ANCIENT BABYLON is the subject of a new British Museum exhibition, reviewed here by the London Times:

Babylon, the exhibition that opens in the British Museum next month, explores the myths and relates them to historical reality. What is astonishing is the richness of both legacies: the archaeological treasures excavated from the ruins barely a century ago reveal a magnificent capital, while the myths have engendered an equally powerful legacy in art, thought, paintings, film and music. Cuneiform clay tablets, coloured tiles and brick friezes, papyruses, cylinder seals, sculptures and zodiac inscriptions testify to Babylon’s former glory while paintings, engravings, medieval manuscripts and maps show the preoccupation of later ages with this vanished city.

Many of these pictures and engravings are familiar. Who does not now see Nebuchadnezzar as William Blake saw him – a haunted and terrified man crawling on all fours, his face a mask of horror and revulsion? The poet showed the king’s madness, described in the fourth chapter of Daniel. In fact, the scriptures have conflated two historical events: there is no evidence that Nebuchadnezzar became insane; it was his successor Nabonidus who was afflicted with disease (probably scurvy) and vilified after he fled the city when it was captured by the Persians.