First Dynasty of Babylon

First Babylon


Geographical location

Babylonia: Ancient cultural region occupying southeastern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern southern Iraq from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf). The area was divided into two countries: Sumer in the southeast and Akkad in the northwest.

Historical background (life style, religion, government, music)

Originally the city's name was probably Babilla, which was reinterpreted in popular etymology as Bab-ili ("Gate of the God").

-The Babylonian Empire was the most powerful state in the ancient world after the fall of the Assyrian empire (612 BCE), the city of Babylon makes its first appearance after the fall of the empire of the third Dynasty of Ur.

-Hammurabi, a king of Babylon of Amorite descent, reunited the area.

- The area was one of the most rich and fertile parts of the ancient world.

Cultural background

The Babylonian cities were the centers of great scribal learning and produced writings on divination, astrology, medicine and mathematics. The Kassite kings corresponded with the Egyptian Pharaohs as revealed by cuneiform letters found at Amarna in Egypt, now in the British Museum.

Babylonian-art

Artist represented the stories of some legends in magnificent relief. They also did geometric figures with designs that paralleled a bit in some cases the ones inherited from Sumer and others novels designs that were adapted to the physical space that was decorated with exotic plants, fantastic creature, animals, battles scenes and others mundane thematic. 

Role of art

-       Art was used many times for representing gods and so with those pictures, they could protect them.

-       Lions were very important in this period because they were in the doors of the city representing protection and power.

-       Art was part of the culture; their quotidian life was reflected on the paintings.

Examples

-       The queen of the night is one of the most important statues from the First Babylon given that it represents a Mesopotamian goddess: Ishtar(goddess of sexual love and war) or Erishkigal (goddess who ruled the underworld), it is naked women that holds a ring and a rod of justice.

-       Documents show Hammurabi was a classic micro-manager, concerned with all aspects of his rule, and this is seen in his famous legal code, which survives in partial copies on this stele in the Louvre and on clay tablets (a stele is a vertical stone monument or marker often inscribed with text or with relief carving).

Form/Material/use

Most of the sculptures made on this period where made of clay given that there were an abundance of this material and lack of stone. However art was not represented only in statues, it was also used in pots where people transported water and some symbols where used in them as a decoration. Moreover, the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens, Belshazzar’s Feast and the Fall of Babylon have inspired artists, writers, poets, philosophers and filmmakers.

Furthermore, Babylonian style was imagery, especially the multiple strips or registers of characters and the stately procession of gods and lions.

Characteristics

There were two sets of fortified walls and massive palaces and religious buildings, including the central ziggurat tower. Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the famous "Hanging Gardens."

It existed an easy exchange of ideas and techniques, and surviving texts that reflected the development of “guilds” of craftsmen, such as jewelers, scribes and architects. 

Bibliography:

First Babylon (2014) in web page: Livius available in: http://www.livius.org/ba-bd/babylon/babylonian_empire.html    [03 of September 2014 16:31 hrs]

Babylonia, an Introduction (2014) in web page: khan academy available in: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/babylonian/a/babylonia-an-introduction [03 of September 2014 16:51 hrs]