The Babylonian Empire was a Mesopotamian civilization centered on the city of Babylon, on the Euphrates River in what is now Iraq, that rose to power twice. It was first the Old Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi (reigned 1792-1750 BCE), who unified southern Mesopotamia and issued the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest and most complete surviving written law codes. Nearly a thousand years later it rose again as the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626-539 BCE), founded by Nabopolassar and expanded by his son Nebuchadnezzar II, who destroyed the Assyrian capital Nineveh, conquered Jerusalem, and rebuilt Babylon with the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way. The empire ended in 539 BCE when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon, absorbing it into the Achaemenid Empire.
Explore Interactive Timeline →Babylon began as a minor city-state founded by the Amorite chieftain Sumu-abum around 1894 BCE. It remained a secondary power in Mesopotamia, overshadowed by rivals such as Larsa, Mari, and Eshnunna, until the reign of its sixth king, Hammurabi, roughly 150 years later.[1]
Unified southern and central Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule by defeating the kingdoms of Larsa, Mari, Eshnunna, and Elam. Best known for the Code of Hammurabi: 282 laws covering trade, family, and criminal matters, inscribed on a 2.25-meter diorite stele that is now held at the Louvre in Paris.[2]
Hammurabi's successors gradually lost territory to Kassite and Elamite pressure. The dynasty ended when the Hittite king Mursili I sacked Babylon around 1595 BCE, after which the Kassite dynasty took control of the city for roughly four centuries.[1]
For nearly a thousand years Babylon was not an imperial capital. It passed through Kassite rule, periods of local kingship, and repeated domination by its northern neighbor, Assyria. The Assyrian king Sennacherib destroyed Babylon in 689 BCE after a revolt; his son Esarhaddon rebuilt it a decade later. See Timelory's Assyrian Empire timeline for the Assyrian side of this period.
Babylon's second rise began when the Chaldean governor Nabopolassar revolted against a weakened Assyria in 626 BCE and founded a new, independent Babylonian dynasty.[3]
Allied with the Medes to destroy the Assyrian Empire, capturing and burning the Assyrian capital Nineveh in 612 BCE and ending Assyrian power within a few years.
The empire's most powerful king. Besieged and conquered Jerusalem in 597 BCE, then again in 587/586 BCE after a revolt, destroying the First Temple and deporting much of the population of Judah to Babylon (the Babylonian captivity). Rebuilt Babylon on a monumental scale, including the glazed-brick Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way, now partly reconstructed in Berlin's Pergamon Museum.[4]
The empire's last king. Favored the moon god Sin over Babylon's patron deity Marduk and spent years residing at the Arabian oasis of Tayma, leaving his son Belshazzar (known from the Book of Daniel) to govern Babylon in his absence.[5]
Classical Greek writers (none of them eyewitnesses) described Hanging Gardens built by Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife, and later listed them among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. No archaeological trace of such gardens has been confirmed at the site of Babylon itself. Oxford Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley has argued the gardens actually stood at Nineveh, built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib roughly a century earlier, and that the "Babylon" attribution arose from a later confusion of sources.[6] The question of where — or whether — the gardens existed remains open.
A Mesopotamian empire centered on Babylon that rose twice: the Old Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE), and the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626-539 BCE) under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II, ending with Cyrus the Great's conquest in 539 BCE.
Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE) unified Mesopotamia under Babylon and issued the Code of Hammurabi: 282 laws on a diorite stele, one of the oldest largely-complete written legal codes to survive, now in the Louvre.
Greek sources credit Nebuchadnezzar II, but no remains have been confirmed at Babylon. Stephanie Dalley has proposed they were actually built at Nineveh by the Assyrian king Sennacherib — the debate is unresolved.
Cyrus the Great of Persia defeated the Babylonian army at the Battle of Opis and took Babylon in 539 BCE, ending Babylonian independence and bringing it into the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
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