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ARCHAEOLOGY NEWSFLASH
HE TRIED TO DEFY THIS PROPHECY
Who can defy a prophecy like this?
Saddam Hussein was broken by it.
Yes, even while Saddam had his workmen in the ruins of Babylon, attempting to partially rebuild the old palaces, the prophecy ensured his defeat.
For starters, this 8th century BC prophecy said the mighty city of Babylon would NEVER be rebuilt.
Saddam’s delusions of grandeur and fame – which led him to defy this prophecy – would ultimately be his downfall.
Yes, the dictator was doomed… and Babylon was destined to remain desolate heaps.
There is a small village in existence near the site of ancient Babylon. And you can see his building attempts – which are nothing more than second rate, smaller models of the past magnificence of Babylon.
They are dwarfed by the vast complex of the ancient city ruins. The original Babylon, the pride of the Chaldeans, has never been rebuilt, nor will she!
In fact, since the second Iraq war, researchers claim that the city site of ancient Babylon is so polluted with Depleted Uranium poisoning it is highly likely no one will ever be able to live there again.
No technology is currently proven that can remove Depleted Uranium poisoning.
Depleted Uranium possesses 30 percent of the radiation that was present in the original uranium ore!
In the absence of any provable scientific method to completely and quickly change this radiation into a harmless substance, one can only conclude that the war against Iraq may have ensured that the ancient prophecy has now been irrevocably fulfilled.
GOLDEN CITY
In the heyday of her glory, mighty Babylon seemed destined to endure for ever.
The ‘golden city’ had grown more and more powerful until it was now the wonder of the ancient world… with huger buildings and a bigger population of any city of old.
Much of the art and learning of Greece came from Babylon.
Never had the world seen such a city.
Its great rampart walls towered upward 200 feet – twenty stories high. And on top of those wide walls, several chariots could race abreast.
Gleaming in the sun, its lofty palaces and temple towers stabbed the sky and thrilled the approaching traveller while he was yet miles away.
It was a city of color. Public buildings were faced with baked or glazed wall bricks in different colors – the city walls were yellow… the gates, sky blue… palaces, rose red… and temples, white.
In every direction Babylon was intersected by canals and navigable waterways.
And here were the world-famous hanging gardens, piled in successive terraces.
Babylon was not only mistress of the world, but she reposed securely in the midst of a most fertile region of the world.
The country was so astoundingly fruitful that Herodotus feared he would be taken for a liar if he related what he had actually seen of the amazing fertility of the soil there.
At that very time two daring prophets were predicting not only its destruction, but that it would become a perpetual desert, never again to be inhabited.
AMAZING, SPECIFIC PROPHECIES
Briefly, here are five of a host of prophecies made by these men concerning the capture of Babylon:
1. The conqueror of Babylon will be a man named Cyrus.
2. The big river will be dried up.
3. The gates will be left open.
4. The city will be captured during a festival.
5. It will fall without a fight
The most amazing thing is that this “Cyrus” prophecy was made long before Cyrus was even born!
In fact, Cyrus did not conquer Babylon until 539 BC, more than 150 years after the prophecy mentioned his name!
Babylon was extremely well fortified. From their lofty walls, the citizens scoffed at the invading Medes and Persians.
Not only was the city impregnable, but it had enough provisions to last for 20 years.
BABYLON’S LAST NIGHT
There was no entrance into Babylon except where the River Euphrates entered and emerged, as it passed under the walls.
Aware that he could not take the city by force, the Persian king Cyrus decided on a clever plan. He would turn away the water from its channel through the city.
So at a given time, he diverted the river upstream into a lake.
The river below soon became shallow enough to ford and his soldiers followed the river bed under the gate, into the heart of the city of Babylon. (Herodotus, i.190,191; Xenophon, Cyropaedia, vii.5.1-36)
On each side of the river through the city were interior walls of great height.
In these walls were enormous gates of brass, which, when closed and guarded, debarred all entrance from the river bed to any of the streets that crossed the river.
Had the gates been closed at this time, the invaders might have marched in vain along the riverbed between the walls and out again.
But, feeling secure, the Babylonians had that night put on a great feast.
In their drunken revelry, they left open these internal river gates so that the citizens could cross the river at will.
Even the attempt to capture Babylon by means of the river bed would have been in vain, had not the whole city given itself over on that fateful night to abandoned carelessness.
* No one noticed the sudden subsidence of the river.
* No one saw the entrance of the Persian soldiers.
* No one took care to close and guard the river gates.
* No one cared for anything that night except to plunge into the wild celebrations.
That night cost the Babylonians their kingdom and their freedom. They went into it subjects of mighty Babylon. They awoke from it slaves to the king of Persia.
Every detail of those five prophecies was fulfilled precisely.
IT WILL CHANGE FROM
FERTILE TO DESERT
“It shall be desolate forever.”
Some years ago, Dr Cyrus Hamlin was in Istanbul, visiting with a colonel in the Turkish army.
Dr Hamlin asked the colonel if he had ever been to Babylon.
“Yes,” replied the colonel, “The ruins of Babylon abound in game; and, engaging a sheik and his group, I arrived among the ruins for a week’s shooting.”
He described to his visitor some of the thrills of his recent lion-hunting expedition to the gaunt ruins of Babylon.
“And I will tell you a curious incident,” he said.
The colonel told of the long walk over the desert he had had each morning and evening, all because of his Arab guide’s refusal to camp overnight in the ruins.
“At sundown the Arabs, to my amazement, began to strike their tents, getting ready to leave. I went to the sheik and protested. But nothing I could say had any effect.
‘It is not safe,’ said the sheik.
‘Nor mortal flesh dare stay here after sunset. Ghosts and ghouls come out of the holes and caverns after dark, and whomsoever they capture becomes one of themselves. No Arab ever has seen the sun go down on Babylon.’”
