 Clockwise from top left: A mid-14th century BCE letter from King Burnaburiash II of Babylon to the Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaton protesting against the alleged ill-treatment of Babylonian merchants, found at El-Amarna in Egypt (Berlin: Vorderasiatisches Museum); Page from a 16th-century copy of the Arab historian Al-Biruni's (b. 973) book al-Athar al-baqiya 'an al-qurun al-khaliya (Vestiges and Traces of the Past), showing Bukht-Nassar, the Arabic name of the ancient Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar, ordering the destruction of Jerusalem (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France); Early 6th-century BCE glazed brick relief excavated at Babylon by Robert Koldewey (Paris: Musée du Louvre) Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate, 6th-century BCE (Berlin: Museum of the Ancient Near East) The building of the Tower of Babel, as imagined by 16th-century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum) parent page (10 - 16 April 2008, issue #892) |