Cities
Writing
Kings
MESOPOTAMIA
An intimate look at some extraordinary objects
from an exhibition at The Getty Villa
from an exhibition at The Getty Villa
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For ancient Mesopotamians, the divine was part of everyday life.
Even the urban architecture of cities had symbolic and religious meaning. The architectural decoration of the ancient city of Babylon is a striking example.
Panel with a Striding Lion
605-562 BC
Glazed ceramic
Panel with a Striding Lion, Neo-Babylonian period, 605–562 BC, glazed ceramic. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1931 (31.13.1). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This glazed brick panel of a striding lion was one of more than a hundred that lined each side of Babylon’s most significant street, the Processional Way. This road passed through the Ishtar Gate and linked the palaces and main temples of the city.
Lions were associated with Ishtar, goddess of love and war, and these lions served as sentinels overseeing religious processions and military parades. The blue and gold bricks filled the street with vibrant color. Molded in relief, this lion projects from the panel’s surface and into our space.
This is one of over 130 objects featured at the Getty Villa in 2021 in a major exhibition on ancient Mesopotamia, developed in partnership with the Musée du Louvre. These objects highlight the development of cities, writing, and kingdoms in Mesopotamia over a period of about three thousand years.
Map adapted from an original by and © FNSP. Sciences Po–Atelier de cartographie, 2016, with the guidance of Martin Sauvage (CNRS, USR 3225, Nanterre)
Beginning around 4000 BC in modern-day Iraq, ancient Mesopotamia was home to some of the earliest developments that would come to define urban life. Mesopotamians made advances in math, science, and law; created works of literature, architecture, and art; and invented the world’s first writing system.
While writing began for administrative and record-keeping purposes, its uses expanded over time. Myths, religious hymns, contracts, and scientific and mathematical texts survive on hundreds of thousands of clay tablets. Many have yet to be translated.
The first named author in history was the priestess Enheduanna, daughter of an Akkadian king. Enheduanna composed at least forty hymns to the gods in her lifetime, in some of which she referred to herself by name.