'' Babylon '' is a name that has a double life: it denotes the great ancient Mesopotamian city with a long and complex history, and it is also a fictive allusion with a wide variety of connotations, from the Hebrew bible''s Tower of Babel, through the New Testament''s ''Whore of Babylon'', to the iconic song ''The Rivers of Babylon'' by the 1970s pop group Boney M. The first royal dynasty of Babylon was founded by an Amorite interloper named Sumu-la-El a thousand years after the fall of the great Sumerian city states of Ur and Uruk, creating a new superpower in the Near East. Clinging close to the might River Euphrates, the city quickly grew in size and, thanks to its military prowess, soon expanded its territories, sweeping down to the Persian Gulf and advancing north into Syria. The kingdom of Babylonia came in to being and, governed from mighty Babylon, setting the agenda for what civilization meant. This fascinating book explores Babylon''s reputation as a city with a dual legacy by exploring its rich ancient past and its astonishing mythic legacy.

Autorentext

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University. He has spent extensive time in Egypt, the Middle East and Iran and is a specialist in the histories and cultures of Near Eastern, Greek and Hellenistic antiquity and champions a global approach to the study of the ancient world and its reception. Lloyd has appeared on the BBC, Channel 4, Netflix, in The Times and other media outlets and in many popular podcasts. He is co-host of the Biblical Time Machine podcast and has worked closely with the British Museum on major exhibitions.

His previous books include The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt, Persians: The Age of the Great Kings, Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther, The Hellenistic Court, Sister-Queens in the High Hellenistic Period, Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Women of Ancient Greece, and Designs on the Past: How Hollywood Created the Ancient World. He is currently writing a book on the Hittites of ancient Anatolia.

Born in Cefn Cribwr, Lloyd lives in Taffs Well, Wales.

Klappentext

Babylon often appears more myth than history. Purportedly the site of the Hanging Gardens and the Tower of Babel, its infamous presence in the Bible has made it a byword for sinful decadence. But Babylon was a real place teeming with life, a bustling mega-city on the Euphrates where schoolteachers, artisans, priests, slaves, prostitutes and soldiers rubbed shoulders in maze-like streets and busy marketplaces.

The city was home to some extraordinary rulers, from Hammurabi the great lawgiver to Nebuchadnezzar II, the conqueror-king, under whose reign the city glistened in gold and lapis lazuli.

In Babylon, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones brings the city vividly to life, tracing its foundation through to its world domination, and subsequent decline, fall and ruin into dust. From ribald drinking songs to acerbic letters between rival kings, the extraordinary ancient sources help inform what is both a stunning work of scholarship and a fascinating evocation of a long-lost world.