Ancient City of Baghdad

Few cities have blazed as brightly, or been reborn as many times, as Baghdad. Founded in 762 AD by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur on the banks of the Tigris, it grew into the beating heart of the Islamic Golden Age: home of the House of Wisdom, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith Centre of Learning that once rivalled Chang'an with more than a million souls. Sacked by the Mongols in 1258, passed through Ilkhanate, Ottoman and British hands, and battered again in our own century, it endures as Iraq's political, economic and cultural capital, the City of Palaces.

Its chart tells that story of splendour and survival beautifully. The Sun in Leo, the lion-king in full domicile, gives Baghdad its born-royal radiance, a place built to be the centre of its own solar system. Yet that Sun sits in the eighth house of death and rebirth, the phoenix from the ashes, and how many times has this city risen exactly so. The Moon in Libra, Venusian and beautiful, in the eleventh house of the collective, made it a gathering place of peoples and scholars. With Sagittarius rising, the jolly Jupiterian wanderer, Baghdad wears the mask of the great crossroads city, welcoming pilgrims and travellers still.