Ishtar Gate in Babylon - what history knows about the oldest structure. The processional road from Babylon and the gate of the goddess Ishtar What decorated the gate of the goddess Ishtar

Babylon was attacked many times by the conquerors of neighboring countries and the city was ravaged - but it was rebuilt several times. The buildings were erected from baked bricks, which were not afraid of either water or sun. The main gate of Ishtar was lined with colored glazed bricks, against which animal figures were depicted.

The cult of the gods in Babylon was associated with the veneration of the Sun, Moon, Mars, Jupiter and other planets. The Babylonians represented the earth as a disk and the sky as a dome. From observations of the movement of the Sun, the idea of ​​a circle was born, which contributed to the invention of the wheel.

Gate of the goddess Ishtar.

The famous monument of Babylon - the gate of the goddess Ishtar is the eighth gate of the inner city. This masterpiece was built in 575 BC in the northern part of the city by order of King Nebuchadnezzar.

The Ishtar Gate looks like a semicircular arch of enormous size. The arch is surrounded on both sides by huge walls that stretch along the ritual Processional Road. The arched gate erected in honor of the goddess Ishtar was built from, which was covered with bright blue glaze on top and painted with designs using white, yellow and black glaze.

On the walls leading to the Ishtar Gate one could see magnificent bas-relief images of animals in the most natural poses. Thus, about 120 bas-reliefs of lions were depicted. There are also three-dimensional images of bulls and sirrushi - mythical creatures that look like both dragons and griffins, whose bodies are covered with scales and have horns on their snake heads.

In total, there were 575 bas-relief images of animals on the gate of the goddess Ishtar. The gates themselves were closed with doors made of cedar wood. The roof of the gate was also made of an extremely strong type of wood - Lebanese cedar.

The Ishtar Gate had an extremely important ritual - cult significance - statues of the gods were solemnly carried through them on the day of the New Year celebration. The procession took place along the Processional Road.

Currently, various fragments of the famous Ishtar Gate are kept in museums around the world: in Istanbul, the Louvre, New York, Detroit and Chicago. The most accurate copy of the Ishtar Gate was built in Iraq at the entrance to the historical museum.

Fall of Babylon.

In 539 BC, Babylon fell. The Babylonian state existed for 88 years and became part of the Persian state. The Persians adopted cuneiform writing, astronomical knowledge and the art of counting from the Babylonians.

In 331 BC it collapsed under the attack of the army of Alexander the Great. In 323 BC, when Alexander died, Mesopotamia became part of the Seleucid state. During this period, Babylon became the center of astronomical, astrological and mathematical knowledge.

At the end of the 2nd century BC, Babylon came under the rule of the Narthian kings, who in 126 BC destroyed and devastated the city. This period marked the final fall of Babylon.

Explorations of Babylon.

In 1876, the English archaeologist George Smith discovered three thousand cuneiform tablets. Their decryption showed that they were part of the Babylonian library. This find became a very valuable discovery for science.

In 1908, the German government conducted archaeological excavations under the direction of Robert Koldewey. A processional road was found that led scientists to the Ishtar Gate. After Koldewey's death, many studies appeared on the writing, mythology, economic structure and social structure of Babylon.


Total 78 photos

Now it’s the turn of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. For a long time I could not approach this global and at the same time extremely fascinating topic. I still had to mature for all this) As usual, I shoot a lot and in the end I am faced with immense visual material that requires painstaking processing. Moreover, photographing in museums is a rather intricate activity - there is usually no light there and you are more trying to shoot correctly and get everything possible out of the camera. This somewhat complicates the necessary relaxed perception of ancient exhibits “live”, but at the same time it stimulates the opportunity at the processing stage to supplement the past real impressions of being in the field of History, contact with artifacts - already in terms of the second wave of penetration into the sensory level of one’s sensations from contemplation.

The Istanbul Archaeological Museum was amazing, I must say. This museum complex consists of three main sections - the Tiled Pavilion (Chinili Köshk), the building of the main Archaeological Museum and the Museum of the Ancient East (Eski Shark Eserler Müzesi). And now we will talk about the latter, which many consider not too worthy of our attention and unanimously note that the Museum of the Ancient East is small, there are not many exhibits there and they are in a hurry to quickly move to the main building “with the main” collections. Nevertheless, I really liked the Museum of the Ancient East of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Therefore, I will devote three whole articles to him, otherwise I will not be able to be consistent and even enthusiastic in presenting the material) The museum itself is really not very large, but its exhibitions are extremely significant, surprising and fascinating. Trying to systematize artifacts for display in an article specifically from a chronological point of view is not easy, since there really aren’t many exhibits, but those that exist definitely compensate for some of the shortcomings of the exhibition in covering ideas about the history of the ancient world. So, today we have the most ancient civilizations.

You can get to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum in two ways - from (from the entrance to the park immediately to the right and up) or from the territory (behind and to the Mint to the left). We are just now heading to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum from the First Courtyard of Topkapi.
02.

This street is extremely colorful historically and already sets you up for anticipation of immersion in History.
03.

I would like to note that there are a lot of interesting open-air exhibits on the territory of the Archaeological Museum. They are clearly worthy of a separate story and show, and we will return to this topic later, but for now we will not focus our close attention on them.
04.

By the way, the Museum of the Ancient East is located first on the way to the main building. So it would be quite logical to visit it first. Here we are greeted by basalt lions from Senjerli (the Hittite city of Samal). 8th century BC late Hittite period. They also once stood at the entrance of a possible temple and are designated on the explanatory plaque as Portal Lions.
05.


06.

We are standing in front of the entrance to the Museum of the Ancient East. On the left we have the main building of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, on the right the Museum of the Ancient East, and below and in the background of the photo is a canopy over ticket offices and turnstiles with places for searching personal belongings.
07.

The Museum of the Ancient East, built in 1883, houses a collection of artifacts dating back to the pre-Islamic period. Here are Assyria, Ancient Egypt, the Babylonian kingdom, and much more. There is no clearly defined route, so visitors immediately spread out through the numerous halls and passages of the museum, reacting visually to the most attractive exhibits.

Southern and northern Mesopotamia. XX-X centuries BC.
08.

Figurines. Gods and goddesses, musicians, plant reliefs, erotic scenes.
09.

Old Babylonian period - era in history Ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to the 20th-16th centuries BC. e. (c. 2000 - c. 1595 BC according to the average chronology). It is allocated for the southern part of the region, the Diyala valley and certain areas of the Middle Euphrates (the state of Mari); in other lands of Northern Mesopotamia, as well as in Eastern Anatolia, it mainly corresponds to the Old Assyrian period. The Old Babylonian era is characterized by political and cultural changes caused by the collapse of the Power of the III dynasty of Ur, the resettlement of the Amorites and the rise of a state centered in Babylon. In archaeology, this period coincides with the Middle Bronze Age.

Here we see numerous clay cuneiform tablets dating back to the Old Babylonian period.
10.

Gudea is the ruler (governor) of the Sumerian city of Lagash. 2141-2122 BC.
11.

Girsu (Telloh) is a city of ancient Sumer, located approximately 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Lagash, on the site of modern Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq.

A pool for the blessing of water, a gift from the ruler of the city of Lagash, Gudea, to the Ningirsu Temple. 2144-2124 BC.
12.

Stupa with a dedicatory inscription. An offering to the god Inlil from King Gudea of ​​the city of Lagash. Third Dynasty of Ur. 2114-2122 BC. Nippur. Diorite.
13.

Votive steles. Offerings from King Gudea of ​​the city of Lagash to the temple of Nin-Girsu.
14.


15.

The base of the sculpture.
16.

Dedicatory plaques with inscriptions.
17.


18.

Akkadian kingdom. Utensil.
19.

Votive figurines-vessels. Mesopotamia.
20.

Akkadian king Naram-Sin. 2254-2218 BC. Diorite.
21.

Statue of Puzur-Ishtar - governor of the ancient city of Mari. Beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Basalt.
22.

23.

Stele with relief (feast scene, Hittite Empire, 14th century BC) and altar from the temple of the god Haldi.
24.

Altar from the temple of the god Haldi. Urartu. 7th century BC Topprakkale. Trachitis.
25.

Weight measure in the form of a wild duck with a dedicatory inscription. Belonged to the Babylonian priest Mushallim-Marduk. XIII century BC Diorite.
26.

Linear measures of weight in Mesopotamia and their metric equivalents. Nippur. Bronze. XV century BC
27.

Jewel of the museum collection - famous Treaty of Kadesh- clay tablet with the text of the most ancient (1269 BC) between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king Muwatallis. 16 years after the Battle of Kadesh, a bloody and inconclusive war for the two countries ended with the conclusion of a peace treaty - the oldest treaty known to historical science on eternal peace, brotherhood, and cooperation in repelling external aggression and suppressing internal unrest. And 13 years later, this agreement was sealed by the dynastic marriage of Ramesses II with the eldest daughter of the Hittite king Hattusilis III. Each side documentedly attributed to itself an unconditional victory over the enemy.

Treaty of Kadesh. Clay tablet. Hatussa. Akkadian language. The period of the Hittite Empire. 1269 BC
28.

Northern Mesopotamia. Middle and New Assyrian period. 1350-600 BC.
29.


30.

Iron Age. Urartu period. IX-VI centuries BC.
32.

Middle and Late Bronze Age. Northeastern Anatolia.
33.

Pottery vessels made using a potter's wheel.
35.

Honorary steles of high dignitaries. Middle Assyrian period. XIII century BC Limestone.
36.

Vessels for storing grain with hieroglyphic inscriptions. Found in one of the rooms of the Great Temple. The period of the Hittite Empire. XIII century BC. Hatussa.
37.


38.

Under the Ur king Urnammu and his son Shulgi Syro-Hittite clan Samal(Zenjirli) reached its peak. According to estimates made by archaeologists, during this period there were 5,250 residential buildings in Ur, which corresponded to a population of 40-50 thousand inhabitants, including domestic slaves. Ur was bordered on the west by the old bed of the Euphrates, and on the north-east side by an artificial canal. The urban area had a size of 1000 x 700 m.
41.

It was a city built in the Sumerian tradition, oval in plan with the main axis oriented from southeast to northwest. The powerful walls, made of mud brick, reached a thickness of 25-32 m. In the northwestern part of the city, on a hill artificially expanded in the form of a terrace, the palace and temple complex of Ur was located, dedicated to the cult of the moon god Nannar, especially revered by the Sumerians. The main entrance to the sanctuary was located on the north-eastern side, from where through a monumental gate one could enter the sacred courtyard of Nannar and then to the next courtyard, where the ziggurat was located.
42.


43.

Reliefs of the southern gate of the city of Samal. Late Hittite period. 9th century BC Basalt.
44.


48.

Reliefs from the western side of the gate of the Samal citadel
49.

Reliefs from the western side of the gate of the Samal citadel
50.


51.

Hittite warriors on a chariot.
52.


53.

King Barrecub prays against the background of sacred symbols. The inscriptions tell about the structure of the royal palace.
Late Hittite period. 8th century BC Samal. Basalt.
54.

A solemn procession of dignitaries from building No.3 of the royal palace. Late Hittite period. 8th century BC Samal. Basalt.
55.

A solemn procession of musicians from building No.3 of the royal palace. Late Hittite period. 8th century BC Samal. Basalt.
56.

Solemn procession from building No.3 of the royal palace. Late Hittite period. 8th century BC Samal. Basalt.
57.

A statue of a deity with a base on which is an image of a hero and two lions.
From the building of the J. Samal Palace. Late Hittite period. 8th century BC Basalt.
58.

59.


60.

Amazing lions from Senjerli (ancient city of Samal). 9th century BC Late Hittite period. Basalt.

Gate of the goddess Ishtar in Babylon

Ishtar Gate in Babylon - one of the main wonders of the ancient capital. They amaze with their scale and beauty even now. It is difficult to imagine how grandiose the gate of the goddess Ishtar looked at the time of completion of construction.

Ishtar Gate in Babylon

The Ishtar Gate was built in Babylon in 575 BC, under King Nebuchadnezzar, and is a huge arch made of bricks covered with bright blue enamel. The walls of the arch are decorated with sacred animals, dragons and bulls, which the Babylonians considered companions of the gods.

It is enough to imagine several weeks of wandering through the desert, where the gaze glides over the scorched surface of the sand, the dusty streets of cities made of stones of the same sand color, and one will understand how colorful the huge bright blue ones looked in Babylon in the midst of the kingdom of drought.

In the past, magnificent sacred processions passed through. The gates of the goddess Ishtar are located in the legendary Babylon, also known for its. “May the Gods rejoice when they pass this road,” wrote Nebuchadnezzar.

Gate of the goddess Ishtar: riddles

The grandeur of this architectural creation lies, like , not so much in its size as in its enamel. To create the Ishtar Gate, components were required that were simply not available in Babylon. They were brought from countries that at that time were considered the outskirts of the world. The temperature required for the production of enamel must be constantly maintained at a level of at least 900ºС.

To obtain a uniform blue color on all bricks, the amount of dye for each portion of enamel must be calculated with high accuracy. After the bricks were covered with enamel, they were fired for 12 hours at temperatures above 1000ºC.

Today, such a high temperature in the oven is maintained electronically, and the required amount of dye is measured on an electronic scale. How the amount of dye was measured and the temperature was maintained in furnaces 500 BC. – unknown.

Ishtar Gate today

The first to be found were bricks coated with bright blue enamel. The discovery of Robert Koldewey was accidental (like the find), and it was possible to raise funds for excavations only 10 years later. You can see the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, which houses a reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate created in the 1930s.


Fragments of the gate today are in various museums around the world: in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul, in the Louvre, in New York, Chicago, in Boston there are bas-reliefs of lions, dragons and bulls, in Detroit, in the Museum of Art, there is a bas-relief of a sirrush. A replica of the Ishtar Gate in Iraq is located at the entrance to the museum.

The city of Babylon was great under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time, he had as many as seven gates, bearing the names of the Babylonian gods. Of particular beauty was the gate of the goddess Ishtar in Babylon, from which the famous Processional Road began, heading to Esagila, the temple of the patron saint of Babylon, Marduk. The ruins of the Ishtar Gate still remain one of the most significant evidence of the former glory of Babylon.

Description of the gate of the goddess Ishtar in Babylon

The processional road was, perhaps, the best road of the Ancient World, because it was not intended for people and carts to travel along it, but for the great god and patron of Babylon, Marduk, who once a year traveled along it to Esagila. And it took its beginning precisely at the gates of Ishtar.

Ishtar was highly revered as the goddess of beauty and love and was compared to 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, which included Uruk. 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 gate was dedicated to her.

The Babylonian gates of the great Ishtar themselves were made double. The internal ones were twice as large as the external ones. The glazed brick cladding sparkled in the sun, and the background was decorated with 575 relief images of revered animals. The already mentioned Processional Road began here, the continuation of which in the city was Aibur-Shaba Street. It was along it that a large procession was organized on New Year's Day, led by a golden statue of Marduk.

The street itself was composed mainly of slabs of pink stone, with red stone inlays along 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 terrifying poses.

Lions on the Processional Road

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 research here. In total, about 100 thousand fragments of bricks that formerly made up the gate were found. All of them were collected and transported to Berlin, where some time later it was possible to restore the gate to its original size using real Babylonian bricks. Now the Ishtar Gate is located in the Pergamon Museum (Berlin). There is also a restored part of the Processional 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 a subject of admiration and a place of pilgrimage for tourists, because the structure, rising 12 meters, still reflects the past life of a large city.

Material 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 giant walls and overlooking the so-called Processional Road, along which the walls stretched. The gate is dedicated to the goddess Ishtar and is made of brick covered with bright blue, yellow, white and black glaze. The walls of the gate and the Processional Road are covered with bas-reliefs of extraordinary beauty, depicting animals in poses very close to natural ones. The walls of the walkway are decorated with about 120 bas-reliefs of lions. The walls of the gate are covered with alternating rows of images of sirrush and bulls. In total there are about 575 images of animals on the gate. The roof and gate doors were made of cedar. Statues of gods were paraded through the Ishtar Gate along the Processional Road on New Year's Day.

A smaller replica of the gate built by Saddam Hussein was destroyed during the war.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Road was carried out in the 1930s. in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin from material found by archaeologist Robert Koldewey. Fragments of the gate and lions that decorated the Processional Road are kept in various museums around the world. The Istanbul Archaeological Museum contains bas-reliefs of lions, dragons and bulls. The Detroit Museum of Art houses a bas-relief of a sirrush. Bas-reliefs of lions are 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 a museum that was never completed.

Write a review about the article "The Ishtar Gate"

Links

Coordinates: 32°32′36″ n. w. /  44°25′20″ E. d.32.54333° N. w. 44.42222° E. d. / 32.54333; 44.42222

(G) (I)

Excerpt describing the Gate of Ishtar
“I wouldn’t believe anyone who told me that I could love like that,” said Prince Andrei. “This is not at all the feeling that I had before.” The whole world is divided for me into two halves: one - she and there is all the happiness of hope, light; the other half is everything where she 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 world, it’s not my fault. And I'm very happy. You understand me? I know you're happy for me.

“Yes, yes,” Pierre confirmed, looking at his friend with tender and sad eyes. The brighter the fate of Prince Andrei seemed to him, the darker his own seemed.
The father, with outward calm but inner anger, accepted his son’s message. He could not understand that anyone would want to change life, to introduce something new into it, when life was already ending for him. “If only they would let me live the way I want, and then we would do what we wanted,” the old man said to himself. With his son, however, he used the diplomacy that he used on important occasions. Taking a calm tone, he discussed the whole matter.
Firstly, the marriage was not brilliant in terms of kinship, wealth and nobility. Secondly, Prince Andrei was not in his first youth and was in poor health (the old man was especially careful about this), and she was very young. Thirdly, there was a son whom it was a pity to give to the girl. Fourthly, finally,” said the father, looking mockingly at his son, “I ask you, postpone the matter for a year, go abroad, get treatment, find, as you want, 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, my last...” the prince finished in a tone that showed that nothing would force him to change his decision.
Prince Andrei clearly saw that the old man hoped that the feeling of him or his future bride would not withstand the test of the year, or that he himself, the old prince, would die by this time, and decided to fulfill his father’s will: to propose and postpone the wedding for a year.
Three weeks after his last evening with the Rostovs, Prince Andrei returned to St. Petersburg.

The next day after her explanation with her mother, Natasha waited the whole day for Bolkonsky, but he did not come. The next, third day the same thing happened. Pierre also did not come, and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrei had gone to his father, could not explain his absence.
Three weeks passed like this. Natasha did not want to go anywhere and, like a shadow, idle and sad, she walked from room to room, cried secretly from everyone in the evening and did not appear to her mother in the evenings. She was constantly blushing and irritated. It seemed to her that everyone knew about her disappointment, laughed and felt sorry for her. With all the strength of her inner grief, this vain grief intensified her misfortune.
One day she came to the countess, wanted to tell her something, and suddenly began to cry. Her tears were the tears of an offended child who himself does not know why he is being punished.
The Countess began to calm Natasha down. Natasha, who had been listening at first to her mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her:
- Stop it, mom, I don’t think, and I don’t want to think! So, I drove and stopped, and stopped...

 

It might be useful to read: