University of Heidelberg

The Image of the City in Hellenistic Babylonia

Heather D. Baker
(University of Vienna)

This paper attempts to apply the concept of the social imaginary in examining the self-representation of urban communities in Hellenistic Babylonia. The demise of native Babylonian rule and its replacement by a foreign authority—first Persian, then Greek—necessarily entailed a shift in the relationship between the Babylonian cities and the centre(s) of power. The nature of this evolving transformation will be investigated on the basis of both archaeological and written sources. Scholars who discuss the ‘survival’ of native Babylonian cultural traditions down to the end of cuneiform writing around (at least) the end of the first millennium BC typically emphasise the persistence of scholarly learning within the temple communities of Babylon and Uruk. The picture painted sometimes conjures up an image of dogged native Babylonian resistance in the face of an encroaching tide of Hellenism, though this is of course a gross oversimplification and the reality of cultural interaction was vastly more complex. This paper focuses on two aspects of the Babylonian evidence: (1) continuity and change in the sphere of temple building, religious practice and the relationship between temple and community; (2) language use (Akkadian/Greek/Aramaic) and its role in the shaping of local identities and modes of self-representation.