The Neo-Babylonian empire had an obsession with the ancient sumerian and akkadian cultures, one aspect of this is that they preserved old statues and artworks, excavated and rebuild temples, and studying old inscriptions, could any of that work be comparable to modern day archeology and restoration?

by Frigorifico

It's just funny to think of these very ancient people digging out buildings of an even more ancient civilization and doing things that would look familiar to modern day archeologists, it makes you think of how vast history is and how brief we are... so I wanna know if they were actually "ancient archeologists" or if I'm simply looking too much into it

Bentresh

The explorations and restorations of the Neo-Babylonian period are closer to modern conservation than archaeology, but the two often go hand in hand, and modern archaeology developed out of antiquarianism only about 150 years ago. There's always more to be said on the topic, but I wrote about this in Were there any archaeologists in ancient cultures? and Were there archaeologists and museums in the ancient world?

For more info on modern archaeology and how it differs from 19th century archaeology, see my response to How did the standards and ethics of excavation during the earlier days of Egyptology affect the preservation of information and our understanding of Ancient Egypt?