Art by Ancient Babylonian

Works catalogued simply as "Ancient Babylonian" usually come from Mesopotamian civilization in what's now Iraq, spanning roughly two millennia and several distinct empires (Old Babylonian, Kassite, Neo-Babylonian) rather than one continuous artistic tradition. The best-known surviving examples include cylinder seals carved in reverse to roll out repeating narrative scenes in wet clay, the glazed blue-brick reliefs of striding lions and dragons from Nebuchadnezzar II's Ishtar Gate, and the black stone stele carved with the Code of Hammurabi. Because almost none of these works carry an individual maker's name, museums attribute them to the culture itself, a reminder that "anonymous" often just means the record of authorship never survived, not that no one made a deliberate artistic choice.