Researchers from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the University of Baghdad reconstructed an ancient hymn from the city of Babylon. Utilizing artificial intelligence to piece together fragmented cuneiform tablets scattered across the world, the team breathed new life into a 3,000-year-old composition known as the Hymn to Babylon.
The hymn, likely dating back to the start of the first millennium BCE and composed of 250 lines, offers unprecedented insights into Babylonian urban society. It was used as an educational tool in schools in Babylon for a thousand years around 1000 BCE. With only fragments surviving, the reconstruction of the complete text was a monumental task that would have taken decades using traditional methods.
"Using our AI-supported platform, we managed to identify 30 other manuscripts that belong to the rediscovered hymn—a process that would formerly have taken decades," said Enrique Jiménez, an Assyriologist at LMU and one of the main authors, according to Popular Science. Jiménez is digitizing cuneiform text fragments through the Electronic Babylonian Library Platform, which played a crucial role in the achievement.
The hymn vividly describes Babylon as a paradise of abundance and prosperity. It details the everyday lives of its inhabitants and the significance of spring when the Euphrates River fills the fields with green. "The author of this hymn describes how the Euphrates brings spring and the lands become green," Jiménez said.
Notably, the hymn sheds light on aspects of Babylonian society previously undocumented. It reveals the roles of women as priestesses, with many acting as midwives described as "intimate women who nourish the womb with their skills."
The text also reflects the moral ideals valued by the Babylonians, addressing topics such as respect for foreigners, protection of the vulnerable, release of captives, and assistance to orphans. It offers a unique perspective on coexistence in the largest metropolis of the ancient world. "From Mesopotamia, only a few similar descriptions of nature have survived," Jiménez noted.
At its height, Babylon was the largest city in the world and a cultural metropolis that inspired literary works, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. The ruins of Babylon, located approximately 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Founded around 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia, the city was situated on the banks of the Euphrates River, a central feature in the hymn.
The reconstructed text includes lines describing the river: "The Euphrates is her river—established by wise lord Nudimmud," and depicts flocks lying in green pastures. Such vivid imagery is a rarity in Mesopotamian literature, which typically lacks extensive natural descriptions.
The hymn was so popular in its time that it circulated alongside the Epic of Gilgamesh for centuries. "The hymn was copied by children at school. It's unusual that such a popular text in its day was unknown to us before now," Jiménez said. The oldest version comes from a school fragment dating to the 7th century BCE, indicating its use in education over centuries.
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