Ishtar Gate

The eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon, built c. 575 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar II as part of his grand beautification of the capital. The towering structure featured brilliant blue glazed bricks adorned with bas-relief mushussu dragons (sacred to Marduk), aurochs bulls (Adad), and lions (Ishtar) in alternating rows. It served as the entrance to the Processional Way, a half-mile corridor lined with over 120 sculptured lions used during the New Year's Festival. Excavated by Robert Koldewey (1902-1914), the gate was reconstructed in Berlin's Pergamon Museum in 1930. Babylon was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.