The residents of Babylon in the first millennium B.C. saw themselves as facing their past and walking back into the future. In the Akkadian language of ancient Mesopotamia, the word panu, or "face," relates to the past, whereas "behind" is a word associated with the future. Reverence for the past was at the heart of the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II's (r. ca. 604-562 B.c.) plan to rebuild Babylon. By his time, the city was already more than 1,500 years old and had been shattered by a recent war with the Assyrian Empire. The king and his advisers, called ummanu, who were considered to be descended from divine sages and were experts in religion, architecture, and magic, wanted to create a capital both earthly and divine for their newly established empire, which covered much of their known world. "Babylon was the religious center of the universe and the place of creation of the world, where the gods came to meet humans," says ancient Near Eastern historian Elizabeth Knott of New York University.
At the heart of the reconstructed city was the three-city-blocks-long processional way to the Temple of Marduk, the city's patron god, which ended at the Ishtar Gate. Knott and her colleague Anastasia Amrhein, an art historian at the University of Pennsylvania, recently explored how the processional way and gate, which stood at the literal and metaphysical junction between humans and the divine, were monuments to the Babylonians' past and to their relationship with the natural, man-made, and spiritual worlds.
Denne historien er fra November/December 2019-utgaven av Archaeology.
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Denne historien er fra November/December 2019-utgaven av Archaeology.
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Digs & Discoveries - A Friend For Hercules - Archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
While digging at the crossroads of the two main streets in the ancient city of Philippi in northern Greece, archaeologists discovered a finely carved head depicting Apollo, god of the sun, music, and poetry.
Digs & Discoveries - A Fortress Sanctuary - A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
A sprawling 2,000-year-old fortress in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan appears to have included a sanctuary dedicated to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita.
Like Cats And Dogs – Archeologist fund the skeleton of a male Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), a notoriously shy creature.
Оn the periphery of Zamárdi, an ancient lakeshore settlement in west-central Hungary, archaeologists uncovered a nearly five-foot-deep beehive-shaped pit with the skeletons of four adult dogs buried in successive shallow layers.
A Dynasty Born In Fire- How an upstart Maya king forged a new social order amid chaos
At the beginning of the Terminal Classic period (ca. A.D. 810-1000), many of the great kingdoms of the southern Maya lowlands-among them Tikal, Palenque, and Calakmul-were being abandoned or collapsing. For many years, scholars have assumed that most, if not all, the other kingdoms across the Maya world must have also been in steep decline.
Medical Malfeasance - Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy.
Archaeologists uncovered two coffins during excavations of a nineteenth-century cemetery in Quebec City that provide evidence of the illicit practice of diverting corpses for the study of human anatomy. Starting in 1847, medical students were required to have practical experience studying human anatomy, but legal options to procure cadavers were limited
RISE AND FALL OF TIWANAKU
New dating techniques are unraveling the mystery of a sacred Andean city
Making a Roman Emperor
A newly discovered monumental arch in Serbia reveals a family's rise to power in the late second century A.D.
The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world's grandest imperial capitals
Java's Megalithic Mountain
Across the Indonesian archipelago, people raised immense stones to honor their ancestors
THE SONG IN THE STONE
Located in a desert gorge in southern Peru, Toro Muerto is one of the richest rock art sites in South America. It includes at least 2,600 boulders bearing petroglyphs, many featuring figures known as danzantes who appear to be dancing.
