Babylonia
Explore Babylonia — the Mesopotamian empire famous for Hammurabi's Code, the Hanging Gardens, and lasting contributions to law, astronomy, and mathematics.
Babylonia rose to prominence under Hammurabi (r. 1792–1750 BCE), who transformed the city of Babylon from a minor settlement into the capital of an empire that controlled most of Mesopotamia. Hammurabi is best remembered for his law code — one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes, inscribed on a black stone stele for all to see. Though not the first set of laws, Hammurabi's Code was remarkable for its scope and its principle that the law should be publicly known.
Babylonia experienced two great periods of power. The Old Babylonian period under Hammurabi established the city's cultural prestige. After centuries of foreign rule, the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626–539 BCE) under Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt Babylon into the ancient world's most spectacular city — home to the Ishtar Gate, the ziggurat that may have inspired the Tower of Babel story, and the legendary Hanging Gardens.
Babylonian contributions to intellectual history are often underappreciated. Their astronomers tracked planetary movements with remarkable precision, their mathematicians developed algebraic techniques, and their scribes preserved and transmitted Sumerian literary traditions that would otherwise have been lost.
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