‘Richly illustrated with photographs and plans, and written with clarity and discernment, this work will delight scholars, students and laypersons alike’ – Library Journal

‘A model of how archaeology should be presented...an admirable summary of available knowledge’ – The Daily Telegraph

‘Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth’: it is not easy for us to efface the lurid vision of Babylon conjured up by the author of the ‘Book of Revelations’. But what is the true story of this ancient city, renowned for its Hanging Gardens – one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – and notorious for the Jewish exile?

In this highly acclaimed account, Joan Oates describes the rise of Babylon from Sargon of Agade to Hammurapi, the great law-giver under whom in the 18th century BC the city first attained pre-eminence. She charts its progress under his successors, its greatest period of empire during the reigns of Nebuchadrezzar and Nabonidus in the 6th century BC, and its decay and final abandonment as Persians and Greeks turned Mesopotamia into a battleground. In a new preface, Dr Oates reflects on the calamity visited upon the ancient ruins of Babylon by recent military activity.

Joan Oates is Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. She was formerly Lecturer in the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in the University of Cambridge.

Also of interest
The Hittites and their Contemporaries in Asia Minor
Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History
The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World and how they were built