Article Talk Read Edit View history Search Wikipedia

Ziggurat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Main page For other uses, see Ziggurat (disambiguation).

Contents
A ziggurat (/ˈzɪɡʊˌræt/ ZIG-uu-rat; Akkadian: ziqqurat, D-stem of zaqāru 'to build on a raised
Featured content
area') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has the form of a terraced
Current events
Random article
compound of successively receding stories or levels. Notable ziggurats include the Great
Donate to Wikipedia Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad, the now destroyed
Wikipedia store Etemenanki in Babylon, Chogha Zanbil in Khūzestān and Sialk.

Interaction Contents [hide]

Help 1 Description
About Wikipedia 2 Interpretation and significance Partially reconstructed facade and
Community portal
3 See also the access staircase of the Ziggurat of
Recent changes
4 References Ur.
Contact page
4.1 Citations
Tools 4.2 Sources
What links here 5 Further reading
Related changes 6 External links
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Description [ edit ]
Page information
Wikidata item Ziggurats were built by ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Elamites, Eblaites and Babylonians for local religions. Each ziggurat was part of a
Cite this page temple complex which included other buildings. The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period[1]
during the sixth millennium. The ziggurats began as a platform (usually oval, rectangular or square), the ziggurat was a mastaba-like
In other projects

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 Wikimedia Commons structure with a flat top. The sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. Each step was
slightly smaller than the step below it. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings
Print/export
sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of floors ranged from two to seven.
Create a book
Download as PDF According to archaeologist Harriet Crawford, "It is usually assumed that the
Printable version ziggurats supported a shrine, though the only evidence for this comes from
Herodotus, and physical evidence is nonexistent. It has also been suggested by
Languages
a number of scholars that this shrine was the scene of the sacred marriage, the
Deutsch
central rite of the great new year festival. Herodotus describes the furnishing of
Español
the shrine on top of the ziggurat at Babylon and says it contained a great golden
Français
한국어 couch on which a woman spent the night alone. The god Marduk was also said
Italiano to come and sleep in his shrine. The likelihood of such a shrine ever being
Русский found is remote. Erosion has usually reduced the surviving ziggurats to a
Tagalog fraction of their original height, but textual evidence may yet provide more facts
Tiếng Việt
about the purpose of these shrines. In the present state of our knowledge it
中 seems reasonable to adopt as a working hypothesis the suggestion that the
Elamite Ziggurat of Dur Untash in Persian Choqa
Zanbil in Khuzestan, Iran.
53 more ziggurats developed out of the earlier temples on platforms and that small
Edit links
shrines stood on the highest stages..."[2] Access to the shrine would have been
by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places
for public worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god. Only
priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their
needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian society.

One of the best-preserved ziggurats is Chogha Zanbil in western Iran.[3] The Sialk ziggurat, in Kashan, Iran, is the oldest known ziggurat,
dating to the early 3rd millennium BCE[4][5]. Ziggurat designs ranged from simple bases upon which a temple sat, to marvels of
mathematics and construction which spanned several terraced stories and were topped with a temple.

An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple
is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens,[citation needed] and provide access from the ground to it via steps. The
Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth. In fact, the ziggurat at Babylon was known as
Etemenankia or "House of the Platform between Heaven and Earth".

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 An example of an extensive and massive ziggurat is the Marduk ziggurat, of Etemenanki, of ancient Babylon. Unfortunately, not much of
even the base is left of this massive 91 meter tall structure, yet archeological findings and historical accounts put this tower at seven
multicolored tiers, topped with a temple of exquisite proportions. The temple is thought to have been painted and maintained an indigo
color, matching the tops of the tiers. It is known that there were three staircases leading to the temple, two of which (side flanked) were
thought to have only ascended half the ziggurat's height.

Etemenanki, the name for the structure, is Sumerian and means "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth". The date of its original
construction is unknown, with suggested dates ranging from the fourteenth to the ninth century BCE, with textual evidence suggesting it
existed in the second millennium.[6]

Interpretation and significance [ edit ]

According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines has survived.[1] One practical function of
the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded
for hundreds of kilometers, for example, the 1967 flood.[7] Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security. Since the shrine was
accessible only by way of three stairways,[8] a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from spying on the rituals at the shrine
on top of the ziggurat, such as initiation rituals like the Eleusinian mysteries, cooking of sacrificial food and burning of carcasses of
sacrificial animals. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, bathrooms, and living quarters,
around which a city was built.[9]

See also [ edit ]

Mound Ancient Near East

Pyramid portal

Stupa
Sumer

References [ edit ]

Citations [ edit ]
1. ^ a b Crawford, p. 73
2. ^ Crawford, p. 85

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 3. ^ "Tchogha Zanbil" . UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved July 15, 2017. "It is the largest ziggurat outside of Mesopotamia and the best
preserved of this type of stepped pyramidal monument."
4. ^ Matthews, R. and Nashli, H. F., eds. 2013 The Neolithisation of Iran: the formation of new societies. British Association for Near Eastern
Archaeology and Oxbow Books, Oxford, p. 272.
5. ^ Fazeli, H., Beshkani A., Markosian A., Ilkani H., Young R. L. 2010 The Neolithic to Chalcolithic Transition in the Qazvin Plain, Iran: Chronology
and Subsistence Strategies: in Archäologische Mitteilungen Aus Iran and Turan 41, pp. 1–17
6. ^ George , Andrew (2007) "The Tower of Babel: Archaeology, history, and cuneiform texts " Archiv für Orientforschung, 51 (2005/2006).
pp. 75–95.
7. ^ Aramco World Magazine, March–April 1968, pp. 32–33
8. ^ Crawford, p. 75
9. ^ Oppenheim, pp. 112, 326–328

Sources [ edit ]

Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge University Press, (New York 1993), ISBN 0-521-38850-3.
A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, University of Chicago Press, (Chicago 1977), ISBN 0-226-63187-7.

Further reading [ edit ]

T. Busink, "L´origine et évolution de la ziggurat babylonienne". Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 21 (1970),
91-141.
R. Chadwick, "Calendars, Ziggurats, and the Stars". The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin (Toronto) 24 (Nov. 1992), 7-24.
R.G. Killick, "Ziggurat". The Dictionary of Art (ed. J. Turner, New York & London: Macmillan), vol. 33, 675-676.
H.J. Lenzen, Die Entwicklung der Zikurrat von ihren Anfängen bis zur Zeit der III. Dynastie von Ur (Leipzig 1942).
M. Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (New York 1990), 104-107.
E.C. Stone, "Ziggurat". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. E.M. Meyers, New York & Oxford 1997), vol. 5, 390-391.
J.A. Black & A. Green, "Ziggurat". Dictionary of the Ancient Near East (eds. P. Bienkowski & A. Millard, London: British Museum), 327-328.
Beck, Roger B.; Linda Black, Larry S. Krieger, Phillip C. Naylor, Dahia Ibo Shabaka, (1999). World History: Patterns of Interaction. Evanston, IL:
McDougal Littell. ISBN 0-395-87274-X.
Leick, Gwendolyn (2002). Mesopotamia: The Invention of the City. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-026574-0.

External links [ edit ]

UNESCO Heritage site for Choqa Zanbil ziggurat, Iran. Wikimedia Commons has

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 Article on the status of Sialk ziggurat, Iran. media related to Ziggurats.

Authority control BNF: cb119808043 (data) · GND: 4190824-7 · LCCN: sh85149790

Categories: Ziggurats Sumerian art and architecture Babylonia Pyramids in Asia Ancient Near East temples
Archaeology of Iraq

This page was last edited on 4 October 2019, at 00:46 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy
Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Developers Cookie statement Mobile view

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD