After the fall of Assyria, a new powerful state of the Ancient World - Babylonia - was created by Nebuchadnezzar II (he ruled in 605-562 BC). He conquered Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Palestine and Judea, most of whose inhabitants were taken captive for many decades (these events are detailed in the Bible). Babylon became the capital of the new kingdom.
Having seized enormous wealth and tens of thousands of prisoners, Nebuchadnezzar devoted the last years of his life to the improvement of the state, the construction of canals, the decoration and exaltation of Babylon, creating glory for him for centuries. The city has acquired an unprecedented splendor and has played a huge role in the history of mankind as an ancient center of cultural and political life.
The Babylonian god Marduk was worshiped by many nations. Its temples and priests received rich gifts from neighboring kings. The city with grandiose palaces and temples, hanging gardens and wide straight streets was huge at that time. Even 130 years later, its splendor struck the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote about “the most glorious and most powerful city in Mesopotamia.
Over time, after a series of wars, the country fell apart and fell into desolation, the enemies subjected Babylon to complete plunder and destruction. By the beginning of our era, the city had turned into a barely perceptible, grassy ruin on which nomads grazed goats, and for many hundreds of years was in complete oblivion.
New discovery
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Archaeologists began excavating the ancient city at the end of the 19th century. In 1902, German professor Robert Koldewey discovered the gate of Queen Ishtar, hidden for centuries in the thickness of the earth - a huge semicircular arch with giant walls on the sides.
The found tablet with a cuneiform inscription reads: “I am Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, a pious prince who rules according to the will and good will of Marduk … cunning and indefatigable, always concerned about the well-being of Babylon, the wise first-born son of Nabopolassar … which no king has invented before me. he gave the gates extraordinary and splendid splendor, and the human race can look at them in amazement."
Indeed, the gate amazed the imagination of people in ancient times. Now, after restoration, this grandiose building again impresses and surprises everyone with its majestic appearance. The grandiose walls from top to bottom are covered with bas-reliefs of extraordinary beauty that have not faded from time to time, with alternating rows of images of two animals: a powerful ferocious bull and a Babylonian dragon, called "sirrus" in cuneiform inscriptions.
The Bible confirms that the Babylonian priests kept the dragon in the dungeon of the temple, and the townspeople worshiped him as a deity, until the Jewish prophet Daniel killed him in order to turn the people away from paganism.
Zoological puzzle
The rows of bricks covered with bright blue, yellow, white and black glaze depict an unknown animal with a scaly body and a slender tail. He has a long neck and a serpentine head with a horn and leathery ears at the back of his head. A long forked tongue protrudes from the mouth. Despite the scales covering the neck, the animal has a mane that lies in strands twisted in a spiral. But the most amazing detail is his paws. The front ones look like those of the feline family. The hind ones are like those of birds, only very large and muscular, strong, four-toed, with claws.
The artist who portrayed the sirrusha drew the dragon as if from life, possibly from the fact that it was in the dungeon of the temple. His image in Babylonian art has not changed for thousands of years, which is usually unusual for images of mythical creatures.
It should be noted that paleontologists have discovered many fossil animals of the most incredible bizarre forms and species. And there is no reason to consider the sirrush to be an invention, he is perceived as a very real creature from the order of lizards, perhaps it is a bird-legged dinosaur. Most likely, he is an exact copy of some kind of lizard that is not familiar to modern science. But where did he come from?
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Cryptozoologists admit that the Babylonian dragon is not yet a discovered animal, and the only place where it probably could have previously existed along with other species of lizards is Central Africa. Since the Cretaceous period, it has not been subjected to geological cataclysms and has experienced only minor climatic changes. So reptiles, even quite large ones, could survive there.
In the region of tropical rainforests - the basin of the Congo River - since the 19th century, there have been rumors about an unknown and terrible beast, which the locals are afraid of in panic. There is rare evidence of him from modern eyewitnesses. In addition, mysterious footprints were found on the ground and scraps of unknown whose skin. There are also recordings of creepy screams, according to scientists, published by some as yet unknown creature.
However, there is no indisputable material evidence of the existence of the outlandish beast or its clear photographs. It should be borne in mind that in the humid tropics of Central Africa, huge inaccessible territories are still preserved, where almost no human foot has set foot. And perhaps the zoological puzzle of the Babylonian dragon has yet to be solved by scientists.
Valery KUKARENK0
