Old Babylonian Empire in the context of "Enki"

The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and being firmly established through the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 - 609 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BC, less than a century after the founding of the Chaldean dynasty.The defeat of the Assyrian Empire and subsequent return of power to Babylon marked the first time that the city, and southern Mesopotamia in general, had risen to dominate the ancient Near East since the collapse of the Old Babylonian Empire (under Hammurabi) nearly a thousand years earlier. The period of Neo-Babylonian rule thus saw unprecedented economic and population growth throughout Babylonia, as well as a renaissance of culture and artwork as Neo-Babylonian kings conducted massive building projects, especially in Babylon itself, bringing back many elements from the previous 2,000 years of Sumero-Akkadian culture.

The Neo-Babylonian Empire retains a notable position in modern cultural memory due to the portrayal of Babylon and its greatest king Nebuchadnezzar II in the Bible. The biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar describes his military campaign against the Kingdom of Judah, and in particular the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC which resulted in the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the subsequent Babylonian captivity. The Bible also describes the majesty of Nebuchadnezzar's rule and his sympathetic relationship with his Jewish captives. Babylonian sources describe Nebuchadnezzar's reign as a golden age that transformed Babylonia into the greatest empire of its time.

Mitanni or Mittani (c. 1550–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) with Indo-Aryan linguistic and political influences. Since no histories, royal annals or chronicles have yet been found in its excavated sites, knowledge about Mitanni is sparse compared to the other powers in the area, and dependent on what its neighbours commented in their texts.

The Hurrians were in the region as of the late 3rd millennium BC. A king of Urkesh with a Hurrian name, Tupkish, was found on a clay sealing dated c. 2300 BC at Tell Mozan. The first recorded inscription of their language was of Tish-atal (c. 21st century BC), king of Urkesh. Later on, Hurrians made up the main population of Mitanni, which was firstly known as Ḫabigalbat, at Babylonia, in two texts of the late Old Babylonian period, during the reign of Ammi-Saduqa, (c. 1638–1618 BC), in low middle chronology.

Babylon (/ˈbæbɪlɒn/ BAB-il-on) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about 85 kilometres (53 miles) south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-speaking region of Babylonia. Its rulers established two important empires in antiquity, the 19th–16th century BC Old Babylonian Empire, and the 7th–6th century BC Neo-Babylonian Empire. Babylon was also used as a regional capital of other empires, such as the Achaemenid Empire. Babylon was one of the most important urban centres of the ancient Near East, until its decline during the Hellenistic period. Nearby ancient sites are Kish, Borsippa, Dilbat, and Kutha.

The earliest known mention of Babylon as a small town appears on a clay tablet from the reign of Shar-Kali-Sharri (2217–2193 BC), of the Akkadian Empire. Babylon was merely a religious and cultural centre at this point and was neither an independent state nor a large city. Instead, it was subject to the Akkadian Empire. After the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the south Mesopotamian region was dominated by the Gutian Dynasty for a few decades, before the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including the town of Babylon.

The Kassites (/ˈkæsaɪts/) were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from c. 1531 BC until c. 1155 BC (short chronology).

The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 BC, and established a dynasty generally assumed to have been based first in that city, after a hiatus. Later rule shifted to the new city of Dur-Kurigalzu. By the time of Babylon's fall, the Kassites had already been part of the region for a century and a half, acting sometimes with Babylon's interests and sometimes against. There are records of Kassite and Babylonian interactions, in the context of military employment, during the reigns of Babylonian kings Samsu-iluna (1686 to 1648 BC), Abī-ešuh, and Ammī-ditāna.

Hammurabi (/ˌhæmʊˈrɑːbi/; Old Babylonian Akkadian: 𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉, romanized: Ḫammu-rāpi; Akkadian: [xammuˈraːpʰi]; c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC), also spelled Hammurapi, was the sixth Amorite king of the Old Babylonian Empire, reigning from c. 1792 to c. 1750 BC. He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, the king of Assyria, and forced his son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule.

Hammurabi is best known for having issued his eponymous code, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. They were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities.

The Sumerian King List (abbreviated SKL) or Chronicle of the One Monarchy is an ancient literary composition written in Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims to power of various city-states and kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia during the late third and early second millennium BC. It does so by repetitively listing Sumerian cities, the kings that ruled there, and the lengths of their reigns. Especially in the early part of the list, these reigns often span thousands of years. In the oldest known version, dated to the Ur III period (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC) but probably based on Akkadian source material, the SKL reflected a more linear transition of power from Kish, the first city to receive kingship, to Akkad. In later versions from the Old Babylonian period, the list consisted of a large number of cities between which kingship was transferred, reflecting a more cyclical view of how kingship came to a city, only to be inevitably replaced by the next. In its best-known and best-preserved version, as recorded on the Weld-Blundell Prism, the SKL begins with a number of fictional antediluvian kings, who ruled before a flood swept over the land, after which kingship went to Kish. It ends with a dynasty from Isin (early second millennium BC), which is well-known from other contemporary sources.

The SKL is preserved in several versions, the first fragment of which was published in 1906 by Hermann Volrath Hilprecht, and the second in 1911 by Jean-Vincent Scheil. Most of these date to the Old Babylonian period, but the oldest version of the SKL dates back to the Ur III period. The clay tablets on which the SKL was recorded were generally found on sites in southern Mesopotamia. These versions differ in their exact content; some sections are missing, others are arranged in a different order, names of kings may be absent or the lengths of their reigns may vary. These differences are both the result of copying errors, and of deliberate editorial decisions to change the text to fit current needs.

The Amorites (/ˈæməˌraɪts/) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking Bronze Age people who have emerged from the western Mesopotamia. Initially appearing in Sumerian records c. 2500 BC, they expanded and ruled most of the Levant, Mesopotamia and parts of Egypt from the 21st century BC to the late 17th century BC.

The Amorites established several prominent city-states in various locations, such as Isin, Kurda, Larsa, Mari, and Ebla, and later founded Babylon and the Old Babylonian Empire. They also founded the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt during the fragmented era of the Second Intermediate Period in the Nile Delta, which was characterized by rulers bearing Amorite names such as Yakbim Sekhaenre, and were likely part of the later Hyksos.