Ancient Gate, part 2: Iron Brackets
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2023
- This time on Artifactually Speaking, I talk again about a door that's no longer there. But it was a big double door and we know (largely) what it looked like from the evidence left behind when it burned 2600 years ago. Not only are there nails and remains of copper or bronze plates that fastened the wooden planks, but also iron brackets that supported the planks and held them to the large rotating posts.
The iron is in pretty good shape despite the corrosion and burning it has been subjected to.. The city was sacked and burned in 612 BCE and the evidence is quite clear here in the remains of the burned door post and its iron and copper fittings.
Similar Assyrian double door gates have been found elsewhere, particularly at Balawat. This site, known as Imgur-Enlil in ancient times, is not far from Nimrud and the door bands and nails found there allowed the British Museum to reconstruct the gate to a great degree. The reconstruction is on display in London. Our doors were very similar, about 4 meters (around 13 feet) tall and 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) wide. 
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Amazing video. Cant wait for the next one.
Even these little pieces of their lives are so fascinating. Thank you for sharing!
Great insight into an amazing chapter of civilization.
That door must have been impressive
awesome man
Thanks for your videos.
Top bracket video.
A very interesting video, and so wonderful that you can sit within 3000 or so year old ruins, and find the remains of such things. it brings such a connection with our shared past.
If you have found both iron and bronze/copper fittings, is it possible that the stronger iron pieces were used to replace older bronze ones which wore out with time? Effectively repair work making good with more modern materials. Or is it more likely that they were always a mixture? I suppose this really depends on how long that particular gate was standing.
or if it was iron to begin with, as iron was harder to produce, was it commensurately more scarce and expensive, and only used in fittings where the additional strength was required?
Or was bronze used in certain areas simply for aesthetics?
Iron was hard to make but very strong. Copper was easier to hammer out and thus easier to decorate. So I think that most of the necessary strong brackets were made of iron and the decorative banding was made of copper.
There is some evidence of repair, however, and it's possible that some were bronze, which is stronger than straight copper. Plus replacement of some of the copper bands probably did happen. I think some of the decorative bands were being replaced and that's why we have a stack of well preserved ones sitting on the door socket. These might have been ready to fix areas that were worn out, but then the destruction happened.
So cool.
Thank you very much for the news, great as always !
Thank you for sharing your work with us!
I'm from Berlin and we have the Gate of Babylon in one of our Museums. I'm not sure if it's just a replica or the real thing but it is very impressive.
I love Berlin! And yes, that is the real Babylon Gate, the bricks taken there and reassembled. There is a replica at Babylon itself.
Thanks again. I'm enjoying all of these. Is that some writing on the ground behind and to your right in the shot?
Yes it is cuneiform writing. I'm on the cleared floor of the temple gateway and many of the stone paving blocks have inscriptions. Most are formulaic about how great the king and the temple are, but we're still translating them fully.
Thank you for the Black Sabbath joke!!
"I'm Dr. Brad Hafford..." - automatic like!
3:42 -- I can easily envision someone running out of the temple once they realized that the building was on fire. There would be no reason to close the door behind them.
Have you ever felt badly for whoever lost an item you found? I found a beautiful bracelet from Egypt online and thought it would be tragic if I lost something like that.
Yes. Sometimes it's pretty clear that someone lost an item that probably meant a lot to them. And not just jewelry. Even the tools I've found that are still in good condition certainly meant a lot to their owner/user and I often wonder how they felt about that object.