Ishtar Gate of Babylon belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 575 BCE at Babylon. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
Nebuchadnezzar II glazed the gate in cobalt blue and marched aurochs and mushussu dragons down the Processional Way toward Marduk.
How it was made
Each brick was moulded in relief, glazed, and numbered for assembly — an industrial ceramic project disguised as a sacred threshold.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
A reconstruction in Berlin uses thousands of original bricks. On the ground in Iraq, the gate’s footprint is a lesson in colour and empire.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 575 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 8 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.