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Is Babylon inhabited today?

Is Babylon inhabited today? No, but the site was once again open to tourists in 2009. However, after years of destruction, there is not much left of the historical ruins today. You can see the rebuilt ruins from Saddam Hussein's area.



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If you look at a picture of Babylon today, it is abandoned and in ruin, no one lives there, but why? Babylon has been inhabited for centuries, was one of the first megalopolises, and is even mentioned in the Bible. The city itself has been the capital of two major empires and stayed a major city in other empires.

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After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, Sassanid, and Muslim empires. The last known habitation of the town dates from the 10th century AD, when it was referred to as the small village of Babel.

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After Alexander's death, however, the extent to which the empire was fought over saw the city's inhabitants flee, and Babylon steadily fell into ruin. In the 1980s, Babylon was extensively reconstructed by the Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, so there is little of the original city that is still visible.

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It was aerial photography, however, that provided the first real clues as to the location of the tower. The photographs show the tower's square-shaped outline in the center of the city. Today, nothing remains but a watering hole.

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But today, with renewed internal and foreign tourism and funding from the US embassy and other international donors, Babylon is coming back to life.

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The ruins of Babylon are located 88km south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Our tours to Iraq begin in either Baghdad or Najaf, both of which have well connected airports. Access to Babylon was reopened to tourists in 2009 but so far few foreign tourists have made the journey.

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Babylon was the capital of the Babylonian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. It was a sprawling, heavily-populated city with enormous walls and multiple palaces and temples. Famous structures and artifacts include the temple of Marduk, the Ishtar Gate, and stelae upon which Hammurabi's Code was written.

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