Access to the religious center was along a Processional Way that began outside the northern Ishtar Gate. Images of the gods were carried along this route during the New Year Festival of
March or April. The street approached the gate between the high walls of the North Palace and the bastion opposite, decorated with glazed brick figures of lions, the symbol of Ishtar, goddess of love and war. The preservation of the Ishtar Gate is curious. Of Nebuchadrezzar’s third and final version, which was decorated with glazed bricks, little survived above the paved street. However, the foundations of the gate descended 15m into the ground, buried in clean sand as befitted sacred buildings, and were decorated with plain (unglazed) brick reliefs depicting dragons and bulls, symbols of the gods Marduk and Adad respectively. It is these walls, cleared, that the visitor sees today, and that provide the basis for the reconstruction in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin (Figure 10.13). The original gate would perhaps have measured
Over 23m in height, and spanned both inner and outer fortification walls. As the Berlin reconstruction shows, the gate and adjacent walls were well protected with lions, bulls, and dragons (Figure 10.14) made with colored glazed bricks, sometimes flat, sometimes in relief, set against a bright blue background.
The Processional Way continued from the Ishtar Gate and the palace southwards over a large canal toward the Etemenanki, the compound that contained the ziggurat. This ziggurat would be the Tower of Babel of the Old Testament, but rebuilt many times. Unfortunately, this structure has survived only in its foundations, ca. 91m square, but it no doubt resembled ziggurats better preserved elsewhere. According to Herodotus’s description (Bk. I.181—182), it was an eight-stepped tower with, on top, a temple consisting of a single room furnished with a large couch where the god Marduk would sleep and, next to the couch, a golden table. Guard duty was entrusted to a woman.
The street then turned to the west, heading for the Euphrates and the west bank. It passed between the Etemenanki and the Esagila (or E-sangil), “Temple that raises its Head,” the temple to Marduk, the principal god of the city. Recovering the plan of the E-sangil posed problems for the German excavators, because it was buried beneath 21m of later habitation debris and, in keeping with the religious tradition of this spot, an Islamic shrine. The temple was located by a lucky hit when Koldewey’s deep test pit struck a paved floor with identifying inscriptions. By tunneling along its walls workmen recovered its dimensions: 86m x 78m, with two outer courts to the east. Interior details are few. According to Herodotus, the temple contained a seated statue of the god, a table, throne, and base, all of gold, but of these precious objects not a trace remained.
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