First Kingdom: Babylon
"This image's head was fine gold..." (Daniel 2:32)
The first kingdom is King Nebuchadnezzar's own kingdom of Babylon for, Daniel was told, "the God of heaven" had given Nebuchadnezzar "a kingdom, power, strength, and glory" (Daniel 2:38).
Babylon: 605-539 B.C. (66 years)
(Jastrow, 1915; Babylonian Empire (605 - 539 BC): The Last "Native-Ruled" Mesopotamian Nation Until the 20th Century, 2009; Dougherty, 2008)
Babylon is located in modern-day Iraq about sixty miles south of Baghdad. It was the center of the most powerful nation in the Middle East in antiquity. Gold was the symbol for Babylon. Its chief god, Bel-Marduk, was crafted of solid gold sitting on a golden throne next to a golden candlestick before a golden table in a golden-domed temple. The prophet Isaiah also calls Babylon “the golden city” (Isaiah 14:4). This neo-Babylonian kingdom is conventionally known to historians as the Chaldean dynasty. The Chaldeans were a semitic speaking people.
Image credit: http://www.signs-of-end-times.com/image/head-of-gold.jpg