The Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate in the walls of the inner city of Babylon, built during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II and dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. It was faced with glazed bricks in a brilliant blue, decorated with rows of figures of bulls, lions and a mythical dragon-like creature called the mushussu, the symbol of the god Marduk. The gate stood at the start of the Processional Way, along which statues of the gods were carried in religious festivals. German archaeologists led by Robert Koldewey excavated it in the early twentieth century, and parts of it were rebuilt in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
Before and after
- from 16 March 597 BCE to 1 January 538 BCEBabylonian captivity
- c. 595 BCESolon reforms Athens
- from 589 BCE to 587 BCESiege of Jerusalem
- 587 BCENebuchadnezzar destroys Jerusalem and the First Temple
- 575 BCEIshtar Gate
- 564 BCEDeath of Aesop
- from 553 BCE to 428 CEKingdom of Armenia
- c. 550s BCEConstruction of Circus Maximus
- 551 BCEDeath of Zoroaster
More in Art, literature & culture
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- c. 1,500 BCERigveda
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- c. 750s BCEThe Homeric epics are composed
- from 448 BCE to 433 BCEConstruction of the Parthenon begins
- 196 BCERosetta Stone
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 6th century BCE.