Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0304Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a large ruin. Above the image "T510 (Star)" is printed, below the image "V27701 T Palace of Nehuchadnezzar (^th Century B.C.) and Desolate Ruins of Once Mighty Babylon, Iraq." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood, Inc. Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V27701
PALACE OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND RUINS OF ONCE MIGHTY BABYLON
We are near the Euphrates river, between four and five hundred miles northwest of the Persian gulf. A modern Turkish town occupies the river-banks, its houses built partly out of very ancient bricks that the people dug form enormous mounds of rubbish, of whose origin they themseves had not idea. We are standing now on one of those mounds, after part of it surface dirt has been dug away by European archeologists. This is a portion of the ground occupied long agon by the rich and powerful fortified city of Babylon. All about us is the great "plain in the land of Shinar" referred to in Genesis 11; 1-9. Wheat used to grow wild in the field about here ; fruit were abundant. In this favorabel district a high degree of civilization was developed more than 4,000 years ago.
Many of the Oriental kings whose wars against the Hebrews are recorded in our Old Testament, ruled here. Those massive walls were part of buildings erected nearly 2,5000 years ago by Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of Babylonian monarchs. His early wars in Palestine compelled the Hebrews to pay tribute. in 586 B.C. his soldiers captured Jerusalem and brought back quantities of treasure. The story of Daniel has its scene laid here; so also, the story of Belshazzar's feast, on the eve of the city's capture by Persian enemies twenty-four centuries ago.
Clay is abundant, building stone scarce. The lower courses here in sight are of colored and enameled bricks ; the upper courses were of unbaked clay, now crumbled into shapless masses of dirt. Those symbolic figures in relief hint at the mechanical and artisitc skill of Babylonian workmen, at a time when Rome was merely a little village of pioneers' cabins.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection