Palaces of Babylon

In its summation of the topography of Babylon, Tablet V of the scholarly compendium Tintir = Babylon lists many of the most important buildings of the ten city quarters of the inner city of Babylon. The city's royal residences, however, are not among them. The king's principal residence(s), at least in the Neo-Babylonian Period (625–539 BC), are known from royal inscriptions (written in the Akkadian language) and from their remains unearthed during Robert Koldewey's excavations (1899–1917) and later Iraqi explorations (especially around 1980) of the ruin mounds called the Qasr ("palace") and Babil. During the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 BC), there were at least three palaces in Babylon. According to their modern designations, these were:

The South Palace, which was the principal residence and administrative center of Babylon's kings, was located in the Ka-dingirra district, in the very northwest corner of the inner city of east Babylon. The North Palace, however, was constructed just outside the city inner walls Imgur-Enlil and Nēmetti-Enlil, immediately north of the South Palace. The Summer Palace, unlike the two aforementioned royal residences, was located far from the inner city and was situated in the northernmost spur of the outer city; its ruins were under the mound known as Babil, the highest ruin mound in modern Babylon. That palace, which went by the Akkadian name Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur-libluṭ-lulabbir-zānin-Esagil ("May Nebuchadnezzar (II) Stay in Good Health (and) Grow Old as the Provider of Esagil"), was built as "a replica of the palace inside Ka-dingirra."

Nabonidus (r. 555–539 BC), the last native king of Babylon, might have also sponsored construction on a royal residence that was located in West Babylon, near the Šamaš Gate in the Tuba district. Given the fragmentary state of preservation of the inscription in question, it is not known whether or not the palace mentioned in that text was actually in Babylon, and not in some other Babylonian city (for example, Borsippa, Dilbat, Sippar, or Uruk).

Click on the links in the main menu to the left to access information about Babylon's palaces.

Banner image: modern reconstructions of the South Palace (left) and North Palace (right) with a satellite image of their (reconstructed) remains. Adapted from O. Pedersén, Babylon: The Great City, figs. 3.5 and 3.23.

Jamie Novotny

Jamie Novotny, 'Palaces of Babylon', Babylonian Temples and Monumental Architecture online (BTMAo), The BTMAo Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, [http://oracc.org/btmao/Babylon/Palaces/]

BTMAo 2019-. BTMAo is based at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Historisches Seminar (LMU Munich, History Department) - Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East. BTMAo is part of the four-year project Living Among Ruins: The Experience of Urban Abandonment in Babylonia (September 2019 to October 2023), which is funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung as part of the program "Lost Cities. Wahrnehmung von und Leben mit verlassenen Städten in den Kulturen der Welt," coordinated by Martin Zimmermann and Andreas Beyer. Content released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/] license, 2007-.
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