This series provides a new narrative history of the ancient world, from the beginnings of civilization in the ancient Near East and Egypt to the fall of Constantinople. Written by experts in their fields, the books in the series offer authoritative accessible surveys for students and general readers alike.

Published

A History of Babylon, 2200 BC–AD 75
Paul‐Alain Beaulieu

A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC, third edition
Marc Van De Mieroop

A History of Ancient Egypt
Marc Van De Mieroop

A History of the Archaic Greek World, 1200–479 BCE, second edition
Jonathan M. Hall

A History of the Classical Greek World, 478–323 BC, second edition
P. J. Rhodes

A History of the Hellenistic World, 323–30 BC
R. Malcolm Errington

A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284–641, second edition
Stephen Mitchell

A History of Byzantium, second edition
Timothy E. Gregory

A History of Greece, 1300 to 30 BC
Victor Parker

The rediscovery of the civilizations of the Ancient Near East ranks as one of the greatest achievements of modern humanistic scholarship. Among these Babylon stands out like a magical name, even if only for its Biblical resonance. Numerous books have been dedicated to the Ancient Near East, investigating its literature, culture, science, history, religion, archaeology, art, material culture, and even technology, and the interested reader can easily find excellent surveys of its history and civilization, including Marc Van de Mieroop’s A History of the Ancient Near East in the present series. And yet, histories devoted specifically to Babylon remain a rarity. One may learn with some surprise that the only book in the English language titled A History of Babylon was written more than a century ago: Leonard W. King, A History of Babylon from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest (London: Chatto and Windus, 1915). It is now hopelessly outdated, although one can still read it with profit and marvel at its surprising insights. Much more recent and up‐to‐date is Joan Oates, Babylon (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979). In many respects this is an outstanding book. It pays attention to all aspects of Babylonian civilization and its legacy, with special attention to archaeology, and weaves them together in a flowing, elegant prose. In 2016 Trevor Bryce authored Babylonia for the Oxford Series Very Short Introductions, and the title reminds one that writing the history of Babylon is not limited to the history of a city, but encompasses that of an ancient polity, indeed, an entire civilization which flourished in southern and central Iraq in ancient times. Brief introductions similar to Bryce’s have also appeared in French and German. Nevertheless, there is ample room for a new, comprehensive, and analytical approach to the history of Babylon which takes into account all the evidence and tackles the vexing problem of reconstructing the political history of an ancient, vanished civilization on the basis of written sources which, although surprisingly abundant at times, remain overall quite fragmentary. This being said, I believe that enough has survived to enable one to write a continuous narrative, a history in the very traditional use of the term, and this is the purpose of this book, which is both a general introduction and a manual, of interest as much to the lay reader as to college and graduate students, and one which brings to the forefront all the progress made in recent decades.

This book has been very long in the making and acknowledgments are in order. First and foremost my warmest thanks go to Odette Boivin, who carefully read the final draft of the manuscript, pointing out many inconsistencies and saving me at times from factual errors. She accomplished this task with remarkable stoicism while writing her doctoral dissertation on the First Dynasty of the Sealand at the University of Toronto. I am likewise indebted to my colleague Clemens Reichel who commented at length on the second chapter, and to Piotr Steinkeller who commented also on the second and on the third chapters. Many of their suggestions have been incorporated in the final version. I also thank another doctoral student of mine, Jean‐Philippe Delorme, who read through the entire manuscript with his keen interest in historical issues. I am grateful to the staff of Wiley‐Blackwell for their patience during the long period of gestation of this book, and for their efficiency producing it. Finally a note of gratitude goes to Stephen Batiuk who freely gave his time to draw the maps without which some of the historical narrative would be hard to follow. I have dedicated this book to the memory of William W. Hallo (1928–2015), my teacher at Yale, knowing that he would have been very proud to see his vision as historian carried on by another one of his students, and my only regret is that he did not live long enough to see it come to fruition.

AD

Anno Domini

Babylon I

First Dynasty of Babylon

BC

Before Christ

BM

British Museum, London

CE

Common Era

ED

Early Dynastic (I, II, III, IIIa, IIIb)

IM

Iraq Museum, Baghdad

Isin I

First Dynasty of Isin

Isin II

Second Dynasty of Isin

PN

Personal Name

Sealand I

First Dynasty of the Sealand

Sealand II

Second Dynasty of the Sealand

SKL

Sumerian King List

SKL‐Ur III

Sumerian King List, Ur III Version

Ur III

Third Dynasty of Ur

The timespan covered by this book is almost entirely before our era. Therefore, for the sake of convenience, the acronyms BC and BCE are not used unless absolutely necessary. By contrast, years in our era are marked as AD except when it is obvious. Ancient dates are abbreviated in the following order: month (Roman numeral), day (Arabic numeral), and year (e.g. V‐17 means fifth month, seventeenth day, in a given year). Names in ancient languages are spelled with conventional English transliteration rather than with diacritics: thus the name of the sun‐god is Shamash rather than Šamaš. Long vowels are not indicated: Nabu instead of Nabû. Names of peoples and places appear with their common English form if there is one: thus Nebuchadnezzar instead of the more accurate Nabu‐kudurru‐usur, Nineveh and not Ninua, and of course Babylon rather than Babilu or Babili. Words in ancient languages are in italics. When ancient textual sources are translated, passages and words that are entirely or partly illegible are given between square brackets, although these are used sparingly in order to increase legibility.