title: Company rule in India

text: Until the British gained control of Bengal in the mid-18th century, the system of justice there was presided over by the Nawab of Bengal himself, who, as the chief law officer, "Nawāb Nāzim", attended to cases qualifying for capital punishment in his headquarters, Murshidabad. His deputy, the "Naib Nāzim", attended to the slightly less important cases. The ordinary lawsuits belonged to the jurisdiction of a hierarchy of court officials consisting of "faujdārs", "muhtasils", and "kotwāls". In the rural areas, or the "Mofussil", the "zamindars"—the rural overlords with the hereditary right to collect rent from peasant farmers—also had the power to administer justice. This they did with little routine oversight, being required to report only their judgments in capital punishment cases to the "Nawāb".


title: Company rule in India

text: By the mid-18th century, the British too had completed a century and a half in India, and had a burgeoning presence in the three "presidency" towns of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. During this time the successive Royal Charters had gradually given the East India Company more power to administer justice in these towns. In the charter granted by Charles II in 1683, the company was given the power to establish "courts of judicature" in locations of its choice, each court consisting of a lawyer and two merchants. This right was renewed in the subsequent charters granted by James II and William III in 1686 and 1698 respectively. In 1726, however, the Court of Directors of the Company felt that more customary justice was necessary for European residents in the presidency towns, and petitioned the King to establish "Mayor's Courts". The petition was approved and Mayor's courts, each consisting of a Mayor and nine aldermen, and each having the jurisdiction in lawsuits "between" Europeans, were created in Fort William (Calcutta), Madras, and Bombay. Judgments handed down by a Mayor's Court could be disputed with an appeal to the respective Presidency government and, when the amount disputed was greater than Rs. 4,000, with a further appeal to the King-in-Council. In 1753, the Mayor's courts were renewed under a revised letters patent; in addition, Courts of Requests for lawsuits involving amounts less than Rs. 20 were introduced. Both types of courts were regulated by the Court of Directors of the East India Company.


title: Company rule in India

text: After its victory in the Battle of Buxar, the Company obtained in 1765 the "Diwāni" of Bengal, the right not only to collect revenue, but also to administer civil justice in Bengal. The administration of criminal justice, the "Nizāmat" or "Faujdāri", however, remained with the "Nawāb", and for criminal cases the prevailing Islamic law remained in place. However, the company's new duties associated with the "Diwāni" were leased out to the Indian officials who had formerly performed them. This makeshift arrangement continued—with much accompanying disarray—until 1771, when the Court of Directors of the Company decided to obtain for the company the jurisdiction of both criminal and civil cases.


title: Company rule in India

text: Soon afterwards Warren Hastings arrived in Calcutta as the first Governor-General of the company's Indian dominions and resolved to overhaul the company's organisation and in particular its judicial affairs. In the interior, or "Mofussil", "diwāni adālats", or a civil courts of first instance, were constituted in each district; these courts were presided over by European "Zilā" judges employed by the company, who were assisted in the interpretation of customary Indian law by Hindu "pandits" and Muslim "qazis". For small claims, however, Registrars and Indian commissioners, known as "Sadr Amīns" and "Munsifs", were appointed. These in their turn were supervised by provincial civil courts of appeal constituted for such purpose, each consisting of four British judges. All these were under the authority of the "Sadr Diwāni Adālat", or the Chief Civil Court of Appeals, consisting of the Governor of the Presidency and his Council, assisted by Indian officers.


title: Company rule in India

text: Similarly for criminal cases, Mofussil "nizāmat adālats", or Provincial courts of criminal judicature, were created in the interior; these again consisted of Indian court officers ("pandits" and "qazis"), who were supervised by officials of the company. Also constituted were Courts of circuit with appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases, which were usually presided over by the judges of the civil appellate courts. All these too were under a "Sadr Nizāmat Adālat" or a Chief Court of Criminal Appeal.


title: Company rule in India

text: Around this time the business affairs of the East India Company began to draw increased scrutiny in the House of Commons. After receiving a report by a committee, which condemned the Mayor's Courts, the Crown issued a charter for a new judicial system in the Bengal Presidency. The British Parliament consequently enacted the Regulating Act of 1773 under which the King-in-Council created a Supreme Court in the "Presidency town", i.e. Fort William. The tribunal consisted of one Chief Justice and three puisne judges; all four judges were to be chosen from barristers. The Supreme Court supplanted the Mayor's Court; however, it left the Court of Requests in place. Under the charter, the Supreme Court, moreover, had the authority to exercise all types of jurisdiction in the region of Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, with the only caveat that in situations where the disputed amount was in excess of Rs. 4,000, their judgment could be appealed to the Privy Council. Both the Act and the charter said nothing about the relation between the judiciary (Supreme Court) and the executive branch (Governor-General); equally, they were silent on the "Adālats" (both "Diwāni" and "Nizāmat") created by Warren Hastings just the year before. In the new Supreme Court, the civil and criminal cases alike were interpreted and prosecuted accorded to English law; in the "Sadr Adālats", however, the judges and law-officers had no knowledge of English law, and were required only, by the Governor-General's order, "to proceed according to equity, justice, and good conscience, unless Hindu or Muhammadan law was in point, or some Regulation expressly applied".


title: Company rule in India

text: There was a good likelihood, therefore, that the Supreme Court and the "Sadr Adālats" would act in opposition to each other and, predictably, many disputes resulted. Hastings' premature attempt to appoint the Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, an old schoolmate from Winchester, to the bench of the "Sadr Diwāni Adālat", only complicated the situation further. The appointment had to be annulled in 1781 by a parliamentary intervention with the enactment of the Declaration Act. The Act exempted the Executive Branch from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It recognised the independent existence of the "Sadr Adālats" and all subsidiary courts of the company. Furthermore, it headed off future legal turf wars by prohibiting the Supreme Court any jurisdiction in matters of revenue ("Diwāni") or Regulations of the Government enacted by the British Parliament. This state of affairs continued until 1797, when a new Act extended the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to the province of Benares (which had since been added to the company's dominions) and "all places for the time being included in Bengal". With the creation of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1805, the jurisdiction would extend as far west as Delhi.


title: Company rule in India

text: In the other two presidencies, Madras and Bombay, a similar course of legal changes unfolded; there, however, the Mayor's Courts were first strengthened to Recorder's Courts by adding a legal president to the bench. The Supreme Courts in Madras and Bombay were finally established in 1801 and 1823, respectively. Madras Presidency was also unusual in being the first to rely on village headmen and "panchāyats" for cases involving small claims. This judicial system in the three presidencies was to survive the company's rule, the next major change coming only in 1861.


title: Company rule in India

text: Education of Indians had become a topic of interest among East India Company officials from the outset of the company's rule in Bengal. In the last two decades of the 18th century and the first decade of the nineteenth, Company officials pursued a policy of conciliation towards the native culture of its new dominion, especially in relation to education policy. During the 19th century, the Indian literacy rates were rumoured to be less than half of post independence levels which were 18.33% in 1951. The policy was pursued in the aid of three goals: "to sponsor Indians in their own culture, to advance knowledge of India, and to employ that knowledge in government".


title: Company rule in India

text: The first goal was supported by some administrators, such as Warren Hastings, who envisaged the company as the successor of a great Empire, and saw the support of vernacular learning as only befitting that role. In 1781, Hastings founded the "Madrasa 'Aliya", an institution in Calcutta for the study of Arabic and Persian languages, and Islamic law. A few decades later a related perspective appeared among the governed population, one that was expressed by the conservative Bengali reformer Radhakanta Deb as the "duty of the Rulers of Countries to preserve and Customs and the religions of their subjects".


title: Company rule in India

text: The second goal was motivated by the concerns among some Company officials about being seen as foreign rulers. They argued that the company should try to win over its subjects by outdoing the region's previous rulers in the support of indigenous learning. Guided by this belief, the Benares Sanskrit College was founded in Varanasi in 1791 during the administration of Lord Cornwallis. The promotion of knowledge of Asia had attracted scholars as well to the company's service. Earlier, in 1784, the Asiatick Society had been founded in Calcutta by William Jones, a puisne judge in the newly established Supreme Court of Bengal. Soon, Jones was to advance his famous thesis on the common origin of Indo-European languages.


title: Company rule in India

text: The third related goal grew out of the philosophy then current among some Company officials that they would themselves become better administrators if they were better versed in the languages and cultures of India. It led in 1800 to the founding of the College of Fort William, in Calcutta by Lord Wellesley, the then Governor-General. The college was later to play an important role both in the development of modern Indian languages and in the Bengal Renaissance. Advocates of these related goals were termed, "Orientalists". The Orientalist group was led by Horace Hayman Wilson. Many leading Company officials, such as Thomas Munro and Montstuart Elphinstone, were influenced by the Orientalist ethos and felt that the company's government in India should be responsive to Indian expectations. The Orientalist ethos would prevail in education policy well into the 1820s, and was reflected in the founding of the Poona Sanskrit College in Pune in 1821 and the Calcutta Sanskrit College in 1824.


title: Company rule in India

text: The Orientalists were, however, soon opposed by advocates of an approach that has been termed "Anglicist". The Anglicists supported instruction in the English language in order to impart to Indians what they considered modern Western knowledge. Prominent among them were evangelicals who, after 1813—when the company's territories were opened to Christian missionaries—were interested in spreading Christian belief; they also believed in using theology to promote liberal social reform, such as the abolition of slavery. Among them was Charles Grant, the Chairman of the East India Company. Grant supported state-sponsored education in India 20 years before a similar system was set up in Britain. Among Grant's close evangelical friends were William Wilberforce, a prominent abolitionist and member of the British Parliament, and Sir John Shore, the Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797. During this period, many Scottish Presbyterian missionaries also supported the British rulers in their efforts to spread English education and established many reputed colleges like Scottish Church College (1830), Wilson College (1832), Madras Christian College (1837), and Elphinstone College (1856).


title: Company rule in India

text: However, the Anglicists also included utilitarians, led by James Mill, who had begun to play an important role in fashioning Company policy. The utilitarians believed in the moral worth of an education that aided the good of society and promoted instruction in "useful knowledge". Such "useful" instruction to Indians had the added consequence of making them more suitable for the company's burgeoning bureaucracy. By the early 1830s, the Anglicists had the upper hand in devising education policy in India. Many utilitarian ideas were employed in Thomas Babbington Macaulay's "Minute on Indian Education" of 1835. The "Minute", which later aroused great controversy, was to influence education policy in India well into the next century.


title: Company rule in India

text: Since English was increasingly being employed as the language of instruction, Persian was abolished as the official language of the company's administration and courts by 1837. However, bilingual educations was proving to be popular as well, and some institutions such as the Poona Sanskrit College commenced teaching both Sanskrit and English. Charles Grant's son, Sir Robert Grant, who in 1834 was appointed Governor of the Bombay Presidency, played an influential role in the planning of the first medical college in Bombay, which after his unexpected death was named Grant Medical College when it was established in 1845. During 1852–1853 some citizens of Bombay sent petitions to the British Parliament in support of both establishing and adequately funding university education in India. The petitions resulted in the "Education Dispatch" of July 1854 sent by Sir Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the East India Company, the chief official on Indian affairs in the British government, to Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General of India. The dispatch outlined a broad plan of state-sponsored education for India, which included:


title: Company rule in India

text: The Department of Public Instruction was in place by 1855. In January 1857, the University of Calcutta was established, followed by the University of Bombay in June 1857, and the University of Madras in September 1857. The University of Bombay, for example, consisted of three affiliated institutions: the Elphinstone Institution, the Grant Medical College, and the Poona Sanskrit College. The company's administration also founded high-schools "en masse" in the different provinces and presidencies, and the policy was continued during Crown rule which commenced in 1858. By 1861, 230,000 students were attending public educational institutions in the four provinces (the three Presidencies and North-Western Provinces), of whom 200,000 were in primary schools. Over 5,000 primary schools and 142 secondary schools had been established in these provinces. Earlier, during the Indian rebellion of 1857, some civilian leaders, such as Khan Bhadur Khan of Bareilly, had stressed the threat posed to the populace's religions by the new education programmes begun by the company; however, historical statistics have shown that this was not generally the case. For example, in Etawah district in the then North-Western Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh), where during the period 1855–1857, nearly 200 primary, middle-, and high-schools had been opened by the company and tax levied on the population, relative calm prevailed and the schools remained open during the rebellion.


title: Company rule in India

text: In the first half of the 19th century, the British legislated reforms against what they considered were iniquitous Indian practices. In most cases, the legislation alone was unable to change Indian society sufficiently for it to absorb both the ideal and the ethic underpinning the reform. For example, upper-caste Hindu society in the Indo-Aryan speaking regions of India had long looked askance at the remarriage of widows in order to protect both what it considered was family honour and family property. Even adolescent widows were expected to live a life of austerity and denial. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, enacted in the waning years of Company rule, provided legal safeguards against loss of certain forms of inheritance for a remarrying Hindu widow, though not of the inheritance due her from her deceased husband. However, very few widows actually remarried. Some Indian reformers, such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, even offered money to men who would take widows as brides, but these men often deserted their new wives.


title: Company rule in India

text: Before 1837, the East India Company's dominions in India had no universal public postal service, one that was shared by all regions. Although courier services did exist, connecting the more important towns with their respective seats of provincial government (i.e. the "Presidency towns" of Fort William (Calcutta), Fort St. George (Madras), and Bombay), private individuals were, upon payment, only sparingly allowed their use. That situation changed in 1837, when, by Act XVII of that year, a public post, run by the company's Government, was established in the company's territory in India. Post offices were established in the principal towns and postmasters appointed. The postmasters of the Presidency towns oversaw a few provincial post offices in addition to being responsible for the main postal services between the provinces. By contrast, the District collectors (originally, collectors of land-tax) directed the District post offices, including their local postal services. Postal services required payment in cash, to be made in advance, with the amount charged usually varying with weight and distance. For example, the charge of sending a letter from Calcutta to Bombay was one rupee; however, that from Calcutta to Agra was 12 annas (or three-quarter of a rupee) for each tola (three-eighths of an ounce).


title: Company rule in India

text: After the recommendations of the commission appointed in 1850 to evaluate the Indian postal system were received, Act XVII of 1837 was superseded by the Indian Postal Act of 1854. Under its provisions, the entire postal department was headed by a "Director-General", and the duties of a "Postmaster-General" were set apart from those of a Presidency Postmaster; the former administered the postal system of the larger provinces (such as the Bombay Presidency or the North-Western Provinces), whereas the latter attended to the less important Provinces (such as Ajmer-Merwara and the major Political Agencies such as Rajputana). Postage stamps were introduced at this time and the postal rates fixed by weight, dependent no longer also on the distance travelled in the delivery. The lowest inland letter rate was half anna for tola, followed by one anna for tola, and 2 annas for a tola, a great reduction from the rates of 17 years before. The Indian Post Office delivered letters, newspapers, postcards, book packets, and parcels. These deliveries grew steadily in number; by 1861 (three years after the end of Company rule), a total of 889 post offices had been opened, and almost 43 million letters and over four and a half million newspapers were being delivered annually.


title: Company rule in India

text: Before the advent of electric telegraphy, the word "telegraph" had been used for semaphore signalling. During the period 1820–1830, the East India Company's Government in India seriously considered constructing signalling towers ("telegraph" towers), each a hundred feet high and separated from the next by eight miles, along the entire distance from Calcutta to Bombay. Although such towers were built in Bengal and Bihar, the India-wide semaphore network never took off. By mid-century, electric telegraphy had become viable, and hand signalling obsolete.


title: Company rule in India

text: W. B. O'Shaughnessy, a professor of chemistry in the Calcutta Medical College, received permission in 1851 to conduct a trial run for a telegraph service from Calcutta to Diamond Harbour along the river Hooghly. Four telegraph offices, mainly for shipping-related business, were also opened along the river that year. The telegraph receiver used in the trial was a galvanoscope of Dr. O'Shaughnessy's design and manufactured in India. When the experiment was deemed to be a success a year later, the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie, sought permission from the Court of Directors of the company for the construction of telegraph lines from "Calcutta to Agra, Agra to Bombay, Agra to Peshawar, and Bombay to Madras, extending in all over 3,050 miles and including forty-one offices". The permission was soon granted; by February 1855 all the proposed telegraph lines had been constructed and were being used to send paid messages. Dr. O'Shaughnessy's instrument was used all over India until early 1857, when it was supplanted by the Morse instrument. By 1857, the telegraph network had expanded to 4,555 miles of lines and sixty two offices, and had reached as far as the hill station of Ootacamund in the Nilgiri Hills and the port of Calicut on the southwest coast of India. During the Indian rebellion of 1857, more than seven hundred miles of telegraph lines were destroyed by the rebel forces, mainly in the North-Western Provinces. The East India Company was nevertheless able to use the remaining intact lines to warn many outposts of impending disturbances. The political value of the new technology was, thus, driven home to the company, and, in the following year, not only were the destroyed lines rebuilt, but the network was expanded further by 2,000 miles.


title: Company rule in India

text: O'Shaughnessy's experimental set-up of 1851–52 consisted of both overhead and underground lines; the latter included underwater ones that crossed two rivers, the Hooghly and the Haldi. The overhead line was constructed by welding uninsulated iron rods, feet long and 3/8 inch wide, end to end. These lines, which weighed 1,250 pounds per mile, were held aloft by fifteen-foot lengths of bamboo, planted into the ground at equal intervals—200 to the mile—and covered with a layer each of coal tar and pitch for insulation. The underwater cables had been manufactured in England and consisted of copper wire covered with gutta-percha. Furthermore, in order to protect the cables from dragging ship anchors, the cables were attached to the links of a chain cable. An underwater cable of length 2,070 yards was laid across the Hooghly river at Diamond Harbour, and another, 1,400 yards long, was laid across the Haldi at Kedgeree.


title: Company rule in India

text: Work on the long lines from Calcutta to Peshawar (through Agra), Agra to Bombay, and Bombay to Madras began in 1853. The conducting material chosen for these lines was now lighter, and the support stronger. The wood used for the support consisted of teak, sal, fir, ironwood, or blackwood ("Terminalia elata"), and was either fashioned into whole posts, or used in attachments to iron "screw-piles" or masonry columns. Some sections had uniformly strong support; one such was the 322-mile Bombay-Madras line, which was supported by granite obelisks sixteen feet high. Other sections had less secure support, consisting, in some cases, of sections of toddy palm, insulated with pieces of sal wood fastened to their tops. Some of the conducting wires or rods were insulated, the insulating material being manufactured in either India or England; other stretches of wire remained uninsulated. By 1856, iron tubes had begun to be employed to provide support, and would see increased use in the second half of the 19th century all over India.


title: Company rule in India

text: The first Telegraph Act for India was Parliament's Act XXXIV of 1854. When the public telegramme service was first set up in 1855, the charge was fixed at one rupee for every sixteen words (including the address) for every 400 miles of transmission. The charges were doubled for telegrammes sent between 6PM and 6AM. These rates would remain fixed until 1882. In the year 1860–61, two years after the end of Company rule, India had 11,093 miles of telegraph lines and 145 telegraph offices. That year telegrams totalling Rs. 500,000 in value were sent by the public, the working expense of the "Indian Telegraph Department" was Rs. 1.4 million, and the capital expenditure until the end of the year totalled Rs. 6.5 million.


title: Company rule in India

text: The first inter-city railway service in England, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, had been established in 1825; in the following decade other inter-city railways were rapidly constructed between cities in England. In 1845, the Court of Directors of the East India Company, forwarded to the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie, a number of applications they had received from private contractors in England for the construction of a wide-ranging railway network in India, and requested a feasibility report. They added that, in their view, the enterprise would be profitable only if large sums of money could be raised for the construction. The Court was concerned that in addition to the usual difficulties encountered in the construction of this new form of transportation, India might present some unique problems, among which they counted floods, tropical storms in coastal areas, damage by "insects and luxuriant tropical vegetation", and the difficulty of finding qualified technicians at a reasonable cost. It was suggested, therefore, that three experimental lines be constructed and their performance evaluated.


title: Company rule in India

text: Contracts were awarded in 1849 to the East Indian Railway Company to construct a 120-mile railway from Howrah-Calcutta to Raniganj; to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company for a service from Bombay to Kalyan, thirty miles away; and to the "Madras Railway Company" for a line from Madras city to Arkonam, a distance of some thirty nine miles. Although construction began first, in 1849, on the East Indian Railways line, with an outlay of £1 million, it was the first-leg of the Bombay-Kalyan line—a 21-mile stretch from Bombay to Thane—that, in 1853, was the first to be completed (see picture below).


title: Company rule in India

text: The feasibility of a train network in India was comprehensively discussed by Lord Dalhousie in his "Railway minute of 1853". The Governor-General vigorously advocated the quick and widespread introduction of railways in India, pointing to their political, social, and economic advantages. He recommended that a network of "trunk lines" be first constructed connecting the inland regions of each presidency with its chief port as well as each presidency with several others. His recommended trunk lines included the following ones: (i) from Calcutta, in the Bengal Presidency, on the eastern coast to Lahore in the north-western region of the Punjab, annexed just three years before; (ii) from Agra in north-central India (in, what was still being called North-Western Provinces) to Bombay city on the western coast; (iii) from Bombay to Madras city on the southeastern coast; and (iv) from Madras to the southwestern Malabar coast (see map above). The proposal was soon accepted by the Court of Directors.


title: Company rule in India

text: During this time work had been proceeding on the experimental lines as well. The first leg of the East Indian Railway line, a broad gauge railway, from Howrah to Pandua, was opened in 1854 (see picture of locomotive below), and the entire line up to Raniganj would become functional by the time of the Indian rebellion of 1857. The Great Indian Peninsular Railway was permitted to extend its experimental line to Poona. This extension required planning for the steep rise in the "Bor Ghat" valley in the Western Ghats, a section miles long with an ascent of 1,831 feet. Construction began in 1856 and was completed in 1863, and, in the end, the line required a total of twenty five tunnels and fifteen miles of gradients (inclines) of 1 in 50 or steeper, the most extreme being the "Bor Ghat Incline", a distance of miles at a gradient of 1 in 37 (see picture above).


title: Company rule in India

text: Each of the three companies (and later five others that were given contracts in 1859) was a joint stock company domiciled in England with its financial capital raised in pounds sterling. Each company was guaranteed a 5 per cent return on its capital outlay and, in addition, a share of half the profits. Although the Government of India had no capital expenditure other than the provision of the underlying land free of charge, it had the onus of continuing to provide the 5 percent return in the event of net loss, and soon all anticipation of profits would fall by the wayside as the outlays would mount.


title: Company rule in India

text: The technology of railway construction was still new and there was no railway engineering expertise in India; consequently, all engineers had to be brought in from England. These engineers were unfamiliar not only with the language and culture of India, but also with the physical aspect of the land itself and its concomitant engineering requirements. Moreover, never before had such a large and complex construction project been undertaken in India, and no pool of semi-skilled labour was already organised to aid the engineers. The work, therefore, proceeded in fits and starts—many practical trials followed by a final construction that was undertaken with great caution and care—producing an outcome that was later criticised as being "built to a standard which was far in excess of the needs to the time". The Government of India's administrators, moreover, made up in their attention to the fine details of expenditure and management what they lacked in professional expertise. The resulting delays soon led to the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons in 1857–58 to investigate the matter. However, by the time the Committee concluded that all parties needed to honour the spirit rather than the letter of the contracts, Company rule in India had ended.


title: Company rule in India

text: Although, railway construction had barely begun in the last years of this rule, its foundations had been laid, and it would proceed apace for much of the next half century. By the turn of the 20th century, India would have over 28,000 miles of railways connecting most interior regions to the ports of Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Chittagong, and Rangoon, and together they would constitute the fourth-largest railway network in the world.


title: Company rule in India

text: The first irrigation works undertaken during East India Company's rule were begun in 1817. Consisting chiefly of extensions or reinforcements of previous Indian works, these projects were limited to the plains north of Delhi and to the river deltas of the Madras Presidency. A small dam in the Kaveri river delta, built some 1,500 years before, and known as the "Grand Anicut", was one such indigenous work in South India. In 1835–36, Sir Arthur Cotton successfully reinforced the dam, and his success prompted more irrigation projects on the river. A little farther north, on the Tungabhadra river, the 16th century Vijayanagara ruler, Krishna Deva Raya, had constructed several weirs; these too would be extended under British administration.


title: Company rule in India

text: In plains above Delhi, the mid-14th century Sultan of Delhi, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, had constructed the 150-mile long "Western Jamna Canal". Taking off from the right bank of the Jamna river early in its course, the canal irrigated the Sultan's territories in the Hissar region of Eastern Punjab. By the mid-16th century, however, the fine sediment carried by the Himalayan river had gradually choked the canal. Desilted and reopened several decades later by Akbar the Great, the "Western Jamna Canal" was itself tapped by Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan, and some of its water was diverted to Delhi. During this time another canal was cut off the river. The 129-mile "Eastern Jamna Canal" or "Doab Canal", which took off from the left bank of the Jamna, also high in its course, presented a qualitatively different difficulty. Since it was cut through steeply sloped land, its flow became difficult to control, and it was never to function efficiently. With the decline of Mughal Empire power in the 18th century, both canals fell into disrepair and closed. The Western Jamna Canal was repaired by British Army engineers and it reopened in 1820. The Doab Canal was reopened in 1830; its considerable renovation involved raising the embankment by an average height of 9 ft. for some 40 miles.


title: Company rule in India

text: Farther west in the Punjab region, the 130-mile long "Hasli Canal", had been constructed by previous rulers. Taking off from the Ravi river and supplying water to the cities of Lahore and Amritsar, this left-bank canal was extended by the British in the "Bari Doab Canal" works during 1850–1857. The Punjab region, moreover, had much rudimentary irrigation by "inundation canals". Consisting of open cuts on the side of a river and involving no regulation, the inundation canals had been used in both the Punjab and Sindh for many centuries. The energetic administrations of the Sikh and Pathan governors of Mughal West Punjab had ensured that many such canals in Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Muzaffargarh were still working efficiently at the time of the British annexation of the Punjab in 1849–1856 (period of tenure of the Marquess of Dalhousie Governor General).


title: Company rule in India

text: The first new British work—with no Indian antecedents—was the Ganges Canal built between 1842 and 1854.


title: Company rule in India

text: Contemplated first by Col. John Russell Colvin in 1836, it did not at first elicit much enthusiasm from its eventual architect Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, who balked at idea of cutting a canal through extensive low-lying land in order to reach the drier upland destination. However, after the Agra famine of 1837–38, during which the East India Company's administration spent Rs. 2,300,000 on famine relief, the idea of a canal became more attractive to the company's budget-conscious Court of Directors. In 1839, the Governor General of India, Lord Auckland, with the Court's assent, granted funds to Cautley for a full survey of the swath of land that underlay and fringed the projected course of the canal. The Court of Directors, moreover, considerably enlarged the scope of the projected canal, which, in consequence of the severity and geographical extent of the famine, they now deemed to be the entire Doab region.


title: Company rule in India

text: The enthusiasm, however, proved to be short lived. Auckland's successor as Governor General, Lord Ellenborough, appeared less receptive to large-scale public works, and for the duration of his tenure, withheld major funds for the project. Only in 1844, when a new Governor-General, Lord Hardinge, was appointed, did official enthusiasm and funds return to the Ganges canal project. Although the intervening impasse, had seemingly affected Cautely's health and required him to return to Britain in 1845 for recuperation, his European sojourn gave him an opportunity to study contemporary hydraulic works in Great Britain and Italy. By the time of his return to India even more supportive men were at the helm, both in the North-Western Provinces, with James Thomason as Lt. Governor, and in British India with Lord Dalhousie as Governor-General. Canal construction, under Cautley's supervision, now went into full swing. A 350-mile long canal, with another 300 miles of branch lines, eventually stretched between the headworks in Hardwar and—after splitting into two branches at Nanau near Aligarh—the confluence with the Ganges at Cawnpore (now Kanpur) and with the Jumna (now Yamuna) mainstem at Etawah. The Ganges Canal, which required a total capital outlay of £2.15 million, was officially opened in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie. According to historian Ian Stone:


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and being firmly established through the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 612 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BC, marking the collapse of the Chaldean dynasty less than a century after its founding.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The defeat of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and subsequent transfer of power to Babylon marked the first time that the city, and southern Mesopotamia in general, had risen to dominate the ancient Near East since the collapse of the Old Babylonian Empire (under Hammurabi) nearly a thousand years earlier. The period of Neo-Babylonian rule thus saw unprecedented economic and population growth throughout Babylonia, as well as a renaissance of culture and artwork as Neo-Babylonian kings conducted massive building projects, especially in Babylon itself, bringing back many elements from the previous 2,000 years of Sumero-Akkadian culture.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The Neo-Babylonian Empire retains a notable position within modern-day cultural memory due to the unflattering portrayal of Babylon and its greatest king, Nebuchadnezzar II, within the texts of the Bible. The biblical coverage of Nebuchadnezzar focuses on his military campaign against the Kingdom of Judah and particularly the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, which resulted in the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the subsequent Babylonian captivity. Babylonian sources describe Nebuchadnezzar's reign as a golden age that transformed Babylonia into the greatest empire of its time.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Religious policies introduced by the final Babylonian king Nabonidus, who favoured the moon god Sîn over Babylon's patron deity Marduk, eventually served as a for Persian king Cyrus the Great, who invaded Babylonia in 539 BC by portraying himself as a champion of Marduk divinely restoring order to Mesopotamia. Babylon remained culturally distinct for centuries, with references to people with Babylonian names and references to the Babylonian religion known from as late as the period of the Parthian Empire in the 1st century BC. Although Babylon revolted several times during the rule of later empires, it never successfully restored its independence.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Babylonia was founded as an independent state by an Amorite chieftain named Sumu-abum 1894 BC. For over a century after its founding, it was a minor and relatively weak state, overshadowed by older and more powerful states such as Isin, Larsa, Assyria and Elam. But Hammurabi ( 1792–1750 BC) turned Babylon into a major power and eventually conquered Mesopotamia and beyond, founding the Old or First Babylonian Empire. After his death, his dynasty lasted another century and a half, but the Babylonian Empire quickly collapsed, and Babylon once more became a small state. Babylonia fell to the Hittite king Mursili I 1595 BC, after which the Kassites took control and ruled for almost five centuries before being deposed by native Babylonian rulers, who continued to rule the Babylonian rump state.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The population of Babylonia in this so-called Post-Kassite or Middle Babylonian period comprised two main groups, the native Babylonians (composed of the descendants of the Sumerians and Akkadians and the assimilated Amorites and Kassites) and recently arrived, unassimilated tribesmen from the Levant (Suteans, Arameans and Chaldeans). By the 8th century, the constituent groups of the native Babylonians, the main population in the large cities, had lost their old identities and had assimilated into a unified "Babylonian" culture. At the same time, the Chaldeans, though retaining their tribal structure and way of life, were becoming more "babylonized", many adopting traditional Babylonian names. These Babylonized Chaldeans became important players in the Babylonian political scene and by 730 BC, all the major Chaldean tribes had produced at least one Babylonian king.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The 9th to 8th century BC was catastrophic for the independent Babylonian kingdom, with many weak kings either failing to control all the groups composing Babylonia's population, failing to defeat rivals or failing to maintain important trade routes. This collapse eventually resulted in Babylonia's powerful northern neighbor, the Neo-Assyrian Empire (whose people also spoke Akkadian), intervening militarily in 745 BC and incorporating Babylonia into its empire in 729 BC.' The Assyrian conquest began a century-long struggle for Babylonian independence against Assyria. Although the Assyrians incorporated the region into their empire and used the title King of Babylon in addition to the title King of Assyria, Assyrian control of Babylonia was neither stable nor entirely continuous and the century of Assyrian rule included several unsuccessful Babylonian revolts.'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Early in the reign of the Neo-Assyrian king Sinsharishkun, the southern official or general Nabopolassar used ongoing political instability in Assyria, caused by an earlier brief civil war between Sinsharishkun and the general Sin-shumu-lishir, to revolt. In 626 BC, Nabopolassar assaulted and successfully seized the cities of Babylon and Nippur. Sinsharishkun's response was quick and decisive; by October of that year the Assyrians had recaptured Nippur and besieged Nabopolassar at the city of Uruk. Sinsharishkun failed to capture Babylon and Nabopolassar endured the Assyrian siege of Uruk, repulsing the Assyrian army.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: In November of 626 BC, Nabopolassar was formally crowned as King of Babylon, restoring Babylonia as an independent kingdom after more than a century of direct Assyrian rule. With only small successes during campaigns in northern Babylonia from 625 to 623 BC and more southern cities, such as Der, joining Nabopolassar, Sinsharishkun led a massive counterattack in 623 BC. Though this counterattack was initially successful and Sinsharishkun might have been ultimately victorious, he had to abandon the campaign due to a revolt in Assyria threatening his position as king.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The absence of the Assyrian army allowed the Babylonians to conquer the last remaining Assyrian seats of power in Babylonia from 622 BC to 620 BC. Both Uruk and Nippur, the cities who had shifted the most between Assyrian and Babylonian control, were firmly in Babylonian hands by 620 BC, and Nabopolassar had consolidated his rule over all of Babylonia. After further Babylonian conquests and further failures by Sinsharishkun to stop Nabopolassar, despite receiving military aid from Egypt, the Assyrian Empire quickly began to fall apart.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: In October or November 615 BC, the Medes, also ancient enemies of Assyria, under King Cyaxares entered Assyria and conquered the region around the city of Arrapha. In July or August of 614 BC, the Medes began attacking the cities of Kalhu and Nineveh. They then besieged Assur, the ancient political (and still religious) heart of Assyria. The siege was successful and the city endured a brutal sack. Nabopolassar arrived at Assur only after the plunder had already begun and met with Cyaxares, allying with him and signing an anti-Assyrian pact. In April or May 612 BC, at the start of Nabopolassar's 14th year as King of Babylon, the combined Medo-Babylonian army marched on Nineveh. From June to August of that year, they besieged the Assyrian capital and in August the walls were breached, leading to another lengthy and brutal sack during which Sinsharishkun is assumed to have died. Sinsharishkun's successor, Ashur-uballit II, the final king of Assyria, was defeated at Harran in 609 BC. Egypt, Assyria's ally, continued the war against Babylon for a few years before being decisively defeated by Nabopolassar's crown prince Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish in 605 BC.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Nebuchadnezzar II succeeded Nabopolassar in 605 BC upon the death of his father. The empire Nebuchadnezzar inherited was among the most powerful in the world and he quickly reinforced his father's alliance with the Medes by marrying Cyaxares's daughter or granddaughter, Amytis. Some sources suggest that the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, were built by Nebuchadnezzar for his wife as to remind her of her homeland (though the existence of these gardens is debated). Nebuchadnezzar's 43-year reign brought with it a golden age for Babylon, which became the most powerful kingdom in the Middle East.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Nebuchadnezzar's most famous campaigns today are his wars in the Levant. These campaigns began relatively early in his reign and were chiefly conducted to stabilize his reign and consolidate his empire (most of the newly independent kingdoms and city-states in the Levant previously having been vassals of the Neo-Assyrian Empire). His 587 BC destruction of Jerusalem ended the Kingdom of Judah and scattered its populace, with many of its elite citizens sent back to Babylon, initiating a period known as the Babylonian Captivity. Nebuchadnezzar subsequently besieged Tyre for 13 years. Though he did not capture the city, it surrendered to him in 573 BC, agreeing to be ruled by vassal kings. The length of the siege can be ascribed to its difficulty: Tyre was on an island 800 metres from the coast and could not be taken without naval support. Though it withstood numerous sieges, it was not captured until Alexander the Great's siege in 332 BC.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: It is possible that Nebuchadnezzar campaigned against Egypt in 568 BC, given that a fragmentary Babylonian inscription from that year, given the modern designation BM 33041, records the word "Egypt" as well as possibly traces of the name "Amasis" (the name of the then incumbent Pharaoh, Amasis II, 570–526 BC). A stele of Amasis, also fragmentary, may also describe a combined naval and land attack by the Babylonians. But the evidence for this campaign is scant, and historians believe that if Nebuchadnezzar launched another campaign, he was unsuccessful.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: In addition to his military exploits, Nebuchadnezzar was a great builder, famous for his monuments and building works throughout Mesopotamia, such as Babylon's Ishtar Gate and Processional Street. He is known to have completely renovated at least 13 cities but spent most of his time and resources on the capital, Babylon. By 600 BC, the Babylonians and possibly their subject peoples saw Babylon as the literal and figurative center of the world. Nebuchadnezzar widened Processional Street and fitted it with new decorations, making the annual New Year's Festival, celebrated in honor of the city's patron deity Marduk, more spectacular than ever before.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: After Nebuchadnezzar II's reign, the empire fell into political turmoil and instability. Nebuchadnezzar's son and successor, Amel-Marduk, reigned for only two years before being assassinated in a coup by the influential courtier Neriglissar. Neriglissar was a "simmagir", a governor of one of the eastern provinces, and had been present during several of Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns. Importantly, Neriglissar was also married to one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters and thus linked to the royal family. Possibly due to old age, Neriglissar's reign was also short, some of its few recorded activities being the restoration of some monuments in Babylon and a campaign in Cilicia. Neriglissar died in 556 BC and was succeeded by his underage son, Labashi-Marduk. Labashi-Marduk's reign was even briefer; he was assassinated after reigning for just nine months.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The perpetrators of the assassination, the influential courtier Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar, then took power. Despite the turmoil that had surrounded his rise to the throne, the empire itself had remained relatively calm through the difficult period. Nabonidus began his reign with traditional activities associated with the king: renovating buildings and monuments, worshipping the gods and waging war (also campaigning in Cilicia). Nabonidus wasn't of Babylonian ancestry, originating from Harran in former Assyria, one of the main places of worship of the god Sîn (associated with the moon). The new king worked to elevate Sîn's status in the empire, seemingly dedicating more attention to this god than to Babylon's national god, Marduk. For this, Nabonidus may have faced opposition from the Babylonian clergy. Nabonidus was also opposed by the clergy when he increased governmental control over the temples in an attempt to solve ongoing management problems with the empire's religious institutions.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Nabonidus left Babylonia to campaign in the Levant and then settled for ten years in Tayma (which he had conquered during the campaign) in northern Arabia. His son Belshazzar was left to govern Babylonia (though with the title crown prince rather than king, a title Nabonidus continued to hold). Why Nabonidus spent a decade away from his capital there is unknown. Nabonidus’ return 543 BC was accompanied with a reorganization of his court and the removal of some of its more influential members.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: In 549 BC Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid king of Persia, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, king of Media, at Ecbatana. Astyages' army betrayed him and Cyrus established himself as ruler of all the Iranic peoples, as well as the pre-Iranian Elamites and Gutians, ending the Median Empire and establishing the Achaemenid Empire. Ten years after his victory against the Medes, Cyrus invaded Babylon. Nabonidus sent Belshazzar to head off the huge Persian army, but the Babylonian forces were overwhelmed at the Battle of Opis. On 12 October, after Cyrus's engineers diverted the waters of the Euphrates, the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without the need for battle. Nabonidus surrendered and was deported. Gutian guards were placed at the gates of the great temple of Marduk, where services continued without interruption.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Cyrus claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Marduk, who Cyrus claimed to be wrathful at Nabonidus's supposed impiety. Cyrus's conquest was welcomed by the Babylonian populace, though whether it was because he was genuinely seen as a liberator or out of fear is unknown. Cyrus's invasion of Babylonia may have been helped along by the presence of foreign exiles such as the Jews. Accordingly, one of his first acts was to allow these exiles to return to their homelands, carrying with them the images of their gods and their sacred vessels. The permission to do so was explicitly written in a proclamation, today called the Cyrus Cylinder, wherein Cyrus also justified his conquest of Babylonia as the will of Marduk.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The early Achaemenid rulers had great respect for Babylonia, regarding it as a separate entity or kingdom united with their own kingdom in something akin to a personal union. The region was a major economical asset and provided as much as a third of the entire Achaemenid Empire's tribute.' Despite Achaemenid attention and the recognition of the Achaemenid rulers as kings of Babylon, Babylonia resented the Achaemenids, like the Assyrians had been resented a century earlier. At least five rebels proclaimed themselves King of Babylon and revolted during the time of Achaemenid rule in attempts at restoring native rule; Nebuchadnezzar III (522 BC), Nebuchadnezzar IV (521–520 BC), Bel-shimanni (484 BC), Shamash-eriba (482–481 BC) and Nidin-Bel (336 BC). The revolt of Shamash-eriba against Xerxes I in particular is suggested by ancient sources to have had dire consequences for the city. Though no direct evidence exists, Babylon appears to have been severely punished for the revolt. Its fortifications were destroyed and its temples damaged as Xerxes ravaged the city. It is possible that the sacred statue of Marduk, which represented the physical manifestation of Babylon's patron deity, was removed by Xerxes from Babylon's main temple, the Esagila, at this time. Xerxes also divided the previously large Babylonian satrapy (composing virtually all of the Neo-Babylonian Empire's territory) into smaller sub-units.""'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Babylonian culture endured for centuries under the Achaemenids and survived under the rule of the later Hellenic Macedonian and Seleucid Empires, with the rulers of these empires also listed as kings of Babylon in Babylonian civil documents. It was first under the rule of the Parthian Empire that Babylon was gradually abandoned as a major urban center and the old Akkadian culture truly disappeared. In the first century or so of Parthian rule, Babylonian culture was still alive, and there are records of people in the city with traditional Babylonian names, such as "Bel-aḫḫe-uṣur" and "Nabu-mušetiq-uddi" (mentioned as the receivers of silver in a 127 BC legal document). At this time, two major recognized groups lived in Babylon: the Babylonians and the Greeks, who settled there during the centuries of Macedonian and Seleucid rule. These groups were governed by separate local (e.g. pertaining to just the city) administrative councils; Babylonian citizens were governed by the "šatammu" and the "kiništu" and Greeks by the "epistates". Although no king lists younger than the Seleucid Empire survive, documents from the early years of Parthian rule suggest a continued recognition of at least the early Parthian kings as kings of Babylon.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Although Akkadian-language legal documents continued in a slightly reduced number through the rule of the Hellenic kings, they are rare from the period of Parthian rule. The astronomical diaries kept since the days of ancient Babylon survived through Persian and Hellenic rule but stopped being written in the middle of the 1st century BC. It is likely that only a small number of scholars knew how to write Akkadian by the time of the Parthian kings, and the old Babylonian temples became increasingly undermanned and underfunded as people were drawn to the new Mesopotamian capitals, such as Seleucia and Ctesiphon.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The latest dated document written in accordance with the old scribal tradition in Akkadian cuneiform is from 35 BC and contains a prayer to Marduk. The latest known other documents written in Akkadian are astronomic predictions (e.g. planetary movements) for the year 75 AD. The way the signs are written in these astronomic texts means that readers would not have to be familiar with Akkadian to understand them. If the Akkadian language and Babylonian culture survived beyond these sparse documents, it was decisively wiped out 230 AD with the religious reforms introduced in the Sasanian Empire. By this time, the ancient Babylonian cult centres had already been closed and razed. Some temples had been closed during the early Parthian period, such as many temples in Uruk, whilst others lingered on to near the end of the Parthian Empire, such as the Esagila in Babylon.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Before modern archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia, the political history, society and appearance of ancient Babylonia was largely a mystery. Western artists typically envisioned the city and its empire as a combination of known ancient cultures—typically a mixture of ancient Greek and Egyptian culture—with some influence from the then-contemporary Middle Eastern empire, the Ottoman Empire. Early depictions of the city show it with long colonnades, sometimes built on more than a level, completely unlike the actual architecture of real ancient Mesopotamian cities, with obelisks and sphinxes inspired by those of Egypt. Ottoman influence came in the shape of cupolas and minarets dotted through the imagined appearances of the ancient city.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Babylon is perhaps most famous today for its repeated appearances in the Bible, where it appears both literally (in reference to historical events) and allegorically (symbolizing other things). The Neo-Babylonian Empire is featured in several prophecies and in descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem and subsequent Babylonian captivity. Consequently, in Jewish tradition, Babylon symbolizes an oppressor. In Christianity, Babylon symbolizes worldliness and evil. Prophecies sometimes symbolically link the kings of Babylon with Lucifer. Nebuchadnezzar II, sometimes conflated with Nabonidus, appears as the foremost ruler in this narrative.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible refers to Babylon many centuries after it ceased to be a major political center. The city is personified by the "Whore of Babylon", riding on a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns and drunk on the blood of the righteous. Some scholars of apocalyptic literature believe this New Testament "Babylon" to be a dysphemism for the Roman Empire.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Babylon, like the rest of ancient Mesopotamia, followed the Ancient Mesopotamian religion, wherein there was a general accepted hierarchy and dynasty of gods and localized gods who acted as patron deities for specific cities. Marduk was the patron deity of the city Babylon, having held this position since the reign of Hammurabi (18th century BC) in Babylon's first dynasty. Although Babylonian worship of Marduk never meant the denial of the existence of the other gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon, it has sometimes been compared to monotheism. The history of worship of Marduk is intimately tied to the history of Babylon itself and as Babylon's power increased, so did the position of Marduk relative to that of other Mesopotamian gods. By the end of the second millennium BC, Marduk was sometimes just referred to as "Bêl", meaning "lord".


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: In Mesopotamian religion, Marduk was a creator god. Going by the "Enûma Eliš", the Babylonian creation myth, Marduk was the son of Enki, the Mesopotamian god of wisdom, and rose to prominence during a great battle between the gods. The myth tells how the universe originated as a chaotic realm of water, in which there originally were two primordial deities; Tiamat (salt water, female) and Abzu (sweet water, male). These two gods gave birth to other deities. These deities (including gods such as Enki) had little to do in these early stages of existence and as such occupied themselves with various activities.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Eventually, their children began to annoy the elder gods and Abzu decided to rid himself of them by killing them. Alarmed by this, Tiamat revealed Abzu's plan to Enki, who killed his father before the plot could be enacted. Although Tiamat had revealed the plot to Enki to warn him, the death of Abzu horrified her and she too attempted to kill her children, raising an army together with her new consort Kingu. Every battle in the war was a victory for Tiamat until Marduk convinced the other gods to proclaim him as their leader and king. The gods agreed, and Marduk was victorious, capturing and executing Kingu and firing a great arrow at Tiamat, killing her and splitting her in two. With these chaotic primordial forces defeated, Marduk created the world and ordered the heavens. Marduk is also described as the creator of human beings, which were meant to help the gods in defeating and holding off the forces of chaos and thus maintain order on Earth.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The Statue of Marduk was the physical representation of Marduk housed in Babylon's main temple, the Esagila. Although there were actually seven separate statues of Marduk in Babylon; four in the Esagila, one in the Etemenanki (the ziggurat dedicated to Marduk) and two in temples dedicated to other deities, "the" statue of Marduk usually refers to Marduk's primary statue, placed prominently in the Esagila and used in the city's rituals.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The Babylonians themselves conflated the statue with the actual god Marduk – the god was understood as living in the temple, among the people of his city, and not in the heavens. As such, Marduk was not seen as some distant entity, but a friend and protector who lived nearby. This was no different from other Mesopotamian cities, who similarly conflated their gods with the representations used for them in their temples. During the religiously important New Year's festival at Babylon, the statue was removed from the temple and paraded through Babylon before being placed in a smaller building outside the city walls, where the statue received fresh air and could enjoy a different view from the one it had from inside the temple. The statue was traditionally incorporated into the coronation rituals for the Babylonian kings, who received the Babylonian crown "out of the hands" of Marduk during the New Year's festival, symbolizing them being bestowed with kingship by the patron deity of the city.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The temples of southern Mesopotamia were important as both religious and economic centers. The temples were chiefly institutions for caring for the gods and for conducting various rituals. Because of their religious significance, temples were present in all major cities, with trade and population growth being stimulated by the presence of a temple. Workers within the temples had to be "fit" for service and were not slaves or temple dependents (unlike those who served the temples by cultivating food and other supplies). These temple workers, who created the clothes used by the deity's cult, cleaned and moved around the statues of the deities, maintained the rooms within the temple and performed the important rituals, represented the skilled and free urban elite of Babylonian society and were paid through leftovers from meals intended for the gods, barley and beer.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The surviving sources suggest that the justice system of the Neo-Babylonian Empire had changed little from the one which functioned during the Old Babylonian Empire a thousand years prior. Throughout Babylonia, there were local assemblies (called "puhru") of elders and other notables from society which among other local roles served as local courts of justice (though there were also higher "royal" and "temple courts" with greater legal prerogatives). In these courts, judges would be assisted by scribes and several of the local courts would be headed by royal representatives, usually titled "sartennu" or "šukallu".


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: For the most part, surviving sources related to the Neo-Babylonian justice system are tablets containing letters and lawsuits. These tablets document various legal disputes and crimes, such as embezzlement, disputes over property, theft, family affairs, debts and inheritance and often offer considerable insight into daily life in the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The punishment for these types of crimes and disputes appears, for the most part, to have been money-related, with the guilty party paying a specified amount of silver as compensation. Crimes such as adultery and lèse-majesté were apparently punishable by death, but little surviving evidence exists for the death penalty actually being carried out.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Artists in the Neo-Babylonian period continued the artistic trends of previous periods, showing similarities with the artwork of the Neo-Assyrian period in particular. Cylinder seals of the period are less detailed than in previous times and shows definite Assyrian influence in the themes depicted. One of the most common scenes depicted in such seals are heroes, sometimes depicted with wings, about to strike beasts with their curved swords. Other common scenes include purification of a sacred tree or mythological animals and creatures. Cylinder seals increasingly fell into disuse over the course of the Neo-Babylonian century, eventually being entirely replaced by stamp seals.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Terracotta figurines and reliefs, made using molds, were common during the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Preserved figurines usually represent protective demons (such as Pazuzu) or deities but there are also examples of horsemen, naked women, boats, men carrying vases and various types of furniture. Terracotta figurines could be sacred objects intended to be kept in people's homes for magical protection or as decorations, but they could also be objects offered to deities in the temples.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The technique of colored glaze was improved and perfected by Neo-Babylonian artists. In reliefs, such as the ones on the Ishtar Gate in Babylon and along the city's Processional Street (where parades passed through during religious festivals in the city), colored glaze was combined with bricks molded in various shapes to create decorations in color. Most of these decorations are symbols of lions (associated with the goddess Ishtar) flowers, mušḫuššu (a mythological creature associated with the god Marduk) and oxen (associated with the god Adad).


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: After Babylonia regained its independence, Neo-Babylonian rulers were deeply conscious of the antiquity of their kingdom and pursued a highly traditionalist policy, reviving much of the ancient Sumero-Akkadian culture. Even though Aramaic had become the everyday tongue, Akkadian was retained as the language of administration and culture.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Ancient artworks from the heyday of Babylonia's imperial glory were treated with near-religious reverence and were painstakingly preserved. For example, when a statue of Sargon the Great was found during construction work, a temple was built for it, and it was given offerings. The story is told of how Nebuchadnezzar II, in his efforts to restore the Temple at Sippar, had to make repeated excavations until he found the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin of Akkad. The discovery then allowed him to rebuild the temple properly. Neo-Babylonians also revived the ancient Sargonic practice of appointing a royal daughter to serve as priestess of the moon-god Sîn.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: As in most ancient empires, slaves were an accepted part of Neo-Babylonian society. In contrast to slavery in ancient Rome, where slave-owners often worked their slaves to death at an early age, slaves in the Neo-Babylonian Empire were valuable resources, typically sold for money matching several years of income for a paid worker. Slaves were typically from lands outside of Babylonia, becoming slaves through the slave trade or through being captured in times of war. Slave women were often given as part of a dowry to help daughters of free men and women in their household or in raising children. Slaves were not cheap to maintain as they had to be clothed and fed. Because they were expensive to begin with, many Neo-Babylonian slave-owners trained their slaves in professions to raise their value or rented them out to others. Sometimes slaves who showed good business sense were allowed to serve in trade or through managing part of a family business. Slaves families were most often sold as a unit, children only being separated from their parents once they reached adulthood (or working age).


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Though slaves probably endured harsh living conditions and poor treatment from others, it would not have been equivalent to the brutal form of slavery in the Roman Empire and in later times.' Though there are occasional mentions of slaves escaping, there are no records of slave rebellions in the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Slaves mentioned in connection to farming and agriculture are usually not forced laborers. As farming required diligence and care, slaves at farms were typically given contracts and were allowed to work independently, which would make the slaves more interested in the result of their labor. Some slaves acted as proxies or junior partners of their masters. Slaves were also allowed to pay a fee called the "mandattu" to their masters, which allowed them to work and live independently, essentially "renting" themselves from their master. There are records of slaves paying the "mandattu" for themselves and for their wives so that they could live freely. There are, however, no records of slaves completely buying their freedom, Babylonian slaves could only be freed by their masters.'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The establishment of the Neo-Babylonian Empire meant that for the first time since the Assyrian conquest, tribute flowed into Babylonia rather than being drained from it. This reversal, combined with building projects and the relocation of subjugated peoples stimulated both population and economic growth in the region.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Although the soil in Mesopotamia was fertile, the average rainfall in the region was not enough to sustain regular crops. As such, water had to be drawn from the two major rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, for use in irrigation. These rivers tended to flood at inconvenient times, such as at grain harvest time. To solve these issues and allow for efficient farming, Mesopotamia required a sophisticated large-scale system of canals, dams and dikes, both to protect from floods and to supply water. These structures required constant maintenance and supervision to function.' Digging and maintaining the canals was seen as a royal task and the resources required to construct and maintain the infrastructure necessary, and the manpower itself, was provided by the many temples which dotted the region.'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The most detailed economical records from Neo-Babylonian times are from these temples. The people who cultivated the temple lands of Babylonia were mostly unfree personnel, so-called temple dependents ("širāku), which were usually given larger work assignments than they could accomplish. In later times, to increase productivity, the temples began hiring "rent farmers". These rent farmers were given a portion or all of a temple's farming grounds and fields, including the temple dependents and equipment there, in exchange for money and a fixed quota of commodities to supply to the temple.' Rent farmers were personally liable for accidents and falling short of the quota and there are many records of rent farmers giving up or sometimes being required to sell their own possessions and assets to the temple as compensation."'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Although animal husbandry was practiced throughout Mesopotamia, it was the most common form of farming in the south. In Uruk, animals, rather than some type of plant, were the main cash crop. Shepherds could be temple dependents or independent contractors and were entrusted with herds of either sheep or goats. Similar to other farmers working in connection to the temples, these shepherds had a set quota of lambs to provide for sacrificial purposes, with wool and hides also being used in the temples for various purposes.' Dairy products were less important since the animals would be unavailable for most of the year as the shepherds drove them across the land. Cows and oxen, rare in Mesopotamia due to being difficult to feed and maintain through the summer months, were mainly used as draft animals for plowing. Regions with a swampy environment, unsuited for farming, were used to hunt birds and fish.'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The most common form of business partnership recorded from Neo-Babylonian sources is called the "harrānu", which involved a senior financing partner and a junior working partner (who did all the work, using the money provided by the senior partner). Profit from such business ventures were divided equally between the two partners. The idea allowed rich individuals to use their money to finance businesses by capable individuals who might not otherwise have had the means to carry out their trade (for instance second sons who had not inherited as much money as first-born sons). Records show that some junior partners worked their way up through their businesses to eventually become senior partners in new "harrānu" arrangements.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The Neo-Babylonian period saw marked population growth in Babylonia, with the number of known settlements increasing from the previous 134 to the Neo-Babylonian 182, with the average size of these settlements also increasing. This population growth was probably because of increasing prosperity in Babylonia, combined with the resettlement of subjugated peoples and the possible return of peoples that had been resettled under the Neo-Assyrian Empire.' The Neo-Babylonian period also saw a dramatic increase in urbanization, reversing a trend of ruralization which southern Mesopotamia had experienced since the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire.""'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: At the top of the Neo-Babylonian Empire social ladder was the king ("šar"); his subjects took an oath of loyalty called the "ade" to him, a tradition inherited from the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Neo-Babylonian kings used the titles King of Babylon and King of Sumer and Akkad. They abandoned many of the boastful Neo-Assyrian titles that claimed universal rule (though some of these would be reintroduced under Nabonidus), possibly because the Assyrians had been resented by the Babylonians as impious and warlike and the Neo-Babylonian kings preferred to present themselves as devout kings.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The king was also the single most important landowner within the empire, with there being several large swaths of land placed under direct royal control throughout Babylonia. There were also large domains placed under other members of the royal family (for instance, there are mentions of a "house of the crown prince" distinct from the "house of the king" in inscriptions) and under other high officials (such as the royal treasurer).


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The exact administrative structure of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and its government remains somewhat unclear due to a lack of relevant sources. Although the Neo-Babylonian Empire supplanted the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the major Mesopotamian empire of its time, the exact extent to which Babylon inherited and retained the lands of this preceding empire is unknown. After the Fall of Nineveh in 612 BC, the territory of the Neo-Assyrian Empire had been split between Babylon and the Medes, with the Medes being granted the northern Zagros mountains while Babylon took Transpotamia (the countries west of the Euphrates) and the Levant, but the precise border between the two empires and the degree to which the former Assyrian heartland was divided between them is unknown. Babylonia itself, the heartland of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, was ruled as an intricate network of provinces and tribal regions with varying degrees of autonomy. The administrative structure used outside of this heartland is unknown.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: From building inscriptions it is clear that some parts of the heartland of the former Neo-Assyrian Empire were under Babylonian control. A building inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II refers to the workmen responsible for the renovation of the Etemenanki in Babylon as hailing from "the whole of the land of Akkad and the land of Assyria, the kings of Eber-Nāri, the governors of Ḫatti, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea". Documents from the reign of Neriglissar confirms the existence of a Babylonian governor in the city Assur, meaning that it was located within the empire's borders. No evidence has yet been found that would place the Neo-Assyrian capital, Nineveh, within the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The empire evidently enjoyed direct rule in Syria, as indicated in Nebuchadnezzar's building inscription ("governors of Hatti", "Hatti" referring to the Syro-Hittite city-states in the region) and other inscriptions referencing a governor in the city Arpad.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Although some scholars have suggested that the Assyrian provincial system collapsed with the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and that the Neo-Babylonian Empire was simply a zone of dominance from which Babylon's kings exacted tribute, it is likely that the Neo-Babylonian Empire retained the provincial system in some capacity. The former Assyrian heartland was probably divided between the Babylonians and the Medes, with the Babylonians incorporating the south into their empire and the Medes gaining the north. It is probable that the actual control Babylon held over these territories was variable. After Assyria's collapse, many of the coastal cities and states in the Levant regained independence, but were placed under Babylonian rule as vassal kingdoms (rather than incorporated provinces).


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: For the Neo-Babylonian kings, war was a means to obtain tribute, plunder (in particular sought after materials such as various metals and quality wood) and prisoners of war which could be put to work as slaves in the temples. Like their predecessors, the Assyrians, the Neo-Babylonian kings also used deportation as a means of control. The Assyrians had displaced populations throughout their vast empire, but the practice under the Babylonian kings seems to have been more limited, only being used to establish new populations in Babylonia itself. Though royal inscriptions from the Neo-Babylonian period don't speak of acts of destruction and deportation in the same boastful way royal inscriptions from the Neo-Assyrian period do, this does not prove that the practice ceased or that the Babylonians were less brutal than the Assyrians. There is for instance evidence that the city Ashkelon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II in 604 BC.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The troops of the Neo-Babylonian Empire would have been supplied by all parts of its complex administrative structure – from the various cities of Babylonia, from the provinces in Syria and Assyria, from the tribal confederations under Babylonian rule and from the various client kingdoms and city-states in the Levant. The most detailed sources preserved from the Neo-Babylonian period concerning the army are from the temples, which supplied a portion of the temple dependents (called "širāku") as soldiers in times of war. These dependents were mostly farmers ("ikkaru") but some were also shepherds, gardeners and craftsmen. The vast majority of these levies from the temples served in the army as archers, equipped with bows, arrows (each archer was supplied with 40–60 arrows), bow-cases and daggers. The bows, made in both distinct Akkadian and Cimmerian styles, were manufactured and repaired at the temples by trained bowmakers and arrows and daggers were made by temple smiths. Inscriptions from the Ebabbara temple in Sippar suggests that temples could field as many as 14% of their dependents in times of crisis (for the Ebabbara this would account for 180 soldiers), but that the number was usually much lower (with the most common number of soldiers supplied by the Ebabbara being 50 soldiers). The archers fielded by these temples were divided into contingents or decuries ("ešertu") by profession, each led by a commander ("rab eširti"). These commanders were in turn under the command of the "rab qašti", who answered to the "qīpu" (a local high official). Cavalry and chariots were also supplied by the temples, but there are few known inscriptions detailing their equipment, relative number or leadership structure.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: The citizens of the cities in Babylonia were obliged to perform military service, often as archers, as a civil duty. These citizen militias were, just like the archers raised by the temples, divided and organized by profession. Citizens who served as soldiers were paid in silver, probably at a rate of 1 mina per year. The Neo-Babylonian army is also likely to have bolstered its numbers through conscripting soldiers from the tribal confederacies within the empire's territory and through hiring mercenaries (the presence of Greek mercenaries in the army of Nebuchadnezzar II is known from a poem). In times of war, the entire Babylonian army would have been assembled by an official called the "dēkû" ("mobilizer") sending word to the many "rab qašti", who then organized all the "ešertu". Soldiers on campaigns (which could last anywhere from three months to a full year) were supplied with rations (including barley and sheep), silver as payment, salt, oil and water bottles and were also equipped with blankets, tents, sacks, shoes, jerkins and donkeys or horses.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Monumental architecture encompasses building works such as temples, palaces, ziggurats (a massive structure with religious connections, composed of a massive stepped tower with a shrine on top), city walls, processional streets, artificial waterways and cross-country defensive structures.' The Babylonian king was traditionally a builder and restorer, and as such large-scale building projects were important as a legitimizing factor for Babylonian rulers.' Due to the interests of early excavators of the ancient cities in Babylonia, most of the archaeological knowledge regarding the Neo-Babylonian Empire is related to the vast monumental buildings that were located in the hearts of Babylonia's major cities. This early bias has resulted in that the makeup of the cities themselves (such as residential areas) and the structure of smaller settlements remains under-researched.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Although inscriptions discuss the presence of royal palaces at several cities throughout southern Mesopotamia, the only Neo-Babylonian royal palaces yet found and excavated are those in Babylon itself. The South Palace, occupying a corner formed by the city wall to the north and the Euphrates to the west, was built under kings Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II and was composed of five units, each with its own courtyard. The central of these units housed the residential suites and the actual throne room whilst the other units were for administrative and storage purposes. The palace adjoined the central Processional Street on its eastern side and was heavily fortified at its western side (the side facing the Euphrates).


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Nebuchadnezzar II also built a second palace, the North Palace, on the other side of the inner city wall. This palace also adjoined the Processional Street on its eastern side, but its ruins are poorly preserved and as such its structure and appearance are not entirely understood. There was also a third royal palace in the city, the Summer Palace, built some distance north of the inner city walls in the northernmost corner of the outer walls (also constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II). Non-royal palaces, such as the palace of a local governor at Ur, share design features with Babylon's South Palace but were considerably smaller in size.'The temples of the Neo-Babylonian Empire are divided into two categories by archaeologists; smaller freestanding temples scattered throughout a city (often in residential quarters) and the large main temples of a city, dedicated to that city's patron deity and often located within its own set of walls.' In most cities, the ziggurat was located within the temple complex but the ziggurat in Babylon, called the Etemenanki, had its own complex and set of walls separate from those of the city's main temple, the Esagila. Neo-Babylonian temples combined features of palaces and residential houses. They had a central courtyard, completely enclosed on all sides, with the principal room, dedicated to the deity, often being located towards the south and the temple's entrance being located on the side opposite to this principal room. Some temples, such as Babylon's Ninurta temple, had a single courtyard, while others, such as Babylon's Ishhara temple, had smaller courtyards in addition to the main courtyard.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Though many processional streets are described in inscriptions from the Neo-Babylonian period, the only such street excavated yet is the main Processional Street of Babylon. This street ran along the eastern walls of the South Palace and exited the inner city walls at the Ishtar Gate, running past the North Palace. To the south, this street went by the Etemenanki, turning to the west and going over a bridge constructed either under the reign of Nabopolassar or Nebuchadnezzar II. Some of the bricks of the Processional Street bear the name of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib on their underside, suggesting that construction of the street had begun already during his reign, but the fact that the upper side of the bricks all bear the name of Nebuchadnezzar II, suggesting that construction of the street had been completed during his reign.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Nebuchadnezzar II also constructed two great cross-country walls, built with baked brick, to aid in Babylonia's defense. The only one of the two have been confidently located is known as the "Habl al-Shar" and stretched from Euphrates to the Tigris at the point the two rivers were the closest, some distance north of the city Sippar. The other wall, as of yet not found, was located to the east near the city Kish.' Nebuchadnezzar focused his defensive building projects on northern Babylonia, believing this region to be the most likely point of attack for his enemies, and also rebuilt the walls of northern cities such as Kish, Borsippa and Babylon itself while leaving the walls of southern cities, such as Ur and Uruk, as they were.'


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Typical residential houses from the Neo-Babylonian period were composed of a central unroofed courtyard surrounded on all four sides by suites of rooms. Some larger houses contained two or (rarely, in exceptionally large houses) three courtyards. Each of the sides of the courtyard had a central door, leading into the main room of each side, from which one could access the other smaller rooms of the houses. Most houses appear to have been oriented from the southeast to the northwest, with the main living area (the largest room) being located at the southeastern side. The exterior walls of houses were unadorned, blank and windowless. The main entrance was typically located on the end of the house furthest away from the main living area. Houses of people of higher status were generally free-standing, while houses of lower status could share an outer wall with a neighboring house.


title: Neo-Babylonian Empire

text: Houses in the Neo-Babylonian period were constructed mostly of sundried mudbrick. Baked bricks, such as the ones used in Nebuchadnezzar's great walls, were used for certain parts, such as the paving in rooms which were to be exposed to water and in the courtyard. Roofs were composed of straw-tempered murd overlaying reeds or reed matting, which in turn overlaid local timbers.


title: Power pop

text: Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and cheerful sounding music underpinned by a sense of yearning, longing, or despair. The sound is primarily rooted in pop and rock traditions of the early to mid-1960s, although some acts have occasionally drawn from later styles such as punk, new wave, glam rock, pub rock, college rock, and neo-psychedelia.


title: Power pop

text: Originating in the 1960s, power pop developed mainly among American musicians who came of age during the British Invasion. Many of these young musicians wished to retain the "teenage innocence" of pop and rebelled against newer forms of rock music that were thought to be pretentious and inaccessible. The term was coined in 1967 by the Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend to describe his band's style of music. However, power pop became more widely identified with later acts of the 1970s who sought to revive Beatles-style pop.


title: Power pop

text: Early 1970s hits by Badfinger, the Raspberries, and Todd Rundgren are sometimes credited with solidifying the power pop sound into a recognizable genre. Power pop reached its commercial peak during the rise of punk and new wave in the late 1970s, with Cheap Trick, the Knack, the Romantics, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, and Dwight Twilley enjoying the most success. After a popular and critical backlash to the genre's biggest hit, "My Sharona" (The Knack, 1979), record companies generally stopped signing power pop groups, and most of the 1970s bands broke up in the early 1980s.


title: Power pop

text: Over subsequent decades, power pop continued with modest commercial success while also remaining a frequent object of derision among some critics and musicians. The 1990s saw a new wave of alternative bands that were drawn to 1960s artists because of the 1980s music they had influenced. Although not as successful as their predecessors, Jellyfish, the Posies, Redd Kross, Teenage Fanclub, and Material Issue were critical and cult favorites. In the mid-1990s, an offshoot genre that combined power pop-style harmonies with uptempo punk rock, dubbed "pop-punk", reached mainstream popularity.


title: Power pop

text: Power pop is a more aggressive form of pop rock that is based on catchy, melodic hooks and energetic moods. AllMusic describes the style as "a cross between the crunching hard rock of the Who and the sweet melodicism of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, with the ringing guitars of the Byrds thrown in for good measure". Virtually every artist of the genre has been a rock band consisting of white male musicians who engaged with the song forms, vocal arrangements, chord progressions, rhythm patterns, instrumentation, or overall sound associated with groups of the mid-1960s British Invasion era.


title: Power pop

text: An essential feature of power pop is that its cheerful sounding arrangements are supported by a sense of "yearning", "longing", or "despair" similar to formative works such as "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (The Beach Boys, 1966) and "Pictures of Lily" (The Who, 1967). This might be achieved with an unexpected harmonic change or lyrics that refer to "tonight", "tomorrow night", "Saturday night", and so on. Power pop was also noted for its lack of irony and its reverence to classic pop craft. Its reconfiguration of 1960s tropes, music journalist Paul Lester argued, could make it one of the first postmodern music genres.


title: Power pop

text: The Who's Pete Townshend coined the term in a May 1967 interview promoting their latest single "Pictures of Lily". He said: "Power pop is what we play—what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop the Beach Boys played in the days of 'Fun, Fun, Fun' which I preferred." Despite other bands following in the power pop continuum since then, the term was not popularized until the rise of new wave music in the late 1970s. Greg Shaw, editor of "Bomp!" magazine, was the most prominent in the slew of music critics that wrote about power pop (then written as "powerpop"). This mirrored similar developments with the term "punk rock" from earlier in the decade. In light of this, Theo Cateforis, author of "Are We Not New Wave?" (2011), wrote that "the recognition and formulation" of power pop as a genre "was by no means organic."


title: Power pop

text: There is significant debate among fans over what should be classed as power pop. Shaw took credit for codifying the genre in 1978, describing it as a hybrid style of pop and punk. He later wrote that "much to my chagrin, the term was snapped up by legions of limp, second-rate bands hoping the majors would see them as a safe alternative to punk." Music journalist John M. Borack also stated in his 2007 book "Shake Some Action – The Ultimate Guide to Power Pop" that the label is often applied to varied groups and artists with "blissful indifference", noting its use in connection with Britney Spears, Green Day, the Bay City Rollers and Def Leppard.


title: Power pop

text: Power pop has struggled with its critical reception and is sometimes viewed as a shallow style of music associated with teenage audiences. The perception was exacerbated by record labels in the early 1980s who used the term for marketing post-punk styles. Music critic Ken Sharp summarized that power pop is "the Rodney Dangerfield of rock 'n' roll.[...] the direct updating of the most revered artists—the Who, the Beach Boys, the Beatles—yet it gets no respect." In 1996, singer-songwriter Tommy Keene commented that any association to the term since the 1980s is to be "compared to a lot of bands that didn't sell records, it's like a disease. If you're labeled that, you're history." Musician Steve Albini said: "I cannot bring myself to use the term 'power pop.' Catchy, mock-descriptive terms are for dilettantes and journalists. I guess you could say I think this music is for pussies and should be stopped." Ken Stringfellow of the Posies concurred that "There’s a kind of aesthetic to power pop to be light on purpose. I wanted something with more gravitas."


title: Power pop

text: Power pop originated in the late 1960s as young music fans began to rebel against the emerging pretensions of rock music. During this period, a schism developed between "serious" artists who rejected pop and "crassly commercial" pop acts who embraced their teenybopper audience. Greg Shaw credited the Who as the starting point for power pop, whereas Carl Caferelli (writing in Borack's book) said that "the story really begins circa 1964, with the commercial ascension of the Beatles in America." Caferelli also recognized the Beatles as the embodiment of the "pop band" ideal. According to "The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll", British Invasion bands, particularly the Merseybeat sound first popularised by the Beatles and its "jangly guitars, pleasant melodies, immaculate vocal harmonies, and a general air of teenage innocence", were a key influence on 1970s power-pop bands such as the Raspberries, Big Star, the Knack and XTC.


title: Power pop

text: When Pete Townshend coined the term, he suggested that songs like "I Can't Explain" (1965) and "Substitute" (1966) were more accessible than the changing, more experimental directions other groups such as the Beatles were taking. However, the term did not become widely identified with the Who, and it would take a few years before the genre's stylistic elements coalesced into a more recognizable form. "The A.V. Club" Noel Murray said that "once the sound became more viable and widely imitated, it was easier to trace the roots of the genre back to rockabilly, doo-wop, girl groups, and the early records of the Beatles, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, and the Who." Robert Hilburn traced the genre "chiefly from the way the Beatles and the Beach Boys mixed rock character and pure Top 40 instincts in such records as the latter's 'California Girls'." Borack noted, "It's also quite easy to draw a not-so-crooked line from garage rock to power pop."


title: Power pop

text: Townshend himself was heavily influenced by the guitar work of Beach Boy Carl Wilson, while the Who's debut single "I Can't Explain" was indebted to the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" (1964). Roy Shuker identified the leading American power pop acts of the time as the Byrds, Tommy James and the Shondells, and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Also significant to power pop in the 1960s was the Dave Clark Five, the Creation, the Easybeats, the Move, and the Nazz.


title: Power pop

text: In the 1970s, the rock scene fragmented into many new styles. Artists drifted away from the influence of early Beatles songs, and anyone who cited the Beatles or the Who as influences were a minority. In Paul Lester's description, "powerpop is really a 70s invention. It's about young musicians missing the 60s but taking its sound in new directions.[...] not just an alternative to prog and the hippy troubadours, but a cousin to glam." Novelist Michael Chabon believed that the genre did not truly come into its own until the emergence of "second generation" power pop acts in the early 1970s. Lester added that it was "essentially an American response to the British Invasion, made by Anglophiles a couple of years too young to have been in bands the first time round."


title: Power pop

text: For many fans of power pop, according to Caferelli, the "bloated and sterile" aspect of 1970s rock was indicative of the void left by the Beatles' breakup in 1970. During the early to middle part of the decade, only a few acts continued the tradition of Beatles-style pop. Some were younger glam/glitter bands, while others were 60s holdovers" that refused to update their sound. One of the most prominent groups in the latter category was Badfinger, the first artists signed to the Beatles' Apple Records. Although they had international top 10 chart success with "Come and Get It" (1969), "No Matter What" (1970), and "Day After Day" (1971), they were criticized in the music press as Beatles imitators. Caferelli describes them as "one of the earliest--and finest purveyors" of power pop. Conversely, AllMusic states that while Badfinger were among the groups that established the genre's sound, the Raspberries were the only power pop band of the era to have hit singles. Noel Murray wrote that Badfinger had "some key songs" that were power pop "before the genre really existed".