...
The Arabs of Babylon
It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there...Isaiah 13:20
THIS PROPHECY HAS NEVER BEEN FULFILLED!
(therefore, Babylon must Rise Again)
PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF below
return to BABYLON REBUILT main article
PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF of Arabs at Babylon
LEFT: Arab Inhabitants at Babylon
Stereographic Photo,Arabs living at Babylon,
1899-1908 1
(the actual photo-documentation below)
Title: Typical Arab Village and Fort,
Lower Babylonian, Mesopotamia
Place: Asia
Iraq
Babylonia
Mesopotamia
Latitude: 33 00 00 N
Longitude: 044 00 00 E
Creator: Not Known
Contributor: Gifford M. Mast
Date Created and/or Issued: [Date not indicated]
Publication Information: Underwood & Underwood: [My Note: an early producer and distributor of stereoscopic and other photographic images; publishing 25,000 stereographs a day by 1901; In 1920 stereograph production was discontinued.]
Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography, University of California at Riverside.
ABOVE: The inscription on the reverse side
"Lower Babylonia, Mesopotamia" on reverse side of photo above. Note further that in the document information the actual location coordinates are north of the City of Babylon, in the "LAND" of Babylon.
But, then, the prophecy also applies to the "LAND" of Babylon,
So the land quakes and writhes, For the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand,
To make the land of Babylon A desolation without inhabitants. ( Jeremiah 51:29; 50:1, 45)
In the Photograph above, Arab Inhabitants lived in the LAND of Babylon in 1899.
Arabs "pitch their tent" at Babylon
ARAB TENT HOME at Babylon 1899-1908
It will never be inhabited or lived in
from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there...
Isaiah 13:20
The inscription on the reverse side
"Lower Babylonia, Mesopotamia" on reverse side of photo above. Note below that the actual location coordinates within the parameters of the original CITY of Babylon are given in the document information. The site of the "Arab-Tent" location appears to be on the western edge of Anana Village.
Actual & Original DOCUMENTATION to above PHOTOGRAPH is below:
Title: An Arab Tent Home in Babylonia Mesopotamia.
Date Created and/or Issued: (Date not indicated) [My Note: history of stereoscopic images by Underwood & Underwood in the Middle East indicates date of 1899-1908]
Publication Information: Underwood & Underwood
Contributing Institution: UC Riverside, California Museum of Photography, Mast Collection
Coverage: Asia, Iraq, Babil, Latitude: 32 33 00 N, Longitude: 44 24 00 E, Babylon
BELOW: "ARAB TENT HOME" inscription on reverse side of photograph magnified.
ABOVE: "ARAB TENT HOME" inscription on reverse side of photograph magnified.
ABOVE: The Longitude and Latitude coordinates locate the photograph of the "Arab Tent Home" at the western edge of Anana Arab Village, Babylon, Iraq. Anana was located on the Babylon archaeological map created by Robert Koldewey in 1899, and on other maps as early as 1805. BELOW: magnified [my highlights and emphasis shown in parenthesis above and in red below. The content has not been altered].
Arab inhabited villages on the Babylon grounds.
Arab inhabited villages documented in 1899
ABOVE: German archaeologist Robert Koldewey's work and documentation at Babylon during 1898-1918 is considered to be the authoritative standard to this day. He showed that there were 5 Arab villages on the site of Babylon during those years. The circles we've placed on Koldewey's map show the locations of the 5 Arab villages. The document above-right is Koldewey's published coding on the map of the location of the Arab villages, their indigenous names being Kweiresch, Ananeh, Jumjummah, another Kweiresch, and Sinjar (English spellings).
Koldewey's Babylon map aligned with Google Earth
ABOVE: The map is reoriented to coordinate directionally with Google Earth map, the circled Arab villages still in-place.
See its alignment with Google Earth below.
Arab villages today circled on Google Earth
ABOVE: Koldewey's map with encircled Arab villages, reoriented directionally to today's Google Earth map, is superimposed over the Google Earth picture of the site of Babylon today. The yellow outline is the parameter (borders) of Koldewey's active archaeological digs at Babylon.
70-95% of BABYLON Remains UNEXCAVATED. Therefore, the yellow parameters on the maps above, which represent the current archaeological activity, would spread out significantly.
"The site is filled with overgrown hillocks hiding the estimated 95 percent of the city that remains unexcavated — which archaeologists hope could eventually be uncovered."
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37025133/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/babylon-ruins-preservation-or-profit/
"Iraq had been trying since 1983 to have the site — a massive 10-square-kilometer complex of which just 18 percent has been excavated thus far — recognized by UNESCO."
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1521146/middle-east
"More than 70 percent of the site has never been excavated."
https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/where-is-babylon-iraq-unesco-world-heritage-saddam
Arab villages today at Babylon magnified from Google Earth
ABOVE: Actual Google Earth photos, magnified, of the same 5 Arab villages today. They are placed in their approximate position relative to each other and to the archaeological site (outlined in yellow) of Babylon. From top right to bottom they are Kweiresch, Ananeh, another Kweiresch, and Sinjar, and Jumjummah at the bottom . All are now active ARAB TOWNS, except for the two Kweiresch sites. The top Kweiresch village, which had existed for centuries, was in a "state of ruin" when documented by Koldewey. The second Kweiresch village was forcefully uprooted and dispersed by Saddam Hussein during the 1980s-90s when the Iraqi dictator displaced it in order to replace it with his "Saddam Mountain-Saddam Palace" which he designed as the central focal point of the tourist aspect of Babylon.
NOTICE above: The streets (Arabic names translated), buildings, and homes of the surviving Ananeh, Sinjar, and Jumjumma towns. These, of course, show hard-copy PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF of Arab Inhabitants occupying Babylon of Chaldea to this very day!
They are all included within the active archaeological site (yellow lines) TODAY.
But note left that UNEXCAVATED-Babylon extends far beyond these yellow parameters.
AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THESE ARAB VILLAGES
ARE SITUATED WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF BABYLON:
"But it is significant that the angle of the western walls, which may still be traced under mounds to the north of Sinjar village, is approximately in line with the north front of the Kasr [Nebuchadnezzar Palace] and the end of the inner wall by Homera....
Some traces of walls still remain near the village of Sinjar (see Fig. 3, 4), and Weissbach has attempted to use them for a reconstruction of the city plan." [emphasis mine]
The Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Babylon, From the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest, by Leonard William King, page 35; note #22 following page 86.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56667/56667-h/56667-h.htm#Page_14
The POINT HERE IS...
this western wall is WEST of Sinjar, thus clearly incorporating that Arab Village within the City of Babylon.
See Map on RIGHT: On this 1913 Koldewey map coding, numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 are Arab Villages. Sinjar is #4. The Euphrates River is 'W'. The Western "inner-city" wall is 'Z', which clearly locates the Arab Village Sinjar (#4) within the Babylon City walls.
Notice also that all of the Arab Villages are situated on the grounds of Babylon. This would have been impossible, according to the following prophecy, if Babylon, Iraq, had ever met its Final Destruction at anytime in the past. Therefore, Babylon must Rise Up to fulfill this prophecy,
And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there... (Isaiah 13:19-20
Active Arab Villages
in Babylon, 1899-Today
GRAPHIC LEFT: German archaeologist Robert Koldewey's plotted chart of Arab villages at Babylon, per information published in his 1914 book The Excavations At Babylon.
Note also Koldewey's actual map with my overlay graphic of the 6 Arab villages he documented on the map. 2
Further down in the "NOTES" section read the historical accounts of the Arab dwellers at Babylon. History records Arab habitation in Babylon since the rise of Islam in the 7th century.
ABOVE: Photograph of an ARAB DWELLING at Babylon around 1899. (Koldewey's words below and right from his report of Babylon's excavation, showing Arab occupancy)
"If there were steps [at the Merkes House site at Babylon], which we cannot doubt, they were certainly of wood, something like the simple stairways to the roof that are used at the present time [in the photo, above-left] by the [ARAB] people of Kweiresh" (Fig. 238).
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.291.
ABOVE: View seen from Kweiresh Arab village at Babylon around 1899.
"The modern [ARAB] village of Kweiresh lies close to the Kasr [centerpiece of Babylon grounds]...the most northerly house of Kweiresh is the headquarters of our expedition (Fig. 12--Doorway of the expedition house in Kweiresh), called by the Arabs "Kasr abiad."
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.22.
RIGHT: This modern map of the city of Hillah shows something most maps do not show. Apparently, in the Arab Village of Annana, room was made to accommodate the citizens of the Arabic Kweiresh Village (see on the map "Kueiris") which had been uprooted to make room for the Saddam Mountain-Palace built on the East side of the Euphrates at Babylon in 1991. This spelling of the name is confirmed by the 1905 Babylon Map of John Henry Wright in his book, A History Of All Nations From The Earliest Times, (Philadelphia, New York : Lea Brothers & company; Contributing Library: University of California Libraries; Map credit to, Weisshach, die Stadt Babylon, Leipzig, 1904), where the Kweiresh name is spelled "Kuarisch". Also, spelled "Quairich" in 1859 Babylon Map. 1859 Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon, William Beaumont Selby, Bombay India, State Publisher Bombay, Printed for the Government at the Education Society's Press.
Note that the removal and repositioning of the Kweiresh population would have moved them a short distance across to the west side of the Euphrates, remaining within the parameters of ancient Babylon.
This interactive map can be accessed at,
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Hillah#/map/0/14/32.5248/44.4359
LEFT: Amran Ibn (son of) Ali Mosque (recently built over long-existing tomb)
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there...Isaiah 13:20
Arabs not only "pitched their tents", but they "pitched" a Mosque right in the center of Babylon's ruins.
A road dead-ending at the Mosque indicates the importance of the site for Arab Inhabitants of the Babylon-Arab Villages.
A lofty mound, on the summit of which stands a modern tomb called Amran ibn-Ali. This is probably the most ancient portion of the remains of the city, and represents the ruins of the famous hanging-gardens, or perhaps of some royal palace. (EASTONS BIBLE DICTIONARY, written long before the building of the Mosque) http://eastonsbibledictionary.org/409-Babylon.php
At the top of the photo, just before the grove of palm trees, is a grassy-green square with a dirt mound in the center of it--this is the foundation of Entemenanki (probable Tower of Babel). Thus, the Arab Mosque is right in the core area of the City of Babylon archaeological site.
RIGHT: Amran Ibn Ali tomb-Mosque (above, a recent construction over an older tomb) hosting an evening event for local Inhabitants and nearby residents. Underneath the feet of these Arab (and perhaps Chaldean) citizens and visitors lies some of the as-yet unexplored major mounds of Babylon.
As the PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE on this page shows, Babylon has not lost its Arab Inhabitants by any stretch, as is required by the Fulfillment of the Final Fall of Babylon.
LEFT: German archaeologist Robert Koldewey, whose excavations at Babylon set a standard which has lasted to this day, photographed an Arab woman at the Mosque dedicated to Imran Bin Ali around 1898-1912.
Note that Koldewey said it is the "latest" of other Arab buildings (Kweiresh was an Arab village) "on the town site of Babylon".
Arab buildings, of course, and especially Mosques, are clear evidence of Arab Inhabitants--in this case, "on the town site of Babylon".
BELOW: Another, contemporary, generation of Arab Inhabitants "on the town site of Babylon" continues to this day because the same Imran Bin Ali Mosque is still on the ground-site of Babylon.
RIGHT: Arabic child at the of Imran Bin Ali Mosque today.
The Tomb and Mosque of Imran Bin Ali is located in the Arabic Village of Jumjumma, which is on the southernmost edge of the Babylon active archaeological grounds.
LEFT: The Arabic Village of Anana (Ananeh) seen nestled between the thick groves of palm trees on the west side of the Euphrates at Babylon. The photograph is taken from the east side atop the Saddam Palace.
Notice as the Euphrates takes its slight westward bend at the top of the photo toward the great mound of Babil, the dirt mound seen at the center-top of the landscape. Babil is at the northern part of the active archaeological site of Babylon.
Anana Arabic Village is one of the 4 Arab towns still active out of the 5 existing on the grounds of Babylon identified by Robert Koldewey in the late 1800s. (The relocation of the Kweiresh sent part of the village west to Anana, and apparently a major part within the eastern part of the Babylon archaeological site, creating "New Kweiresh").
Some of these Arabic Inhabitants had earlier been noted all the way back to an 1805 Babylon map (mentioned above).
RIGHT: The liveliness of Babylon's Arabic Inhabitants can be see at the southern tip of the Anana Village as farm cattle cool off in the Euphrates in this photo taken from the Saddam Palace near the excavated Palace of Nebuchadnezzar.
Note that a little bit of the main part of Anana can be seen further up within the thick growth of the palm trees.
This Photograph gives a keen glimpse of the the active Arab population at Babylon TODAY!
LEFT: Iraqi Arabs and Chaldeans celebrate the recent addition of Babylon to the United Nation's World Heritage Sites administered by UNESCO.
This group undoubtedly includes local Arab residents of Babylon, as well as dignitaries and government officials.
BELOW, left & right: These Photographs below document the heavy Arab visitation and occupancy of Babylon in the early 1900s. Many are workers (Koldewey documents 200-250 during his almost 20 year-dig activity) who, working long shifts on 7-day schedules, would have had to live at one of the 5-7 Arab Villages located on the grounds of Babylon at that time. Note the stereoscopic photo directly below, with place and date information.
LEFT: The interior of a store at the Jumjumma Arab town on the site of Babylon TODAY.
Checkout the location of the Jumjumma Arab Village on the grounds of Babylon in the ground and site maps above.
Again, clear PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF of Arab Habitation of Babylon TODAY, showing that the Final Fall of Babylon HAS NOT YET HAPPENED according to this prophecy if one believes in the Literal understanding of Bible Prophecy,
And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. (Isaiah 13:19-20
AGAIN: "Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there...Isaiah 13:20"
RIGHT: The Arab town of Jumjumma, as noted above, is at the southern edge of Babylon, and has been documented by early explorers all the way back to the early 1800s. But further up north next to the main Nebuchadnezzar Palace excavations (the Kasr) was the Kweiresh Arabic Village. This photo (right) shows the doorway to one of the Kweiresh buildings which was utilized as the official expeditionhaus for the German team of excavators under Robert Koldewey (1898-1918). The Kweiresh Arabs living on the grounds of Babylon at the time made the building available to Koldewey's team.
(from Koldewey, Excavations At Babylon; see NOTES below)
The structure of the building is obvious: It was not an "overnight" construction, but shows every sign of some permanence.
LEFT: Arab and Chaldean students at Babylon in this recent Photograph taken at the modern Palace on Babylon's Saddam Mountain.
BELOW, left & right: Arabs at the rebuilt "Greek" amphitheater. This theater is constructed over the remains of one built by Alexander the Great when he took control of Babylon in the 4th century BC.
PALM TREE SHADE IN 1860s:
A few black tents and flocks of sheep and camels were scattered over the yellow plain. They belonged chiefly to the Zobeide, an ancient tribe renowned in the history of the conquering Arabs under their first caliphs, and now pasturing their flocks in the wilds of Babylonia. From Amran, the last of the great mounds [at Babylon], a broad and well-trodden track winds through thick groves of palms. About an hour's ride beneath pleasant shade brings the traveler to the falling gateway of the town of Hillah. A mean bazaar, crowded with Arabs, camels, and [donkeys], leads to a bridge of boats across the Euphrates. The principal part of the town, containing the fort and the residence of the governor, is on the opposite side of the river.
Austen H. Layard, Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh And Babylon, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1871, p. 414. (Austen Henry Layard was one of the greatest explorers and archaeologists of Mesopotamia)
For more on the Arabs who have "pitched their tent" at Babylon, see INHABITANTS here...
NOTES:
return to BABYLON REBUILT main article
1. Picture (ABOVE at top of page)
Title: Typical Arab Village and Fort, Lower Babylonian. Mesopotamia
Underwood & Underwood. Collection
Dates: 1899-1908
Repository: Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, 1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A., Creator Not Known, Contributor Gifford M. Mast, Date Created and/or Issued[Date not indicated], Publication Information: Underwood & Underwood [an early producer and distributor of stereoscopic and other photographic images; publishing 25,000 stereographs a day by 1901; In 1920 stereograph production was discontinued; The company ceased business in the 1940s. ] https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/kt0j49r0vx/
The precise location coordinates for the picture are given as,
Babylonia
Mesopotamia
Latitude: 33 00 00 N
Longitude: 044 00 00 E
These compare with the actual location coordinates given for Hillah/Babylon (below), and appear to be in Babylon's Annaneh Village.
ON GOOGLE EARTH (actual Latitude/Longitude on Google Earth)
WALL OF CITY OF BABYLON 32*41' 44*25'
ANCIENT RUINS OF BABYLON 32*32' 44*25'
BABYLON (rebuilding) 32*32' 44*25
HILLA 32*31' 44*24
SPECIAL NOTE: The Longitudinal/Latitudinal Coordinates mentioned in this study must be understood in the context that the prophecies are also against the LAND of Babylon. Thus the prophecies about the INHABITANTS of Babylon include both the City and its LAND known as BABYLONIA.
"Thus a town of considerable population, villages, date-groves, and gardens, are found still on the very site of ancient Babylon. Is this the "utter desolation" of which the Prophets speak? Can it be said that "her LAND has been made desolate, and none shall dwell therein; they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast"? Can this be said to be fulfilled, when not only the Land, but even the site of the city itself is still occupied?
The denunciations against the LAND of Babylon, it must be remembered, are as severe as those against the city." (Jer. 1:1; 25:12;51:2; 51:29; 51:43)
Benjamin Wills Newton, Babylon: Its Revival And Final Desolation, Houlston & Wright, 1859, p. 39-40.
2.
[Koldewey] made a map of the site, showing that it was inhabited by local Arabs, some of whom had erected villages (for which the German word is DORF), made of ancient Babylon's baked bricks, made by Nebuchadnezzar. He also lived on the site for several years, supervising the excavations (ca. 1900-1912).
(p. 13. cf. map titled "Babylon." Barthel Hrouda. Robert Koldewey, Das wieder erstehende Babylon. Verlag C. H. Beck. Munchen. 1990. ISBN 3-406-31674-3)
During the Sassanid period, A.D. 226-636, people were still living on the debris of the ancient palaces. By the Arabic Middle Ages nothing but huts were left at Babylon, a condition that continued until the twelfth century of our era.
(p. 297. C.W. Ceram. Gods, Graves and Scholars, The Story of Archaeology. New York. Alfred A. Knopf. 1951, 1961)
Robert Koldewey, German archaeologist, [in 1912] reports 4 Arabs villages living at Babylon— Kweiresh, Djumdjumma, Sindjar and Ananeh.
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, trans. Agnes S. Johns (London: Macmillan, 1914) p. 11-12
"Consequently, no plan of the ruins of Babylon could be drawn without including within their scope, not only Hillah, but [Arab villages] Jumjuma, Anana, and Tajeca, and (according to Rich and Mignan) Tahmasia. Tahmasia is a village on the western plain, six miles on the west of Hillah." ("In 1835, when I was there")
Benjamin Wills Newton, Babylon: Its Revival And Final Desolation, Houlston & Wright, 1859, p.39.
"Within the 21-square-mile archaeological city there are several modern [Arab] villages now such as Sinjar, Al-Jumjuma, and Anana."
Joseph Chambers, A Palace For The Antichrist, 1996, [recording the author's personal visit to Babylon in 1992], New Leaf Press, Forest, AR, p.75.
General Chesney--"This portion of the country is occupied by an Arab tribe, who were actually encamped at the foot (i.e. of the Birs Nimroud [greatest of all the ruins ] on the N.W., or Hillah side of the ruins, when I was there." [here he means N.W. foot of Birs Nimroud mound, on Hillah side of Euphrates]
Benjamin Wills Newton, Babylon: Its Revival And Final Desolation, Houlston & Wright, 1859, p. 42-43.
".... there is now the modern Arab town of Hillah and two villages besides......In 1835, when I was there, I saw marks of an Arab encampment which must have halted there for several weeks. When the Arabs make a long stay in any place, they erect mud pillars breast high, and hollowed out at the top for their horses to feed from, as from a manger. The remains of these pillars I saw...My attendant explained to me what they were"
Benjamin Wills Newton, (quoting a letter to the author from a man from India who had visited Babylon) in Babylon: Its Revival And Final Desolation, Houlston & Wright, 1859, p. 44-45.
British Captain Robert Mignan created the best early (pre-Koldewey) map, noting the habitation of Babylon by several Arab villages.
Arab villages, map, "Ground Plans of the Remains at & near Babylon", Captain R. Mignan; Description: English: Map of the site of Babylon prior to its excavation later in the 19th century; Date October 1829; Source Ground Plan of the Remains at & near Babylon. In Travels in Chaldaea, including a journey from Bussorah to Bagdad, Hillah, and Babylon, performed on foot in 1827, published by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, London, 1829; Author Captain Robert Mignan (d. 1852).
Robert Mignan made soundings of the site. He cut a shaft into the site and removed a number of clay tablets, as well as an inscribed clay cylinder in situ. [Mignan created the best early map, noting the habitation of Babylon by several Arab villages].
(Arab villages, map), "Ground Plans of the Remains at & near Babylon", Captain R. Mignan; Description: English: Map of the site of Babylon prior to its excavation later in the 19th century; Date October 1829; Source Ground Plan of the Remains at & near Babylon. In Travels in Chaldaea, including a journey from Bussorah to Bagdad, Hillah, and Babylon, performed on foot in 1827, published by Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, London, 1829; Author Captain Robert Mignan (d. 1852);
Tanner, Rediscovery of Babylon
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Babylon_1829.jpg
Ground Plan of the Remains at & near Babylon, by Capt. R. Mignan, London,
Published by Colburn & Bentley, New Burlington Street, Oct. 1829.
The Iraq Department of Antiquities carried out further clearances [1955-1968]... A museum and rest house have been built on the site, which is also partially covered by the [Arab] village of Djumdjummah at the southern end.
Dr. J. Paul Tanner, Daniel: Introduction Archaeol. Rediscovery of Babylon
May 14, 2002 App. P.1, Ancient Babylon: From Gradual Demise To Archaeological Rediscovery, http://paultanner.org/English%20Docs/Daniel/Introductory/App%20P%20-%20Archaeological%20Backgrd.pdf
[ In 1987] Charles Dyer reported that he had personally seen the [Arab] village of Kweiresh in 1987 during a trip to Babylon. At that time, "it was located next to the reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzar's southern palace and just north of the Saddam Hussein Guest House"
Charles H. Dyer, The Rise Of Babylon, 1991, Tyndale House, Wheaton, IL,p.130.
[The course of the Euphrates in Nebuchadnezzar's day] took it close by Babil, which commanded its entrance into the city, and it certainly washed the west front of the Kasr [a main excavation at Babylon archaeological site] exactly where the [ARAB] village of Kweiresh stands today.
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, 16.
Close to the sacred tomb of Amran [ARAB tomb on Babylon site], where there is also the cupola of a private burial, lies the modern Arab cemetery, which stretches out as far as the western plain.
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.223.
Here [Amran] a high mud wall called a Tof surrounds the palm gardens of the [ARAB] village Djumdjumma... there are ruins of dwelling-houses.
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.223.
It [the Tomb of Amran Ibn Ali] is the latest building on the town site of Babylon, for the Euphrates flowed previously where the [ARAB] village of Kweiresh now lies.
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.214.
At the bend of the Euphrates between Babil and Kasr, lie the ruins of the former [earlier ARAB] village of Kweiresh, whose population migrated elsewhere a hundred years ago.
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.22.
The modern [ARAB] village of Kweiresh lies close to the Kasr [focal point of the Babylon Archaeological site]...the most northerly house of Kweiresh is the headquarters of our expedition (Fig. 12--Doorway of the expedition house in Kweiresh), called by the Arabs "Kasr abiad."
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.22.
If there were steps [at the Merkes House site at Babylon], which we cannot doubt, they were certainly of wood, something like the simple stairways to the roof that are used at the present time by the [ARAB] people of Kweiresh (Fig. 238).
Robert Koldewey, The Excavations At Babylon, translated by Agnes S. Johns, MacMillan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London, 1914, p.291.
The following quotes are from the on-site exploration of Babylon by the great Assyrian-ruins archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, circa 1853...
Title: Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon
Author: Austen H. Layard
NEW-YORK: G. P. PUTNAM & CO., 10 PARK PLACE. 1853.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39897/39897-h/39897-h.htm#fna_203
It was the mound of Babel, better known to travelers as the Mujelibé, a name not now given to it by the Arab inhabitants of the surrounding country. This is the first great ruin seen on approaching ancient Babylon from the north. Beyond it long lines of palms hem in the Euphrates, which now winds through the midst of the ancient city. (p. 389-90
From the principal people of Hillah ["Amidst the heaps that marked the site of Babylon herself there rose the small town of Hillah", Layard's journal, 1853, p.428]... I received every help. Like most towns in this part of Turkey [Ottoman Empire], it is peopled by Arabs, once belonging to different tribes... (p.394
...the most important ruins on the site of Babylon. Half concealed among the palm trees on the eastern banks of the Euphrates above Hillah, are a few hamlets belonging to Arabs, who till the soil. (p. 396
We learn from ancient authors that the walls of the palaces of Babylon were painted with the figures of men and animals, and there can be no doubt that these enameled bricks are from the walls of an edifice. Fragments of glass, Babylonian gems and cylinders, small bronze figures, and other relics of this nature are occasionally found on the mound by the Arabs, and are bought by the Jews of Hillah, who sell them again to European travellers. (p. 412
MORE below from OTHER SOURCES:
Ahmed Khaittan, 30, who lives in Babylon, says: “Young couples, including myself and my friends, are always seeking a nice place to have some quiet time together, but because of rules in Iraqi society, trying to have a normal date is like mission impossible."
"Kissing in Babylon", https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/where-is-babylon-iraq-unesco-world-heritage-saddam
“He’s here watching out for couples trying to find somewhere quiet to kiss because couples often come here to be alone,” says Ali, a local resident."
"Kissing in Babylon", https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/where-is-babylon-iraq-unesco-world-heritage-saddam
"Babylon was the first city in history. We want to work here because we love this city," says Haider Bassim, 29, an Iraqi [Arab] technician who grew up within the perimeter of the ancient city."
In Iraq, A Race To Protect The Crumbling Bricks Of Ancient Babylon, A U.S.-funded conservation project is shoring up the brick walls of the ancient city. The hope is that Babylon will qualify for UNESCO World Heritage status.; Jane Arraf, Posted on November 24, 2018, Copyright 2019 NPR
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2018/11/24/669272204/in-iraq-a-race-to-protect-the-crumbling-bricks-of-ancient-babylon/
...the building of [Saddam Hussein's luxury palace atop Mount Saddam [at Babylon] necessitated the removal of the [Arab] village of Kweiresh whose generational inhabitants were offered a meager recompense for relocation.
Site Management Plan, Babylon Cultural Landscape and Archaeological City, Executive Summary, World Monuments Fund, 2015, New York, NY, p.14.
https://www.wmf.org/sites/default/files/article/pdfs/babylon-site-management-plan-excerpt.pdf
He met an Iraqi family in Babylon who had been saving for three years and had $13. “The little boy was always in our formations,” Stratton [U.S. military] said. “If we had fruit, the kids had fruit. We had toys shipped over to them — the little girl got her first doll, he got his first truck.”
https://signalscv.com/2019/04/timothy-stratton-u-s-marine-corps-gulf-war-iraq-castaic-resident/
SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES:
Farm of Karabet (adjacent to or part of Anana Village; located between Anana and Euphrates on Large Koldewey map)
Anana Village on 1927 Mignon and earlier maps is shown to be located where Sinjar Village is located on 1913 Koldewey map (even Koldewey shows Anana in place of Sinjar on his earliest map)... Mignon actually shows 2 Anana Villages sites, one south in place of Sinjar, and one north on its normal site. These facts make it probable that Anana and Sinjar was at one point a single village under the name of Anana, with perhaps the Anana residents splitting off and relocating north into an existing Anana village. Sinjar would have then attached its own name to the southern village.
Ruined Town of Nil located by Babil Mound on the 1927 Mignon map (not the same as ruined Kweiresh Village on Koldewey map " whose population migrated elsewhere a hundred years ago" (see note above); Nil is north of Nil Canal; the vacated ruin of Kweiresh is South of Nil Canal). "Nil", then, would have been another Arab Village located at Babylon sometime in the recent past.
return to BABYLON REBUILT main article