ziggurat

(noun)

A towering temple, similar to a stepped pyramid, that sat in the center of Mesopotamian city-states in honor to the local pantheon.

Related Terms

(noun)

A temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.

Related Terms

Examples of ziggurat in the following topics:

  • Architecture in Mesopotamia

    • Like pyramids, ziggurats were built by stacking and piling.
    • Ziggurats were not places of worship for the general public.
    • The image below is an artist's reconstruction of how ziggurats might have looked in their heyday.
    • Like most Mesopotamian architecture, ziggurats were composed of sun-baked bricks, which were less durable than their oven-baked counterparts.
    • The Chogha Zanbil ziggurat was built in 1250 BC by Untash-Napirisha, the king of Elam, to honor the Elamite god Inshushinak.

  • Art in the Second Millennium B.C.E.

    • One of the most remarkable achievements of Mesopotamian architecture was the development of the ziggurat, a massive structure taking the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels, with a shrine or temple at the summit.
    • The first surviving ziggurats date from the fourth millennium BCE, but they continued to be a popular architectural form in the late third and early second millennium BCE as well .
    • The Chogha Zanbil ziggurat was built in 1250 BC by Untash-Napirisha, the king of Elam to honor the Elamite god Inshushinak.
    • The kingdom of Elam was located east of Mesopotamia and Chogha Zanbil is located in present-day Iran--one of the few ziggurats outside Mesopotamia.

  • Architecture in Assyria

    • Little is known of the construction of Assyrian temples with the exception of the distinctive ziggurats and massive remains at Mugheir.
    • Ziggurats in the Assyrian Empire came to be built with two towers (as opposed to the single central tower of previous styles) and decorated with colored enameled tiles.
    • Consisting of a stone foundation punctuated by seven gates, the fortress housed the emperor's palace and a ziggurat among massive load-bearing walls with regularly spaced towers.

  • Dur Sharrukin

    • A temple tower, known as a ziggurat, was also constructed.

  • Neo-Babylonia

    • At the heart of the city lay the ziggurat Etemenanki, literally "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth."
    • Two lamassu sculptures in the round face each other in the foreground, while another reconstruction of the ziggurat Etemenanki dominates the background.

  • The Assyrian Culture

    • Ashurnasirpal's son, Shalmaneser III (858–824 BCE), built the monument known as the Great Ziggurat and an associated temple.
    • A ziggurat was also constructed at the site.

  • Babylon

    • Nebuchadnezzar II ordered the complete reconstruction of the imperial grounds, including rebuilding the Etemenanki ziggurat and the construction of the Ishtar Gate—the most spectacular of eight gates that ringed the perimeter of Babylon.