In a letter from the Neo-Assyrian period, Babylon proudly proclaimed its long history of ‘freedom’ and cosmopolitanism: regardless of one’s privileges, whoever entered the city, Babylonian or not, sedentary or nomadic, man or woman, human or animal, would be protected. Far from the kings’ abuse of power, and thanks to its privileged religious and cultural status, Babylon became the meeting point of different populations, traditions and experiences. In this regard, Babylon was visibly different from the Assyrian capitals, especially the newly founded cities. The latter were predominantly inhabited by Assyrians, who were too involved in the management and unification of the empire. The centre of the Assyrian empire also experienced the influx of people and goods from all over the world. However, this influx was paraded for propagandistic purposes, used for various purposes, or at least placed in zoological and botanic parks. Therefore, Assyrian society did not consider these foreign people and elements as equal. On the contrary, Babylon can be considered a sort of ‘park’, but a lively and non-artificial one, gathering elements from all over the world. Therefore, Babylon juxtaposed its own ideology of unification that welcomed the ‘other’, against the Assyrian imperial ideology of unification. The latter was more focused on the elimination of the ‘other’.
Neo-Babylonian culture and society were largely the result of an international ethno-linguistic, social and cultural syncretism. The composite nature of the population derived from the survival of the ancient Akkadian nucleus and the addition of new populations through migrations (such as in the case of the Aramean and Chaldean tribes) and deportations. Over time, the Akkadian nucleus had decreased in size due to the post-Kassite demographic crisis. Apart from the settlement of new ethnic groups, which led to the rise of Aramaic as the main spoken language (to a lesser degree in writing), there were further movements of people. These were smaller in size, but nonetheless significant for the cities. These people were mainly political refugees, merchants, artists, specialists of all sorts and messengers from all over the known world (Egypt, the Phoenician cities, Arabia, or Iran). Some sectors, such as trade, were fully in the hands of foreign communities. The ancient communities of deportees, who had few chances to integrate and develop in Assyria, therefore managed to settle well in Babylonia, where they acquired important social and economic positions.
The ethnical composition of Babylonia and the merging of different traditions did not, however, manage to form a coherent cultural model. Consequently, it was largely obliterated, at least officially, by a more archaising and nationalistic model. This official archaism and the revival of ancient traditions appeared precisely when the vitality of the local Babylonian culture declined. Apart from Sumerian, which had been a dead language for over a millennium and a half, now Akkadian also became a dead language. Aramaic thus became the main spoken language. Nonetheless, Akkadian continued to be used in all sorts of texts, in an attempt to revive the classical language of Hammurabi’s age. Sumerian also continued to be studied, though with increasing difficulty. Therefore, in a world that knew and used an alphabetic writing, Babylonia continued to write in cuneiform, a script inextricably linked to Akkadian. The scribal class was even proud of this choice. They emphasised the prestige of the meaning of the cuneiform signs, the abundance of logograms and their use for cryptographic purposes, especially in certain types of texts (such as astronomical, hepatoscopical and medical texts), knowledge of which was an exclusive privilege of scribes and priests.
Until the Neo-Babylonian period, Babylon had long ceased to provide any kind of contribution in the fields of architecture, sculpture and seals. Therefore, the city’s rise as imperial capital led to the revival of building and decorative activities (Figures 31.3 And 31.4). These interventions focused on three main aspects: size and number, the imitation of ancient models and the use of post-classical decorative techniques, such as glazed brick reliefs and decorations. The latter were unknown in the Old Babylonian period, mainly because they developed in the Kassite period, and in Elam. The iconographic repertoire visible here, especially on seals, was made up of revived (and largely imitated) ancient motifs, with a particular attention to prestigious phases such as those of Akkad and of the First Dynasty ofBabylon. This same tendency is visible in royal inscriptions, royal titulature and other expressions of Babylonian kingship ideology. Ancient works of art and royal monuments were recovered and restored, or even gathered in collections (such as the ‘museum’ in Babylon’s new palace). The latter stood alongside libraries (such as the one of Sippar in the Achaemenid period), which were filled with the literary and religious masterpieces of the past. This obsession with ancient models led to the production of fake ancient relics (such as the ‘Cruciform Monument’ of Manishtusu), aimed at providing a foundation to current privileges and exemptions.
Mesopotamian kings had always made an effort towards the recovery of previous foundation inscriptions buried under the buildings they restored. They even mentioned them in bona fide ‘histories’ of buildings. However, the Chaldean kings turned this effort into a relentless and voluntary quest for ancient foundation texts, especially the ones dating to the Akkadian period, which was considered the first and most prestigious phase of Babylonian history. This view led to the identification of Akkad with Babylon, which also had a long history that was now largely taken for granted. This historical and antiquarian interest rose at the expense of a more historical and celebrative narration of facts, a tendency that had peaked during the Neo-Assyrian period. Not only do Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions lack annalistic accounts describing military expeditions, but they also lack ‘historical’ depictions in the fashion of the Assyrian palace reliefs.
Apart from its archaism, another characteristic of Neo-Babylonian culture was its symbolism in depictions and ritualistic behaviour. Precisely because this culture was unable to develop new elements, NeoBabylonian culture focused on issues of formality. This formality is visible in its religion, with its obsessive attention to the execution of rituals, the way gods, their statues and symbols were represented and the pronunciation of their epithets and appropriate formulas. All these aspects became an intrinsic part of
Figure 31.3 Babylon, southern fortress. Above: Plan; Centre: Reconstruction; Below: Cross-section of the northern walls.
Depiction on a relief of Ashurbanipai from Nineveh,
Figure 31.4 The ‘Tower of Babel’. Above: Reconstruction; Below: Depiction on a relief of Ashurbanipai from Nineveh.
Public and private religion and a testing ground for the king. Therefore, the use of symbols was increased at the expense of anthropomorphic representations of gods, while the repetition of ancient formulas was increased at the expense of the development of new mythical or ceremonial aspects. This marked formality of official representations corresponds to the shift of personal religion away from official religion. Popular religion had long moved towards more magical beliefs and practices, developing effective actions (first to find out and then to correct or avoid a certain issue) to manipulate reality through the interpretation of parallel phenomena. Moreover, Mesopotamian religion had long been attracted by omens and exorcisms. This tendency, then, peaked in the Neo-Babylonian period.
Among the various divinatory techniques, astrology became the most popular, being the most rational and stable one. Every event was linked to a specific movement of the stars, whose regularity and repetitiveness was soon discovered. Other techniques, such as hepatoscopy, were based on exceptional signs and their unique and unpredictable conformations. However, the latter were always different, leaving more space for personal interpretation. In a more rigid system, such as astrology, the future became predictable and the past retrievable. Unsurprisingly, in the first phase of the Neo-Babylonian period (in the mid-eighth century bc), the king Nabu-nasir commissioned the daily recording of the position of the stars and the corresponding events taking place. These events were both ‘historical’ and daily life episodes and even included price fluctuations. The composition of these ‘Astronomical Diaries’, parts ofwhich have survived to us, continued for many centuries, well into the Hellenistic period. It therefore constitutes one of the most ambitious research projects conceived in antiquity.
In the Neo-Babylonian period, this astronomical interest led to the formulation of horoscopes, according to which the position of the stars at the moment of one’s birth determined an individual’s personality and fate. According to the Greeks, who only encountered the remains of this long Mesopotamian cultural tradition, the typical sciences of the ‘Chaldeans’ were astrology and magic. The first was conceived as a science for the study of the future, providing it with a rigid, unquestionable, structure. The second provided practical remedies, imposing on something already happening an even stronger influence, from a paralysing effect to a forced liberation. In other words, magic altered the prefixed course of events through an anomalous intervention. While in a world of flexible presages magical measures were compatible and useful, in a world determined through astronomical observations magic must have become less influential. Magic therefore became not just an anomalous intervention, but a maleficent and subversive one.
World History
