Back To Babylon

Planned as a "must-see" after our arrival, we went today to see the Babylon exhibit at the British Museum. This exhibit has been much anticipated and much acclaimed but to be honest we were underwhelmed. There is much in the exhibit about Babylon, such as artists' depictions, literary references and discussions of the kings and queens who ruled Babylon. But there is little in the exhibit of Babylon itself. That said, what little we did see was educational: we marvelled at the detailed cuneiform script and the extraordinary level of documentation engaged in by this earliest of known cities; we were interested in the independent documentation which exists in some Babylonian records of the existence of historical characters otherwise referenced only in the Bible. (For example, there is a reference to rations for Jehoiachin, the king of Judah who was overthrown and imprisoned by Nebuchadnezzar); We learned about the Tower of Babel, which was actually the Etemenanki Ziggerat, which has since been destroyed; We learned that the Babylonian numeral system was built around 60 rather than 10 as its basic unit, which is why we have 60 minutes in our hour. We learned that the idea of monotheism was already being entertained by the Babylonians before the Jewish captivity and that the interaction between Judaism and Babylonian religion strengthened the concept. And finally at the end of the show we watched a video which taught us, if we didn't already know, how to make a really slanted political statement about the American invasion of Iraq. That was educational in its own way.