Neo-Babylonian Chalcedony Cylinder Seal , 6th Century BC

Showing a combat scene with a winged genie holding a sickle and attacking a lion which is attacking a bull.

These genii have been interpreted as beings known as antediluvian sages or apkallus in Akkadian. They were beings that existed during a godlike generation of humanity. These beings were closely associated with the god Enki. During the antediluvian age humanity was “covered” or more commonly referred to as the great flood, and the inhabitants were purified and roamed the earth as invisible genii. There are also other references to the apkallus as being purified humans that were sent to Apsû, the underground sweet water realm of Enki/Ea by Marduk the ruler god.

Neo-Babylonian Cylinder Seal, C. 900-700 BC

Chalcedony, with a combat scene between a winged hero and a winged goat with the hero bracing his foot on a small reclining goat.

Cylinder with Building Dedication

Babylonia (in present-day Iraq), 604-562 BC (Neo-Babylonian)

Baked clay, 23 cm high and 13 cm wide (9 in x 5 in)

(In the Walters Museum of Art)

Kassite Agate Cylinder Seal, 14th-13 Century BC

With the seated figure of a bearded deity wearing horned headdress and long fringed robe, holding long rod in one hand, a standing bearded male worshipper in front, right arm raised in gesture of supplication, with a fine 7 line Sumerian cuneiform royal inscription reading “Enlil, mighty lord, who determines the decrees about heaven and earth, Kadashman-Enlil, the noble you created, be his pleasant trust, may you return to its proper place the spirit of the throne.“

The Kassites were an ancient Near Eastern people who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire in 1531 BC until around 1155 BC. The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1595 BC and established a dynasty based in Dur-Kurigalzu named after Kurigalzu I, who reigned some time in the 14th century BC. Kassites were members of a small military aristocracy and were efficient rulers. Their 500-year reign laid an essential groundwork for the development of subsequent Babylonian culture. The original homeland of the Kassites is not well known, but appears to have been located in the Zagros Mountains in Lorestan in what is now modern Iran.

Neo-Babylonian Gold Earrings, Late 6th-Early 5th Century BC

On modern gold earwires

“This tablet has seven recipes which are very detailed. The text is broken in several places and the name of the second recipe is missing, but it is a dish with small birds, maybe partridges”

YBC 8958 Old Babylonian Period, ca. 1750 BC.

Mace Head

900-800 BC

Late Babylonian

(Source: The British Museum)

Babylonian numbers in XeTeX

lay down the law

Babylonian mathematics is …

"Babylonian mathematics was any mathematics developed or practiced by the people of Mesopotamia, from the days of the early Sumerians to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited. In respect of time they fall in two distinct groups: one from the Old Babylonian period (1830-1531 BC), the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries BC. In respect of content there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Thus Babylonian mathematics remained constant, in character and content, for nearly two millennia."

Read more here

A sun dial with Aramaean Inscription 1st. Cent. B.C. Madain Saleh sandstone. The concave inner side of the half dome shaped dial is divided into twelve parts by eleven radial lines. The rod, perpendicular to the center, is the pointer. The shadow of the pointer falls on the radial lines as the sun moves. Although the system of dividing the time passing between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal units was used in Mesopotamia as early as the Sumerian times this type of dial is known as the Babylonian dial.

Statuette of a kneeling man, known as the Worshipper of Larsa. Dedicated by an inhabitant of Larsa to the god Amurru for the life of Hammurabi. Bronze and gold, early 2nd millenium BC.

According to the inscription, this votive statue was dedicated to the Sumerian god Martu (Akkadian Amurru), and would have likely been intended for the temple of that deity.

Translated, the inscription reads:

Such works were commissioned not only to curry favor with the king, but also to secure his protection and the prosperity of his kingdom.

Courtesy & currently located at the Louvre, France. Photo taken by Rama. ref: Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.

Town plan of Nippur, Unidentified mapmaker, Babylonian.

1300 B.C.

Clay.

Bronze Nipple-footed Beaker

Babylonian

10th Century BC

Found Luristan, Iran

Height: c.14.5 cm

Bronze beaker and lid, decorated with the “tree of life” motif. 

Source: British Museum

Seal/ imprint: orant before an altar, Neo-babylonian empire, 600-400 BCE, made of Chalcedony.

Courtesy & currently located at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, France. Photo taken by Rama.

Babylonian Captives - The Rebel against Sennacherib 

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Notice how the Assyrian and Babylonian men look almost the same.

They after all are both Mesopotamian! 

Babylonian geometry by tryangulation, on Flickr