When I was overseas, I got the chance to walk through ancient Babylon, which had been rebuilt and preserved by Saddam Hussein in addition to a lavish palace addition next door. When I say “lavish”, don’t confuse the word with some empty top-shelf adjective; this palace is the embodiment of the word itself. Though it had long since been looted of every scrap of ornamentation the palace still radiated an air of quiet grandiosity.
I took a trip up there with some other guys from my comm shop for the day and spent hours just wandering through the palace, looking through room after room in awe. It was as if I had been transported back in time to some ancient world in which kings and emperors wielded their wealth as heavily as they did their swords. Continue reading