13. Ishtar Gate, Babylon (now in the

Pergamon Museum, Berlin), c. 600 BCE (Iraq)

Rising from the banks of the Euphrates and covering some 10 square kilometres, Babylon was the capital of a sprawling empire. The city was extensively rebuilt in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, who is mentioned in the Bible. This fortified gateway, some 12 metres high, is constructed of mud bricks. It has a veneer of fired and glazed ceramics featuring many bas-relief images of stylised lions, bulls and mythological creatures; the latter, with their scaly bodies, snake heads, scorpion tails, front legs of a cat and rear legs of a bird, are associated with the god Marduk, to whom the city’s great ziggurat temple—likely the inspiration for the Tower of Babel—was dedicated. Named for the Babylonian goddess of love and war, the Ishtar Gate originally guarded the entrance to the main processional way of Babylon, some 800 metres long, which ran past the famous Hanging Gardens. Babylon was later conquered and largely destroyed by the Persians. The Ishtar Gate was discovered during German archaeological campaigns from 1899-1917 and reconstructed in Berlin. Partly restored under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the site of Babylon in modern-day Iraq has since been damaged once again under the American occupation.