The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Zainab Bahrani —
Besides the text that narrates the events of the legal transfer of land and property
rights, labels are at times written next to the deity symbols. Sometimes the inscriptions
specifically call on the gods to sanction or oversee the agreement calling on ‘all the
gods who are invoked by name on this kudurru’ (CAD: 495). Finally, curses are
invoked upon those who break the agreement.
In some examples of kudurrus, the text states that the monument itself has a name.
For example, ‘Establisher of Perpetual Boundaries’ or ‘Do not cross the border, do
not obliterate the boundary, hate evil and love good’ (Brinkman 1980–1983: 271).
These names on the Kudurrus can give us an indication of their function. According
to Babylonian religion and mythology, names were never random or external. In the
Babylonian epic of creation, a thing does not exist until it is named and, therefore,
names were considered to be in the essence of things in the world. This naming of
monuments with proper names that invoke the protection of the gods is an ancient
tradition in southern Babylonia, and appears in the earliest public monuments set
up by Sumerian rulers. It is thus a continuation of a tradition that was ancient and
traditional in the south of Babylonia.
THE CITY: BABYLON
The legendary walls of Babylon described by Herodotus and celebrated among the
wonders of the ancient world can also be seen within the ancient tradition of image
making in Mesopotamia. Babylon itself, it can be said, was a monument to rival all
others. Its walls were counted among the wonders of the ancient world. The city
walls were massive and the gates were decorated with magical apotropaic animals
and hybrid mythical beasts. The bricks were moulded with relief figures. Images of
the dragon of Marduk, the lion of Ishtar and the bull of Adad covered the walls of
the Ishtar gate and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BC) (Figure 10.6).
These magical beasts protected the walls and invoked the protection of the gods in
the same way as the images on other types Babylonian monuments. In the famed
blue glazed upper parts of the Ishtar gate, now in the Berlin Museum, the lapis and
turquoise colour and the shining glazed surfaces bring to mind the description of
Babylon as ‘a gemstone suspended from the neck of the sky’ (Van De Mieroop 2003).
This consciously chosen decorative program was in the tradition of Babylonian
monumental arts, but applied to a city that was itself a monument.
THE GRAECO-BABYLONIAN IMAGE
Babylonian art is generally considered to end with the arrival of Alexander’s troops
in 331 BC. However, a close analysis of arts produced during the late fourth and
third centuries BC reveals that Babylonian iconographies and styles continued to be
produced under the Macedonian and Seleucid rule. This continuity of traditional
forms occurred alongside new styles that appear to mix the local preference for mixed
media and decorative patterning with the idealising naturalism and smooth stone
surfaces of Greek sculpture. Imported Greek works and styles begin to appear soon,
but these are recognisable as different from the local works, and existed alongside a
specifically local production. The hybrid mix between the Greek and the Babylonian
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