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The Ziggurat of Ur is the best-preserved of those known from Mesopotamia, besides the ziggurat of Dur Untash (Chogha Zanbil). [5] It is one of three well-preserved structures of the Neo-Sumerian city of Ur, along with the Royal Mausolea and the Palace of Ur-Nammu (the E-hursag).
The word ziggurat comes from ziqqurratum (height, pinnacle), in ancient Assyrian. From zaqārum, to be high up. The Ziggurat of Ur is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat built by King Ur-Nammu, who dedicated it in honor of Nanna/Sîn in approximately the 21st century BC during the Third Dynasty of Ur. [6]
It has the form of a terraced compound of successively receding stories or levels. Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad, the now destroyed Etemenanki in Babylon, Chogha Zanbil in Khūzestān and Sialk.
That Ur was an important urban centre already then seems to be indicated by a type of cylinder seal called the City Seals. These seals contain a set of Proto-Cuneiform signs which appear to be writings or symbols of the name of city-states in ancient Mesopotamia. Many of these seals have been found in Ur, and the name of Ur is prominent on them ...
Ur-Nammu built the great Ziggurat of Ur. Ur-Nammu was also responsible for ordering the construction of a number of ziggurats, including the Great Ziggurat of Ur. [12] It has been suggested, based on a much later literary composition, that he was killed in battle after he had been abandoned by his army. [7] He was succeeded by his son Shulgi. [4]
The name Ennigaldi-Nanna was in all likelihood assumed at this time as her priestess name, since it means "Nanna requests an entu". [ 14 ] As entu , Ennigaldi would have devoted much of her religious time in the evenings to worship of Sin in a small blue room on top of the Ziggurat of Ur . [ 3 ]
During the Ur III period Ur-Nammu had a ziggurat built over the remains of previous temples. Aside from Enmerkar of Uruk (as mentioned in the Aratta epics), several later historical Sumerian kings are said in inscriptions found here to have worked on or renewed the e-abzu temple, including Elili of Ur; Ur-Nammu , Shulgi and Amar-Sin of Ur-III ...
Drawing of the Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq, by Marjorie V. Duffell for Leonard Woolley, 1937. Ur was already well established as the cult center of the moon god, initially under his Sumerian name Nanna, in Early Dynastic times, as attested in the Zame Hymns from Abu Salabikh. [30] His primary temple this city was Ekišnugal, [154] "house of the great ...