This last and perhaps brightest phase of Babylonian history is sometimes called the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The prefix neo - simply means “new” and is often used to describe the new version of something. As for Chaldean (kal-DEE-uhn), it was the name for a group of people from southern Babylonia. They may have had Aramaic roots, but they consciously identified themselves with Babylonia: in this way, they established their own legitimacy as rulers through a connection with the past glory of the empire.
Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate from Babylon.
The Granger Collection. Reproduced by permission.
The founder of this new dynasty was Nabopolassar (nab-oh-poe-LASS-uhr), who reigned from 625 to 605 B. C. Coming out of the Chaldean homeland in the south, his troops swiftly overran all of Babylonia, but they did not stop there. He formed an alliance with the Medes (rhymes with “beads”) to the east, and together they took on the Assyrians. In 612 B. C., the combined forces of the Chaldeans and Medes attacked the Assyrian capital of Nineveh (NIN-uh-vuh). For three months, they conducted a siege, a sustained military attack against a city, until Nineveh fell to them. In spite of this success, the Assyrians still held on and retreated to the west, where they reestablished themselves with the help of Egyptian forces. Nabopolassar once again defeated the Assyrians, and in 605 B. C. his son Nebuchadnezzar completed the victory with a battle against the Egyptians at Carchemish (KAR-kuh-mish.) After this, Babylonia claimed most of the Assyrian Empire.
Nabopolassar died while his son was away at Car-chemish. Nebuchadnezzar returned in haste to Babylon, where he was crowned king. Under his long reign (605-562 b. c.), his city and his nation flourished as never before. Nebuchadnezzar ordered immense building projects in Babylon, including a new temple to Marduk, new palaces, improved and extended walls, and magnificent gateways such as the Ishtar Gate.
The blue-tiled Ishtar Gate opened onto the Processional Way, along which parades went during Babylonian festivals. The gate and the parade route are legendary, but Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon included even more famous structures. There was the seven-story ziggurat of Etemenanki, which some archaeologists associate with the biblical Tower of Babel [see sidebar, “The Garden, The Flood, and The Tower”]. And there were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. According to legend, Nebuchadnezzar built them for his wife, a Mede, who missed the mountains of her homeland; because Babylon was flat, he created man-made mountains complete with lush vegetation.
Under Nebuchadnezzar's rule, Babylon became a vast city of some 2,500 acres, or about four square miles. But Nebuchadnezzar did not only build, he also conquered. In 597 b. c., he launched a campaign against the Israelites in Judah, and took many prisoners, including their king. He left another king in charge as a vassal—a ruler who is subject to another ruler. When this king rebelled, he returned and destroyed the Israelites' capital at Jerusalem in 586 b. c. Thus began the Babylonian Captivity, one of the most important events in the history of the Hebrews. Though Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Israelites, the Bible treats him not as an enemy, but as someone who did God's will. He is a major figure in the biblical Book of Daniel, which tells how a gifted young Hebrew interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dreams concerning his own future and that of his nation.
Daniel prophesied that the empire established by Nebuchadnezzar would be short-lived, and indeed it was. After the king's death in 562 b. c., there followed a succession of weak kings. Nabonidus (nab-oh-NIDE-us), who ruled from 555 to 539 B. C., was not so much weak as he was strange. Instead of paying attention to affairs of state, he devoted himself to studying the Sumerian past and its religion. For many years of his reign, he lived in a desert oasis, apparently unconcerned that the Persians from the east were about to conquer Babylon.
During this time, he left his son Belshazzar (bel-SHAZZ-ur) on the throne, and Belshazzar became the unfortunate main character in a chilling story from the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel. In Daniel's account, while feasting and drinking, the king was surprised to look up and see a finger—apparently unattached to a hand—writing four strange words of the wall of his palace: “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPARSIN" (min-AY, min-AY, tek-UHL, oo-PAR-sin.) Terrified by words he did not understand, he called for Daniel, and Daniel interpreted the message: “God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.... You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.... Your kingdom [will be] divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.
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