Mesopotamia, "the land between the rivers," is the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq. Here, by about 3500 BC, people built some of the first cities and invented writing: cuneiform, wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay. Stone was scarce, so they built with mud brick, and they put their temples high.
A ziggurat is a huge stepped platform of mud brick with a temple on top, the house of a city's god. The Ziggurat of Ur was built about 2100 BC by King Ur-Nammu for Nanna, the moon god. Its core is sun-dried mud brick, wrapped in a thick skin of baked brick set in bitumen (natural tar) to keep the rain out. Long stairways led up to the shrine.
Key idea
Why it works
Looking closely: The Stele of Hammurabi. A tall, black, finger-shaped stone. At the top, in relief, King Hammurabi of Babylon stands with his hand raised to his mouth in respect before Shamash, who sits on a throne with rays rising from his shoulders. Shamash is larger: even seated, he is nearly as tall as the standing king. Below, the rest of the stone is covered with neat columns of cuneiform, 282 laws, each in the form "if someone does this, then that follows." The picture makes the message plain to anyone, reader or not: the laws come with the authority of the god. The stele was carried off to Susa, in Iran, as war booty in the 1100s BC, where French archaeologists found it in 1901.
Worked example: Ziggurat or pyramid?
- A ziggurat is a platform with a temple on top; people climbed it by stairs.
- An Egyptian pyramid is a tomb for a king, sealed, with the burial inside.
- Also: ziggurats are mud brick; the pyramids of Giza are stone.
Answer: A ziggurat holds up a temple; a pyramid holds a royal burial.
Common mistake