ABSTRACT
The newly excavated archaeological remains and texts made it possible to assemble a sketch of Babylonian history and society based on its own sources. Babylon was a political power for over 2000 years, and we can now tell that history and learn about aspects of daily life in ancient Babylon (such as work, beer brewing and bread baking, religion, family life, medicine). A wholly new Babylon rose up out of the fog of time. King Hammurabi returned from the past to captivate historians and general readers, in a time of great empires. Nebuchadnezzar II came alive in ways that truly captured the imagination and surpassed the biblical portrayal of him. Far from being just an evil empire, Babylon was a flesh and blood political and cultural force that had exerted a powerful influence on its surroundings and been a model for centuries. Babylonians’ literary masterpieces such as the Gilgamesh Epic and the Enuma Elish saw new life as 20th-century classics.
