THE ISHTAR GATE

Ancient history

 Ishtar gate

The beautiful city of Babylon with its hanging gardens with their beautiful colors and the amazing 8^th gate of Babylon called the gate of Ishtar named so because it was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar goddess of love, sex, and war. Though there are various other animals on the gate to pay homage to various other Babylonian deities. Lions, Dragons and Bulls are set up in rows all up and down the Ishtar gate the lions are associated with the goddess Ishtar the bulls with the god Adad the weather god and the Dragons with Marduk who was the national god of Babylon. The Ishtar gate is on the most important road through the city called the Processional Way which leads from the inner city though the Ishtar gate to the House of the New Year’s Festival or Bit Akitu. The Processional way was used for the new year celebrations in which statues of deities would parade down the path to the temple of Marduk .The gate is covered with glazed brick which allowed a colorful presentation that is not possible of regular brick. 

The gate has rows of dragons and bulls in yellow and brown tiles surrounded by beautiful blue tile that is still being debated on what is in it some think it is lapis lazuli. The gate was excavated by Robert Koldewey between 1902 to 1914 CE they found 45 feet of the original foundation and 1930 they reconstructed in the Pergamon museum in Berlin. Due to space though only front smaller half of the gate was reconstructed. The gate was so well known and so amazing that it was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World until I got replaced later. The gate was an amazing work of art and is a testament to how the people of the ancient world were capable of amazing and inspiring things.

Bibliography

“Berlin-mitte-pergamon-ischtar-tor” by Balou46This file was imported from Wikivoyage Shared. – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berlin-mitte-pergamon-ischtar-tor.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Berlin-mitte-pergamon-ischtar-tor.jpg

Brittany Britanniae. “Ishtar Gate,” Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified August 23, 2013. http://www.ancient.eu /Ishtar_Gate/.

“Lion Relief from the Processional Way.” Lion Relief from the Processional Way. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015. Associates in Fine Arts, Yale University, “Handbook: A Description of the Gallery of Fine Arts and the Collections,” Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University 5, nos. 1–3 (1931): 7, ill.

Raymond P. Dougherty, “The Lion of Ishtar,” Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University 4, no. 3 (1932): 144

– See more at: http://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/4274#sthash.LHaFTMod.dpuf

“Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek – Ishtar-Tor” by Wolfgang Sauber – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Ishtar-Tor.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Ishtar-Tor.jpg