There, people would come to visit the Southern Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting."īy the time Hussein saw the writing on the wall, and his regime was removed from power by coalition forces, untold damage had been done to the ruins of the Southern Palace.Īt the end of the processional street in ancient Babylon sat the Ishtar Gate, covered in the symbol of gods Marduk and Addad. When asked by Belshazzar to translate the mysterious writing on the wall in the Throne Hall of the Southern Palace, Daniel answered, "God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it. Mysterious signs also troubled Nebuchadnezzar's descendant Belshazzar. When Saddam Hussein became ruler of Iraq, he had dreams for Babylon as well - a dream to rebuild the ancient city as a monument to himself. In the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, was troubled by dreams, and sought wise men to interpret them for him. Part one focuses on the ruins of the ancient city, part two examines the surrounding community, and part three looks at Hussein's palace in Babylon.
Ruins of babylon series#
"I felt actually sad," he says, "because this is our thing - our history, our civilization, our everything, which we have to show to others, not we have to go to Berlin to see.CAMP BABYLON, Iraq - Editor's note: This is the first in a series of three articles on how the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein affected Babylon, Iraq.
Sultan Ali takes selfies outside the garish replica of Babylon's famed blue Ishtar Gate, and has been to see the original, rebuilt with its jewel-colored tiles in Berlin's Pergamon Museum.
Still, the tourists visiting Babylon say they're keen to see more of their country. Anti-government demonstrations in Nasiriyah have turned violent in recent months. We planned to open hotels because we think Nasiriyah will attract many tourists in the future." "Nasiriyah has a special position in Iraq," says Imad al-Atawi, who recently launched two hotels there. New hotels have opened in Nasiriyah, the closest city. Nearby, visitors can also see a reconstruction of the famed ziggurat in the ruins of the city of Ur, even older than Babylon. Tourism has been growing there gradually, as security has improved and hotels have opened. Several tours now run from Baghdad to the scenic marshlands of the south - which some scholars say may have been the biblical Garden of Eden - where sleek buffalo swim through grasses and people live on islands.
The year before, many stayed away for fear of being caught up in violence at demonstrations in nearby cities.īut some local investors believe in the promise of domestic tourism in places like this that have long been under-visited. This winter - normally peak season because of the cool weather - the pandemic affected the numbers and about 10,000 came. The local tourist board says the best recent year for Iraqi tourists was 2017, when more than 35,000 visited.
Since Babylon reopened in 2009, tourist numbers have fluctuated. Tourists picnic at a park on the banks of the Euphrates river close to the site of the ancient city of Babylon.