Babylon

In 1974 the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) entrusted the Centro Scavi Torino with a preliminary project of development and restoration of the site of Babylon. Main goals of the project were to slow down the decay of the structures caused by erosion and aquifer resurgence, and to ease the reading of the archaeological site. Moreover, between 1987 and 1989 surveys and excavations were conducted in the area south of Esagil, named "SHU-AN-NA".

Babylon, 90 km south of Baghdad, was at the beginning of the II millennium BCE the main political, cultural and religious centre of Central Mesopotamia. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the First World War, the German Archaeological Mission directed by Robert Koldewey precisely defined the city plan and the main building, from the Neo-Babylonian time (7^th-6^th centuries BCE) to the rise of Islam. The double outer city walls, the royal palaces, the sanctuaries, included the Temple of Marduk with the famous tower, the evidence of the change of course of the Euphrates river during the Achaemenid period, and the theater of the city rebuilt by Alexander the Great, were identified.  The high phreatic aquifer did not allow investigating the city of Hammurapi.

The projects of enhancement

The Italian project started in September-December 1974 with a topographic relief of the archaeological area. Subsequently, a critical review of the stratigraphic results of the German expedition led to suggest a new dating for the foundation remains of the tower: as the first steps of the flights are considerably lower than the average high of the river of Neo-Babylonian time, the foundations of the tower should date back to Old-Babylonian time.

The first reclamation and development project foresaw the relocation of the railway track Baghdad-Basrah and the main national N-S road that ran close to eastern section of the inner walls. The reading of the city plan foresaw the characterization of its outlines thanks to the planting of lines of trees: palms along the city walls and vineyards along the moats and the ancient river. A second project, focused on the South Palace, suggested the filling of the ditches up to the base of the walls in order to allow the reading of the plan, preserving and restoring the paving of the courtyards. The foundation walls would have been visible thanks to the creation of underground rooms placed below the courtyard, which could have been used as exhibition and didactic areas.

The third project focused on the Ishtar Gate, the most impressive monument of the city. The monumental gate along the Processional Way which connected the Temple of Marduk to the Bīt Akītu, running adjacent to the eastern side of the South Palace, was opened annually for the festival in honor of the god. The building, whose foundation walls only have survived, shows on the walls an extraordinary low relief decoration in molded bricks with representations of alternated rows of bulls and fantastic animals. This decoration on the foundation walls suggests that the ritual function of the gate occurred even during the years for the building of the embankment until it reached the level of the palace. The reconstruction of the gate covered in glazed bricks in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin originates from the repositioning of the collapsed fragments pertaining to the last architectural phase.  Since the preserved top of the gate is at the level of the processional way that crossed it, the observation of the decoration is possible by means of stairways. The project envisaged the restoration of the road way on both sides of the gate, thus covering and enhancing it. The project also intended the installation of a diaphragm of well-points around the gate able to reach the base of the walls in dry conditions, never reached anywhere in the city so far.

The Italian excavations

Between 1987 and 1989 surveys and excavations were conducted in the "SHU-AN-NA" area, south of the Esagil. The area corresponded to the Ishin Aswad, where the German expedition had unearthed the remains of the Ishara and Ninurta temples. Its morphology was similar to the one of the South Palace before the German excavations, with large ditches caused by the dismantlement of backed brick structures. On the basis of the stratigraphic data, it is possible to hypothesize the existence of an ample terrace dated to the Neo-Babylonian period. The excavations, interrupted in 1990 because of the outbreak of the Gulf war, led to recognizing a large embankment that, starting from Achaemenid times, included a portion of the inner city walls. The available data suggest that the raising, in Neo-Babylonian times, of the two processional ways (the Ishtar one and the Nabu one) led to the creation od two "acropoleis" linked to the main roads of the city.

Babylon from above

An interdisciplinary research project undertaken between 2008 and 2011 by the Centro Scavi Torino in ​​collaboration with the University of Padua (Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Survey), the University of Turin (Department of Anthropological, Archaeological and Territorial and Historical Studies, nowadays Department of Historical Studies) and the Land Technology and Services (LTS), has taken on the study of the territory of Babylon and its urban layout inside the walls through the identification of urban planning systems by a remote sensing survey, by the analysis of the morphology of the territory and by the analysis of the archaeological data. The identification of stratified urban settlements and their interrelationships has allowed to better frame the phases of historical development of the city.

The structure of the Neo-Babylonian metropolis was certainly not the result of an ex novo foundation: although the Chaldean reconstructions and later settlement phases everywhere obliterated the more ancient levels (often archaeologically unreachable due to the high level of the water table ), the radical political and natural events (including the "oscillations" of the course of the Euphrates) and the progressive enlargement of the city and the succession of phases of reconstruction have left traces on the ground.

Reading these images allows to identify and interpret not only all the cropmarks and shadowmarks on the surface, but also deeper and more extensive anomalies which are caused either by the topography and morphology of the ground or by the presence of structures and are probably related to different stages of the development of the city. In particular, processed photographs highlighted five or six reticular “urban systems” with different orientations inside the city walls (and partly outside). These systems are not limited to a single building or a specific sector of the city, but recur also in different areas of the city territory. Beside the accurate setting up and study of these alignments, still remains to be punctually defined the chronology between these systems and the relations between them and the city quarters so far recognized. Of course, at the moment, a direct investigation of the ground is still impossible and consequently these results remain preliminary and potentially liable for substantial correction in the future. However, such a study could represent the starting point for future researches on the field, the base for a new evaluation of the archaeological remains, and a good occasion for new discussions. In the same years, the Centro Scavi Torino participated in the project "The Future of Babylon" headed by the World Monuments Fund aiming at the production of archaeological and thematic maps, at the study of the Babylon’s ancient and modern landscape and at the making of a management plan for this site.

Bibliography

BERGAMINI G.

1977 “Levels of Babylon Reconsidered”, Mesopotamia XII, 111-152.

1988 “Excavations in Shu Anna, Babylon 1987”, Mesopotamia  XXIII, 5-17.

1990 “Preliminary Report on the 1988-1989 Operations at Babylon, Shu-Anna”, Mesopotamia XXV, 5-12.

2008 “La mission italienne, 1974-1989”, in Babylone (Catalogue de l’exposition), B. André-Salvini (ed.), Paris, 529-531.

2011 “Babylon in the Achaemenid and Hellenistic period: the changing landscape of a myth”. Mesopotamia  XLVI, 23-34.

CELLERINO, A.

2004 “La ceramica dal sondaggio di Shu-Anna a Babilonia”, Mesopotamia, XXXIX, 93-167.

INVERNIZZI A.

2008a “Babylone sous la domination perse”, in Babylone (Catalogue de l’exposition), B. André-Salvini (ed.), Paris, 239-248.

2008b “Les dominations grecque et parthe”, in Babylone (Catalogue de l’exposition), B. André-Salvini (ed.), Paris, 251-292.

2008c “Les premiers voyageurs”, in Babylone (Catalogue de l’exposition), B. André-Salvini (ed.), Paris, 505-507.

LIPPOLIS C.

2008 “Un projet d’analyse archéologique”, in Babylone (Catalogue de l’exposition), B. André-Salvini (ed.), Paris, 532-533.

LIPPOLIS C. - MONOPOLI B. - BAGGIO P.

2011 “Babylon’s urban layout and territory from above”, Mesopotamia XLVI, 1-8.

2013 “Past and present of ancient Babylon seen from above”, in La tour de Babylone. Études et recherches sur les monuments de Babylone (Actes du colloque du 19 avril 2008 au Musée du Louvre, Paris), B. André-Salvini (ed.), Roma, 147-163.

PARAPETTI R.

2008 “Babylon 1978-2008”, Mesopotamia LXIII, 219-253.