BABYLON

Babylonian Bab-ilu, Old Babylonian Bab-ilim, Hebrew Bavel, or Babel, Arabic Atlal Babil one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, when it was at the height of its splendour. Its extensive ruins on the Euphrates River about 55 miles (88 kilometres) south of Baghdad lie near the modern town of al-Hillah, Iraq. town (township), Suffolk county, southeastern New York, U.S. It lies on southern Long Island, along Great South Bay, east of Freeport. Established in 1872 after separation from Huntington (founded 1653), it includes the villages of Babylon (incorporated 1893), Amityville (1894), and Lindenhurst (1923) and the unincorporated communities of Deer Park, Copiague, and Wyandanch. The Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi erected (1902) the first wireless station in the United States (preserved at Rocky Point) at Babylon village, and Lawrence Sperry (son of inventor Elmer Sperry) experimented with early guided missiles at Amityville in 1918. The town developed as a summer yachting resort but experienced rapid population and diversified industrial growth after World War II. Its economy is based on services. The State University of New York at Farmingdale (1912) and the Long Island campus (1964) of Polytechnic University are located nearby. Area 53 square miles (136 square km). Pop. (1990) 202,793; (1998 est.) 208,290. Additional reading The principal excavator's own account of his results is given in a good popular form in Robert Koldewey, The Excavations at Babylon (1914). Lengthy discussions of the city may be found in H.W.F. Saggs, Everyday Life in Babylonia and Assyria (1965; reissued 1987); James Wellard, Babylon (also published as By the Waters of Babylon, 1972); and D.J. Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon (1985).