King Cyrus liked the Jew Daniel, considered him to be a wise man, and asked him why he did not worship the Babylonian god Bel. Daniel said that Bel was not a god, simply a statue made by human beings.

It tells how Cyrus, the Persian king, asked Daniel why he did not worship Bel, the god of Babylon. Cyrus told Daniel how much flour and oil and how many sheep the god Bel consumed each day.

Between these dates, as it happens, lies the last period of Babylonian greatness. In 612 Nineveh, ... the moon-god, for their local Bel-Marduk, as head of the pantheon.

Back in 1750 BC Babylonian King Hammurabi’s Law Code became the first recorded case in which a ruler acknowledged a higher authority (the gods Anu and Bel) to lend legitimacy to his laws.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, weren’t in Babylon at all – but were instead located 300 miles to the north in Babylon’s greatest rival Nineveh ...