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Eastern Outer Wall of Babylon

a Pleiades place resource

Creators: Jamie Novotny Copyright © The Contributors. Sharing and remixing permitted under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (cc-by).
Last modified Jan 28, 2021 04:03 PM History
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The Neo-Babylonian ruler Nabopolassar (r. 625–605 BC) started planning and constructing an outer wall around the eastern side of Babylon. This massive mudbrick brick wall, together with its protective quay wall and a wide moat, remained unfinished at the time of Nabopolassar’s death. His son and successor Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 BC) finished the work started by his father. Traces of Babylon’s once-impressive eastern outer wall are still visible today.

https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/722340789

32.5503793105, 44.4387476097

wall (of a city), city wall

Pleiades

Work on this wall began in the time of Nabopolassar (r. 625–605 BC) and completed during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 BC). Several Akkadian inscriptions of the latter Babylonian king record the construction of this 4,000–cubit-long wall (ca. 7,250 m) that protected the eastern half of Babylon. For example, see RIBo Babylon 7 Nebuchadnezzar II 002 and Nebuchadnezzar II 021. According to a text that might have been drawn up as an aide-memoire for Nebuchadnezzar, the Eastern Outer Wall had 120 towers and 5 entrances (Šūhi Canal Gate, Madānu Canal Gate, Giššu Gate, Sun of the Gods Gate, and Seashore Gate). 

Only a small section of this wall has been excavated or documented). It consisted of a 7.0-meter-wide unbaked mudbrick wall, a 7.8-meter-wide baked-brick quay wall, a 3.3-meter-wide quay, and a wide moat. It has been estimated that the Eastern Outer Wall, together with its quay wall, was built from 96,600,000 mudbricks and 117,700,000 baked bricks.


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Jamie Novotny, 'Eastern Outer Wall of Babylon: a Pleiades place resource', Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places, 2021 <https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/722340789> [accessed: 29 March 2024]

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