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Temple of Inanna, Uruk: What remains today?
A long-lived sacred landscape. Brick by brick, we follow rebuilds and the shift from ritual spaces to administrative power.
Etemenanki: What did it look like?
A careful dossier of a vanished giant. We balance literary fame with the archaeology that still struggles to pin it down.
What is Mesopotamian art and architecture?
From mudbrick temples to blue-glazed gates, how people turned belief, power, and clay into cities between the Tigris and Euphrates.
Why is the Ishtar Gate so blue?
From clay to color: the kiln process and copper compounds behind Babylon’s famous blue—and why animals parade across it.
Ishtar Gate: Which animals and why?
Babylon’s iconic glazed-brick gateway: animals, inscriptions, route, excavation, and reconstruction in Berlin.
Stele of Hammurabi: What does it say and show?
From Susa to the Louvre: context, content, and conservation of one of the world’s most cited legal monuments.
Lamassu of Khorsabad: The Five-Leg Illusion
Half bull, half human, all presence. Why sculptors gave lamassu five legs and how scale choreographed fear and awe at the threshold.
Ziggurat of Ur: What makes it unique?
A stepped mountain of clay. Phases, ramps, and the temple that once sat on top—plus what 20th-century repairs changed.
What is a ziggurat in Mesopotamia?
Not a pyramid but a stepped temple platform. How it looked, worked, and anchored ritual life in Sumer and Babylon.
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Hey there! I'm Riccardo, the mind behind The Art Newbie. I've been obsessed with art since my high school days, and now I'm diving deep into the world of architecture at college. The Art Newbie is my space to share everything I've learned, from the basics of art and architecture to the fascinating histories behind them.