The Esagila was the principal temple of Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, and stood next to the Etemenanki ziggurat. It was here that the New Year (Akitu) festival climaxed each spring: a procession of statues, the recitation of the creation epic, and the symbolic re-coronation of the king.
The visible remains are modest — a low platform and the outline of the temple precincts — but the site has been continuously excavated since the German Oriental Society's pioneering work in the 1900s under Robert Koldewey. Many of the cult objects and tablets recovered here are now in Berlin and Baghdad.