Editing Ishtar Gate (section)

==Excavation and display==
{{more citations needed|section|date=November 2017}}
A [[reconstruction (architecture)|reconstruction]] of the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way was built at the [[Pergamon Museum]] in [[Berlin]] out of material excavated by [[Robert Koldewey]].<ref name="NatGeo">{{cite web|last1=Maso|first1=Felip|title=Inside the 30-Year Quest for Babylon's Ishtar Gate|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/11-12/history-babylon-ishtar-gate-quest/|website=National Geographic|access-date=14 May 2018|date=5 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180703051000/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/11-12/history-babylon-ishtar-gate-quest/|archive-date=July 3, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> It includes the inscription plaque. It stands {{convert|14|m|abbr=on}} high and {{convert|30|m|abbr=on|-1}} wide. The excavation ran from 1902 to 1914, and, during that time, {{convert|14|m|abbr=on}} of the foundation of the gate was uncovered.

[[File:Ishtar-gate-بوابة-عشتار.jpg|thumb|Photo of the ''in situ'' remains from the 1930s of the excavation site in Babylon]]

[[Claudius Rich]], British resident of Baghdad and a self-taught historian, did personal research on Babylon because it intrigued him. Acting as a scholar and collecting field data, he was determined to discover the wonders to the ancient world. Rich's topographical records of the ruins in Babylon were the first ever published, in 1815. It was reprinted in England no fewer than three times. Rich and most other 19th-century visitors thought a mound in Babylon was a royal palace, and that was eventually confirmed by Robert Koldewey's excavations, who found two palaces of King Nebuchadnezzar and the Ishtar Gate. Robert Koldewey, a successful German excavator, had done previous work for the Royal Museum of Berlin, with his excavations at Surghul (Ancient Nina) and Al-hiba (ancient [[Lagash]]) in 1887. Koldewey's part in Babylon's excavation began in 1899.<ref>{{Citation |author1=Bilsel, Can |title=Antiquity on display : regimes of the authentic in Berlin's Pergamon Museum |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-957055-3}}</ref>

The method that the British were comfortable with was excavating tunnels and deep trenches, which was damaging the mud brick architecture of the foundation. Instead, it was suggested that the excavation team focus on tablets and other artefacts rather than pick at the crumbling buildings. Despite the destructive nature of the archaeology used, the recording of data was immensely more thorough than in previous Mesopotamian excavations. Walter Andrae, one of Koldewey's many assistants, was an architect and a draftsman, the first at Babylon. His contribution was documentation and reconstruction of Babylon, and then later, the smuggling of the remains out of Iraq and into Germany. A small museum was built at the site, and Andrae was the museum's first director.

As the German Oriental Society had provided such large funding for the project, the German archeologists involved felt that they needed to justify the cost by smuggling much of the material back to Germany. For example, of the 120 lion friezes along the Procession Street, the Germans took 118.<ref>{{Cite news|last=MacAskill|first=Ewen|date=May 4, 2002|title=Iraq appeals to Berlin for return of Babylon gate|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/04/iraq.babylon}}</ref> [[Walter Andrae]] played a key role in this endeavor using the strong links (or [[wasta]]) that he had cultivated with German intelligence officers and with local Iraqi tribal sheikhs. The Gate's ceramic pieces were disassembled according to a complex numbering system and were then packed in straw in coal barrels in order to disguise them.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Khairy Al-Haider|first=Hamed|date=July 7, 2021|title=بوابة عشتار .. كيف نقلت الى المانيا ؟!|url=https://almadasupplements.com/view.php?cat=21180}}</ref> These barrels were then transported down the Euphrates River to [[Shatt al-Arab]], where they were loaded onto German ships and taken to Berlin.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Muzaffar Al-Adhamy|first=Muhammad|date=July 25, 2020|title=كيف سرق الألمان بوابة عشتار من بابل؟|via=[[YouTube]]|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBrTVymme40&feature=youtu.be}}</ref>

The rebuilding of Babylon's Ishtar Gate and Processional Way in Berlin was one of the most complex architectural reconstructions in the history of archaeology. Hundreds of crates of glazed brick fragments were carefully desalinated and then pieced together. Fragments were combined with new bricks fired in a specially designed [[kiln]] to re-create the correct color and finish. It was a double gate; the part that is shown in the Pergamon Museum today is the smaller, frontal part.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bernbeck|first1=Reinhard|title=The exhibition of architecture and the architecture of an exhibition|journal=Archaeological Dialogues|date=5 January 2009|volume=7|issue=2|pages=98–125|doi=10.1017/S1380203800001665 }}</ref> The larger, back part was considered too large to fit into the constraints of the structure of the museum; it is in storage.

Parts of the gate and animals from the Processional Way are in various other museums around the world. Only four museums acquired dragons, while lions went to several museums. The [[Istanbul Archaeology Museums|Istanbul Archaeology Museum]] has lions, dragons, and bulls. [[Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek]] in Copenhagen, Denmark, has one lion, one dragon and one bull. The [[Detroit Institute of Arts]] houses a dragon. The [[Röhsska Museum]] in Gothenburg, Sweden, has one dragon and one lion; the [[Louvre]], the [[Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst|State Museum of Egyptian Art]] in Munich, the [[Kunsthistorisches Museum]] in Vienna, the [[Royal Ontario Museum]] in Toronto, the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] in New York, the [[Oriental Institute, Chicago|Oriental Institute]] in Chicago, the [[Rhode Island School of Design Museum]], the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|Museum of Fine Arts]] in Boston, and the [[Yale University Art Gallery]] in New Haven, Connecticut, each have lions.

A smaller reproduction of the gate was built in Iraq under [[Saddam Hussein]] as the entrance to a museum that has not been completed. Along with the restored palace, the gate was completed in 1987. The construction was meant to emulate the techniques that were used for the original gate. The replica appears similar to the restored original but is notably smaller. The purpose of the replica's construction was an attempt to reconnect to Iraq's history.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/19/world/hussein-s-babylon-a-beloved-atrocity.html |title=Hussein's Babylon: A Beloved Atrocity |last=MacFarquhar |first=Neil |date=August 19, 2003 |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=November 26, 2017}}</ref> Damage to this reproduction has occurred since the [[Iraq War]] (see [[Babylon#Under US and Polish occupation|Impact of the U.S. military]]).