Ishtar Gate

The Ishtar Gate was one of the city gates of Babylon, the capital of Babylonia on the Euphrates in present-day Iraq. King Nebuchadnezzar II had it built in its final form in the 6th century BC and dedicated it to the goddess Ishtar. The Processional Way ran through the gate; at the New Year festival, statues of the gods were carried along it into the city.

The walls were faced with blue glazed bricks whose colour was meant to evoke lapis lazuli. In relief they show dragons, the animal of the god Marduk, and aurochs, the animal of the weather god Adad. The gate was about 15 metres high. Excavations revealed several building phases, because the level of the street was raised more than once.

From 1899 a German team led by Robert Koldewey excavated in Babylon. Hundreds of crates of brick fragments were shipped to Berlin, where the smaller front gate was reconstructed and stood in the Pergamon Museum from 1930. However, the wing housing the Museum of the Ancient Near East has been closed for renovation since October 2023; the Berlin State Museums plan to present it again from 2037. Other parts of the façade are held by museums around the world.