Chapter 4 / 10 · 6th century BCE
Illustrative reconstruction, not a survey. Positions and sizes are approximate unless a dimension names its source.
A double gateway of baked brick, with rows of bulls and dragons, a street raised over time, and glazed rows at the top.
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Scene 1 / 8 · 6th century BCE
The gate at the end of the street
The Ishtar Gate led through the double wall into the inner city. Its walls still stood 12 metres high.
Explainer
The Ishtar Gate was the northern entrance of the inner city, at the end of the Processional Way. Inscriptions name it as belonging to both great walls, Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel, now read Imgur-Enlil and Nemetti-Enlil.
When the excavators uncovered it, its walls still stood 12 metres high, covered with brick reliefs. Koldewey called it the largest and most striking ruin of Babylon.
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified
Narration script
At the end of the Processional Way stands the Ishtar Gate. It led through the double wall into the inner city. When the excavators found it, its walls still stood twelve metres high, covered in brick reliefs. Koldewey called it the largest and most striking ruin of Babylon.
Scene 2 / 8 · 6th century BCE
A double gateway
Two gates, one behind the other, each with two projecting towers and a gateway court.
Explainer
The gate is double. Two doorways close together, one behind the other, are joined into one block. Each has two widely projecting towers at its entrance.
Behind each entrance is a space closed by a second door, called the gateway court. It was probably roofed. It protected the leaves of the double door, which opened back into it.
In the northern gate the chamber lies across the passage; in the southern gate it runs along it. The explode control lifts the gates apart.
Debate
What stood above the gateway chamber?
Koldewey drew two possibilities: a central tower of great height over the chamber, or towers that commanded it. He writes that nothing remains in proof of either, and that the superstructure leaves little to guide us.
R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified
Narration script
The Ishtar Gate is really two gates, one behind the other, joined into one block. Each has two towers at its entrance, and behind it a chamber, the gateway court, where the great doors folded back. Here the two gates lift apart, so you can see how they stand.
Scene 3 / 8 · 6th century BCE
Three entrances and moving joints
Four wings of baked brick gave the gate three entrances. Joints let parts on unequal foundations settle apart.
Explainer
The gate was not set straight into the mud wall. It stood between four wing-like additions of baked brick, each with a doorway. So the Ishtar Gate had three entrances: the central one with fourfold doors, and one on each side with double doors.
The main building has foundations so deep that the excavators could not reach their foot. The wings go less deep. To stop the walls cracking as they settled, the builders left a narrow vertical gap between them, with a fillet sliding in a groove. Koldewey compares it to a modern expansion joint.
Materials and techniques
Materials and techniques
Where foundations differ in depth, the walls are not bonded together. A narrow space runs from top to bottom, and a vertical fillet on the shallower wall slides in a groove of the main wall, so the two can settle without leaning.
R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified
Narration script
Around the gate stood four wings of baked brick, each with its own door. So there were three ways through. The builders knew that walls on deep and shallow foundations settle differently. So they left a vertical gap between them, with a tongue sliding in a groove. Today we call it an expansion joint.
Scene 4 / 8 · 6th century BCE
Brick, asphalt and reed
Whole bricks and half bricks in alternate courses, joints of asphalt and mud, and a reed mat every few courses.
Explainer
The gate is built of baked brick. Whole bricks of 33 by 33 centimetres alternate, course by course, with half bricks of 33 by 16.5 centimetres.
Over every course lies a thin layer of asphalt, then a thin layer of mud, then the next course. The joints are 1 to 1.5 centimetres thick. In one wall a mat of split, beaten reeds takes the place of the mud in every fifth course.
Herodotus writes of a mat every 30 courses. The excavators found mats every 5 to 13 courses.
Measurements
Measurements
| Whole brick | 33 by 33 cm R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Kasr. The ascent and Procession Street Verified |
|---|---|
| Half brick | 33 by 16.5 cm R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Kasr. The ascent and Procession Street Verified |
| Joints | 1 to 1.5 cm, asphalt and mud R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified |
| Reed mats | every 5 to 13 courses R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified |
| One course | about 8.3 cm (24 courses to about 2 m), derived R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified |
R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified
Debate
How often a reed mat?
Herodotus says a plaited mat lay after every 30 courses. Koldewey had not seen so large a number: his lowest was 5 and his highest 13.
R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified · Herodotus, Histories 1.188 to 1.191, 430 BCE, 1.179 To verify Ancient narrative, not a record
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Kasr. The ascent and Procession Street Verified · R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified · Herodotus, Histories 1.188 to 1.191, 430 BCE, 1.179 To verify Ancient narrative, not a record
Narration script
Look closely at the wall. Whole bricks, a third of a metre square, alternate with half bricks, course by course. Between them, a thin bed of asphalt and mud. Every few courses, a mat of split reeds. Herodotus says every thirty courses. The excavators found every five to thirteen. The building inscriptions name asphalt again and again.
Scene 5 / 8 · 6th century BCE
Rows of bulls and dragons
Each row is 24 courses, about 2 metres. Bulls and dragons are never mixed in one row.
Explainer
The walls carried rows of animals one above another: bulls, and the dragon called sirrush. A row of bulls is followed by a row of sirrush. They are never mixed in one row.
Each animal is 13 brick courses high, with 11 plain courses between rows. So one row takes 24 courses, which measure almost exactly 2 metres, or 4 Babylonian ells.
Nine rows are visible in relief. Koldewey’s schema has 13. The figures here are schematic outlines, not tracings of the reliefs.
Measurements
Measurements
| One row | 13 courses of figure and 11 plain, 24 courses, about 2 m R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified |
|---|---|
| Rows visible in relief | 9 R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified |
| Rows in the schema | 13 R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified |
| Animals | at least 575: 40 or more in each of 8 lower rows, 51 in each of the 5 upper rows R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified |
How we know it
Whose animals?
Koldewey reads the bull as the sacred animal of the weather god, and the sirrush as the animal of Marduk and Nabu. The name sirrush means a walking serpent.
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified
Narration script
The walls carried rows of animals, one above another. A row of bulls, then a row of dragons, never mixed. Each animal is thirteen courses of brick high, with eleven plain courses between the rows. So every row takes twenty-four courses, almost exactly two metres. Here the rows build up, from the lowest to the thirteenth.
Scene 6 / 8 · 6th century BCE
Never seen all at once
The street was raised again and again. The lower rows disappeared below it as the gate was used.
Explainer
The level of the street at the gate was raised several times. Traces of the last two raisings lie between rows 10 and 11, and between rows 8 and 9. A pavement between rows 6 and 7 is not clear.
As the street rose, the lower rows went below the surface. They were carefully smeared with mud, and the eighth row was covered with white stucco. Below the older roadway the brickwork is rough. Row 9 is finely finished.
So the whole company of animals was never visible at the same time. The section cut shows the street levels against the rows.
How we know it
How we know it
The rows below the older roadway show reversed and irregular bricks, and asphalt running over the figures. Row 9 is smoothed and rasped. Koldewey reads this as rows never meant to be seen for long.
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified
Narration script
The street at the gate was raised again and again. As it rose, the lowest rows of animals disappeared beneath it. The builders smeared them with mud before filling them in. One row was even covered in white plaster. So no one ever saw all the animals at once. The cut shows the street levels against the rows.
Scene 7 / 8 · 6th century BCE
Glaze and colour
The upper rows were glazed: flat enamel in rows 10 and 11, enamelled relief in rows 12 and 13.
Explainer
Rows 1 to 9 are brick relief without glaze. Rows 10 and 11 are in flat enamel. Rows 12 and 13 are in enamelled relief, the finest technique.
Nebuchadnezzar’s own inscription describes the gate as finely set with baked bricks of blue enamel, on which wild oxen and dragons were pictured.
The drawing shows the glazed rows in tone: a grey ground, bulls in red and dragons in white. In the reconstruction in Berlin the ground is blue, with yellow and white figures. That colour key is to verify against the museum’s reconstruction.
Materials and techniques
Materials and techniques
Fragments of the glazed rows were taken to Berlin. There they were soaked for a long time to draw out the salts that had crystallised on them, before they could be studied and set together.
Sources: R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The wall decorations of bulls and dragons Verified · trans. F. Delitzsch, quoted in Koldewey 1914, The Steinplatten inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, cols. 5 and 6, 1914, cols. 5 and 6 Secondary source · J. Marzahn, The Ishtar Gate, the Processional Way, the New Year Festival of Babylon, 1992 To verify
Narration script
The highest rows were glazed. Two rows in flat enamel, then two in glazed relief. Nebuchadnezzar’s inscription speaks of bricks of blue enamel, with wild oxen and dragons pictured on them. The drawing shows them in tone. In Berlin’s reconstruction the ground is blue, the figures yellow and white.
Scene 8 / 8 · 6th century BCE
Cedar, copper and bronze
Cedar beams for the ceiling, doors of cedar covered with copper, and bronze bulls and dragons at the thresholds.
Explainer
Nebuchadnezzar’s inscription lists the gate’s fittings: mighty cedars laid lengthways for the ceiling, door leaves of cedar covered with copper, thresholds and hinges of bronze.
It also says that bronze wild oxen and dragons stood at the thresholds. The excavators found small pedestals in front of the gate and in its courts, where such figures may have stood.
The front gate was later rebuilt in Berlin from excavated bricks. Its state there is to verify against the museum’s record.
Sources: trans. F. Delitzsch, quoted in Koldewey 1914, The Steinplatten inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, cols. 5 and 6, 1914, cols. 5 and 6 Secondary source · R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914, The Ishtar Gate Verified · J. Marzahn, The Ishtar Gate, the Processional Way, the New Year Festival of Babylon, 1992 To verify
Narration script
The gate’s own inscription lists its fittings. Cedar beams for the ceiling. Doors of cedar covered with copper. Thresholds and hinges of bronze. And at the thresholds, bronze bulls and dragons. The excavators found small pedestals in front of the gate where they may have stood.
Sources
- I. Finkel (ed.), The Cyrus Cylinder: The King of Persia’s Proclamation from Ancient Babylon, 2013 To verify
- The British Museum, The Cyrus Cylinder, museum number 1880,0617.1941 (BM 90920), collection record, 2026 To verify
- P. Briant, trans. P. T. Daniels, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire, 2002 To verify
- D. Stronach, Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963, 1978 To verify
- R. Koldewey, trans. A. S. Johns, The Excavations at Babylon, 1914 Verified
- Herodotus, Histories 1.188 to 1.191, 430 BCE To verify Ancient narrative, not a record
- trans. F. Delitzsch, quoted in Koldewey 1914, The Steinplatten inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II, cols. 5 and 6, 1914 Secondary source
- J. Marzahn, The Ishtar Gate, the Processional Way, the New Year Festival of Babylon, 1992 To verify