BABYLON
Perhaps this city is the most important ancient city that comes to your mind to visit its landmarks, as it was one of the world’s greatest cities and has gained a fame that none of its contemporary cities has ever got. The city is 90 km away from the center of the capital, Baghdad.
Among its most important landmarks:
The ancient city of Babylon:
Its name still evokes a scene of richness and grandeur, as it is the greatest city in ancient history.
It is the only city mentioned in the three holy books (the Torah – the Bible – the Qur’an) and its name means the Gate of God or the Divine Gate.
Babylon was a small city at first, and we have received the oldest references to it from the Akkadian era, about 4300 years ago. However, in the ancient Babylonian era, Babylon obtained a prominent position, especially during the time of their inimitable ruler Hammurabi (1972-1750 BC), the great legislator whose name is associated with his famous saying. The city also received a special rank in the time of the great Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (604 – 562 BC) in the modern Babylonian era, whose rule lasted for 43 years, and Cyrus Achaemenid entered it in the year 539 BC, as an invader and occupier, and came after him in the year 331 BC Alexander the Macedonian. The Greek historian Heudet mentioned that when Alexander the Macedonian entered with his army the city of Babylon, he told the people of Babylon that he just came from the Achaemenid Persians, so the people of Babylon received him with warmth and praise, and as he entered the city, he was impressed by its beauty and architecture and treasures that no other city had ever reached before and it was then when he said his famous saying:. (Whoever did not see Babylon did not see anything in his life). Due of the importance of Babylon, Alexander the Macedonian spent a period in it before he resumed his conquest, and subsequently, after his conquests, he returned to Babylon where he finally died.
Babylonian Theatre:
It is a semi-circular amphitheater building that has been maintained to be preserved, and is called ((Greek Theatre), built by Alexander the Macedonian to hold sports. The theater is semi-circular and its stands consisted of three stages: the first stage includes 6 seats for seating, the second stage has 9 stands, and the third stage contains 12 seats for seating.
Ishtar Gate:
When you enter the ancient city, you will encounter the model of the Ishtar Gate, which is half its original size. It was discovered in the Ottoman era around 1898 AD and in the main era of Bismarck and was transferred to Germany and cut into 200,000 small pieces, and it took 3 years to rebuild it. This gate contains Mythical animals that include the dragon, snake, lion and eagle, which are the symbol of the god ((Marduk)), while the bull represents the symbol of the god ((Adad)) the god of cyclones.
The Ishtar Gate is the eighth gate to the city of Babylon. It was built by Nebuchadnezzar in 575 BC, and it had the Greek connotation. Ishtar Gate was enormous and high, blocking the onlookers, and no gate could compare to it until the present time. Today the gate is in the Perkamon Museum in Germany.
Al-Mawkib Street:
It is the main street of the great city of Babylon and the sacred road that connects the city to the religious ceremonial house known as “Akitu” house. The southern part of this street was called in Babylonian by the name (Ishtar Lamcho), and its meaning is “the Ishtar god protects his army”. As for the north of it, it was called (Lai Bor Shabu), which means “the street that enemies do not cross”, and the most important feature of this street is that it was connected to a sewage network with the rest of the city to drain water. The walls of Al-Mawkib Street are currently preserved in the Perkamon Museum in Germany.
Southern Palace:
It is a luxurious palace measuring (300 * 190 m) built with bricks. It is the southern palace of the great King of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar. This palace was inhabited by the kings of Babylon, Persia and the Greeks, and it is the place where Alexander the Macedonian died. The palace consists of five halls, the most prominent of which is the throne hall of the king, whose dimensions are (52 * 15 meters).
Northern Palace:
It is the main palace in which the archaeologists found in one of its courtyards the most important trace which is the symbol of Babylon and the representative of its greatness (the Lion of Babylon). It was found in 1776 AD by the German archaeological mission. It was made of basalt and it dates back to the Hittite period, and it weighs 4 tons, as the area of the Babylonian rule did not have this type of rocks. These rocks abound in the Hittites region, which is located north of Babylon (today’s Turkey), knowing that the northern palace was demolished and blown up so that its bricks would be used in building the Hindiya Dam, which was built by a wealthy Indian woman in the year 1890 AD, and the dam was named after her.
Tamach Temple:
The word Tamakh means ((the great lady)), and this temple was for women only, as the Babylonian women used to sit in this temple once a year asking for a holy marriage. This temple is distinguished by the presence of the holy well, so any Babylonian woman who commits a sin or guilt must bathe in the waters of this sacred well, which would remove all her sins. This well still exists until now, and there are spread rumors that this temple is the same temple that was mentioned in the Holy Qur’an at the time of Harut and Marut, who were practicing black magic in Babylon thousands of years ago.
Saddam's Palace in the ancient city of Babylon:
It is considered one of the most famous Iraqi palaces, which consists of 6 floors (4 upper and 2 lower) and an artificial hill overlooking the ruins from a side and from the Euphrates River from another side. The design of the palace is in the form of an archaeological site or looks like a ziggurat from the outside, and its location is in the tourist resort of antiquities in Al-Jala near the Ishtar Gate. The palace is famous for its geometric engravings and palm trees on the walls, and former President Saddam Hussein could look at the ruins of Babylon, which date thousands of years.
Kish:
According to the Sumerian version of history, it is considered the first city in which a king reigns after the great flood that was mentioned in Sumerian myths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
It is pronounced in the Akkadian language, Kichatu, which was located near Tel Al-Ahmar in the Iraqi province of Babylon, 12 km from Babylon, 80 km south of Baghdad.The queen Kubaba is the first woman from Mesopotamia to sit on the throne and the first female queen presented by history. Kubaba was mentioned in the list of Sumerian kings, where she ruled the city of Kish in the year 2330 BC. Thus, she preceded the first Egyptian queen, “Sebkneferu”, as well as the famous Egyptian queen Cleopatra, and Torba by thousands of years as the first women to be inaugurated as a queen.
Borsippa:
It is currently called Birs Nimrud (Athar Birs), which was important in the Babylonian religion, as it was a place of worship for the god (Nabu), the son of the great Babylonian god (Marduk), located about 17 km south of the city of Babylon. The city of Borsippa contains a ziggurat, which is present until today, rising to 47 meters above ground level, and which was decorated of its colors and seven layers. When you climb the ziggurat, you see at the top what you might wonder about: huge blocks of molten bricks of dark green color. However, we cannot give a sufficient explanation for this phenomenon, although some see that the entrance to the amphitheater was hit by a meteorite, which led to melting its bricks.
It is also believed that in this place, King Nimrud witnessed the conflict with the Prophet Ibrahim, which is narrated by religious sources. However, archaeologists do not recognize the local religious legends, especially since they are not mentioned in the cuneiform texts discovered on the Borsippa site.
Dhul-Kifl:
Dhul-Kifl is located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, halfway between Kufa and Hilla. Historical studies show that the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II deported Jewish captives from the Kingdom of Judea in Palestine to Babylon. This deportation was known as the Babylonian captivity in the first and second stages, and it brought more than three thousand Jews to Babylon, including the ruler (Jehoyakin), his family and the Prophet Dhul-Kifl with a group of priests, leaders and common people and settled them south of the city of Babylon.
Above the shrine of the Prophet Hariqyal (Dhu al-Kifl), there is a conical dome of Seljuk style, and next to it is a blue dome embroidered with engravings. The mashhad occupies a side space from the historical Nukhaila mosque associated with the name of the Commander of the Faithful Ali bin Abi Talib (peace be upon him) and his minaret, which is still in place, and which was built by the Muslim Mughal Sultan, the grandson of Hulagu (Okjaitu Khadbanda) in 703 AH. The minaret was decorated with a Kufic script that is rare in the Islamic world and consists of Four words written in the form of overlapping triangles, which are (I love Mohamed and Ali). In addition, you can see the Muharram of the Commander of the Faithful, in which he prayed three times: first, when he went out to Safin, second, when his governor was killed, and third time when he went to the Khawarij war in Nahrawan, passing through Babylon.
Next to the shrine of Dhul-Kifl, and under the same building, lie five of his good companions next to him in their graves. They are Joseph, Joshua, Khob, the transmitter of the Torah, John Al-Damlaji, and Baruch. It is said that these were the prophets of the ancient Babylonian Talmud. The shrine of al-Khidr, peace be upon him, lies also near the shrine of Dhul-Kifl.
Daniel's Market:
It was built in the nineteenth century by the Iraqi Jewish personality Menachem Salih Daniel. The market is very beautiful and in the form of arches, and it was branching out from several rooms that were a hostel for Jewish visitors to the shrine of the Prophet Ezekiel, which is adjacent to the market.
Prophet Ayyub Shrine:
It is located in the southeast of the city of Hilla, on the Hilla River in particular. It is said that this is the place where Allah answered the prayer of prophet Ayyub, peace be upon him, where Allah brought water out of the earth in the form of two wells, one large well and another one smaller than the first: Allah commanded His Prophet to wash and drink from its water, and it was the way for his recovery from his skin disease, which he was suffering from for decades.
It was not reported that this is the shrine and tomb of Prophet Ayyub, but rather his house and the place where his prayers were answered.
