Babylon Had It Coming

From Oldest Stories by James Bleckley

April 22, 2026 · 1h 3m · Season 3 · Episode 20

About this episode

This episode explores the history of Babylon and its multiple destructions, focusing on the events leading to its final destruction by Sennacherib in 689 BCE.

Babylon had survived five destructions before Sennacherib tried to erase it for good. Why did Assyria's most bookish king — a man who loved Babylonian scholarship — finally flood the city and smash its temples in 689 BCE? This is Oldest Stories, a biweekly deep dive into ancient Mesopotamia. Online at oldeststories.net In this episode we trace Babylon's strange immortality: a city founded around 1894 BCE that claimed six thousand years of history by borrowing it from Eridu, the first city of the gods. We walk through each of Babylon's "deaths": Death 1: the ritual transfer from dying Eridu to Babylon under Hammurabi's successors, making Babylon the heir to pre-Flood kingship Death 2: the Hittite sack of 1595 BCE and decades of abandonment The Kassite revival, when Babylon became the world's university town, exporting doctors and diviners instead of armies The humiliations under Tukulti-Ninurta I, the Elamite sack that stole Marduk, and Nebuchadnezzar I's brief martial comeback The long grind with Assyria: Merodach-Baladan's revolts, Sennacherib's first campaign at Cutha and Kish in 703 BCE, the puppet kings Bel-ibni and Assur-nadin-shumi, the 694 BCE boat raid on Elam…

People in this episode

Host: James Bleckley

Topics covered

Babylonian history
Assyrian conquest
ancient Mesopotamia
cuneiform civilization
cultural immortality
historical analysis

Keywords

Babylon
Sennacherib
Hammurabi
Mesopotamia
cuneiform
history
Eridu
Assyria
Nebuchadnezzar
Tukulti-Ninurta

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Babylon, Assyria, Eridu