CHAPTER 1 – The Excavation in Babylon
The excavation work that had been ongoing for weeks in Babylon was being carried out in a settlement area thought to belong to the city’s later periods. Archaeologist Prof. Dr. Kemal Karaca was leading the international excavation team. His team included Mesopotamian archaeologist Dr. Leyla Demir, Ancient Near Eastern inscriptions specialist Dr. Selin Yalçın and Hellenistic Period specialist Dr. Murat Kaya, as well as archaeologists, architects, conservators and students from different countries. They had not come here to search for the tomb of Alexander the Great. Pottery fragments and traces of structures found in previous surface surveys had suggested that there was a large settlement area beneath the soil, and the excavation had been initiated to uncover this area.
During the first weeks of the work, fragments of mud-brick walls, broken vessels, storage areas and small finds from different periods were uncovered. None of these were different from structures previously found in the region. However, as the excavation progressed, one of the workers reached a hard surface beneath the soil. When the area was carefully cleared, a wall emerged that was far too thick to be expected in a house. Since only a small section of the wall could be seen, it was not yet possible to understand what the structure was.
When the excavation area was expanded, it was seen that the wall continued eastward and turned at a right angle after several meters. Then a second, third and fourth wall belonging to the same structure were found. When the uncovered sections were pieced together, it became clear that there was a large courtyard in the center, with long rooms, large halls and interconnected corridors surrounding the courtyard. The size and plan of the structure showed that this was not an ordinary house or warehouse. Initial assessments indicated that a large palace lay beneath the soil.
The locations and plans of the known palaces in Babylon had long been documented. The newly discovered structure was not connected to any of these palaces. Excavation plans from different periods were compared on the assumption that it might have been built over an older structure but the result did not change. In the following weeks, the foundations of the large reception hall, column bases and passages opening into the inner sections of the palace were uncovered. Colored stone fragments and decorations found at certain points on the walls showed that the structure had been built for an important ruler or administrator.
The team, in its assessments at the excavation house, once again compared the plan of the new structure with all the known palaces in Babylon. No old map shows a palace at this location, and no such structure had been mentioned in the written sources examined so far. An inscription bearing the name of the ruler who had commissioned it had not yet been found inside the palace either. Since the dating studies had not been completed, it could not be determined which period the structure belonged to or who had used it. It was decided to give the palace a temporary name for use in the excavation records. This previously unknown structure was entered into the records under the name New Babylon Palace.
Thus a new structure with no connection to any known palace in Babylon had been uncovered. However, it was not known for whom the palace had been commissioned, why it did not appear in old records, or in which period it had been abandoned. The excavation team thought that the answers to these questions might be found in the parts of the structure that had not yet been uncovered.
Much of the New Babylon Palace was still underground.
And no one yet knew what lay beneath the palace.
