eleventh century CE). In cases where a road originates or terminates at a gate—for instance, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon (c. 575 BCE) and its grand procession way, or the Lion's Gate (rebuilt by Sultan Süleyman in 1538–1539 CE) leading to the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem—it seems that the portal usually sanctifies the path rather than vice versa. It is not uncommon for a pilgrim to have to pass through several preliminary gateways on a road leading to a major portal.
Functions
The widespread, cross-cultural separation, elaboration, and multiplication of portals suggests that their importance far exceeds their two most obvious functions, namely regulating traffic and providing military defense. Other functions are to commemorate noteworthy events, memorialize cultural heroes and royalty, instruct the faithful, propagandize strangers and outsiders, advertise the nature or use of a building, and dramatize the status of inhabitants.
The bronze doors (1015 CE) of the cathedral at Hildesheim in Germany, for example, teach Christian believers to consider Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection as both a parallel and a reversal of the disobedience of Adam and Eve by presenting the two stories on opposing door leaves as a visual concordantia of the Old and New Testaments.
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