Koldewey, Robert

Koldewey, Robert (1855-1925), German archaeologist known chiefly for his excavation of Babylon at the beginning of the 20th century. He initially trained as an architect, but turned his interest to Classical sites in the eastern Mediterranean and Iron Age towns in northern Syria. He was the first German to excavate in Babylonia, when in 1887 he briefly dug at two sites. A decade later the German Orient Society appointed Koldewey to head the team that that it was sending to excavate Babylon. Beginning early in 1899, Koldewey worked continuously at Babylon until the British army occupied Mesopotamia during World War I forcing the Germans to leave the site in 1917.

Although Koldewey estimated that he had attained only half of his goals at Babylon, his work nonetheless remains today the basic source of information about the ancient city built by Nebuchadnezzar. Among the city’s important monuments, Koldewey uncovered the famous Ishtar Gate, Nebuchadnezzar’s main palace, the temple of the supreme Babylonian god Marduk and the foundations of the great ziggurat. He also uncovered a terrace that he identified as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World within the palace. The German team presented its results in a series of technical reports; Koldewey also offered a summary work that was published in English translation as The Excavations at Babylon (1914).

Besides his work at Babylon, Koldewey made other contributions to the basis of Mesopotamian archaeology. His team developed successful methods for excavating mudbrick architecture, an advance that was of benefit to the excavations of Mesopotamia’s oldest cities that resumed after World War I. He also established Germany’s place in Mesopotamian archaeology, when several members of his team excavated such sites as Ashur and Uruk.