ABSTRACT
After lying buried in the ground for over 2000 years, the remains of ancient Babylon were excavated around 100 years ago. Yet, even after its discovery the city remains enveloped in a web of myth, and occupies a unique place in our culture. The book opens with the author’s first-person account of a visit to the site of ancient Babylon in present-day Iraq, which leads into questions about how we form our expectations about the past. What is Babylon? How do we know anything about it? Where do our ideas about it come from?
