The Stories and Histories of Life and Art: Neo-Babylonia

Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC-539 BC)

Geographical Location

Historical Background

The Chaldeans had never been entirely pacified by Assyrians. Nabopolassar became king of them and with his army he forced the Assyrians out of Uruk and he auto-proclaimed himself as king of Babylonia. Also he was part of the wars to destroy the Assyrians. He also did things for his empire, he started to restore the canal network in the Babylonian cities. Then he fought against Egypt and he won but also lost battles.

Cultural Background

Due to the fact that they were ruled by the Akkadians and Assyrians they were influenced by them. The period of this civilization was a renaissance after the death of the last Assyrian ruler: Assurbanipal. A great flourishing of art, architecture, and science occurred. Neo-Babylonian rulers were motivated because of their ancestors and followed a tradisionalist cultural policy, based on the Sumero-Akkadian culture. The peak of this period was under the ruling of Nebuchadnezzar II.

Characteristics

Most of the evidence of the art and architecture is literary.
Neo-Babylonians were known because of their colorful glazed bricks that had reliefs of dragons, lions, and aurochs for decorating the Ishtar Gate.
They had been dominated by Akkadians and Assyrians.
Their art and architecture flourished under Nebuchadnezzar II

Art

The city of Babylon had two zones: the ancient and the new one. At the ancient one, they had the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, the Marduk Temple, and the Ishtar Gate. At the palace, they used to have exotic and aromatic plants in their gardens, symbolizing fertility. The Marduk Temple had 7 floors, which each one had different color symbolizing different things for Nebuchadnezzar. In the same way, the Ishtar Gate was created based on the Marduk Temple, because they used same colors to represent the king Nebuchadnezzar. Neo- Babylon habitants always has been distinguished by their exotic and striking colors symbolizing fertility, happiness, and peace.

Form

The majority of their pieces of art, they used metal or rocks covered with blue, yellow, or brown paint. They also used hieroglyphs to write under their pieces of art, like in the Hammurabi Code, or in Michaux rock.
They used those tools for communicate between them, writing on rocks or in their pieces of art. The lion is an important symbol for them, because they did a piece of a lion and in the Ishtar Gate, there are lions drawn there.

Architecture

The Neo-Babylonians are most famous for their architecture, specially at their capital city, Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt this ancient city including its walls and seven gates. It is also during this era that Nebuchadnezzar built the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" for his wife because she missed the gardens of her homeland in Media (today known as Iran). According to Greek and Roman writers, The Hanging Gardens can be considered as legendary.

Examples