UNESCO lists Iraq's Babylon as World Heritage Site

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted on Friday to list the sprawling Mesopotamian metropolis of Babylon as a World Heritage Site after three decades of lobbying efforts by Iraq.
Iraq had been trying since 1983 to have the site - a massive 10-square-kilometre complex of which just 18 percent has been excavated thus far - recognised by UNESCO. Straddling Iraq's Euphrates River about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Baghdad, the city was the centre of the ancient Babylonian empire more than 4,000 years ago.
"What is the world heritage list without Babylon? How to tell the history of humanity without the earliest of old chapters, Babylon?" said Iraq's representative to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee ahead of the vote.