Ancient object
The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, reconstructed
Monumental gateway of moulded and glazed brick
Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Object provenance
Record checked- Object
- Monumental gateway of moulded and glazed brick
- Material
- Glazed brick
- Made
- Evidence level: Documentedc. 575 BCE, under Nebuchadnezzar II
- Found
- Evidence level: DocumentedThe processional entrance to the inner city, Babylon
- Excavated
- 1899–1917 · Robert Koldewey, for the German Oriental Society
- Now at
- Pergamon Museum, Berlin
- Inventory
- Not recorded in this catalogue
- Identification
- Evidence level: DocumentedThe Ishtar Gate
Identified by Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions and by position within the excavated city plan.
Condition — What stands in Berlin is the inner gate only, at reduced scale. It is built from excavated original bricks with modern infill where fragments were missing.
Restoration — Extensive by necessity. The object a visitor sees is a modern reconstruction incorporating ancient material, not an ancient structure moved intact — a distinction the display does not always make prominent.
Read across
How to read the evidence labels
- Evidence level: Documented
- Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
- Evidence level: Probable
- Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
- Evidence level: Disputed
- Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
- Evidence level: Literary
- Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
- Evidence level: Mythological
- Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
- Evidence level: Unknown
- The available evidence is insufficient to decide.
These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.