Walls of Babylon

The walls of Babylon were the city walls surrounding the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon, the political and religious centre of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

The walls of Babylon were included in many early versions of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In a study of the original sources for the Seven Wonders, Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher found that they were the second-most frequently chosen, with only the Colossus of Rhodes being chosen more frequently. Ancient writers such as Herodotus, Strabo, and the author of the Book of Jeremiah described them.

They were by far the largest structures in Babylon; the German archeological team led by Robert Koldewey estimated their height to be 12-24m and their thickness to be 17-22m.

Today, the remains of Babylon are the best-understood topographically of all known cities from the 1st millennium BC, due to the city walls being visible as earthworks even prior to the first excavations in 1899.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.