History Summarized: The Fall of Babylon

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I would write a longer description, but I don't want to babble on... /Joke

Special thanks to our discord community member and Levantine Archaeology extraordinaire Jacob Khan for his assistance on the script, helping me find a few key details I missed and setting me straight where my draft had some mis-characterizations and errors. Any remaining error in the video are mine. Again, thank you Jacob!

SOURCES & Further Reading:
“Babylon” by Joan Oates from “Cities that Shaped the Ancient World” edited by John Julius Norwich – “Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization” by Paul Kriwaczek
“Hammurabi’s Babylon” from “Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations” by Kenneth W. Harl, “End of the Neo-Babylonian Empire” from “Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization” by Amanda H. Podany

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

[OverlySarcasticProductions]

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[RanadielMarius]

"So when did Babylon fall? When the rest of the ancient world caught up to it."
That is a great line.

[legomaniac]

I think one of the reasons why Babylon lasted so long was that they knew the value of great brand recognition.

[maiaharlap]

"The Tower of Babel represents Babylon's final place in history: A story in someone else's book."

This line hits hard. An entire civilisation, reduced down to a fable. And this is one we have some actual context for. How many civilisations, cultures and peoples were there that history doesn't remember at all, except for vague references in stories that have drifted so much over time that we'd never have any way of knowing?

[TetsuShima]

Speaking of the roman occupation of Babylon, there's a pretty curious illustration showing the roman soldiers appreciating the remains of the once giant city. It's pretty poetic that the remains of a previous great civilization were seen by another great Empire that, nowadays, is equally extinct and ancient

[compatriot]

The history of the fertile crescent is something that seriously needs more attention and investment into archeological efforts

[jacobwillis]

It’s wild how Babylon’s legacy is primarily as villains for biblical characters. Like usually if a Mesopotamian god pulls up in modern pop culture it’s a demon or eldritch horror

[jinxcat]

Babylon losing its prestige simply because of shifting power centers and changing ideals is heartbreaking.

[unitjax]

I love the running gag of giving Alexander different epithets each time he is referenced

[mirage]

After Blue admitting to practicing some restraint in rambling about architecture while making this video I now want an entire livestream of nothing but Blue rambling on and on about architecture.

[falconier]

It is kind of strange just how little Mesopotamian culture survives - out of all the great ancient cultures, Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and China all have their direct heirs still around, Egyptian, Mesoamerican, and Andean civilizations have the Copts, Nahua and Maya, and Quechua continuing their cultural legacy, and even Phoenicia survives in like 98% of the world’s written languages. But the legacy of Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Akkadia, Babylon, is only important to historians these days…

[FuzzyStripetail]

The most addictively influential Hittites in the Assyria for Babylon was when their king understood the dangers of contagious diseases ultimately ordering his subordinates to not hang out with sick people and, most importantly, "don't touch their sh*t".

[jumpingspiderjesusfreak]

Wait. Is Blue just gonna talk about the dumb pyramid and ignore the real crowning piece of architecture, Babylon’s spectacular blue gates? I know he showed some pictures, but those things were awesome! They had dragons on them! I once made them out of legos! This is injustice, injustice I say!

[TetsuShima]

6:25
For those interested in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, there is a tv-movie from the late 90's called "Jeremiah", which tells the desperate attempts of the prophet (played by Patrick Dempsey) to prevent the destruction of the city. The special appearance in the film by Klaus Maria Brandauer as Nebuchadnezzar II (by far the best depiction of the king) and Oliver Reed really make it enjoyable

[thedarkgenious]

I like the fact you pointed out how Hammurabi's code, as draconian as it seems to todays sensibilities, was in fact a de-escalation from the usual generations-long-blood-feuds that led to whole clans getting wiped out over bullshit one idiot member did, and then whose families backed to the hilt, far beyond the point of sensibility.

[alessandrodelogu]

So at the end Babylon didn't fall: it crumbled bit by bit, like a biscuit, under every new domination until finally nothing was left. It seems to me an even sadder end than the spectacular destructions of Nineveh and Tenochtitlan. Your final note on the Tower of Babel really sums it up.

[abdoaboueid]

I LIVE for OSP's thrashing of Alexander. "The-Gone from our empires but not from our hearts" might be my new favourite!

[AnArtistDoesThings]

We need an episode where Blue just rants about architecture. Seriously. I think he would love to have that chance.

[JeremyDA]

My introduction to Babylon was much the same as my introduction to Troy. A place that existed exclusively to myth and religious tales. So imagine the mind-blowing moment that ten-year-old me experienced when I discovered that those places were actually real 😅

[queerlyvictorian]

Rome: And you are…
Babylon: You’ll find out. Someday…

METAL. OMINOUS. NO NOTES.