Sifting reality from myth

12-4-08
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2008/1204/1228311867018.html

For many, Babylon represents excess, greed and sexual licence, but its rich culture gave us the first numbers, law-making and astronomy, writes Mary Russell .

Outside the tall, ornate gates of the British Museum, tourists check their maps, taxis hoot, traffic lights change from red to green. Normality is here. But walk inside to the current exhibition, Babylon: Myth and Reality , and feel your blood chill as you step into the room dedicated to Belshazzar's Feast.

Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon, has invited 1,000 guests to a banquet which is shared with his wives and concubines. In the huge oil painting by Rembrandt we see them drink from gold goblets looted from the temple in Jerusalem by Belshazzar's father, Nebuchadnezzar. Suddenly, a human hand appears and we see it: the writing on the wall, there in front of us, the characters Hebrew, the language Aramaic.

"God has numbered the days of your reign," they say, "and brought it to an end." And with that, Babylon falls.

The Babylon myth in the Book of Genesis says that about 3,000 years ago a distant people started to build a tower that they planned would reach the heavens. Babel, it was called - the gate ("bab") of the god El or Bel, a deity related to our own Bealtaine, which itself means the fires of Bel. Bel also went under the name of Marduk, the god, perhaps not surprisingly, of accounting.

Babylon: did it exist, or was it a mythical place like Atlantis? In the exhibition we see the Mappa Mundi , and there it is - Babylon, straddling the Euphrates. The map, excavated in the 19th century, is made of clay and dates back to the sixth century BC.