Ishtar Gate

The Ishtar Gate, built around 569 BC on the northern side of Babylon (near modern-day Hillah, Iraq), served as the city’s eighth inner wall gate. Ordered by King Nebuchadnezzar II, it formed part of a walled processional route into the city. The gate had two sections: a smaller front gate and a larger, more elaborate rear one. Its walls were covered in glazed bricks, predominantly blue, featuring low-relief animals and deities made from colored bricks. The structure stood 15 meters tall, with foundations extending 14 meters underground.

German archaeologist Robert Koldewey excavated the site from 1904 to 1914. After World War I ended in 1918, the smaller front gate was rebuilt at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum. Additional panels from the gate’s facade are housed in museums worldwide. A replica of the Ishtar Gate adorns the Iraqi embassy in Beijing, China, while the facades of Iraqi embassies in Amman, Jordan, and Islamabad, Pakistan, also reference its design.

King Nebuchadnezzar II ruled from 604 to 562 BC, during the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s peak. Known as the biblical conqueror of Jerusalem, he commissioned the gate and dedicated it to the goddess Ishtar. Built with glazed brick, the gate displayed alternating rows of bas-relief mušḫuššu (dragons), aurochs (bulls), and lions, representing the gods Marduk, Adad, and Ishtar. According to a dedication plaque, the roof and doors were cedar. The blue glaze on the bricks mimicked lapis lazuli, a prized deep-blue stone, giving the facade a jewel-like shine. The Processional Way, which passed through the gate, was lined with walls featuring about 120 lions, bulls, dragons, and flowers on yellow and black glazed bricks, symbolizing Ishtar. The gate itself depicted only gods and goddesses, including Ishtar, Adad, and Marduk. During New Year celebrations, statues of these deities were paraded through the gate and along the Processional Way.

The gate’s front featured low-relief patterns of two major Babylonian gods. Marduk, the national chief god, appeared with his servant dragon Mušḫuššu—a creature with a snake-like head and tail, a lion’s scaled body, and powerful talons. Marduk was seen as a divine champion against evil, and Babylonians often sought his protection in incantations. The second god depicted was Adad (also called Ishkur), whose sacred animal was the aurochs, an extinct ancestor of cattle. Adad controlled destructive storms and beneficial rain. The design also included linear borders and rosette patterns, often symbols of fertility.

The bricks were made from finely textured clay pressed into wooden forms. Animal reliefs were created from bricks pressed into reusable molds. Seams between bricks were carefully placed to avoid the animals’ eyes or other sensitive areas. The bricks were sun-dried, then fired once before glazing, resulting in a brownish-red bisque. Background glazes were mainly vivid blue, imitating lapis lazuli, while gold and brown glazes colored the animals. Borders and rosettes used black, white, and gold glazes. The glaze likely involved a recipe of plant ash, sandstone conglomerates, and pebbles for silicates, repeatedly melted, cooled, and pulverized into a frit. Color-producing minerals like cobalt were added, then painted onto the bisque-fired bricks and fired at a higher temperature.

The gate’s construction from wood and clay glazed to resemble lapis lazuli may reference the goddess Inanna, who merged with Ishtar during Sargon of Akkad’s reign. In the myth of Inanna’s descent to the underworld, she dons seven lapis lazuli items symbolizing her divine power. Captured by the underworld’s queen, Inanna is described as lapis lazuli, silver, and wood—two materials central to the Ishtar Gate, linking it to the goddess herself. After glaze firing, the bricks were assembled with narrow horizontal seams (1 to 6 millimeters), sealed with bitumen, a natural black substance like modern asphalt. The Ishtar Gate was just one part of ancient Babylon’s design, which also included the palace, temples, an inner fortress, walls, gardens, other gates, and the Processional Way. The city used over 15 million baked bricks, by some estimates. The main gate led to the Southern Citadel and seemed part of Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel, two key defensive walls. The gate had three entrances: a central one with a double gate structure (two sets of double doors, totaling four doors), and flanking doors on the left and right, each with a double door structure.

Once a year, the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way hosted a New Year’s procession, during which statues of deities were paraded through.