50 free Babylon trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Babylon trivia quiz follows the 'gate of the gods' from a small Akkadian town on the Euphrates to the largest city on Earth and back to a village of brick-robbers. It covers Hammurabi and his law code, the Hittite sack of 1595 BC, the Kassites, Sennacherib's demolition of the city in 689 BC, Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II, the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, the Etemenanki ziggurat behind the Tower of Babel story, and the Hanging Gardens that may never have existed in Babylon at all. It then covers the fall: Cyrus diverting the Euphrates in 539 BC, the Cyrus Cylinder, Alexander the Great dying in Nebuchadnezzar's palace, the Seleucids, Parthians and Trajan, the Biblical Babylon of Daniel and Revelation, and the modern story: Koldewey's German dig, the Pergamon Museum reconstruction, Saddam Hussein's inscribed bricks, Camp Alpha and the 2019 UNESCO listing. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on Babylon, its monuments and its kings, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for ancient history students, Bible study groups and quiz nights.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which river did ancient Babylon stand?
Euphrates
The site lies within modern Hillah, Iraq, about 85 km south of Baghdad; a branch of the river still bisects the ruins.
Q 02In which modern country are the ruins of Babylon?
Iraq
UNESCO finally listed the site as World Heritage in July 2019; almost all its visitors are Iraqis.
Q 03What does the Akkadian name Babilim, from which 'Babylon' derives, traditionally mean?
Gate of the gods
Many scholars now think that is a folk etymology for an older non-Semitic name, perhaps Babilla or Babbar.
Q 04In the Book of Genesis, the name Babel is interpreted to mean what?
Confusion
The English verb 'to babble' is popularly linked to it, but there is no direct connection.
Q 05Which Amorite king founded the Old Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC?
Hammurabi
He conquered Isin, Larsa, Ur, Uruk, Nippur and the rest of southern Mesopotamia; the whole region became known as Babylonia.
Q 06On what kind of stone is the primary copy of the famous Old Babylonian law code inscribed?
Basalt
The 2.25-metre stele was found at Susa in Iran in 1901, where Elamites had carried it off as plunder; it now stands in the Louvre.
Q 07Where was the stele of that Babylonian law code rediscovered in 1901?
Susa
The relief at the top shows Hammurabi with Shamash, the sun god and god of justice; the laws are 'if... then' cases embodying 'an eye for an eye'.
Q 08Which museum received the Babylonian law-code stele after its 1901 discovery at Susa?
The Louvre
The French expedition shipped it to Paris; replicas stand at the United Nations headquarters in New York and in Berlin and Chicago.
Q 09Which Hittite king is thought to have sacked Babylon in 1595 BC, ending its first dynasty?
Mursili I
The Kassites then took over and renamed the city Karduniash, ruling for 435 years.
Q 10Which people ruled Babylon for 435 years after the Hittite sack, calling it Karduniash?
The Kassites
Under them Babylon grew weak enough to pay tribute to Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt.
Q 11Which Assyrian king razed Babylon to the ground in 689 BC and dumped the rubble in the water?
Sennacherib
His murder by two of his own sons while at prayer was widely seen as divine payback; his successor Esarhaddon rebuilt the city.
Q 12Which Assyrian prince, ruling Babylon, started a civil war against his brother Ashurbanipal in 652 BC?
Shamash-shum-ukin
Babylon was starved into surrender; Ashurbanipal then carried off its texts to his library at Nineveh.
Q 13Which king freed Babylon from Assyria and founded the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 626 BC?
Nabopolassar
With the Medes he destroyed Assyria between 626 and 609 BC; the empire is also called Chaldean.
Q 21According to legend, for whom did the king build the Hanging Gardens?
His homesick wife Amytis
She was said to miss the green hills of Media; no Babylonian text mentions her or the gardens.
Q 22Which scholar has argued that the Hanging Gardens were really near the Assyrian capital, Nineveh?
Stephanie Dalley
They are the only one of the Seven Wonders whose location has never been pinned down.
Q 23How many of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were in Babylon on some ancient lists?
Two
Both the Hanging Gardens and the Walls of Babylon made the cut on various lists.
Q 14Which Neo-Babylonian king rebuilt the city, built the Ishtar Gate and is blamed for the Jewish exile?
Nebuchadnezzar II
According to the Hebrew Bible he destroyed Solomon's Temple; the defeat of Judah is also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles.
Q 15How many gates ringed the inner city of Babylon, of which the Ishtar Gate was the eighth and grandest?
Eight
Herodotus claimed a hundred gates, which is now read as an echo of Homer rather than a report.
Q 16What colour glaze covered the bricks of the Ishtar Gate?
Blue
It was meant to imitate lapis lazuli, and the reliefs show dragons, bulls and lions for Marduk, Adad and Ishtar.
Q 17Which three animals appear in relief on the Ishtar Gate?
Dragons, bulls and lions
The mushussu dragon stood for Marduk, the aurochs for Adad and the lion for Ishtar.
Q 18In which city was the Ishtar Gate reconstructed from excavated bricks after 1918?
Berlin
Robert Koldewey's team shipped the pieces to Germany and Walter Andrae reassembled the smaller front gate in the Pergamon Museum.
Q 19What was the name of the great ziggurat of Babylon, thought to lie behind the story of the Tower of Babel?
Etemenanki
A tablet translated by George Smith in 1876 gives it seven storeys and a height of 91 metres, a figure modern engineers doubt.
Q 20To which god were Babylon's great ziggurat and the neighbouring temple Esagila dedicated?
Marduk
Marduk was originally seen as the son of the sun god Shamash and was promoted as Babylon's power grew.
Q 24Which Persian king captured Babylon in 539 BC?
Cyrus the Great
His troops reportedly diverted the Euphrates during a festival and waded in under the walls; the account was embellished by Herodotus.
Q 25According to the traditional account, how did the Persians get into Babylon in 539 BC?
Diverted the river and waded in
Metal grates under the water had let the river through the walls; the city centre reportedly did not even know it had fallen.
Q 26Which artefact is cited as evidence the Persian conqueror let exiled peoples, including Jews, go home?
The Cyrus Cylinder
The reading is disputed because the text mentions only Mesopotamian sanctuaries, not Jews or Jerusalem.
Q 27Who was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire when Babylon fell in 539 BC?
Nabonidus
His son Belshazzar governed as regent while he was away, which is why the Book of Daniel treats Belshazzar as king.
Q 28According to Herodotus, in what did the Babylonians bury their dead?
Honey
He also said they wore turbans and perfume and that three tribes ate nothing but fish; since 1883 much of his account has been treated as folklore.
Q 29Which conqueror died in the royal palace at Babylon in 323 BC?
Alexander the Great
He had entered the city after Gaugamela in 331 BC and had the ruined Etemenanki demolished, its rubble heaped on the Homera mound.
Q 30Which Roman emperor briefly captured Babylon in AD 116?
Trajan
His successor Hadrian gave up everything east of the Euphrates, which became Rome's frontier again.