Researchers have unveiled a previously unknown Babylonian hymn, lost to history for millennia, that offers an unparalleled glimpse into the splendor of the ancient city of Babylon. The work, a 250-line poem of praise for the city, its patron god Marduk, and its people, was pieced together from dozens of fragmented clay tablets. A paper detailing the discovery by a team from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the University of Baghdad was published in the journal Iraq. The text provides new insights into the daily life, religious roles, and natural environment of a civilization that shaped world history.

The rediscovery was made possible by merging ancient scholarship with modern technology. Babylonian texts were recorded in cuneiform, a wedge-shaped writing system pressed into clay tablets, which have rarely survived intact. To overcome the challenge of reassembling these ancient puzzles, researchers are using a sophisticated digital platform. Enrique Jiménez, a professor of Ancient Near Eastern Literatures at LMU, leads the project, which uses artificial intelligence to scan and connect thousands of text fragments from around the world. “Using our AI-supported platform, we managed to identify 30 other manuscripts that belong to the rediscovered hymn—a process that would formerly have taken decades,” Jiménez said in an LMU press release.

The numerous copies found suggest the hymn was a well-known and important text, likely dating to the beginning of the first millennium B.C. The fact that it was a standard text used to teach children in schools makes its complete disappearance until now particularly surprising to scholars. The poem’s content is just as remarkable, containing rare and vivid descriptions of the natural world. “The author describes the buildings in the city, but also how the waters of the Euphrates bring the spring and green the fields,” Jiménez noted. “This is all the more spectacular as surviving Mesopotamian literature is sparing in its descriptions of natural phenomena.” The hymn also astonished experts with new details about the roles of women as priestesses and portrays a society where inhabitants were respectful to foreigners.

The hymn immortalizes an author’s devotion to a city that was once the largest in the world and remains a vital part of our shared cultural heritage. The ruins of Babylon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are located about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, Iraq. The rediscovered words provide a direct connection to the people who walked its streets, farmed its fields, and worshipped its gods. The following lines from the hymn describe the life-giving Euphrates River:

The Euphrates is her river—established by wise lord Nudimmud—

It quenches the lea, saturates the canebrake,

Disgorges its waters into lagoon and sea,

Its fields burgeon with herbs and flowers,

Its meadows, in brilliant bloom, sprout barley,

From which, gathered, sheaves are stacked,

Herds and flocks lie on verdant pastures,

Wealth and splendor—what befit mankind—

Are bestowed, multiplied, and regally granted.

References

• Fadhil, A. A., & Jiménez, E. (2025). Literary texts from the sippar library v: A hymn in praise of babylon and the babylonians. Iraq, 1–58. https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2024.23

• Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. (2025, July 1). Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered. Phys.Org; Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-hymn-babylon-millennium.html