Babylon: More on Myth and Reality

Talk by Heather Baker (Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History, University of Toronto).

In the case of ancient Babylon, it is notoriously difficult to separate myth from reality, as reflected in the title of a major exhibition held in 2008 in Berlin, Paris, and London. For a scholar of ancient Mesopotamia, it can be frustrating to witness how later myths about Babylon continue to dominate popular narratives about the city and are prioritized over contemporary cuneiform and archaeological evidence. This talk addresses the challenges of integrating multiple different strands of evidence to create a picture of Babylon in the first millennium BC that does justice to the contemporary sources.

Everyone is welcome and there is no need for registration.