So he asked his boss for permission to arrange a day trip on a Friday from Baghdad to Babylon for friends and families. I always admired what used to be in Iraq, all the civilizations." He wanted more people to see the ruins. "I always read about Iraq's history, about Mesopotamia. "My family started this, feeding me with books, feeding me with love of heritage and culture," he says. He grew up with a love of Iraq's culture. Ninmakh was a goddess worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia. Tourists visiting the ruins of Babylon with the company Bil Weekend visit the Ninmakh temple. His connections in the ministry allowed him to slip in and wander around, but he thought it ridiculous that regular Iraqis couldn't visit their heritage on their days off. "The guards said the site belongs to the government, and the government has Friday and Saturday as days off," Makhzomy says. Bil Weekend ("At the Weekend") was founded by Ali Al-Makhzomy, who was working at Iraq's culture ministry when, one weekend in 2015, he decided to take a trip to Babylon. Today he's visiting with a tour company trying to change that. People "don't show the country to their children." Khateeb says when he was growing up, in the violence that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country, the road south of Baghdad was dangerous and people weren't in the habit of taking an educational day trip. While domestic tourism has traditionally been strong in Iraq's northern Kurdish region, sites like Babylon, in more impoverished, insecure areas, are largely overlooked. "I'm 25 years old now, and I feel like it's a pity I didn't come here before - because when I came, it was like magic, really," says dentist Abdullah al-Khateeb. But even before the pandemic, relatively few people came. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, the site is about an hour and a half's drive south of Baghdad. The Babylon ruins, once the capital of Nebuchadnezzar's empire, are among many archaeological sites in Iraq bearing witness to some of the world's oldest and most magnificent cities. "It's a sci-fi and a fantasy, and it's about Ishtar," she says, referring to a Mesopotamian goddess of love and war.Ī man walks in front of Ishtar Gate at the site of Babylon, Iraq, in 2019. She's carrying a copy of her novel, whose cover is purple like her sweater and hairband.
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"It's my first time coming here and I'm very interested in history because I'm a novelist."
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"It's great!" says Furqan Fouad, a 21-year-old Iraqi visitor. Snapping photographs, they pass under arches, through hallways and across vast courtyards, imagining the regal ceremonies, worship and gossip of the past. Nearly three millennia after Nebuchadnezzar's reign, visitors from a tour group cluster to admire a brick frieze depicting strange creatures that look like lions with eagle claws. The animal on the walls ins a dragon-like creature associated with the Babylonian god Marduk.īABYLON, Iraq - On a mild winter weekend, the sun pours down on the yellow archways of the reconstructed palace of King Nebuchadnezzar II at the site of the ancient city of Babylon. Visitors with the Bil Weekend tourism company take photographs inside the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, in the area around the Ishtar gate.