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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 .
The height is speculative, as only the foundations of the Sumerian ziggurat have survived. The ziggurat was a piece in a temple complex that served as an administrative center for the city, and which was a shrine of the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of Ur. [6]
A Neo-Babylonian royal inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II on a stele from Babylon, claimed to have been found in the 1917 excavation by Robert Koldewey, [5] and of uncertain authenticity, reads: "Etemenanki [6] Zikkurat Babibli [Ziggurat of Babylon] I made it, the wonder of the people of the world, I raised its top to heaven, made doors for the gates, and I covered it with bitumen and bricks."
Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, and Assyrians as monuments to local religions. The earliest examples of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period [20] during the fourth millennium BC, and the latest date from the 6th century BC. The top of the ziggurat was flat, unlike many pyramids.
The ziggurat was given a facing of baked bricks, a number of which have cuneiform characters giving the names of deities in the Elamite and Akkadian languages. Though the ziggurat now stands only 24.75 metres (81.2 ft) high, less than half its estimated original height, its state of preservation is unsurpassed.
Overall, the ziggurat site is 25 meters in height, has a rectangular base of 39 meters by 58 meters, consisting three stages of dry brick, and faced with kiln-fired bricks laid in bitumen. [53] The northern corner of the ziggurat points to 12 degrees east of the magnetic north. [54]
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that must have been covered with a rich blue glaze. The Austrian archeologists have determined that Nebuchadnezzar's ziggurat encased the ruins of a smaller tower from the second millennium BC. When it was completed it reached a height of 70 meters, in seven terraces; even in ruin it still stands a striking 52 meters over the perfectly flat plain.