The lavishly decorated Ishtar Gate was one of ancient Babylon's city gates. The Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar II built it in the 6th century BCE. During the annual New Year festival the
processions of the gods passed through this gate as they entered the city centre.But how did
the Babylonians make the glazed bricks used in the gate's construction? What was the
significance of the lions dragons and bulls that adorned the gate? How and why did pieces of
the gate end up in Berlin where the Ishtar Gate was reconstructed from thousands of fragments
in the 1920s? And how authentic is this reconstruction?
