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I visited Babylon in October 1963. There was not much at the sprawling site that was recognisable at that time although I understand from recent photos that Saddam Hussein had much of it "rebuilt" during his rule. There was a life sized stone lion at the site and lots of high piles of mud which had once been walls but had succumbed to the elements over the millennia. Some years later while on a business trip from NZ to what was then East Berlin (which required walking past anti tank traps at Check Point Charlie) I visited the Pergamom Museum which had the Ishtar Gate reassembled in a hall approached via the Processional Way, magnificent structures of turquoise, brown and blue brickwork. The Ishtar gate had bulls (the symbol of the weather god Adad) and dragons (the sacred animal of Marduk who was the god of Babylon) embossed into the brickwork while the Processional Way had images of lions (the sacred animal of the goddess Ishtar after whom the gate was named - she was apparently the embodiment of warlike and unrestrained female sexuality!!).
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road