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Babylon
Babylon is the most famous city of ancient Mesopotamia, and its ruins are in modern-day Iraq. Its extensive ruins lie on the Euphrates River about 55 miles (88 km) south of Baghdad, near the modern town of Al-Ḥillah, Iraq. The city’s original name is thought to derive from the words bav-il or bav-ilim in the Akkadian language of the time, and they mean ‘Gate of the Gods’. The name ‘Babylon’ comes from Greek.
It was nominated the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) twice in Mesopotamian history. First from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BCE then as the capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE., when it was at the height of its splendour.
Babylon was founded sometime before the reign of Sargon of Akkad (Sargon the Great), who ruled from 2334-2279 BCE., as a minor city on the Euphrates River at the point where it runs closest to the river Tigris. The archaeologists have found evidence of its founding where Sargon claimed to have built temples in Babylon. The famous king, Hammurabi (r.1792-1750 BCE), transformed the city into one of the most powerful and influential in Mesopotamia.
Babylon was a splendid city in the heart of Mesopotamia, and it was both desired and despised in antiquity, placing it at the centre stage of the dawn of history. Many towns fell and disappeared, but Babylon was resilient. The city rose from its ashes repeatedly, even as new conquerors invaded and took over.
The city of Babylon
Babylon - Ishtar Gate
Babylon - detail
Glazed bricks on the palace walls
Banefre
Banefre was the high priest of Sekhmet in Thebes during Amenhotep III. His was a popular name in ancient Egypt, meaning "the king’s son".
As the high priest of Egypt, it was Pharaoh’s duty to choose the gods’ high priests. Like in any other part of ancient Egyptian society, there was also a hierarchy in the priesthood.
There were high priests (priestesses) - as the first servants of the god -, priests - performing daily rituals - and so-called ‘wab’ (helping) priests, who were responsible for the mundane tasks of the temple. The high priests remained in position all their lives, but the others served one month out of four in the temples, then they returned to their work (mostly administrative) in the society. Every priest had to train to be allowed to work at the temples.
The Egyptians had a precise name for every task a priest conducted. One for keeping the calendars and interpretation of dreams (hour-priests), another for temple physicians (senew-priests), while others were responsible for magical practises (sau-priests) or taking care of the offerings for the deceased (ka-priests) or the lector-priests (heryheb-priests) copying and reciting the religious texts. It was a complicated but well-planned structure for the spiritual works from the Early Pre-dynastic times.
Statue of Sekhmet's High Priest and Standard-bearer of the Goddess Sekhmet Luxor Museum, Egypt
Bast / Bastet
Bastet statuette
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Bastet (Bast) was an ancient Egyptian goddess of domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility, and childbirth. She protected everyone’s home and family and brought good health and pleasure to the households.
Bastet was often depicted with the head of a cat and a slender female body. The people worshipped her in the form of a lioness and later a cat.
Bastet was the daughter of Ra, the sun god, the sister of Sekhmet, and Ptah’s wife and was associated with the concept of the Eye of Ra (the all-seeing eye).
Bronze Bastet statue - Saqqara
Late period - British Museum
The goddess offered the people protection and pleasure and was also the bringer of good health, but her attributes changed during ancient Egyptian times.
Bastet was very popular throughout Egypt from the Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2890 - c. 2670 BC) onward, and her cult centre was in Bubastis in the Nile River delta from at least the 5th century BC., but she also had an important cult at Men-Nefer (Memphis).
(See Men–Nefer)
Bastet is often depicted carrying an ancient percussion instrument, the sistrum, in her right hand, a breastplate (surmounted with the head of a lioness) in her left hand and a small bag over her left arm. She wears an elaborately ornamented dress.
The ancient Egyptians believed that Bastet rides in the sky with her father, Ra, every day, and she would protect him during the day. But at night, she turned into a cat and helped to protect Ra from his greatest enemy, the serpent Apep.
Bronze figure of Bastet from the Late Period. Trustees of the British Museum
Due to her protective nature, The people often called her the ‘Lady of the East’, ‘Goddess of the Rising Sun’, the ‘Sacred and All-Seeing Eye’ and the ‘Goddess of the Moon’. Both Bastet and her sister, Sekhmet, took their early forms as feline defenders of the innocent, avengers of the wronged.
Belottozar
Belottozar was a high priest in the temple of the goddess Nanshe in Babylon. Nanshe, the daughter of Sumerian deities Enki and Ninhursag, is a divine prophetess and an oracle. Her temple priests served as dream interpreters. Nanshe herself communicates via dreams. She is a goddess of personal and creative fertility who possesses the power to increase abundance. The Sumerian Hymn to Nanshe describes her as the benefactress of the cities she sponsors and the protectress of the weakest members of society. Accord ing to the Sumerian Hymn to Nanshe, no other divine powers match hers.
(See Babylon and Nanshe)
Ancient Babylonian bas relief showing priests performing divine rites
Ben-ben
One of the accounts of the creation myth in ancient Egypt is centered around the god Atum and originated in Heliopolis. According to this version, the universe was brought into being by Atum. As it says, there was nothing but the dark and infinite waters of chaos in the beginning. When the primordial hill, known as the Benben stone, arose from these dark waters, Atum manifested himself on top of it. Linguistic historians suggest that this word relates to the verb ‘weben’, the Egyptian hieroglyph for ‘to rise’.
The Benben stone is also an architectural term, as the name of the tip of an obelisk or the finishing stone placed on top of a pyramid. This stone is also known as a pyramidion (some of them survived, and we can find them in museums).
Pyramidion of the Pyramid of Amenemhet III. at Dahshur - Cairo Museum
Bengu
It is the name of Nanshaya’s male lion. He was a devoted animal companion of the young oracle. Bengu was a Barbary lion.
Barbary, or Atlas, lions once roamed in the deserts and mountains of northern Africa. They’re considered to be the largest lion subspecies, a unique population of North African lions with a weight of wild males ranging from 270 to 300 kg.
Sultan the Barbary Lion
Bronx Zoo 1897
Relief depicting Barbary lion, from the Precinct of Amun-Re at Karnak
The lions held an honoured status in ancient Egypt. The people saw them as the fiercest warriors in the wild, and they were the symbol of both danger and protection. Pharaohs were known to participate in lion hunts to demonstrate their supremacy.
In Roman times, the barbary lions were regularly captured by experienced hunters for spectacles in amphitheatres.
Due to the extensive hunting, the Barbary lions have been extinct in the wild since the mid-20th century. Today, only a few individuals survive in captivity, mostly in zoos, which descend from the wild barbary lions.
Besewy
Besewy was a priest in the temple of Amun in Men-Nefer.
Priests in ancient Egypt were focused on specific temple tasks and did not have any other work in the society.
The structure of the priesthood became larger as temples grew in size and rituals became more complex. As the priesthood grew, it became more divided by rank, and the roles of individual priests became more specialized.As temples became more and more powerful, the priests began to take a more active role in the appointment process. There was a period of apprenticeship for new priests, followed by purification and initiation rituals.
Statue of a priest of Amon, diorite, from Thebes, Egypt,
Brooklyn Museum, New York.
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They were required to bathe, shave, and abstain from certain things to be in the priesthood. Priests were only required to follow these regulations during the period of the year they were serving in the temple.
The most powerful priests in a temple complex were attached to the cult of the god. These priests served the deity’s physical needs, like food and dress. They often held powerful and non-religious positions as well.
(See Men Nefer).
A priest of Amun with two golden necklaces of reward Turin, Egyptian Museum
Bibarra
Bibarra was a Magi priestess in the court of Kadashman Enlil I. As the king’s magician and the court practitioner of the pagan arts of the Magi, she enjoyed great influence in the court.
The caste of the magi may be traced back in scriptures to Babylon. They were first known as the Wise Men. This included "...magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers..." (Daniel 2:2).
The Tablet of Shamash from Sippar (ca. 888-855 BC) shows Shamash the sun god seated beneath astral symbols. In front of him priests and above him, a court magician performing a magic ritual.
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Bubonic pest
The Bubonic pest is a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The Y. pestis infection most commonly results in bubonic plague but can also cause septicaemic or pneumonic epidemics. The Bubonic plague can result from exposure to body fluids from a dead plague-infected animal. In this form of the plague, the bacteria enter through the skin through a flea bite and travel via the lymphatic vessels to a lymph node, causing it to swell.
Egyptian writings point to an epidemic disease with symptoms to the plague. A medical text known as the Ebers Papyrus (1500 B.C.) identifies a disease that “has produced a bubo, and the pus has petrified, the disease has hit.”
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Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BC.)
Leipzig University Library in Germany.
Sekhmet statues from the reign of Amenhotep III.
Amenhotep III Mortuary Temple/Complex at Kom el Heittan on the Theban West Bank and the Temple of Mut at Karnak on the east bank of the Nile River at Thebes.
One of the essential attributes of the goddess Sekhmet was to cure impossible sicknesses. The ordinary physicians studied in the temples of Ptah, but surgeons and physicians who specialized in different fields learned in the Sekhmet temples. Egyptologists debate the number of statues Amenhotep III erected. Some believe that the number is more than six hundred. (Amenhotep III’s name was erased from inscriptions of Sekhmet’s sculptures in the Amarna period, then re-inscribed at the end of the 18th dynasty. Several statues were moved to other temples or sometimes inscribed to other Pharaohs, notably for Ramses IV and Sheshonq I.)
The question arises: Why would a king spend such incredible resources to produce so many giant statues? Amenhotep III was an exceptional diplomat. There were no wars or military campaigns during his reign. Consequently, the times he ruled were particularly well documented, except for about seven years of total silence. This fact points to a possible plague where the Pharaoh prohibited written material so his enemies did not have proof of his country’s weakness. The surging importance of the divination of the goddess Sekhmet might also indicate the need for divine help for the sickness.
In the Middle Ages, the bubonic pest was called the Black Death.
Ancient Egyptian scribes studying
Scene From Horemheb's tomb at Saqqara 1400 BC.
Brotherhood of the Black Scorpion
It is a brotherhood that was founded in Pre-Dynastic Egypt. The goals of the Brotherhood of the Black Scorpion remain mysterious to this day.
Scorpion men in Babylon
A History of Babylon, From the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest History of Babylonia - Leonard William King (1915) - Public Domain
Bubbas
Bubbas was the Master of Ceremonies at the King Kadashman Enlil I. court in Dur Kurigalzu, Babylon.
The relief known as “Garden Party” was found at Ashurbanipal’s North Palace at Khorsabad.
Buhen
Buhen was a massive fortress located on the west bank of the Nile in Lower Nubia (ancient Wawat). The fort was constructed during the reigns of Senwosret I and Senwosret III (12th Dynasty), and later the people worshipped both pharaohs as deified rulers at a temple on the site. In the later centuries, a small settlement was born around the fortress.
Buhen was the most northern fortress in the chain, positioned along the Nile’s banks to administrate the whole region of the Second Cataract and protect commercial shipping from rebel Nubians in the south.
The fortress was built south of a sprawling Old Kingdom settlement from which copper ore was worked and transported north to Egypt. The fortress was occupied throughout the Middle through New Kingdoms, and isolated communities continued to reside here until the waters of Lake Nasser submerged the site in 1964.
Burra-Burrias / Burna Burriash
He was the son of Kadashman Enlil I. and became his successor in the Kassite dynasty of Babylon ca. 1359–1333 BC. He was a contemporary of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten.
The diplomatic correspondence between Burna-Buriaš and the Pharaohs is preserved in nine of the Amarna letters, designated EA (for El Amarna) 6 to 14. The relationship between Babylon and Egypt during his reign was friendly at the start, and a marriage alliance was in the making.
Seal dedicated to Burna-Buriash II.