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Chaldean Babylonian Empire

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Babylon remained a major city until [[Alexander the Great]] destroyed the Achaemenid Empire in 332 BC. After his death, Babylon passed to the [[Seleucid Empire]], and a new capital named [[Seleucia on the Tigris|Seleucia]] was built on the [[Tigris]] about 40 miles north of Babylon (10 miles south of [[Baghdad]]). Upon the founding of Seleucia, [[Seleucus I Nicator]] ordered the population of Babylon to be deported to Seleucia, and the old city fell into slow decline. The city of Babylon continued to survive until the 2nd or 3rd century AD. An adjacent town developed which is today the city of [[Hillah]] in [[Babylon Province]], [[Iraq]].
Babylonia remained under the control of the [[Parthian Empire|Parthians]], and later, [[Sassanid Empire|Sassanians]] until about 640 AD, when it was conquered by the [[Islam]]ic [[Rashidun Caliphate]]. It continued to have its own culture and people, who spoke varieties of Aramaic, and who continued to refer to their country as [[Babylon]] (''Babeli'') or [[Uruk|Erech]] (''Iraq''). Some examples of their cultural products are often found in the [[Mandaean]] religion, and the [[Manichaeism|religion]] of the Babylonian prophet [[Mani (prophet)|Mani]]. From the 1st and 2nd centuries AD the Chaldeans and Babylonians began to adopt Christianity, and the province Chaldean capital of Babylon became a seat of a Chaldean bishopric of the [[Church of the East]] until the 17th century. Chaldean [[Neo-Aramaic languages|Neo-Aramaic]]-speakers exist today as a small [[Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people|minority]] only in northern Mesopotamia Iraq , Syria, Iran, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon ([[AssyriaChaldea]]). Despite being the minority, the Chaldeans remained Christians and many were killed as a result. Arabic language had become been forced on the Babylonian Chaldean native people of Mesopotamia as the main language in Babylonia by the 9th century, when the region Baghdad was the capital of the [[Abbasid Caliphate]]of islam.
==See also==