Babylonians

For a century the greatness of Babylon was evident under kings who were known as the Chaldean or New-Babylonian dynasty. Having destroyed the Assyrians and checked the Egyptians, the renewed Babylonian state became quite formidable. The reign of Nebuchadnezzar II the Great, from 605 to 561 ВС was the most brilliant.

It was then that Babylon surpassed all other southwestern Asian cities, with a population of nearly 100,000 men and women. The city wall of brick, with towers every 60 feet, extended for 10 miles. Built on both sides of the Euphrates, a great bridge connected the two parts of the city. A wide avenue led to the temple of Marduk, the chief god, and his ziggurat. The temple interior was covered with gold as well as the statue of the deity. Builders decorated the outside with glazed tiles.

Babylon's famous "hanging gardens" were a wonder of the ancient world. To please his queen a Babylonian king ordered a terrace of trees and bushes to be planted on an artificial mound that, at a distance, seemed to hang in the air.

From Marduk's ziggurat Babylonian wise men studied the heavens at night. The astronomers noted the rise of certain constellations during the year, enabling them to construct the zodiac and a monthly calendar. The Babylonians were competent in mathematics, enabling them to find the square root of numbers and to compute percentages.

The Babylonian supremacy, however, was to last no longer than its great monarch. It was now a new Southwest Asian power's turn to rise to prominence. This was Persia. Babylon, because of its wealth and presumed decadence, became a symbol of urban corruption in the literature of its neighbors long after the city disappeared.

Peoples oe syria

In 1200 ВС the Canaanites were the dominant people of Syria, where they had settled, about the same time that Egypt was in its Old Kingdom. The Canaanite population increased considerably during the Bronze Age, with cities along the Mediterranean as well as inland increasing in size and wealth. Although often conquered by empire-builders of either Mesopotamia or Egypt, the bulk of the Canaanite people remained in place as tributaries of Akkadians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, or Egyptians.

In 1200 ВС the Canaanite region consisted of three parts. The coastal area was Phoenicia, famous for its merchants that sailed the Mediterranean and the purple dye they sold. This dye gave its name to Phoenicia, for Greeks knew the region as the land of the purple merchants. Cities of importance in Phoenicia were Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre, which are now found in the modern state of Lebanon.

Inland from Phoenicia was the country of the Arameans, located between the desert and the Lebanon mountains. Damascus was its best-known city. The merchants among the Arameans traveled so extensively that their language spread all over Syria as the common idiom of discourse.

The third region was Palestine. Once a Canaanite preserve, it became a land contested between. Philistines and Hebrews after 1200 ВС. The Philistines, part of the Sea Peoples that scourged the eastern Mediterranean, settled along the Palestinian coast, giving their name to the land. Inland, the Hebrews invaded Palestine in the thirteenth century ВС after an escape from Egypt.