Why Did Sumerians Build Ziggurats

Type of massive terraced structure of ancient Mesopotamia

Anu ziggurat and White Temple at Uruk. The original pyramidal structure, the "Anu Ziggurat", dates to the Sumerians around 4000 BC, and the White Temple was built on elevation of information technology circa 3500 BC.^[one]

A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ziqqurratum ,^[two] D-stem of zaqārum 'to protrude, to build high',^[three] cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew zaqar (זָקַר) 'protrude'^[iv] ^[five]) is a type of massive construction built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has the form of a terraced compound of successively receding storeys or levels. Notable ziggurats include the Neat Ziggurat of Ur virtually Nasiriyah, the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad, the now destroyed Etemenanki in Babylon, Chogha Zanbil in Khūzestān and Sialk Plus, Sumer in general. The Sumerians believed that the Gods lived in the temple at the top of the Ziggurats, so only priests and other highly respected individuals could enter. Society offered them many things such equally music, harvest, and creating devotional statues to live in the temple.

History [edit]

The give-and-take ziggurat comes from ziqqurratum (height, pinnacle), in aboriginal Assyrian. From zaqārum, to exist loftier upward. The Ziggurat of Ur is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat built past Male monarch Ur-Nammu, who dedicated it in honor of Nanna/Sîn in approximately the 21st century BC during the Third Dynasty of Ur.^[6]

Description [edit]

Partially reconstructed facade and access staircase of the Ziggurat of Ur, originally built by Ur-Nammu, circa 2100 BC

Ziggurats were congenital by ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Elamites, Eblaites and Babylonians for local religions. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included other buildings. The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid menses^[7] during the 6th millennium BC. The ziggurats began as platforms (usually oval, rectangular or square). The ziggurat was a mastaba-like structure with a apartment top. The lord's day-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. Each step was slightly smaller than the stride beneath information technology. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may take had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of floors ranged from two to seven.

According to archaeologist Harriet Crawford,

Information technology is unremarkably causeless that the ziggurats supported a shrine, though the only evidence for this comes from Herodotus, and concrete evidence is non-existent ... The likelihood of such a shrine ever being found is remote. Erosion has normally reduced the surviving ziggurats to a fraction of their original height, but textual prove may yet provide more than facts most the purpose of these shrines. In the nowadays state of our knowledge it seems reasonable to adopt every bit a working hypothesis the suggestion that the ziggurats adult out of the earlier temples on platforms and that small shrines stood on the highest stages ...^[8]

Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a screw ramp from base to tiptop. 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. But priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base of operations, and it was their responsibleness 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.^[9] The Sialk ziggurat, in Kashan, Iran, is one of the oldest known ziggurats, dating to the early on 3rd millennium BCE.^[10] ^[11] 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 case of a unproblematic ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base of operations 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 world. In fact, the ziggurat at Babylon was known as Etemenanki, which means "House of the foundation of sky and world" in Sumerian.

The appointment of its original construction is unknown, with suggested dates ranging from the fourteenth to the ninth century BC, with textual evidence suggesting it existed in the second millennium.^[12] Unfortunately, not much of even the base is left of this massive structure, yet archeological findings and historical accounts put this tower at 7 multicolored tiers, topped with a temple of exquisite proportions. The temple is thought to have been painted and maintained an indigo colour, matching the tops of the tiers. It is known that there were three staircases leading to the temple, two of which (side flanked) were idea to accept only ascended half the ziggurat'southward elevation.

Interpretation and significance [edit]

According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines has survived.^[7] One practical function of the ziggurats was a loftier place on which the priests could escape rising h2o that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded for hundreds of kilometres, for example, the 1967 inundation.^[13] Another practical office of the ziggurat was security. Since the shrine was attainable just past way of three stairways,^[14] a small number of guards could prevent not-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 called-for 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 spread,^[15] too as a place for the people to worship.

Influence [edit]

The biblical account of the Belfry of Babel has been associated by mod scholars to the massive structure undertakings of the ziggurats of Mesopotamia,^[16] and in detail to the ziggurat of Etemenanki in Babylon in calorie-free of the Tower of Boom-boom Stele^[17] describing its restoration by Nebuchadnezzar Two.

The pattern of Egyptian pyramids, especially the stepped designs of the oldest pyramids (Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara, 2600 BCE), may accept been an evolution from the ziggurats built in Mesopotamia.^[18] ^[19]

The shape of the ziggurat experienced a revival in modernistic architecture and Brutalist architecture starting in the 1970s. The Al Zaqura Building is a regime building situated in Baghdad. It serves the office of the prime minister of Iraq. The Babylon Hotel in Baghdad also is inspired past the ziggurat. The Chet Holifield Federal Building is colloquially known every bit "the Ziggurat" due to its form. It is a U.s.a. authorities edifice in Laguna Niguel, California, congenital betwixt 1968 and 1971. Further examples include The Ziggurat in West Sacramento, California, and the SIS Building in London.

Encounter Category:Ziggurat style modern architecture

See likewise [edit]

Mound
Pyramid
Stupa

References [edit]

Citations [edit]

^ Crüsemann, Nicola; Ess, Margarete van; Hilgert, Markus; Salje, Beate; Potts, Timothy (2019). Uruk: Commencement Metropolis of the Ancient World. Getty Publications. p. 325. ISBN978-1-60606-444-iii.
^ "Search Entry". www.assyrianlanguages.org . Retrieved 2020-07-30 .
^ "Search Entry". world wide web.assyrianlanguages.org . Retrieved 2020-07-xxx .
^ "מילון מורפיקס | זקר באנגלית | פירוש זקר בעברית". www.morfix.co.il . Retrieved 2020-07-30 .
^ see also Akkadian zaqru 'protruding, high', corresponding to Hebrew zaqur (זָקוּר) 'protruding out, upwardly'
^ "The Ziggurat of Ur". British Museum . Retrieved 24 November 2017.
^ ^a ^b Crawford 1993, p. 73.
^ Crawford 1993, p. 85.
^ "Tchogha Zanbil". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved July 15, 2017. Information technology is the largest ziggurat outside of Mesopotamia and the all-time preserved of this blazon of stepped pyramidal monument.
^ Matthews, R; Nashli, H. F., eds. (2013). The Neolithisation of Iran: the formation of new societies. Oxford: British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology and Oxbow Books. p. 272.
^ Fazeli, H.; Beshkani A.; Markosian A.; Ilkani H.; Young R. L. (2010). "The Neolithic to Chalcolithic Transition in the Qazvin Patently, Iran: Chronology and Subsistence Strategies". Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran and Turan (41): 1–17.
^ George, Andrew R. (2007). "The Belfry of Babel: Archaeology, history, and cuneiform texts" (PDF). Archiv für Orientforschung. 2005/2006 (51): 75–95.
^ Aramco Earth Magazine, March–Apr 1968, pp. 32–33
^ Crawford 1993, p. 75.
^ Oppenheimer 1977, pp. 112, 326–328.
^ Harris, Stephen L. (2002). Understanding the Bible. McGraw-Hill. pp. 50–51. ISBN9780767429160.
^ "MS 2063 - The Schoyen Drove". www.schoyencollection.com . Retrieved 2020-07-30 .
^ "The stepped design of the Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara, the oldest known pyramid along the Nile, suggests that it was borrowed from the Mesopotamian ziggurat concept." in Held, Colbert C. (University of Nebraska) (2018). Middle East Patterns, Student Economy Edition: Places, People, and Politics. Routledge. p. 63. ISBN978-0-429-96199-i.
^ Samuels, Charlie (2010). Ancient Science (Prehistory – A.D. 500): Prehistory-A.D. 500. Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP. p. 23. ISBN978-1-4339-4137-5.

Sources [edit]

Oppenheimer, A. Leo (1977). Ancient Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN0-226-63187-7.
Tillison, Malachi (1993). Sumer and the Sumerians. New York: Cambridge Academy Press. ISBN0-521-38850-3.
Crawford, Harriet (1993). Sumer and the Sumerians. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-38850-3.