The Rise and Fall of Babylon | The Life & Times of Hammurabi

We're going way back for this one, before Classical History, before the Iron Age, all the way back to the Bronze Age! Talkin' about the First Babylonian Empire, and how Hammurabi made it the greatest empire Mesopotamia had ever seen, and then how it immediately fell apart under the considerably less famous Samsu-Iluna. Oh yeah, and Hammurabi had a code or something too, I think it might be important to legal history or something, I dunno. Cheers to the 10 other channels who've taken part in this big ol' collaboration, make sure to check them out! Footnotes: 0:00 Those buildings with crenelations in the back are actually from the Nebuchadnezzar-era Neo-Babylonian Empire, more than a thousand years after Hammurabi. You'd not believe how many of the image results for Babylon give you things from this time period – the hanging gardens, gate of Ishtar, the works. Turns out the ruins of Hammurabi-era Babylon are a lot less in tact. 00:23 So scarce, in fact, that this is not an example of one. This is a 2nd century BC “cookbook”. For more info and a recipe for delightful gingerbread cuneiform tablets, refer to this link: https://tavolamediterranea.com/2017/1... 00:30 1792 BC according to Middle Chronology, but when you start talking about events that old they become tricky to nail down. Different chronologies have put the beginning of Hammurabi's reign between 1933 and 1696 BC. 00:58 That weird dotted line blue area is approximately the extent of the Red Sea during the Bronze Age. 1:35 This is a 100% accurate depiction of Alexander the Great and no one can convince me otherwise 1:42 The background here is an artist's rendition of the royal palace of Mari, one of the most distant cities in Hammurabi's empire. It was built a few centuries before Hammurabi, but was updated and renovated until around his lifetime. 1:46 Incidentally, their suzerain's king was also named Hammurabi. Go figure. 1:52 This calendar is based on the Babylonian calendar, but was from the Neo-Assyrian empire, hundreds of years after Hammurabi. 2:07 Source: https://archive.org/details/ancientti... 3:17 It's an old meme and I'm using it wrong, for double cringe! 4:06 Wikipedia says pitchforks were first used in Europe in the Middle Ages, but there's no citation. Somewhere else mentioned there was a work for pitchforks in ancient Rome, so who knows when they actually started to be a thing. 4:15 A few of the kings of this dynasty may have briefly controlled Babylon a couple generations after the showdown between Samsu-Iluna and Ilum-Ma Ili 4:28 The Elamites may have gotten away with that statue of Ishtar/Inanna, but Ashurbanipal would steal it back from them over a millennium later 4:38 These two pictures are of Eridu (which by the way is really honking old), but again, 1700's BC Babylon gets overshadowed by the Neo-Babylonian empire. 4:42 This ziggurat was built near Baghdad a few centuries after Hammurabi 4:45 And yet, for all the depictions of 7th century BC Babylon, there are very few good portraits of Nebuchadnezzar. Go figure. Music: 0:00 Ancient Mesopotamian Music - Babylon by Derek & Brandon Feitcher 0:11 No clue, go ask Stefan Milo 0:21 Ancient Arabic Music - Petra by Derek & Brandon Feitcher (yeah, yeah, I know, but nothing Babylonian had the right feel to it) 4:38 The National Anthem of Sealand by Toby Smith 4:41 Ancient Arabic Music - Petra by Derek & Brandon Feitcher 5:08 Whispers from the Tower by Melechesh