Babylon-Berlin: Ancient Art & Modern Museology - HOA00099H

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  • Department: History of Art
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26

Module summary

What is Babylon? A place, a tale, or a legend? A symbol of wealth and culture, or of sin and moral decay? The centre of the world, or the city of the Apocalypse? This module will explore the various answers to this question given in the last four thousand years.

Related modules

Students who have taken the I-level version of Babylon-Berlin: Ancient Art & Modern Museology are prohibited from taking the H-version of the same module.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 1 2025-26

Module aims

What is Babylon? A place, a tale, or a legend? A symbol of wealth and culture, or of sin and moral decay? The centre of the world, or the city of the Apocalypse?

In the last 4000 years, people living in different times and places have answered this question quite differently. In the 21st century, we know that Babylon originated as a small town on the Euphrates river in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Later, it became the largest metropolis of the world, embellished with the wonders of ancient art and architecture, and ruled by kings such as Hammurabi (1790–1752 BCE), Nebuchadnezzar II (604–562 BCE), and Alexander of Macedon (356–323 BCE).

Babylon gradually faded from view by the end of the Hellenistic period, but its rise and fall remained an endless source of inspiration. From the biblical “Tower of Babel” to the Quranic “Harut and Marut,” from Rembrandt’s Belshazzar’s Feast to Hanaa Malallah’s The God Marduk, or from Verdi’s Nabucco to D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, Babylon is “a city buried under its own mythology,” as the scholar Michael Seymour puts it.

The archaeological excavations carried out by German-led teams between 1899–1917 added another substantial layer to this millennia-long history. The famous “Ishtar Gate,” reconstructed at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, has brought millions into the galleries. Together with many other large-scale exhibitions, those galleries have recreated the city of Babylon in the present.

This module will not only introduce Babylon’s ancient art and architecture but also explore the ways in which Babylon—as both a place and a symbol—was recreated over five millennia. Rather than constructing a linear history of reception, we will juxtapose ancient, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary histories and examine how each of those recreations was entangled with one another. We will end with the most recent developments at the site, namely its use as a US military base during the invasion of Iraq and its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. Babylon continues to live on in the present.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should have acquired:

  • A broad knowledge of the art and architecture of ancient Mesopotamia from c. 2000 BCE to c. 100 BCE
  • Familiarity with ancient, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary engagements with the past
  • Skills to engage in close, visual analyses of artworks of various media and in critical analyses of primary and secondary sources
  • A critical understanding of the intersections between ancient art, archaeology, museology, and histories of colonialism
  • The ability to write clearly and concisely about complex ideas and historical contexts
  • Ability to identify and critically evaluate new source material through independent research.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100.0

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on assessed work within the timeframes set out by the University - please check the Guide to Assessment, Standards, Marking and Feedback for more information.

The purpose of feedback is to help you to improve your future work. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further, you are warmly encouraged to meet your Tutor and/or Supervisor during their office hours.

Indicative reading

  • Bahrani, Zainab, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia. London: Routledge, 2001.
  • Dalley, Stephanie. The City of Babylon: A History, c. 2000 BC - AD 116. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
  • Finkel, Irving L. and Michael Seymour, eds. Babylon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  • Gries, Helen. The Ishtar Gate of Babylon: From Fragment to Monument, trans. Alissa Jones Nelson. Berlin: Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2022.
  • Janssen, Caroline. BaÂŻbil, The City of Witchcraft and Wine: The Name and Fame of Babylon in Medieval Arabic Geographical Texts. Ghent: University of Ghent, 1995.
  • Koldewey, Robert. The Excavations at Babylon, trans. Agnes S. Johns. London: Macmillan and Co., 1914.
  • Liverani, Mario. Imagining Babylon: The Modern Story of an Ancient City, trans. Ailsa Campbell. Boston: De Gruyter, 2016.
  • Pederse´n, Olof. Babylon: The Great City. Mu¨nster: Zaphon, 2021.
  • Seymour, Michael. Babylon: Legend, History and the Ancient City. London: I.B. Tauris, 2014.
  • Thelle, Rannfrid I. Discovering Babylon. New York: Routledge, 2019.