View of the Ishtar Gate

1936 AD
Oil on Canvas
Chicago
124 cm x 91 cm
P28753

Oriental Institute Museum

Artifact Description

View of the Ishtar Gate

This is one of two reconstructed views of the city of Babylon produced by Maurice Bardin in 1936. This particular view shows the Ishtar Gate as it might have looked in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). The gate was named in honor of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, whose symbol was the lion. The gate guarded the northern entrance to the inner city and was part of the "Processional Way." The gate was decorated with molded glazed brick figures of dragons and bulls, representing the gods Marduk and Adad respectively. Try to find the "Striding Lion" that once decorated the "Processional Way."

Suggested Readings

Leacroft, Helen and Richard. The Buildings of Ancient Mesopotamia. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1974.

Saggs, H. F. W. The Greatness That Was Babylon. New York: Hawthorne Books, 1962.

Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.

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