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Babylon's Mystery Goddess

’s Mystery Goddess The Queen of the Night, rendered in clay in ancient Babylon, was evidently an important goddess who enjoyed considerable status – but who is she? The Queen of the Night is today best known for her leading role in The Magic Flute, but for Babylonian historians the star of the show is an ancient goddess with the same name. Although almost 4,000 years old, she was only given her evocative title in 2003, soon after the British Museum paid £1.5 million to a Japanese art collector for the exceptionally large plaque bearing her image.

Stylistic comparisons and modern dating tests agree that this unusually fine clay artefact was fired during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), who expanded the small city-state of Babylon into a trading empire renowned for its scientific, literary and artistic prowess: on a large slab now residing in Paris, he too is holding an emblematic rod and ring. According to mythological accounts, she lived in the mountain tops to the east of Mesopotamia, which would explain the pattern below the lions’ bodies; moreover, when she descended into the Underworld she took with her a ring and rod made of lapis lazuli that were similar to those brandished by the Queen of the Night. She may or may not correspond to the earlier Mesopotamian Lilitu, and is best known from her inclusion in a fresco by Michelangelo Buonarroti on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where she features as a muscly naked woman handing an apple to Eve, her serpentine tail coiled round a tree.

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