Babylon — Babylon
Babylon Safa.daneshvar, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 4.0

Site · Iraq

Babylon

1900 BCE–100 CE

Babylon is the city on the Euphrates south of Baghdad that was Hammurabi's capital around 1750 BCE and Nebuchadnezzar's imperial city in the sixth century BCE, with the Hanging Gardens legend and the Tower of Babel. Later Saddam-era reconstructions overlie the ruins.

CountryIraq
State / provinceBabil
Dates1900 BCE–100 CE
StatusArchaeological site and UNESCO World Heritage Site
Managed byIraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage
AccessOpen to visitors with reconstructed walls; the Ishtar Gate is in Berlin
Coordinates32.542, 44.421 (public site)

What was found

Koldewey's excavations recovered the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way glazed bricks, the Etemenanki ziggurat foundations, Nebuchadnezzar's palace, the lion of Babylon and tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets. The site was damaged by a military base in 2003.

Rules

Nothing may be collected, dug, moved or removed at Babylon; it is a protected archaeological site managed by Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, and taking artifacts, stones or samples is an offence. Iraqi law vests all antiquities in the state and US and international sanctions prohibit trade in Iraqi archaeological material. This article is for study and context only and is not a collecting locality.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Strata. "Babylon" (Site). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/sites/babylon. Accessed 2026-09-21.

@misc{stratum-babylon,
  title        = {Babylon},
  author       = {{Stratum Strata}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/sites/babylon}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Site article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

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Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);Wikidata (CC0);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-21; Strata pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

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