Babylon Ruins Included In UNESCO World Heritage List - Statement

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th July, 2019) The ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, located in Iraq, were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, the organization said on Friday in a statement.

Babylon was included in the list along with four other sites: ancient ferrous metallurgy sites of Burkina Faso, Paratyand Ilha Grande cultural landscape in Brazil, Vatnajokull National Park in Iceland and French Austral Lands and Seas.

"Situated 85 km [some 53 miles] south of Baghdad, the property includes the ruins of the city which, between 626 and 539 BCE, was the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It includes villages and agricultural areas surrounding the ancient city. Its remains, outer and inner-city walls, gates, palaces and temples, are a unique testimony to one of the most influential empires of the ancient world. Seat of successive empires, under rulers such as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon represents the expression of the creativity of the Neo-Babylonian Empire at its height," the statement said.

Babylon is associated with two out of seven wonders of the world mentioned by Antipater of Sidon: the Hanging Gardens and the walls of Babylon. The latter were, however, later replaced in the list with the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered in 593BC by Persian King Cyrus the Great after the Battle of Opis. The city lost its importance of the capital of a big empire until its conquest by Macedonian King Alexander the Great in 331BC, after which Babylon became a key economic center of the young Macedonian Empire. Babylon was also a site of Alexander the Great's death in 323BC. After the dissolution of the Macedonian Empire the city started to decline up to full desolation.

The ruins of Babylon were significantly damaged during the 2003 US invasion in Iraq as the allied troops deployed a military base with a helipad exactly to the ruins of the city.