Babylon resurrected in Louvre exhibition

PARIS -- The ancient city of Babylon, situated in modern-day Iraq, gets a thorough exploration in a new show at the Louvre, with treasures borrowed from galleries around the world.

All that’s missing is the obvious: artifacts on loan from Baghdad’s museum.

The Louvre said it had hoped the National Museum in Baghdad would contribute to the exhibit, “Babylon,” which opens Friday, but the plan failed: Baghdad’s security status is still too perilous to transport priceless treasures to the airport and put them safely on a plane.

“How can these objects travel -- who would insure them?” asked curator Beatrice Andre-Salvini.

Nonetheless, the Louvre says the show is the first comprehensive exhibit on Babylon, and it makes up for any shortcomings with treasures from its own collection and substantial loans from London and Berlin.

Babylon was one of the world’s finest ancient cities, where Nebuchadnezzar II is believed to have built the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The city, about 50 miles south of Baghdad, began declining after it was conquered by the Persians under Cyrus the Great around 538 BC.

The show tries to separate the real Babylon -- a Mesopotamian city of staggering advancement and cultural riches -- from the myths about it that stemmed partly from jealousy. Over time, the city became a symbol of vaulting ambition and wickedness, as witnessed in the Book of Genesis’ portrayal of the Tower of Babel, where mankind dared to build a structure that would “reach unto heaven.”

The Louvre exhibit runs until June 2 before traveling to Berlin’s Pergamon Museum from June 26 to Oct. 5 and then to the British Museum from Nov. 13 to March 15, 2009.

Though the Louvre abandoned its effort, another group is persisting in the goal of bringing treasures from Baghdad to a wider public, despite delays and challenges with logistics and security.

A Denmark-based venture called United Exhibits Group plans to mount a five-year traveling international exhibit of the Nimrud gold, a treasure trove of jewelry discovered in the 1980s in Iraq in the tombs of Assyrian queens.