2010 Shanghai World Expo

Ancient Babylon city present at Expo

Saddam’s Presidential Palace and ruins of ancient Babylon

The Shanghai World Expo with the theme “Better City, Better Life”, not only displays advanced ideas for urban life, but some old ideas as well, including some from mankind’s oldest city Babylon. The ancient urban center, which had its heyday about 4,000 years ago, is also exhibited at the Babylon’s city gate serves as the entrance of the City Origin hall of the Urban Footprints Pavilion. 

Visitors stand in awe of the ancient Babylon city in miniature. The city thrived during king Hammurabi’s rule in 18th century BC, and Nebuchadnezzar the second’s reign around 6th century BC. 

King Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace in ancient Babylon

Wei Shaonong, Chairman, Design Dept., East China Normal University, said, “Babylon is famous for its hanging garden, one of the seven wonders of the world, and the legendary Tower of Babel described in the Bible.” 

Ishtar Gate, the biggest of Babylon’s eight gates, is displayed here with models and real relics.

Original Walls of Babylon, 604 to 562 B.C.

These glazed ceramics are the genuine pieces decorating Ishtar Gate. The divine animals, molded some three thousand years ago, are still in good condition. This figure, with a snake’s head, goat’s horn and eagle’s claw represents such an early combination of such animals that it even surprised the experts.

Wei Shaonong said, “Combining features from different animals to create a godly creature, making it boast all the energy the animals have, this showcases the wild imagination of Babylon citizens.” 

Dozens of relics are exhibited to inform visitors of ancient Babylonian culture, from their ancient epigraphs, to an engraved stone indicating ownership of land.

Plan of the ancient city of Babylon

Plan of the ancient city of Babylon, 500 B.C.

Babylon, was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains of the original ancient famed city of Babylon today is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigrils and Euphrats rivers, in Iraq. Although it has been reconstructed, historical resources inform us that Babylon was at first a small town, that had sprung up by the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. The town flourished and attained prominence and political repute with the rise of the First Babylonian Dynasty. It was the holy city of Babylonia by approximately 2300 BC, and the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 612 to 539 BC. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 

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Posted in Expo Overview | 2010/06/08

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