Some of the original brickwork under restoration and maintenance of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II (king of Babylon from 605 BC to 562 BC).

When Saddam toured the reconstruction and when he asked the curators how they knew when the original palace was built, they showed him one of the original bricks stamped with the name of King Nebuchadnezzar II and the construction date, 605 BC.

The Iraqi leader then immediately suggested that the bricks used in the recreation bear a similar inscription. Hence they are inscribed with the text: "In the reign of the victorious Saddam Hussein, the president of the Republic, may God keep him, the guardian of the great Iraq and the renovator of its renaissance and the builder of its great civilization, the rebuilding of the great city of Babylon was done in 1987".