Two empires, long gaps
The title can mislead, because there was never a single Babylonian empire that rose once and fell once. Babylon led a large kingdom under Hammurabi’s dynasty, was a notable but smaller state for centuries, was sometimes ruled by outsiders, and then led the Neo-Babylonian empire for under ninety years. This article gives the sequence with dates. Those from Hammurabi’s time are uncertain, so the next section explains how to read them.
How the dates are fixed
For the later periods, from the 8th century BCE, dating is fairly secure. Babylonian Chronicles, king lists and tablets dated by regnal year can be cross-checked with the Canon of Kings preserved by the astronomer Ptolemy, and with astronomical events such as eclipses recorded in tablets. A reported eclipse can often be matched to a particular day by calculation.
For the second millennium BCE, the problem is harder. Historians use a “middle chronology”, whose dates are quoted below. It places Hammurabi at about 1792 to 1750 BCE. Alternative “long”, “short” and “ultra-low” chronologies move him by several decades or more, depending on how they read the Venus observations in a tablet from a later king’s reign and on how long the obscure period after the dynasty lasted. Evidence from radiocarbon dating and tree-ring dating helps in some regions but has not settled the matter for Babylon. Treat early dates as approximate.
The sequence
| Date (BCE) | Event |
|---|---|
| c. 2004 | Ur, the last great Sumerian capital, falls; Amorite-ruled states emerge |
| c. 1894 | Sumu-abum begins the First Dynasty of Babylon |
| c. 1792 to 1750 | Reign of Hammurabi, the sixth king |
| c. 1763 | Hammurabi defeats Rim-Sin of Larsa |
| c. 1761 | Hammurabi takes Mari |
| c. 1595 | A Hittite raid ends the First Dynasty under Samsu-ditana |
| c. 1595 to 1155 | Kassite dynasty rules Babylonia |
| c. 1155 | Elamite attack ends the Kassite dynasty |
| c. 1125 to 1104 | Nebuchadnezzar I of the Second Dynasty of Isin |
| 729 | Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria takes the Babylonian throne |
| 689 | Sennacherib of Assyria destroys Babylon |
| 626 | Nabopolassar becomes king of Babylon |
| 612 | Nineveh falls |
| 605 | Battle of Carchemish; Nebuchadnezzar II becomes king |
| 597 | Babylonians take Jerusalem the first time |
| 586 | Jerusalem destroyed (some scholars prefer 587) |
| 562 | Nebuchadnezzar II dies |
| 556 to 539 | Reign of Nabonidus |
| 539 | Cyrus of Persia takes Babylon |
Old Babylonian period
Amorite chiefs took power in Babylon after the collapse of Ur’s empire. The First Dynasty had eleven kings and lasted a little under three centuries. Hammurabi inherited a modest state and, in the later decades of his reign, conquered its main rivals in the south and on the middle Euphrates. His successors, led by his son Samsu-iluna, faced revolts in the south, and the kingdom shrank to central Babylonia. The dynasty ended when the Hittite king Mursili I raided down the Euphrates and sacked Babylon, then went home, where he was soon assassinated. The date, about 1595 BCE in the middle chronology, is widely used as the end of the Old Babylonian period.
Kassites and the “dark” centuries
The Kassites, a people with their own language who came to rule Babylonia, held the throne for about four and a half centuries. This was the longest stable dynasty in Babylonian history. They founded a new royal town, Dur-Kurigalzu, corresponded with Egypt and Hittite rulers as equals, and kept Babylonian culture alive. The period ended around 1155 BCE, when the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte raided Babylonia and carried monuments and, according to later tradition, the statue of Marduk back to the city of Susa. Nebuchadnezzar I, a king of the next ruling house, is remembered for recovering the statue.
The following centuries are often described as dark or unsettled. Aramean and Chaldean groups spread into the south, and the Assyrian Empire became the dominant regional power. Babylon was by turns ruled by native kings, supported by Assyrian kings, or governed by them directly. Sennacherib’s destruction of the city in 689 BCE was a shock; his son Esarhaddon began rebuilding it.
The Neo-Babylonian empire
In 626 BCE Nabopolassar, a Chaldean leader, became king and began a war of independence from Assyria. By 612 BCE he and his allies had captured Nineveh. His son Nebuchadnezzar II, who ruled from 605 to 562 BCE, extended Babylonian control to Syria and the Levant, and he rebuilt Babylon on a great scale. Three short reigns followed in the six years after his death, a period of unrest, and Nabonidus took the throne in 556 BCE.
The end of independence
Cyrus the Great took Babylon in October 539 BCE. The city kept its importance under Persian rule, but there was no Babylonian king after Nabonidus, apart from short-lived rebels in 522 to 521 BCE. Later milestones include Alexander’s arrival in 331 BCE and the founding of the new capital of Seleucia around 305 BCE. Cuneiform tablets continued to be written in Babylon until the first century CE.