Babylonia
Topic: Bronze Age Civilisations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Writing and City Life"
Meaning
Babylonia is the name for southern Mesopotamia after 2000 BCE, when the city of Babylon became powerful. Before that, the region was called Sumer and Akkad. Babylonia was known as the home of high culture, scribal schools, mathematics and astronomy. Even Assyrian kings, who ruled from the north, accepted it as the centre of learning.
Example
Hammurabi (1792 BCE) turned Babylon from a city-state into an empire and issued his famous law code. Much later, Nabopolassar freed Babylonia from Assyrian rule in 625 BCE. Babylon then stayed the world's leading city until the Achaemenid conquest (539 BCE) and Alexander (331 BCE).
Don't confuse with
- Babylon: the city itself, which covered over 850 hectares and had a triple wall. Babylonia is the wider region named after it.
- Assyria: the kingdom in the north, centred on Assur and later Nineveh. It was a rival of Babylonia and at times its ruler.
Related concepts
- Mesopotamian civilisation
- Fertile Crescent
- Sumerian civilisation
- Sumerian language
- Akkadian language
- Aramaic