the Iraqis call him a national hero but the Bible reveals him as a madman who
was the legendary king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar the legend and a mystery
rolled into one in Babylon mystery Mesopotamia
the land between the rivers is between the Euphrates and the tightness and was
once the birthplace of culture
over 2,500 years ago a huge metropolis arose in the heart of this region
babylon the man who ruled over it made the city one of the wonders of the world
and his name was nephew kanessa
the structures constructed by the king of the Euphrates became myths like the
huge Tower of Babel which was to appeal to the imagination of generations to
come
today only rebel remains but modern archaeologists can gain an understanding
of the lost world from the remaining fragments
latest technology preserves the cuneiform signs the oldest written
language on thousands of ancient tablets and scientists can now decipher them the
images can bring the lost city of Babylon back to life and with it comes a
far greater understanding of Nebu kanessa and of the cosmology of the
Babylonians
yeah
the rediscovery of Nebuchadnezzar's world began a hundred years ago in
Lebanon the French Consul or read when you explore the region around
tell her Mel in search of ancient artistic treasures at the time there
were many expeditions by colonial administrators the 19th century was the
time of great discoveries
wherever they went they seem to make new and important finds the legendary city
of Troy have been excavated Egyptian hieroglyphics could be decided and on a
hot October day all rapine you made a discovery that would later be a plane as
an archaeological sensation when y'all worked on the assumption that the vast
empire of Babylon once extended to this point on the shores of the Mediterranean
and he discovered proof
on a stone war the portrait of a king had been chiseled out overpowering a
lion with his arm
according to the inscription it was never kanessa king of Babylon in the
fading light of day or upon your managed to take a sensational photograph
this is the earliest depictions of Nebuchadnezzar that has been found the
weathered relief in stone unites ancient myths and legends
mmm
the kingdom ruled by nebuchadnezzar benefited from the influence of the two
great rivers the Euphrates and the tigress
as long ago as two and a half thousand years before nephew kanessa works of art
were created that bear witness to the cultural achievements of the period and
convey a curious picture of the people of that age
the Sumerian people created an entirely new culture heralded by a revolutionary
development the invention of cuneiform script three thousand years before
christ and the cultural growth that resulted from the invention of a written
language was to reach its pinnacle in Nebuchadnezzar's vast empire of Babylon
the new technology spread from ancient rock to the whole of Mesopotamia
extending far to the north
it also spread to the Mediterranean in the west and to the cultural sphere of
Palestine
Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom extended as far as Egypt and Jerusalem a veritable
Empire
Jerusalem the holy city of david and ancestral home of all Jews but two
thousand six hundred years ago it was not the sprawling metropolis that it is
today
protected by the city walls no more than a few thousand Jews inhabited the small
area around the temple mount Nebuchadnezzar was able to breach the
stone circle and levels the holy city
an ancient relief depicts the battle
the Babylonians scaled the walls of the city with the help of fortified towers
the defenders could not match the superior military technology the
invaders had metal armor stone catapults and carefully planned strategies the
well thought out plans were highly effective along with the devastating
waves of arrows fired by thousands of arches Nebuchadnezzar used his military
might to good effect
thousands of enemies were mown down while the survivors were taken to
Babylon as prisoners of war
for the Jews it was a terrible catastrophe the wrath of God and Babylon
was seen as the hated site of exile with Babel known as the hot bed of ice
to this day the remains of Babylon can be seen in Iraq but at the beginning of
the 20th century
all that could be seen of the former metropolis were foundation stones a
trouble
the building's just 20 years old a mere reconstructions
but these imaginative Oedipus's do provide some concept of the splendor and
glory of an ancient city that was home to a million inhabitants the massive
tiled walls of Babylon were counted among the seven wonders of the ancient
world but it was also claimed that there was a second wonder of the world to be
admired in Babylon the Hanging Gardens of Princess Semiramis said to have been
the mistress of Nebuchadnezzar though the historical truth behind this figure
is also lost in the fairy tale legends that surround the city
the Greek historian Herodotus who is believed to have visited Babylon the
hundred years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar was one of many people
captivated by the capital
Herodotus marveled at the legendary dimensions of the Tower of Babel though
he could only guess as to its function
as he tried to describe the sights he let his imagination run wild as he
enthused about the city with streets 16 metres wide walls 25 meters thick and an
urban area that stretched for 96 kilometers
and so the metropolis on the Euphrates became the subject of fantastic legends
that were passed down through the generations until the german
archaeologist Robert called ue decided to search for the truth of the beginning
of the last century
when called you reach the presumed site of the ancient city of Babylon all it
could be seen with piles of rubble covered by the drifting desert sounds
but called you he was certain that the legendary Babel was buried there
the initial excavations revealed remains of vast city walls and confirmed his
belief that only the capital of Babylon could have had such mighty defenses
call you he had found the remains of the wars that herodotus had reported with
such admiration and the Babylonians had insulated the tiled structures against
humidity by using bitumen an amazing technological achievement for the day
Kanye was obsessed with the idea of excavating the whole of the legendary
city for 18 years
even during the First World War he excavated the site almost without
interruption
today his followers still work with shovels and spades
the excavations that began in Iraq a hundred years ago have taken them on an
archaeological journey back through time to the empire of Babylon in Sippar a
good 50 kilometres from called you his excavations the team have discovered a
new archaeological sensation a library from the period of Nebu kanessa however
the archaeologists aren't looking for works of art or precious metals but a
far more valuable treasure inscribed tablets
cuneiform writing thousands of years old recording the ideas and beliefs of
Babylonians in Nebuchadnezzar's day
the archaeologists have been able to unearth over 300 clay tablets valuable
texts describing rights and customs myths and politics
the library of Sippar is literally a treasure trove of knowledge but first
the knowledge has to be decoded deciphering text like this is a race
against time as experts on cuneiform script like Professor sama felt at the
Museum of Baghdad watch the ancient clay tablets decay before their eyes
though the play tablets are far less susceptible to the ravages of time than
parchment as soon as they are on earth changes in temperature and humidity
often caused the clay to crumble in a relatively short period of time and then
the accounts of life in Babylon turn to dust the inscriptions provide detailed
accounts of life in the Babylon Empire within the fines is a record of an event
the plunge the people in to fear and terror over two and a half thousand
years ago an eclipse of the Moon
the play tablets tell of the day when the moon disappeared and priests all
over the city had to light fires people quickly gathered in the streets and use
their clothes to shield themselves from the site as prayers and hymns filled the
entire city
the soldiers of the King dipped their hands into dark play and smeared it over
their faces covering them entirely
only in this way could the moon believed by the Babylonians to be a god kourt's
in be appeased
only then with the God be prepared to show his face to mankind once more
at this small museum in Iraq professor volta summer felt and his colleagues
study the collection of clay tablets which are full of sensational
discoveries the weather descriptions are true treasures of archaeological
exploration as they shed light on the lost civilization of ancient Babylon
foger these people the Sumerians the Babylonians and Assyrians were
compulsive writers they kept records of everything that could possibly be
preserved in text letters accounts of everyday life and also the entire body
of scientific knowledge available at the time
literature mythology astrology everything we know about them has come
down to us by means of clay tablets and so far we found about a million of them
we estimate that in the region around Iraq that could be 100 million more
buried in the ground and only a small portion of the text we've found so far
about twenty-five percent have been deciphered with so many clay tablets
holding so much information
it's hardly surprising the dark geologists are eager to preserve the
legacy of Nebuchadnezzar with the aid of the latest technology
the knowledge of the ancient orient can now be preserved on glass plates forever
using a method called holographic photography a laser beam traces the
inscription on the clay tablet
a system of mirrors allows the image to be reproduced on a photographic plate
and fixed by using a special developing process
the holographic technology has been developed at the institute of physics at
the University of monster the clay tablets appear on the photographic plate
in three dimensions so that experts can study the spatial characteristics of the
cuneiform script a vital factor when deciphering the text
the image resolution of the hologram is so detailed
but even individual symbols within the text can be examined under the
microscope without damaging the original in any way and the hologram can also be
made available over the internet so decoding teams can work simultaneously
all around the world
the tablets with cuneiform script tell age old stories and now the wisdom of
ancient Babylon can be presented on computer screens today
among them are the accounts of ancient sacrificial rituals that show how far
everyday life in Babylon was dominated by strong religious beliefs
the record also proves that the stories of the godless pride shown by the people
of Babel is related in the Bible where nothing but hostile propaganda in the
sacrificial ritual
everything was regulated down to the smallest detail the type of oil the
priest had to wash his hands with and the exact position he had to adopt when
he examined the claws and teeth of the animal to be slaughtered
yeah
the high priest had to place a chain made of red wall and colored stones
around his neck when the moon rose
only then could the body of the animal be slit open and the liver removed the
condition of the organ indicated whether good times or bad or in store for the
Empire and the king
they believe that their entire future depended on how the animals liver was
interpreted it was a divine sign
up to a hundred years ago called you wrote that the ancient culture of
Babylon was buried under a shroud of drifting sand and even today
experts estimate that thousands of texts are still hidden beneath the ground in
Babylon
called you we wrote the ruins remind me of the prophets curse in the Bible and
never more shall Babylon be inhabited and nobody shall live there again
did the biblical curse really come true and could call you have guessed that a
hundred years later new methods would be developed to shed light on the mystery
of Babylon including rockets
the Russian Soyuz carried a surveillance satellite into outer space in the days
of the Cold War the technology was employed to spy out enemy territory
using photographs from space
as the shuttle raced back to earth
there were a hundred and fifty satellite pictures on board
among them was one of an area 32 degrees north and 44 degrees east
Iraqi territory moscow leningrad prospect 47 formerly the headquarters of
Soviet military intelligence with the cold war over the satellite pictures
that were used to spy on enemies are now available for research purposes
the former espionage photographs from outer space are of enormous importance
to Ariel archaeology an expert can learn valuable information from these
bird's-eye views the outlines of structures that have long collapsed and
are buried deep underground may appear in aerial shots as variations in
vegetation and color
this technology has enabled archaeologists to study a small area
that the satellite camera 270 kilometers away picked up ancient Babylon as the
computer and large is the image the entire area of a city that has long
since vanished can be seen
in the top left is the modern palace of saddam hussein and to the right
the region excavated by called ue the aerial image shows that only a small
area of the ancient city has so far been studied by archaeologists
in fact Nebuchadnezzar city extended much further as this satellite
photograph shows it was over 60 times larger than the reconstruction that can
be seen today
yeah
and from the air
one outline can be seen very clearly the shape of a building that was destined to
become a legend
the Tower of Babel today all that can be seen is a pond
the aerial image indicates that the structure was set out on a square base
so all the reconstructions made by medieval painters were simply products
of their own imagination
the top
Babel was not a round tower but a square structure rising in stages
probably about a hundred meters high
the great structure has appealed to the imagination of people throughout the
ages
the Tower of Babel more than the city itself became a symbol of the
unrestrained arrogance that came before the fall
yeah
Herodotus the father of historical writing may well have seen the Tower of
Babel when half of it still remained even though the decline of the city
began almost as soon as Nebuchadnezzar son succeeded him at least in his mind's
eye
Herodotus would have been able to picture the Magnificent seen as the
royal procession began to climb the tower climbing to the blue temple at the
summit the temple of Mark god of the city
I read it has reported that climbing to the temple of Mark meant climbing into
the heavens and the stars and at the top in the highest section of the huge
layered temple was where modoch resided
Herodotus let his imagination run away with him and wrote that on a golden bed
lies a Babylonian version the consort of the guard and from time to time
the god himself appears MA Duke the divine ruler the Great God of Babylon
the God who knows everything and sees everything
the fantastic account Herodotus gave was a mixture of imagination and reality
which were born from the repeated stories told in Babylon as it sank into
ruin
little remains of the Babylonian temple towers today they're just rubble but in
Bor supper which can be seen from Babylon the giant ruins of another tower
reach up into the sky
experts believe that these towers were not only temple complexes but also
vantage points that enabled Babylonian astronomers to study the movements of
the stars but Nebuchadnezzar and his astronomers were not merely studying
natural sciences while gazing into space
they regarded the celestial bodies as gods and believed that the movements of
immortal forces in the cosmos above reflected all aspects of reality
down on earth
yeah
Babylon astronomers in Nebuchadnezzar's day used huge temple complexes as
vantage points to study the movements of the stars but they were not just
studying natural sciences as they believe that celestial bodies were gods
and that the behavior of the stars sun moon and the five planets known at that
time offered an insight into the future of life on Earth
the German museum in Munich at the planetarium the projection system can be
programmed to show how the night sky would have appeared in Babylon over two
and a half thousand years ago
in the artificial sky of the planetarium thousands of stars appear as they would
have done to Nebuchadnezzar himself
every evening for hundreds of years the Babylonians studied the night sky for
signs for extraordinary occurrences and for connections particular stars came to
be seen as part of families like Gemini the twins at the gateway to heaven
it was believed that aquarius dictated the course of all waterways on earth
sagittarius half man half horse was a powerful ally in war and times of
trouble
there was taurus the mythical ball who could devastate whole cities and was
particularly feared
the Babylonians invented astrology as we know it today
they divided the heavens into 12 signs of the zodiac and recorded the movements
of the stars they may even have mastered the technology behind the construction
of telescopes as suggested by this polished courts lens the Babylonians had
a sophisticated understanding of mathematics and geometrical tablets
prove that scientists were already familiar with Pythagoras theorem this
theorem influence the architecture of one of babylons most famous structures
the blue city gate dedicated to the goddess Ishtar in his telegrams to
Berlin called you he praised the unique beauty of the tiles as the blue glazed
bricks were packed into cases and transported to Berlin where they were
washed and sorted
the reconstruction of the ishtar gate began in the museum Island the Berlin
after two and a half thousand years and a journey of 5,000 kilometres the great
city gate of Nebuchadnezzar was completed and with it were many
depictions of animals in a style that was very typical of Babylonian art
yeah
the images of animals worshipped by the Babylonians as companions of the gods
would have graced the walls of the processional way and guided every
visitor into the center of the city
and what an overwhelming impression the fresh blue tiles must have made on those
who entered the city of miracles from the heat of the desert
the bricks with glazed blue that how is it possible for such an unusual
technique to be developed two and a half thousand years ago a chemist
Stefan fits submitted tile fragments from Babylon to spectrum analysis and
solved the mystery together with ceramic specialist andreas Fritcher he uncovered
the complex technical process involved the initial step was very important as a
precise mix of sand and so derived from vegetable ash had to be followed the
mixture was then fired to create a type of glass that was then used as the basis
for the blaze today a computer-controlled kiln is used to
achieve the exact temperature of 950 degrees centigrade that is required
how the Babylonians measured and maintained this constant temperature
remains a mystery
the glass was then ground into a fine powder for the next stage of the
procedure
tiny quantities of cobalt and copper oxide were added to the powder
the combination of the chemicals produced the distinctive brilliant blue
color but how could the ancient Babylonians have measured such extremely
precise quantities of the minerals scientists today can only achieve the
desired result by using pharmaceutical scales that are accurate to a milligram
dr. stefan fits then added distilled water to turn the powder into a creamy
liquid which is the finished blaze is the Bible on your mark
what the Babylonians achieved and constructing their buildings and
decorating them was an enormous technological feat and that also applies
the glades and they used both of us
it wasn't just the fact that they produce this glaze
you also have to remember that many of the ingredients weren't readily
available in that country at the time so a great deal had to be imported from
countries that were at the other end of the earth in contemporary terms the
enormity of what they accomplished cannot be over emphasized come on walk
and see
the blaze was then painted onto the brick finally the object was fired again
this time for 12 hours at a constant temperature of over a thousand degrees
centigrade
yeah
the Babylonians were apparently masters of this brick blazing process and on a
huge scale the ishtar gate alone was clad in over 20,000 outer bricks
this gave it a brilliant blue sheen a reflection of the sky above
yeah
the road before and after the gate was the road of the gods
the processional way where the great new year's festival is celebrated this is
known from the inscription stamped on the bricks which read for the gods
Mardock & noble I cement the interior of the road with a spout and fired bricks
and over this
I place a powerful layer of glazing dust may you God's be content as you wander
along this way
Nebuchadnezzar had this message stamped on thousands of the tiles used
the Tower of Babel the ishtar gate and the processional way were all works of
devotion to the gods they were people's prayers immortalized in stone and the
laying of every foundation stone was also a precise ritual
all the foods that provided nourishment for life
oil milk beer and dates to con deep religious significance when the king and
priests prepared the ground for a building in the sight of the gods
the ancient clay tablets mentioned for complex rituals and describe them in
great detail
creamed honey and beer had to be poured over the first foundation stone as a
valuable offering for the gods
clay fired statuettes and voice of the gods were placed on the sacred stone
each of them holding a metal shaft in its hand as a symbol of divine power
a sacrificial sheet was prepared with its mouth washed out with fragrance
juniper extract to encourage the gods to look favorably upon the offering
white purified flower the sacred fruit of the soil was then sprinkled over the
statuettes
this ensure that growth and prosperity would surround the building to be
constructed
then the statuettes were buried in the ground the place that would soon bear
the weight of the new structure long after the building itself has collapsed
the statuettes used in the ceremony survived to this day
Herodotus also wrote about certain rituals but the greek historian
apparently failed to understand their significance
so it was so long ago the magical culture of Babylon had collapsed in
ruins many years before he journeyed to the city
what remained however was a deep admiration for the buildings that still
stood such as the city walls
Herodotus must have fallen under their spell as experts now believe that the
measurements he supplied were wildly exaggerated
yeah
scientists are now adopting new methods to test their theory in this laboratory
the seventh wonder of the world is recreated the walls of Babylon
on a scale of one to a hundred
laser cutters make it possible to punch out holes a thousand at a time and
precisely trace the surface profile of the tiled brick walls connecting them
never before has Babylon been recreated with the help of such modern technology
yeah
but this pioneering work is not merely being performed to produce a decorative
model
it's an example of experimental archaeology and the resulting model
shows immediately that the data provided by herodotus were not correct
when the proportions he provided are employed in the construction of the
model the number of battlements for instance doesn't match the length of
each wall as stated
the city walls didn't stretch for 96 kilometers as Herodotus said but only
for about 19 and apart from the major structures the brick houses of the
metropolis were only one or two stories high
the experiment with the model illustrates that the streets followed a
ground plan that cut through the house is almost at right angles
babylon was constructed as a gigantic fortress
there was a 12-meter hi double walls surrounding the entire urban area
professor primer and model make a band , meyer are convinced that with the
military technology available at the time the city would have been invincible
the Babylonians in their modest houses would have had a feeling of absolute
security and an equally powerful sense of pride in their City
yeah
the camera shows the sense of or that the ancient city dwellers must have had
for the environment that dominated their everyday lives
yeah
2500 years ago there was nothing in the world to compare with this picture
at the time Rome was still a village of mud huts Constantinople didn't exist and
it would be over 2,000 years before the first house was constructed in New York
Nebuchadnezzar proudly stated that which no former King has done
I have achieved
professor voter summer felt of the University of marburg speculates that
how the people who lived in this metropolis celebrated their cult
festivals and music and fifths of fortune as a little bummed
the 01 looks for them go to understand and you have to imagine a festival with
an extremely impressive statue of a god in a central position please
it was huge and brightly colored with ceremonial decorations
the king was there along with the high priests is there was singing by the
light of the flaming torches something of a similar kind of religious sentiment
is still found today in India video has feelings for you on board
we can't take part in Babylonian festivals like this anymore but at least
there are a great many parallels in India that enable us to capture
something of the atmosphere of that time you and you once a minister and
atmosphere oceans worker movement the great processional way in Babylon may
have resembled this
there are considerable parallels between the religious festivals celebrated each
year by the people of glory in eastern India and Nebuchadnezzar's great new
year's festival an ancient religious tradition that perhaps spread from
Babylon to India or the other way around
the comparison of the celebrations in india with accounts written on ancient
clay tablets is certainly striking just as in the new year festival of ancient
Babylon the ancient statues of the gods are brought out of the temple inquiry
draped with ceremonial decorations and placed on a sacred cart
the King of glory has been likened to a reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar as in
Nebuchadnezzar's day the King has to follow the customs closely as they are
the rules of the dots
just as Nebuchadnezzar once did he has to clean the cart in a ritual gesture
this religious ceremony serves to legitimize his rule and to renew the
bond between King God and the people
the entire population is caught up in the euphoric ritual
finally everyone comes together to pull the statue of the gods through the
streets calling it along on its massive ropes religion here is not an abstract
concept but something that is lived and revere every day
the hectic bustle of the carnival route in pari is a modern reflection of the
ancient rituals 2,500 years ago in Babylon
yeah
the german archaeologist called you excavated part of the ancient city of
Babylon in the early nineteen hundreds and continue to make new discoveries of
the site for the following 18 years
but he was never able to grasp but anything more than the rubble and bricks
the ancient world of the Orient remained a mystery to him but his imagination
sometimes constructed gigantic palaces from a little rubble and he once wrote
in a telegram to Berlin
I have discovered the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis in fact he had found nothing
more than the extensive ruined walls around Nebuchadnezzar's southern
fortress but his eagerness led him to believe that such huge walls must have
supported an enormous superstructure like the hanging gardens as depicted in
a three-thousand-year-old a Syrian stone relief
did the legendary terraced gardens of Semiramis ever exist or was it just a
fantasy created by later generations with the aid of another model
archaeologist professor Michael Proma discovered the Hanging Gardens could
have existed
the perfect math under the precise measurements and the carefully
thought-out construction indicated this must have been a real structure of
course we are not faced with the incredible weight of material and the
need to make everything watertight which must have been a special problem
a massive problems the engineers at the time and they tried everything possible
lead sheets asked about lining and layers of tiles and then volts
underneath and of course we have no idea how watertight it really was but it's an
incredible project and it was never attempted again in this form at the back
the water supply was apparently fed up to the top level and it seems that the
water was allowed to sit down via these terraces which means that the whole
structure was permanently underwater and you can see from the gigantic walls from
the thickness of the walls in comparison to quite narrow volts though well aware
of this problem
it was thought the roots the trees would reach right down to the bottom which is
of course nonsense but that's what the people thought it must all have been
filled with soil which would mean the water would seep through
so keeping this building in the stable condition was a miracle in itself
you have to remember that
it appeared that the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis was not a legend but reality
in Iraq there were still water wheels in use that could have brought water from
the Euphrates to irrigate the gardens
yeah
a park area of this kind must have been the crowning glory of a city like
Babylon a feature of immense prestige that may well have attracted even more
admiration in the blistering heat of the Orient than the Tower of Babel standing
a hundred meters high
but the figure of Princess Semiramis with whom Nebuchadnezzar is said to a
fallen in love does not stand up to historical examination
she was just a legend
yeah
together princess Semiramis and her hanging gardens formed a romantic symbol
of the most amazing metropolis in the ancient orient
yeah
ancient Babylon was a dream city of international fame and the gateway of
the gods
but it was a dream that collapsed with astonishing speed
it is perhaps the greatest tragedy that the immensely powerful city walls never
really had to defend Babylon against an enemy
the rain was eroded from within
Nebuchadnezzar successor the bodice was overthrown by his own priests and then
suddenly Babylon was little more than a footnote in the annals of history
yeah
in the end the Bible seems to have been correct when it made the terrible
prophecy the City shall be rotten and destroyed for all time and never more
shall Babylon be inhabited and nobody shall live there again neither people
nor cattle forevermore
yeah