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Reading Babylon Author(S): Marc Van De Mieroop Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol

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Reading Babylon Author(S): Marc Van De Mieroop Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol Reading Babylon Author(s): Marc van de Mieroop Source: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 107, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 257-275 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40026077 . Accessed: 16/01/2015 12:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Archaeological Institute of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Journal of Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.148.252.35 on Fri, 16 Jan 2015 12:01:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Reading Babylon MARC VAN DE MIEROOP Abstract Was this all the city signified, however? Was it A combined investigation of the archaeological re- only the expression of the power of its builder who mains and the ancient testimonies of the city of Babylon thus exemplified the oriental despot whose mega- in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar, during the sixth lomania is demonstrated the of his B.C., allows us to read the ideo- by grandeur city? century city's multiple This article will an alternativesemiotic read- logical messages. The concern of the article is not with provide the identification of specific monuments, but with the ing of Babylon, one based on the Babylonian ideol- ideological notions that the monuments conveyed to ogy of the city's role in the universe rather than the ancient viewer. This issue is examined on various being rooted in the idea of absolute royal power. levels, from the in its to the city entirety ephemeral The ideology regarding the city will be pried from appearancesof monuments during religiousprocessions.* the extensive ancient literature that deals with Baby- "Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of lon. Such literature was written both by what we earth's abominations";this image from the biblical might call insiders, Babylonians to whom the city Book of Revelation (ch. 17) dominated Western was the norm, and outsiders, forced or voluntary thought on Babylon for centuries. The city was the visitors who looked upon it as something new and trope of evil and decadence; it was the place of sin, strange (fig. 1). which had fallen under the vengeful hand of God. HOW TO READ BABYLON? It was the place of exile, the antithesis of Jerusalem or of Christian Rome, the place where apostate That a city can be the subject of a semiotic analy- popes resided.1 Not only was the behavior of its in- sis has become a familiar idea since Roland Bar- habitants ungodly, but the city itself, with its tower thes called for it in a lecture in 1967, later pub- threatening heaven, was also an indication of arro- lished as "Semiology and Urbanism,"3and Umber- gance. Such an image flourished within a discourse to Eco devoted an entire section of his introduc- that built fantasyupon fantasy,in the absence of any tion to semiotics to architecture.4A semiotic read- concrete knowledge of what the city really looked ing of Babylon is certainly very different from what like. But when the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft Barthes called for when he urged us to look at the started to unearth Babylon's massive remains at the cities we inhabit. Despite the intricate models built turn of the 19th century, and hauled off parts of it of parts of the city or the restorations of buildings to a newly built museum in Berlin, a new view be- on the site itself (fig. 2), we cannot walk through gan to emerge. Pieter Breugel's fanciful Tower of Babylon's streets, we cannot see the details of build- Babel gave way to the majestic dark-blue Ishtar gate ings or the effects of nature and man on its monu- with its bulls and dragons as the image of the city. ments. Even compared to other cities that have dis- Another biblical verse became Babylon's epigram, appeared or changed fundamentally over time, our from the mouth of King Nebuchadnezzar: "Is not access to Babylon remains very limited. Augustan this Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power Rome, for example, can be visualized much better: as a royal residence and for the glory of my majes- we know the city plan in detail and some of its build- ty?" (Daniel 4:30). Its enormous size, its massive ings and monuments are still standing.5 For the walls, palaces, and temples, made it an icon of royal Babylon I will discuss, the visual evidence is much power.2 poorer. Often only a ground plan exists, if that 1 *Apreliminary version of this articlewas delivered to the For Babylonin Middle Easternand Europeantraditions, CanadianSociety for MesopotamianStudies at the University see Rollinger 1999. For the reception of Babylonand Babylo- of Toronto, at the invitationof Grant Frame.Jeremy Black nian culturein Europeanliterature, see Haas 1999. 2 providedme with some of his personalphotographs taken at For the idea that all Mesopotamiancities express the pow- the site of Babylon,one of which is reproduced here. After er of the king in their layout,see Novak 1999. readingan earlierversion of the article,Zainab Bahrani urged The essaywas translated into Englishand reprintedsever- me to push the analysisfurther than I had done. Seth Richard- al times;see, e.g., Barthes 1988. 4 son's insightfulediting of the manuscriptclarified the argu- Eco 1972,259-317. ment, and MaraHorowitz produced the map and plans. I am 5Favro1996. verygrateful to these people for their interest and advice. 257 AmericanJournal of Archaeology107 (2003) 257-75 This content downloaded from 128.148.252.35 on Fri, 16 Jan 2015 12:01:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 258 MARC VAN DE MIEROOP [AJA107 much. While archaeological plans of the city are published with various levels of detail, a closer look at them will show a set of lines with many empty spaces in between. Very little of the city's enor- mous surface of close to 900 ha has been excavat- ed. We may know the location and plan of some major streets and buildings, but can only imagine what the layout of most neighborhoods was. We may think that we can reconstruct the facade of some temples, but we cannot envision their colors or ephemeral additions, officially sanctioned or not, of stalls, awnings, flagpoles, and the like. On the other hand, the distance from the hustle and bustle of daily life may be an asset. In a passage that has gained greater poignancy after recent events, Michel de Certeau takes the viewer up to the 107th floor of the World Trade Center in New York in the introduction to his essay "Walkingin the City,"where the walk is compared to a rhetori- Fig. 1. Map of Mesopotamia with the location of the sites cal act: "His altitude transforms him into a voyeur. mentioned in the article It places him at a distance. It changes an enchant- ing world into a text. It allows him to read it."6 texts.8 In typical Mesopotamian fashion these are Similarly, we look at Babylon from a distant and lists, the most important among them called "Tin- Olympian point of view. tir = Babylon," a five-tablet compendium mostly What is available to us of ancient Babylon falls made up of names and epithets of the city and its primarilyin the categories that make up the image temples. Tablet IV gives the names of 43 temples of a city: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and land- grouped according to their city-quarter,for instance, marks.7The access roads and streets form the paths four in the quarter called Ka-dingirra.The fifth tab- the visitors would take. The walls, of the entire city let lists the names of city-walls,waterways, and streets and of certain of its monumental buildings, and without giving their locations. It ends with a de- the riverbanks form the edges that create bound- scription of the location of the 10 city-quartersby aries. We can recognize neighborhoods (albeit not stating two landmarks in each of them, most often in detail), and we see crossroads and gates where city-gates. For example: the visitor had to decide how to proceed. The Baby- From the MarketGate to the GrandGate [is called] lon known to us is primarily one of landmarks, the Eridu; large monuments that draw the archaeologists' at- From the MarketGate to the Urash Gate is called tention- palaces, temples, and gates. They are ex- Shuanna; From the GrandGate to the IshtarGate is called Ka- ternal points of reference to the observer who of- ten cannot enter them. dingirra.9 We are fortunate having some ancient written This information allows us to put names on the testimonies on Babylon. These accounts fall into archaeological map of the inner city. two distinct categories, those written by Babylonians Individual religious buildings can be likewise and those written by outsiders. Because of the city's described: great emphasis is given to their dimen- special status in politics and religious life, the Baby- sions. There are, for instance, several tablets that lonians themselves devoted an extraordinary give measurements for the ziggurat of Babylon.10 amount of attention to Babylon compared to other The topographical texts are not the equivalent of cities.
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