Paolo Brusasco a Pavia

“Paolo Brusasco has made an outstanding reconstruction of Babylon’s history” Eva Cantarella, Corriere della Sera ‘Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand. It made the whole world drunk’. Thus evokes the prophet Jeremiah the power and tempting fascination of this ancient city, whose name reverberates in the pages of the Bible and of the classics. But what hides behind the myth? How could one of the most famed cities of the ancient world, capital and cultural reference point in the Ancient Near East, turn into an ominous image of chaos, vice and luxury? Paolo Brusasco leads the reader on an absorbing journey between myth and reality and unveils the history of this city and of its extraordinary wonders – the Hanging Gardens, the Walls, the Tower of Babel – and of its extraordinary accomplishments in science and learning, a precious legacy for both Eastern and Western civilization. Although the archaeological site was seriously compromised by the armed conflicts during the Second Gulf War, Brusasco’s historical reconstruction could be successfully implemented. The Author Paolo Brusasco teaches Archaeology and history of Ancient Near Eastern art in the Department of Literature and Philosophy and of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Genoa. Former Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, he directed several excavations in Iraq, Syria, Italy and other Mediterranean countries.