera 2001: 11–12.

3Roberts 1989: 223.

4Hobsbawm 1987: 319.

5Joll 1990: 91.

6Arnold and Hassmann 1995: 71.

7In his discussion of Kossinna, Ulrich Veit quotes Childe's positive assessment, noting that his view stands ‘in sharp contrast to post-war comments on Kossinna which – in the light of the ideological takeover of archaeology during the Third Reich – reduced his contribution to an example of the abuse of prehistory for political reasons’ (Veit 2002: 42).

8Anthony 1995: 91.

9Hingley 2000.

10Podro 1982: 8.

11Haskell 1993: 219–20.

12Schnapp 1996: 258.

13Winckelmann 1934 (1764).

14Hauser 2001: 217.

15Whitley 2000: 37.

16Klemm 1843–52, cited in Trigger 1989: 165.

17Winckelmann 2001 (1880): 134.

18Burns 1982: 1.

19Germania 2.3.

20Germania 2.1–2.

21It should be noted in passing that this development actually went against Nietzsche's own racial theories, in which racial mixtures were held to produce better human types and the notion of racial ‘purity’ was dismissed as a chimera (Lloyd-Jones 1982: 166).

22Kossinna 1912.

23Like Delitzsch, Kossinna did not live to see the eventual use to which his racial theories were put. He died in 1931.

24Marchand 1994: 111.

25Volkov 1978: 313–19.

26Steinman 1998: 143.

27Pulzer 1988: 221.

28Studied by Regina Heilmann (2004).

29Seymour in press c.

30‘[S]ome 485 one- and two-reelers made for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company at the rate of two and three per week’ (Merritt 1981: 17).

31Kirby 1978: 121; Gallagher 1982: 69.

32Rogin 1985: 174.

33Matthews 2001.

34Anger 1975: 6.

35This section of the film was even re-released separately (with a revised ending) as The Fall of Babylon in 1919.

36Discussed in Chapter 5. Other nineteenth-century artworks used prominently by Griffith for the Babylon sets are John Martin's Belshazzar's Feast and George Rochegrosse's Fall of Babylon. The latter, now in a private collection, had once hung in a New York restaurant, where it was presumably seen by Griffith (McCall 1998: 208).

37Kucklick 1996.

38McCall 1998: 210.

39Both lecture and programme are held in the Griffith Archive, Museum of Modern Art, New York, and cited in Hanson 1972: 498.

40Seymour in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 203–12.

41Bonwit 1950. The five works are Joseph Roth, The Antichrist; Denis de Rougemont, The Devil's Share; C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength; Edward Wilson, Memoirs of Hecate County; and Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus.

42A perspective shared with Dante, whose journey in the Divine Comedy is a good example of a true labyrinth (Doob 1990: 66).

43Borges 2000 (1964): 78–86.

44Borges 2000 (1964): 81–2.

45Derrida 1981.

46Eco 1995.

47Borges 2000 (1964): 55–61.

48Doob 1990: 66.

49Don-Yehiya 1998: 267.

50Rakowitz 1997: 177.

51Rejwan 1985: 217–24.

52On perceived threats of assimilation in Zionism, Taylor 1972: 50; in Rastafari, Simpson 1985: 287.

53Chevannes 1995: 10.

54Watson 1974: 330.

55See notes on apocalypticism, Chapter 3, and St Augustine, Chapter 4.

56Chevannes 1995: 10.

57Simpson 1985: 289.

58Savishinsky 1994: 19–20.

59Fattah 2003; Al-Tikriti 2009.

60Bahrani 1998: 165; Bernhardsson 2005: 97.

61Abdullah 2003: 43.

62Abdullah 2003: 123.

63Matthews 1993: 136–7.

64Fattah 2003: 50.

65Fattah 2003: 49.

66For example, Black 2004; Chatterjee 2004; Klein 2004.

67Tripp 2002: 14.

68Tripp 2002: 22.

69For a history of the British Mandate and the installation of Faisal see Sluglett 2007.

70Abdullah 2003: 130. Saddam Hussein was later to claim Hashemite descent for this reason, although the implications of this did not include a thawing of relations with the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, and the Iraqi president's political and military elite was always drawn from his actual tribe of Abu-Nasser (Hassan 1999: 96–8).

71Woolley 1950 (1929); Woolley and Moorey 1982.

72Woolley and Lawrence 2003 (1914–15).

73Tripp 2002: 39.

74Winstone 2004: 368.

75Matthews 1997: 59.

76O'Keefe and Prott 1984: 46.

77In December 2007 the school changed its name and officially extended its academic remit to cover a broader spectrum of the humanities and social sciences, becoming the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI). The organization's full name continues to include the phrase ‘Gertrude Bell Memorial’.

78Schiffer 2001: 309.

79Andrae and Boehmer 1989: 34, 122.

80Against the wishes of High Commissioner Sir Percy Cox and the advice of T. E. Lawrence, both of whom advocated that they go instead to the British Museum (Winstone 2004: 375; Bernhardsson 2005: 76–84).

81Baram 1994: 282.

82Winstone 2004: 374.

83Mallowan 1977: 41.

84The latter suffered from a conflict of interests, as he was also head of the German expedition at Warka (Bernhardsson 2005: 162).

85He was to remain Director until 1941, when his support for the coup d'état of that year forced him to leave Iraq.

86Bernhardsson 2005: 186–97.

87Abdi 2008: 15.

88Makiya 1998: 152.

89Tripp 2000: 123–6.

90Makiya 1998: 45–53.

91Baram 1991, 1994.

92Bahrani 1998, 2003. See also Seymour 2004 and Curtis in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 213–20.

93Baram 1994: 300–3.

94Rothfield 2009: 13–14.

95Matthews 2003b: 19.

96Some examples are shown in Baram 1991.

97Al-Khalil (Makiya) 1991.

98Makiya 1998: 13–15, 153–5.

99Klengel-Brandt 1982: 178–81; Parapetti 2008; see also articles in Sumer 35 (1979). For a general survey of excavation and reconstruction projects at Babylon see Seymour in press a.

100Baram 1991: 46; Abdi 2008: 19.

101Curtis in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 215.

102Curtis in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 213.

103On the villages surrounding the site and the local impact of these works, see Seymour in press b.

104Colin Powell had successfully lobbied for US observation of the will of the United Nations in this case, and the coalition did not have a mandate for regime change (Bush and Scowcroft 2003 (1998)).

105Wiley 2003: 159.

106Fisk 2001.

107For example, Handler 2003: 356–7.

108Makiya 1998, first published 1989 under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil.

109Makiya 1998: 45.

110Hillel 1994: 101–2.

111See esp. Stone 2005; Gibson 2008.

112Bogdanos 2008: 110. The only buildings above the Museum on the list were the central bank and oil ministry.

113The Guardian/British Museum public forum, held at the British Museum 15 June 2004 and chaired by Jon Snow, was entitled Babylon to Baghdad: Can the Past Help Build a Future for Iraq?. The participants were Neil MacGregor, Kanan Makiya and Ghaith Abdul Ahad.

114Bogdanos 2005: 506–7.

115For first-hand accounts of the events see George 2008; Bogdanos 2008.

116George 2008.

117Pollock 2003, 2005; Seymour 2004.

118For an overview see Farchakh-Bajjaly 2008; Al-Husainy and Matthews 2008: 93–6; Stone 2008.

119Moussa 2008: 144.

120Curtis in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 216.

121Curtis 2005, 2009; Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland: Bureau of Defence Matters 2004; UNESCO 2009; Russell 2010. See also Curtis in Babylon: Myth and Reality: 213–20; Moussa 2008; Parapetti 2008.

122Peruzzetto, Allen and Haney 2011; World Monuments Fund/SBAH in press.

Chapter 8 Culture and knowledge

1Loomba 1998: 13.

2Gosden 2001; Spivak 1996.

3Herrera 2001: 22.

4Bourke 1995: 299.

5Auerbach 1952: 6

6Ricoeur 1965: 81.

7Thomas 2004: 3.

8Huxley 1955 (1932); Orwell 2000 (1949).

9Popper 1957: v.

10Moser 1998.

11Nelson 2003.

12Price 1999.

13Caldicott and Fuchs 2003.

14See p. 162, this volume.

15Shanks 1992.

16Jameson et al. 2003.

17Joyce 2002.

18Moser 1992, 1998, 2001, 2006; Smiles and Moser 2005.

19See Wylie 1992.

20Van De Mieroop 2003.

21Bahrani 2003.

22Eco 1998.

23Eco 1998: 27.

24Butlin 1990: 93.

25Whatever beliefs individual members of the public may hold about individual points (where a misleading popular article or documentary, for example, may have had a powerful impact) most would agree that rigorous professional training and study is the best way to produce experts and that observation and critical analysis are the appropriate tools to produce what they would consider legitimate knowledge about the past.

26A great fallacy in the relativism debate is the fear of opening the door to pseudo-science. In fact the debate is far more relevant to religious views than to pseudo-scientific approaches which, as the name suggests, generally seek to masquerade as scientific. People who use pyramid-building aliens and discoveries of Atlantis to sell books are, as a rule, desperate to appear empirical. They can and should be criticized in conventional rational-empirical terms.

Postscript: The Babylon exhibitions

1The exhibitions themselves were as follows: Babylone, Musée du Louvre, 14 March–2 June 2008; Babylon: Mythos und Wahrheit, Pergamonmuseum, 26 June–5 October 2008; Babylon, Myth and Reality, British Museum, 13 November 2008–15 March 2009.

2Babylone.

3I am grateful to the British Museum's Department of Learning and Audiences, and in particular to Rebecca Richards, for this information and for organizing the visitor research.

4Iraq's Past Speaks to the Present, John Addis Islamic Gallery, British Museum, 10 November 2008–15 March 2009 (Porter 2008).

52008, mixed media on paper (Porter 2008).

6Untitled calligraphy in muhaqqaq script. 2008, coloured inks on paper (Porter 2008).

72004, ink and watercolour on paper (Porter 2008).