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Show The Holy Land 221 to the northern part of Africa; he was a friend of Charlemagne; he presided over a civilization that reached back 10,000 years. Not far from Baghdad were the ruins of Ctesiphon, the ancient capital of Parthia, and of Babylon, a strategic site along the Euphrates River since the sixth millennium B.C. Located along major trade routes, Babylon was the capital of Old Empire Babylonia, and chief commercial city. Under Ham murabi, the kingdom placed much of the region under the famous Code Hammurabi. Although Babylon was destroyed by the Assyrians under Sennacherib in 689 B.C., Nebuchadrezzar (also known as Nebuchadnezzar II) later rebuilt the city and his Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Gardens, Madelyn was told, were hydroponic-no soil, just light, oxygen, water, and minerals. In 586 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar forced the Jewish community into exile, destroyed Solomon's Temple. and burned the city, taking the exiled Jews to Babylon. Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C. The Silvers toured Mesopotamia during the spring runoff. Witnessing the flood area of the Tigris and Euphrates, Madelyn was prepared to believe that there was a basis for the Noah story. At the time she visited the water table was dangerously high. Without extreme control and watchfulness, the rivers could easily flood to the Persian Gulf, three hundred miles away. During the days of her visit the waters were being widely divert ed to save the cities. The flood reminded her of a four-line poem she had com posed in 1941: PROSPECT The Flood may come to bring us clean new dreams; Prometheus still may bleed upon his rock; But he has made man upright, so we walk, Our eyes upon far heaven and the stars. As the Silvers flew south they passed over Ur, the ancient Mesopotamian city from which Abraham, "father of many nations," began his migration to Canaan about 2,000 B.C. Up the Euphrates they soared over to Antakya (Antioch), |
