Rape of Babylon

For three long years, U.S. troops have wrecked what little remained of the ancient city of Babylon.

They've built roads over the 5,000-year-old walls, poured a concrete helicopter landing pad over an archaeological site, filled sandbags with "soil rich with precious artifacts" and dug trenches through temples.

At least those sins were done for military reasons. There's no such excuse for the graffiti left by American Marines ("Cruz chillen' in Saddam's spot") or the thousands of precious objects the troops sifted from the sand to take home as souvenirs. Looted cuneiform tablets from Babylonian museums have already shown up on eBay.

This week, the former chief of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq offered the lamest of apologies to Dr. Donny George, Iraq's chief of antiquities. "If it makes him feel good, we can certainly give him one," Coleman told the BBC.

If such a snide apology made Dr. George feel any better, he hasn't mentioned it -- three years of organized looting, pointless destruction and American indifference has not made his job especially easy.

"One day millions of people will visit Babylon," Dr. George told the New York Times this week. "I'm just not sure anybody knows when."

The ham-fisted actions of the occupation forces were never even necessary, because the site of Babylon has been one of the quietest in all of Iraq since the 2003 invasion. The ruins are just outside of Hilla, a mixed city of Shiites and Sunnis who aren't at each other's throats. Here, factories kept operating and schools kept teaching kids.

The U.S. military has finally acknowledged its presence in Hilla and Babylon is neither needed nor wanted. The roughly-treated Babylonian ruins have reportedly been handed over to local security forces.

Now Dr. George and his team of archaeologists are faced with an impossible clean-up job.
"How are we supposed to get rid of the helipad now?" he asked. "With jackhammers? Can you imagine taking a jackhammer to the remains of one of the most important cities in the history of mankind? I mean, come on, this is Babylon."

Bad to Worse
As they have throughout the invasion and occupation, U.S. commanders have brushed off criticism. No matter what kind of extensive damage they did, they can always claim it would've been worse under Saddam Hussein or even more chaotic had the ancient sites not been converted to base camps.

There is no doubt Saddam was bad news for the ancient ruins of Babylon. While he employed expert antiquities teams (including Dr. George) and protected Iraq's most precious treasures in the National Museum, archaeology was ultimately just another part of his propaganda.
Saddam wanted to be seen as the modern version of Nebuchadrezzar the Great, who ruled in the 6th Century B.C.E.

Nebuchadnezzar is famous for bringing Babylon back to power and prosperity after a century of foreign rule by the Assyrian Empire. Saddam especially liked Nebuchadnezzar's brutal treatment of the Jews -- his troops destroyed their temple at Jerusalem and enslaved the tribes. The great king is also known for building the Ishtar Gate and the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

To make the connection clear, Saddam had a terrible B-movie version of a 6th Century temple built atop the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's old temple. Just as the ancient temple's bricks bore the old king's name, the new bricks said, "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq."

Next, Saddam had a tacky copy of a Sumerian ziggurat built on the mud-brick ruins of the city. But at least he paid for the preservation and restoration of other treasures such as the Processional Way boulevard and the 2,500-year-old Lion of Babylon statue.
Biggest City in the World

During at least two eras -- 1770 to 1670 B.C.E., and 612 to 320 B.C.E. -- Babylon was the world's biggest city with more than 200,000 residents.

It was here that the first known set of laws were written, the famous Code of Hammurabi way back in the 18th Century B.C.E.

In Babylon of the 4th Century B.C.E., Alexander the Great rested from his remarkable campaign to put the Middle East under Greek control. He never left Babylon, because that's where he died under suspicious circumstances.

And while the Jewish and Christian bibles use Babylon as a codeword for evil, it was in Babylon that the Jews created their religion. Today's version of the Torah was written here, along with the famous prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel.

Then the beloved Iranian king Cyrus the Great took over Babylon, merging Persian religion with the Hebrew and Sumerian mythologies. Cyrus freed the Hebrews -- the few who were willing to leave their pleasant lives in Babylon, at least -- and had their temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, and in return no foreign king is as praised in the Old Testament as the Iranian leader. Isaiah called Cyrus "YHWH's anointed."

(The religion and culture of Iraq and Iran rewrote the Jewish religion to such an extent that when the exiled Hebrews returned home to what is now Israel, the pure form of Judaism was utterly alien to them. These local Jews, known as the Samaritans, were prohibited from taking part in the new Babylonian-Persian Jewish religion.)

Not long after Alexander's death, his empire was in tiny pieces and Babylon was all but abandoned. By 275 B.C.E., it was a ghost town.

One day, Dr. Donny George and his supporters at UNESCO and the world's archeological museums hope to see Babylon thrive again as a cultural tourist trap.

The mayor of neighboring Hilla wants the same thing. Just like the prophets of Old Testament times, he has a vision: restaurants, gift shops, huge parking lots filled with tour buses and maybe even a Holiday Inn.