Babylon Exhibit British Museum

[Lucretius III]

Following the Hadrian Exhibit the British Museum is covering the history of Babylon in a new exhibit

Babylon Myth and Reality (http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/future_exhibitions/babylon.aspx)

I have read one review already that has some minor criticisms of it but still may be interesting for anyone visiting London this Winter /next Spring

Review (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/11/11/bababylon111.xml)

[FreezBee]

Review (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/11/11/bababylon111.xml)

From the review:

Unlike the Hanging Gardens, though, the Tower of Babel certainly did exist, though it was called the Etemenanki ziggurat, and it was destroyed not by God as punishment for the hubris of the builders but by local people in search of free bricks to use as building materials. Dedicated to Marduk, the real tower was formed by stacking seven square structures of diminishing size one above the other with a small temple on top.

Just for the sake of completeness, the construction of Etemenanki (the Foundation of heaven (an) and earth (ki)) was begun by Nabopolassar, the father and immediate predecessor of Nebuchadnezzar. However, it was partly destroyed during a flooding of the Tigris, and then restored by Nebuchadnezzar. So the biblical story may have been inspired by that destruction.


- FreezBee

[Oolon Colluphid]

"Babylon 5's a big pile of shit!"

[Ray Moscow]

I might try to see this on Saturday, Dec. 6. Anyone else up for it?

(I mean, whoever is local or will be in London that weekend.)

One will need to book tickets at least 24 hours in advance from their website.

[Ray Moscow]

My wife and I went to the Babylon exhibit yesterday since we had some free time and were in London anyway.

Tickets were available the same day -- with about 2 hours delay (which gave us time to have lunch).

The exhibit itself was interesting: but it was a bit light on history, focusing instead mostly on the Babylon meme in literature (particularly the Bible and later stuff based on that) vs. the actual history of the place from that brief period of contact between Babylon and Israel/Judea.

I wish it had more "meat" of Babylonian history, but there is of course quite a bit of this in other exhibits in the museum (though one needs books or guides to figure out most of it).

So, I recommend going if it's convenient, but don't go too far out of your way for it.

[Lugubert]

My wife and I went to the Babylon exhibit yesterday since we had some free time and were in London anyway.

Tickets were available the same day -- with about 2 hours delay (which gave us time to have lunch).

The exhibit itself was interesting: but it was a bit light on history, focusing instead mostly on the Babylon meme in literature (particularly the Bible and later stuff based on that) vs. the actual history of the place from that brief period of contact between Babylon and Israel/Judea.

I wish it had more "meat" of Babylonian history, but there is of course quite a bit of this in other exhibits in the museum (though one needs books or guides to figure out most of it).

So, I recommend going if it's convenient, but don't go too far out of your way for it.
There were similar ticket timing warnings for the Terracotta Warrior thing during the last London meetup. The queues didn't look terribly discouraging, but I had already scheduled the Real Thing for later this year.

After seeing pictures everywhere of the warriors, the most interesting part of the Xi'an museum to me was rather the parts that weren't yet fully excavated. It's amazing how archaeologists find such treasures below what means nothing to us commons.

I'll Google the exhibit period. I hope it will cover the proposed spring London meetup.

[Ray Moscow]

I enjoyed the Darwin exhibit at the Natural History Museum a lot more than the Babylon exhibit, but the latter had its very interesting points, too.