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Babylon ’s bright - blue Ishtar Gate was thought to have been build to celebrate the subjection of Jerusalem — but a young depth psychology finds that it may have been erected years by and by .
The iconic glazed - brick edifice , which King Nebuchadnezzar II ordered to be built and decorated withwild bulls and mušhuššu - dragonswhile opinion the Babylonian empire from 605 to 562 B.C. , was constructed in three phases and served as the entrance to the ancient metropolis ofBabylon , located in southernMesopotamia . However , the accurate dates of each construction phase have long been up for public debate , grant to a study published Wednesday ( Jan. 17 ) in the journalPLOS One .
The Ishtar Gate of Babylon as seen at the Pergamon Museum in Germany.
While it ’s be intimate that Nebuchadnezzar II ordered the first phase , as these brick are autograph with his name , it was less cleared if some meter had passed before the second and third stage were completed , according to the written report . Some researchers even wonder if Nebuchadnezzar II had died before the gate ’s completion .
To set the record straight , archaeologists collected tiny samples from five of the fired mud bricks from theIshtar Gate(now reconstruct at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin ) broadcast across the three phase and measured the geomagnetic fields of each one in a cognitive operation cognise as archaeomagnetism .
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Archaeomagnetism measures the consequence ofEarth ’s magnetised fieldthat ’s preserved in the archaeological book of an object , allot to theMcClung Museum of Natural History and Cultureat the University of Tennessee , Knoxville . It offers an even more accurate clip stamp thanradiocarbon dating , the most common method of archaeological measurement .
This new analytic thinking determined that there were no " significant chronological gaps " between each construction phase and that the " gate composite was constructed some fourth dimension after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem " that take place in 586 B.C. During the conquest of Jerusalem , theBabylonians destroyed Solomon ’s Temple , also known as the First Temple ; burned down the city ; and exile the Jews to southern Mesopotamia , also known as Babylonia .
The researchers concluded that because all of the charismatic - field measurements in the five bricks were standardised , the reconstruction were executed around the same time : 583 B.C. , according to the study .
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" The age is base on the period of the sovereignty of Nebuchadnezzar II , during which the guild to ramp up the gate was given , " the squad wrote in the study , indicate that the king was animated at the gate ’s completion .
The determination suggests that the Ishtar Gate did n’t change style through the construction process but rather that " phases II and III are pertain to the original design of the gate and mull the construction operation rather than later gain , detach from the original construction of form I , " the authors wrote .
The researcher trust to perform similar archaeomagnetic analysis on other ancient structures in Mesopotamia , since fired mud brick have proved to be authentic sources for this proficiency and were a vernacular building material during that era .
