Clay Burell's Library tagged babylon →  View Popular

¹ By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
       when we remembered Zion.

 ² There on the poplars
       we hung our harps,

 ³ for there our captors asked us for songs,
       our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
       they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

 ⁴ How can we sing the songs of the LORD
       while in a foreign land?

 ⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
       may my right hand forget its skill .

 ⁶ May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
       if I do not remember you,
       if I do not consider Jerusalem
       my highest joy.

⁷ Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
       on the day Jerusalem fell.
       "Tear it down," they cried,
       "tear it down to its foundations!"

 ⁸ O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
       happy is he who repays you
       for what you have done to us-

 ⁹ he who seizes your infants
       and dashes them against the rocks.

Mr Shahid hopes that one day, proper archaeological exploration will resume.

"We have many important historical sites here," he says, "but still only a quarter of the area has been excavated."

Its importance, and that of the many other ancient sites in Iraq, cannot be overestimated.

Long before there were any towns or cities in Europe, Babylon was thriving.

Modern civilisation as we know it now - built around organised, planned cities - first emerged in what is now Iraq.

Before that, humans had only lived as nomads.