Ruins of Babylon

If you are interested, I found this site which does a nice job educating about Babylon.

Gate of Ishtar

This is a reconstruction. The original Ishtar Gate is in Berlin. The Germans dismantled it in the early 1900's and relocated it to Berlin.

Ishtar was the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war. The gate was at the head of the "Processional Way". The main street leading out of and into the city.

This is the outer wall to the right and out of camera view are the remains of the inner wall. Both are immense walls and have a 8 meter courtyard between each other. That is Saddam's (I guess we should start referring to them as "Iraq's"?) palace in the background. Thought it was a nice contrast between teh old and the new.

And this is the famous lion statue. Working on more.