US-led forces, using Iraq's ancient city of Babylon as a military base, have caused "substantial damage" to one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures. A British Museum report said US and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilisation and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Archaeological fragments were used to fill sand bags. "This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," said John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient and Near East department, in the report. Curtis, invited to visit Babylon by Iraqi antiquities experts, said he had found cracks and gaps made by people who had apparently tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the city's Ishtar Gate. Babylon was the capital of ancient Babylonia, an early civilisation that existed from around 1,800 BC until 600 BC. It is most famous for the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, built by Nebuchadnezzar. **PHOTO CAPTION*** US soldiers enter the ancient city of Babylon. (AFP)