13. ziggurat

Back to *History 8 Mesopotamia Vocabulary

These stepped towers we call ziggurats. By 2000 B.C. mud-brick ziggurats were being constructed in many Sumerian cities. Later, ziggurats were constructed in Babylonian and Assyrian cities.(1) Ziggurats were used as a religious center. Priests lived in them and rulers worked in them. Ziggurats were built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. (2)

(1) http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/ziggurats/home_set.html (2) http://www.crystalinks.com/ziggurat.html

-William Perdue