Plot
Both the gates and the walls are built of clay bricks, which are covered with multi-colored glaze. Copper was used to obtain a blue-green tint. Images of animals are used in the ornament: lions on the walls, sirrush and tour on the gates. The lions symbolize Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of war, wisdom and sexuality. Animals at eye level are depicted slightly smaller than life-size.
Ishtar Gate. (Pinterest)
Sirrush - a creature whose body consists of parts of the bodies of various animals (front paws - lion, head and neck - snake or dragon, hind legs - eagle, and on the tail - a sting like a scorpion) - is associated with Marduk, the patron god Babylon. At the same time, Nebuchadnezzar himself equated himself with the supreme deity, about which he did not hesitate to write on the buildings built with his money.
Tours - ancient bulls, considered incredibly ferocious - are associated with Adam, the god of storms, fertility and harvest.
Reconstruction of the gate and part of the walls. (Pinterest)
All these animals symbolize the protection and material well-being of the city. At the same time, they are depicted in such a correct sequence, as if trained and subordinate to Nebuchadnezzar himself. This made fear not only ferocious creatures, but also the king.
Context
The Ishtar Gate was part of the construction campaign undertaken by Nebuchadnezzar II. By his command, Babylon was surrounded by a double wall. The height of the outer walls reached 8 meters, the width - almost 4 meters; internal - 11-14 meters and 6.5 meters, respectively. Defensive towers were located every 20 meters. One could enter the city through one of the eight fortified gates. One of them was the Ishtar Gate. They were at the end of the so-called Processional Road, along which statues of the gods were carried on New Year's Day.
Goddess Ishtar. (Pinterest)
What remains of the Ishtar Gate is today kept in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, and some of the bas-reliefs are scattered around the museums of the world. How did part of the fortress wall get to Germany? It happened a century ago after the excavations of one of the largest German archaeologists Robert Koldewey. At the end of the 19th century, he was able to convince the German Oriental Society, the government and Kaiser Wilhelm II to finance excavations in Mesopotamia at the site of Ancient Babylon.
Robert Koldewey. (Pinterest)
The excavations of Babylon lasted 18 years (instead of the planned five), and if it were not for the British troops who entered Baghdad in 1917 during the First World War, it is possible that Koldewey would have worked further in the Euphrates valley. The archaeologist managed to unearth the fortress walls, the royal palace, the remains of the temple of Marduk, etc. During the work, the upper part of the gate collapsed - hundreds of fragments were delivered to Berlin, from which the structure was restored with the greatest possible accuracy.
The Ishtar Gate is one of the most famous architectural monuments, also known as the Chaldean kingdom. The reason for this is not aesthetic merits, but the fact that the gate is very well preserved from most analogues of this structure, only ruins remain. The gates were built in 575 BC. e. And the Babylonians themselves hardly considered the Ishtar gate to be something exceptional. They served as one of the many decorations of the Processional Road leading through the huge city to the legendary Tower of Babel - the Temple Pyramid of Etemenanki. The tower was dedicated to the supreme god of the Babylonians, Marduk, but the patroness of the main gate was the goddess of love, passion and war Ishtar (from the Bible she is known as Astarte). All elements of this majestic ensemble, which was called Esagila, were made of bricks and covered with glazed tiles (a type of ceramic tile for lining walls, stoves, etc.).
The design of the gate is quite simple - it is a semi-circular arch flanked by two rectangular 14-meter towers with a decorative parapet. On the inside, two even more massive towers adjoined the gate, united by an open gallery, however, to this day, the inner towers have not been preserved and have not been reproduced in any of the reconstructions that exist today.
The architectural decoration of the Ishtar gate corresponded to the tastes of Mesopotamian architecture - they were covered with dark blue, yellow, white and black tiles, forming ornamental belts and animalistic bas-reliefs. The walls leading to the gate were decorated with 120 figures of lions, and on the facade there were alternate rows of bulls (sacred animals of the goddess Ishtar) and sirrushes (fiery dragons of the supreme god Marduk). The biblical fiery angels, the seraphim, probably originate from these dragons.
Most of the tiles from the Ishtar Gate were transported to Berlin in the 1930s, where a full-scale reconstruction of the majestic structure was created under the roof of the Pergamon Museum. A copy of the gate, made from new materials, was built in the city of Al-Hilla, not far from its historical location.
Ishtar Gate on the map
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Long ago, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylon had seven gates bearing the names of the gods. Of extraordinary beauty was the gate of the goddess Ishtar, from where the famous Processional Road began, heading to Esagila, the temple of the patron of Babylon, Marduk. The ruins of the Ishtar Gate remain one of the most significant testimonies of the former glory of Babylon, and it is about them that I would like to tell you today.
The Ishtar Gate is located in the Museum of the Ancient Near East, which, in turn, is the pavilion of the Pergamon Museum, created in 1899. It contains the finds of German archaeologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. in Mesopotamia.
The Babylonian collection is the result of an expedition led by R. Koldevey, who excavated 90 km south of Baghdad. For almost 20 years, archaeologists have been working on this discovery, and as a result, Babylon appeared before us - a city of fabulous wealth, the Tower of Babel, hanging gardens, inhabited by a myriad of inhabitants . Its dimensions, buildings, the power of the fortress walls - all this once amazed foreigners. This is how he appears before us in the writings of Herodotus and the Old Testament. Later, Babylon fell into desolation, and people forgot not only about its existence, but also its exact location. But archeology has rediscovered its fortress walls with towers, the royal palace, the procession road, the remains of the temple of Marduk, and so on.
Inside the city walls, at different ends of the city, there were two dominant buildings: on the one hand, the royal palace, on the opposite side, the pyramidal temple of Esagila. It was a huge structure, each side of which was 400 meters long. To the south of it was the majestic 91-meter ziggurat Etemenanki (“the temple of the cornerstone of heaven and earth”), which became the basis for the biblical myth of the Tower of Babel. At the top of the tower was the sanctuary of the main god of Babylonia, Marduk, lined with glazed bricks, and its walls and ceilings were covered with gold and decorated with precious stones.
The processional road was perhaps the best road of the Ancient World, because it was intended to move not by people and wagons, but by the great god and patron of Babylon Marduk, who once a year made his way along it to Esagila. And it took its beginning at the gates of Ishtar.
Answering the question “why exactly were these gates dedicated to the goddess Ishtar?”, Let me remind you that among the huge pantheon of the gods of Mesopotamia, Ishtar was both the central female deity, and the patron deity and a deity who embodied in her image the features of many Mesopotamian and extra-Mesopotamian deities similar type. And therefore, local and universal elements of the sacred were united in her image.
Ishtar was highly revered as the goddess of beauty and love, compared with Venus. The cult of Ishtar originated in the city of Uruk, of which she was the patroness. Among the cities of Babylonia, there were seven largest ones, among which Uruk was included. Each patron deity of one of these cities was reflected in the gates of Babylon, which was supposed to symbolize the unity of the country. And since Ishtar was recognized as the wife of Marduk, the main front gates were dedicated to her.
The Babylonian gates of the great Ishtar themselves were made double. The inner ones were twice as large as the outer ones. The glazed brick cladding glittered in the sun, and the background was decorated with 575 - I believe in accordance with the date of construction, since the Gate was built by order of King Nebuchadnezzar in 575 - gold relief images of revered animals: lions, sirros and bulls.
By the way, the gate got its name from the temple of Ishtar, which was located nearby. The symbol of the goddess Ishtar was considered to be a lion, and therefore its images adorn the walls of the Processional Road outside the gate. On the gates themselves there are relief figures of bulls (the animal of the weather god Adad) and sirrushi dragons (the animal is the symbol of Marduk).
Recall that it was here, at the Ishtar gate, that the already mentioned Procession Road began, the continuation of which in the city was Aibur-Shaba Street. It was along it that a large procession was held on New Year's Eve, led by the golden statue of Marduk.
The street itself was made up mostly of pink stone slabs, with red stone inlays around the edges. Its width was 23 meters, and along its entire length it was accompanied by walls of glazed blue brick, seven meters high. Every two meters, the walls were decorated with relief images of lions in frightening poses.
Also impressive is the inscription that Nebuchadnezzar II ordered to be placed on the Ishtar Gate, which reads:
“I am Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, a pious prince, appointed by the will of Marduk, a high priest, beloved of Nabu, judicious, who learned to choose the wise, who comprehended the divine essence of Marduk and Nabu and honored their greatness ... the first-born son of Nabopolassar, the king of Babylon ...
I demolished these gates and overlaid their foundation at the water table with asphalt and bricks. I ordered them to be built of bricks with blue tiles, on which I depicted wonderful bulls and sirrush dragons. I covered their roofs with majestic cedars, I put bronze-studded cedar doors in every opening. I made wild bulls and terrible dragons on the gate. I adorned them with such sumptuous splendor that the peoples looked at them and marveled.”
But sooner or later everything falls into decay, so the beauty of the gates of the goddess Ishtar was appreciated only after German scientists conducted a study here. In total, about 100 thousand fragments of bricks, which used to be the gate, were found.
Unfortunately, in 1902, during the excavations, the upper part of the Ishtar Gate collapsed. About a thousand fragments were delivered to Berlin, of which the specialists managed to restore the closest to the original appearance, although, of course, the Ishtar Gates presented in the Pergamon Museum are not an exact copy of the original, but this is logical - otherwise they could not fit in the museum building . Here you can also see the restored part of the Procession Road.
Smaller restored parts of the Babylonian heritage are on display in many museums around the world - the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, the Detroit Museum, the Louvre, etc. The Ishtar Gate in Iraq is still an object of admiration and a place of pilgrimage for tourists, because the structure towering 12 meters still fascinates with the secrets of ancient times.
In the past two years, the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities of Iraq, Liwa Sumaysim, periodically complains about the looting of fragments of the ancient Ishtar Gate and the Processional Road.
Goddess Ishtar Gate Babil Province, Iraq. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, blue glazed remains of brick tiles and fragments of the ancient Babylon Processional Road were excavated from under a fifteen-meter layer of sand. Then, after agreement with the Iraqi government, they were transferred to Berlin. And for 30 years, the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Road, which became the pearl of the Museum of Western Asia, was painstakingly and accurately in German. And in Iraq, the reconstruction of the gate was carried out using modern analogues of bricks under Saddam Hussein.
The ancient fragments of the gate that remained in Iraq were kept in the Nebuchadnezzar Museum on the site of ancient Babylon. Before the American invasion in 2003, the museum's vaults were sealed, sending part of the exhibits to the National Museum of Baghdad. The missing bricks are believed to have been stolen from the Nebuchadnezzar Museum.
During the Iraq campaign of the US and its allies, which lasted from 2003 to 2011, the ruins of ancient Babylon were further destroyed, and many cultural values, including the heritage of the ancient states of the Sumerians and Babylonians, were looted. Nevertheless, I really want to hope that the monument of antiquity will be preserved for new generations.
Diana Augusta Stauer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ishtar Gate- the eighth gate of the inner city in Babylon. Built in 575 BC. e. by order of King Nebuchadnezzar in the northern part of the city.
Appearance
The Ishtar Gate is a huge semicircular arch, bounded on the sides by gigantic walls and overlooking the so-called Processional Road, along which the walls stretched. The gate is dedicated to the goddess Ishtar and built of brick, covered with bright blue, yellow, white and black glaze. The walls of the gates and the Processional Road are covered with bas-reliefs of extraordinary beauty, depicting animals in poses very close to natural. The walls of the path are decorated with about 120 bas-reliefs of lions. The walls of the gate are covered with alternating rows of images of sirrus and bulls. In total, there are about 575 animal images on the gates. The roof and gate doors were made of cedar. Statues of the gods passed through the Ishtar Gate along the Processional Road on New Year's Day.
A smaller copy of the gate, built by Saddam Hussein, was destroyed during the hostilities.
Reconstruction
The reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Road was made in the 1930s. in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, from material found by archaeologist Robert Koldewey. Fragments of the gates and lions that adorned the Processional Road are kept in various museums around the world. Bas-reliefs of lions, dragons and bulls are kept in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. The Detroit Museum of Art has a bas-relief of a sirrush. There are bas-reliefs of lions in the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Oriental Institute in Chicago, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
A replica of the Ishtar Gate was built in Iraq at the entrance to the museum, which was never completed.
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Coordinates : 32°32′36″ s. sh. 44°25′20″ E d. / 32.54333° N sh. 44.42222° E d. / 32.54333; 44.42222(G) (I)
An excerpt characterizing the Ishtar Gate
“I would not believe someone who would tell me that I can love like that,” said Prince Andrei. “It's not the same feeling I had before. The whole world is divided for me into two halves: one is she and there is all the happiness of hope, light; the other half - everything where it is not there, there is all despondency and darkness ...“Darkness and gloom,” Pierre repeated, “yes, yes, I understand that.
“I can't help but love the light, it's not my fault. And I am very happy. You understand me? I know that you are happy for me.
“Yes, yes,” Pierre confirmed, looking at his friend with touching and sad eyes. The brighter the fate of Prince Andrei seemed to him, the darker his own seemed.
For marriage, the consent of the father was needed, and for this, the next day, Prince Andrei went to his father.
The father, with outward calm, but inward malice, received his son's message. He could not understand that someone wanted to change life, to bring something new into it, when life was already ending for him. “They would only let me live the way I want, and then they would do what they wanted,” the old man said to himself. With his son, however, he used the diplomacy he used on important occasions. Assuming a calm tone, he discussed the whole matter.
Firstly, the marriage was not brilliant in relation to kinship, wealth and nobility. Secondly, Prince Andrei was not the first youth and was in poor health (the old man especially leaned on this), and she was very young. Thirdly, there was a son whom it was a pity to give to a girl. Fourthly, finally, - said the father, looking mockingly at his son, - I beg you, postpone the matter for a year, go abroad, take medical treatment, find, as you like, a German, for Prince Nikolai, and then, if it’s love, passion, stubbornness, whatever you want, so great, then get married.
“And this is my last word, you know, the last ...” the prince finished in such a tone that he showed that nothing would make him change his mind.
Prince Andrei clearly saw that the old man hoped that the feeling of his or his future bride would not stand the test of the year, or that he himself, the old prince, would die by this time, and decided to fulfill the will of his father: to propose and postpone the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after his last evening at the Rostovs, Prince Andrei returned to Petersburg.
The next day after her explanation with her mother, Natasha waited all day for Bolkonsky, but he did not arrive. The next day, the third day, it was the same. Pierre also did not come, and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrei had gone to her father, could not explain his absence to herself.
So three weeks passed. Natasha did not want to go anywhere, and like a shadow, idle and despondent, she walked around the rooms, in the evening she secretly cried from everyone and did not appear in the evenings to her mother. She was constantly blushing and irritated. It seemed to her that everyone knew about her disappointment, laughed and regretted her. With all the strength of inner grief, this vainglorious grief increased her misfortune.
One day she came to the countess, wanted to say something to her, and suddenly burst into tears. Her tears were the tears of an offended child who himself does not know why he is being punished.
The Countess began to reassure Natasha. Natasha, who at first listened to her mother's words, suddenly interrupted her:
- Stop it, mom, I don’t think, and I don’t want to think! So, I traveled and stopped, and stopped ...
✪ Neo-Babylonian Art: Ishtar Gate and Procession Road
✪ Ishtar Gate from Babylon. Pergamon Museum.
✪ Babylon - Gate of the Gods (Russian) History of the ancient world.
Subtitles
We are at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. One of its most striking exhibits is a very unusual object… it is the city gate. The walls surrounding the ancient city of Babylon included eight double gates. They are huge! They are not only amazing to us - they have been amazing people since they were built. In fact, they are one of the Wonders of the World. King Nebuchadnezzar, mentioned in the Bible, having ascended the throne, rebuilt the city of Babylon, which had already become ancient by that time. Babylon was founded in the 3rd millennium BC. It became a major political center under King Hammurabi in 1700 BC. e. The city remained inhabited, but regained its former glory in the 6th century under Nebuchadnezzar II and his father. What we see here is part of a huge building campaign undertaken by Nebuchadnezzar II. Nebuchadnezzar appears in the Bible, in the book of the prophet Daniel. This is the ruler of Babylon, who conquered and destroyed the Jerusalem temple and expelled the Jews. It is likely that he had great power to carry out such a huge building campaign. He built walls around Babylon 11 miles long. He reconstructed the Great Ziggurat in Babylon, on top of which was the temple of Marduk. Perhaps he is the prototype of the legendary Tower of Babel. He built palaces and these extraordinary gates. And hanging gardens, which are also one of the wonders of the world. So, in the city of Babylon there were eight double gates, and one of these gates is represented here. This is the smaller part of them. That is, the other was larger, if you can imagine. In fact, it was so large that it would not fit in the exhibition even in this spacious room. This gate was open only to the inhabitants of Babylon and is located at the end of a long procession road, decorated with beautiful lions, which very expressively convey the pride of Babylon and the power of Nebuchadnezzar. The lions that we see on the walls of the Processional Road symbolize Ishtar - one of the Babylonian goddesses - the goddess of war, wisdom and sexuality. They are raised to eye level! They are shown slightly smaller than life size. But very large. And they are intimidating too! Their mouths are open in furious cries. They definitely get pissed off, don't they? They are depicted in such a correct sequence, so they seem almost trained or under the control of King Nebuchadnezzar himself. This makes us fear not only the lions, but also the king. The image of the lion is beautiful. Look, the relief of these tiles creates a bas-relief. In addition to lions, the gate is decorated with two animal-like creatures. They are both as ferocious as lions. The first is an ancient bull known as the tour. He was considered terribly ferocious. The rows of tours alternate with images of Mesopotamian dragons - creatures consisting of parts of the bodies of various animals. Its front paws are lion's, the head and neck are snake or dragon. The hind limbs are most likely aquiline. And on their tails they have stingers, like those of scorpions. These dragons are associated with Marduk, the patron god of the city. Nebuchadnezzar associated himself directly with Marduk. Tours are associated with Adam - the god of storms, fertility and harvest. All these animals symbolize the protection and material well-being of the city. These are ferocious animals, but they are lined up in rows. To the right and left of the procession, on the tower, on the arch of the gate, which creates symmetry and a sense of order. One of the most extraordinary features of these towers and all gates is their color. The city was located in an arid region where the sun shines brightly and it is very hot. And you can imagine how the blues and greens shone originally, not in a museum setting, but in a desert. In Mesopotamia, this was a real problem... For example, the Egyptians could build their great pyramids and other monuments from natural stone, which was literally under their feet. But it was not in Mesopotamia. She was in the river valley. Babylon was on the banks of the Euphrates, it passed through the city. The Mesopotamians built with bricks made from clay quarried in the river valley. The radiant blue we see on the surface of the gate is faience. The technology of its use was known to the ancient Egyptians and other ancient peoples. To achieve this radiant blue color, copper was used. This is a perfect example of such a dye. So, the gates are massive, they inspire fear, but also amaze with the splendor of decoration and the brightness of colors. It is not surprising that Nebuchadnezzar was so proud of them and ordered to make an inscription on their side surface. Let's go read it. We are not sure that the inscription was originally on the wall. But in this reconstruction, it is on the left side of the left tower. Here is a fragment: “I, Nebuchadnezzar, laid the foundation of these gates to the very level of the groundwater and erected them from pure blue stone. On the walls and in the inner space of the gate are bulls and dragons, which I endowed with radiant splendor, so that the whole human race would look at them with awe. And we, too, look at them with awe two and a half millennia later. Nebuchadnezzar understood his place in history. He left inscriptions on the buildings erected under him, which not only reported their name and purpose, indicated that he was their patron, and even contained a request to the descendants to reconstruct them. He knew that empires come and go... And that one can carry one's word through historical epochs. And in our time, the ruler of Mesopotamia, which is now called Iraq, seemed to pay attention to these inscriptions. Saddam Hussein began to rebuild parts of Babylon. He built his personal palace a few hundred meters from the Ishtar Gate and began the reconstruction of the city. This stopped because of the hostilities against him, as a result of which he was deposed and killed. And what did the restructuring of this legendary city mean? Saddam Hussein rebuilt it mainly not for the sake of Nebuchadnezzar, but to satisfy his political ambitions. Claiming his right to the power of Nebuchadnezzar. Yes, and about the power of ancient Mesopotamia.
Appearance
The Ishtar Gate is a huge semicircular arch, bounded on the sides by giant walls and overlooking the so-called Processional Road, along which the walls stretched. The gate is dedicated to the goddess Ishtar and built of brick, covered with bright blue, yellow, white and black glaze. The walls of the gates and the Processional Road are covered with bas-reliefs of extraordinary beauty, depicting animals in poses very close to natural. The walls of the path are decorated with about 120 bas-reliefs of lions. The walls of the gate are covered with alternating rows of images of sirrus and bulls. In total, there are about 575 animal images on the gates. The roof and gate doors were made of cedar. Statues of the gods passed through the Ishtar Gate along the Processional Road on New Year's Day.
Koldewei describes the Ishtar gate thus:
When the work on the gate was completed, Nebuchadnezzar wrote an inscription, which was made in cuneiform and put on public display. The inscription begins like this:
| I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a pious sovereign, ruling by the will and favor of Marduk, the supreme ruler of the City, a favorite |