View of the City of Babylon
Oil on Canvas
Chicago
124 cm x 91 cm
P28752
Oriental Institute Museum
View of the City of Babylon
This is one of two reconstructed views of the city of Babylon produced by Maurice Bardin in 1936. This particular view shows the city as it might have looked in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). In the foreground are the river, the city wall, and the sacred precinct of the god Marduk with its ziggurat and temple. In the middle are houses and other buildings, as well as the main thoroughfare known as Marduk Street. In the background, beyond the city wall, are fields used for farming.
Suggested Readings
Leacroft, Helen and Richard. The Buildings of Ancient Mesopotamia. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1974.
Roaf, Michael. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. New York: Facts on File, 1990.
Saggs, H. F. W. The Greatness That Was Babylon. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1962.