Note sull'episodio
The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate into the inner city of Babylon, built under King Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BC. The double gate stood about 15 meters high on foundations sunk another 14 meters into the water table and sealed with bitumen. Its bricks were molded in relief, bisque fired, then coated in a cobalt frit glaze to imitate lapis lazuli, the stone that forms the goddess Inanna's body in the myth of her descent to the underworld. Aurochs for the storm god Adad and mushhushshu dragons for Marduk covered the gate, while striding lions for Ishtar lined the 800 meter Processional Way, the route of the 12 day Akitu New Year festival. Nebuchadnezzar's dedication plaque runs 60 lines of cuneiform boasting that he dug down to the water to lay the foundation.
From 1899 to 1914 German archaeologist Robert Koldewey and his assistant Walter Andrae excavated Babylon for the German Oriental Society. Andrae used his wasta with German intelligence officers and local tribal sheikhs to bypass Ottoman authorities, numbering the glazed fragments with a color code, packing them in straw inside coal barrels, and shipping them down the river. In Berlin the pieces were desalinated in water baths and gaps filled with bricks from a purpose-built kiln. Iraq has asked for the gate back, including in 2002 and 2009, while museums point to the looting of the National Museum of Iraq after the 2003 war.
- Babylon at its peak used an estimated 15 million baked bricks
- Seams between bricks were planned so they would not cut through the animals' eyes
- Of 120 lion reliefs from the Processional Way, 118 were taken out of Iraq
- Only the smaller front gate stands in the Pergamon Museum, while the main gate sits disassembled in storage
- In 2011 an Italian-Iranian team found a 6th century BCE gate at Tol-e Ajori near Persepolis with the same aurochs and dragons