It was originally constructed with mud bricks, which got damp in the rain and cracked under the parched desert sun. It was restored around the 6th century BCE during the Neo-Babylonian period by King Nabodinus. The fact that it was constructed over 4,000 years ago shows that ancient civilizations may not be as primitive as we think.Ī full 1,500 years after it was originally constructed, the Great Ziggurat of Ur was in ruins. The base of the Great Ziggurat of Ur is composed of nearly three-quarters of a million mud bricks, each weighing about 33 pounds. The reason no one knows how high it originally was is that in the 4,000 years since its construction, the top levels have completely disappeared due to erosion. 11.Ī massive step pyramid, it measures 210 feet in length, 150 feet in width, and was thought to have originally been about 100 feet in height. It was named “Etemenniguru,” which in Sumerian means “temple whose foundation creates a great aura.” 10.Īs the highest point in the city, the Great Ziggurat of Ur would have been visible for miles around. It also served as an administrative complex for the city of Ur, which over time became one of the most prominent cities in Mesopotamia. Construction was finished by his son, King Shulgi. It was originally constructed by King Ur-Nammu, who ruled over the ancient fortressed city of Ur. The Great Ziggurat of Ur is perhaps the world’s best reconstructed ancient ziggurat and has undergone several renovations since it was originally built over 4,000 years ago. History’s largest ziggurat is thought to be the one in Babylon, which was thought to be 300 feet high and measured 300×300 feet at its base. Remains of ziggurats, in various states of decomposition, are scattered throughout what are now modern-day Iraq and Iran. Priests would perform sacrifices and other rituals on the top level. It is thought that the top level of the ziggurat was a bedchamber for Nanna. The Great Ziggurat of Ur was originally thought to be a shrine to the moon god Nanna. They were typically built as shrines to the city’s patron god. As far as design goes, they were very similar to the early Egyptian step pyramids. Ziggurats looked like step pyramids and featured anywhere from two to seven levels. Additionally, drains were built into the ziggurat’s terraces to carry away the winter rains.A “ziggurat” is a massive terraced building that visually resembles the Mayan pyramids but was built in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years before the Mayan pyramids were built. For instance, because the unbaked mud brick core of the temple would, according to the season, be alternatively more or less damp, the architects included holes through the baked exterior layer of the temple allowing water to evaporate from its core. The lower parts of the ziggurat, which do survive, include amazing details of engineering and design. Some blue glazed bricks have been found which archaeologists suspect might have been part of the temple decoration. In antiquity, to visit the ziggurat at Ur was to seek both spiritual and physical nourishment.Ĭlearly the most important part of the ziggurat at Ur was the Nanna temple at its top, but this, unfortunately, has not survived. As the Ziggurat supported the temple of the patron god of the city of Ur, it is likely that it was the place where the citizens of Ur would bring agricultural surplus and where they would go to receive their regular food allotments. The structure would have been the highest point in the city by far and, like the spire of a medieval cathedral, would have been visible for miles around, a focal point for travelers and the pious alike. The Ziggurat at Ur and the temple on its top were built around 2100 BCE by the king Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur for the moon goddess Nanna, the divine patron of the city state. Small excavations occurred at the site around the turn of the twentieth century, and in the 1920s Sir Leonard Woolley, in a joint project with the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia and the British Museum in London, revealed the monument in its entirety.įigure 3. One of the largest and best-preserved ziggurats of Mesopotamia is the great Ziggurat at Ur. Ziggurats are found scattered around what is today Iraq and Iran, and stand as an imposing testament to the power and skill of the ancient culture that produced them. However, unlike Egyptian pyramids, the exterior of Ziggurats were not smooth but tiered to accommodate the work which took place at the structure as well as the administrative oversight and religious rituals essential to Ancient Near Eastern cities. Like an ancient Egyptian pyramid, an ancient Near Eastern ziggurat has four sides and rises up to the realm of the gods. The ziggurat is the most distinctive architectural invention of the Ancient Near East. 2100 BCE mud brick and baked brick, Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq (largely reconstructed)
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