Ziggurat

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Image:Choghazanbil2.jpg A ziggurat (Babylonian ziqqurrat, D-Stem of zaqāru "to build on a raised area") is a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley and Iran, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.

1 Background
2 Symbolic Interpretation and Significance
3 References in video games
4 References in films
5 See also
6 External links

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Background

One of the best preserved ziggurats remaining is Choqa Zanbil in western Iran, which has miraculously survived despite the devastating 8 year Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's in which many archeological sites were destroyed. The Sialk, in Kashan, Iran, is considered the oldest known zigurrat, dating to the early 3rd millennium BC. Ziggurat designs ranged from simple bases upon which a temple sat, to marvels of mathematics and construction which spanned several terraced stories and were topped with a temple.

An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens, and provide access from the ground to it via steps.

Example of an extensive and massive ziggurat is the Marduk ziggurat, or Etemenanki, of ancient Babylon. Unfortunately, not much of even the base is left of this massive structure, yet archeological findings and historical accounts put this tower at seven multicolored tiers, topped with a temple of exquisite proportions. The temple is thought to have been painted and maintained an indigo color, matching the tops of the tiers. It is known that there were three staircases leading to the temple, two of which (side flanked) were thought to have only ascended half the ziggurat's height. Image:SialkCAD.jpg Etemenanki, the name for the structure, is Sumerian and means "The Foundation of Heaven and Earth." Most likely being built by Hammurabi, the ziggurat's core was found to have contained the remains of earlier ziggurats and structures. The final stage consisted of a 15 meter hardened brick encasement constructed by King Nebuchadnezzar.

Ziggurats were a form of temple common to the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians of ancient Mesopotamia.The earliest examples of ziggurats date from the end of the third millennium BC and the latest date from the 6th century BC. 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 cosmological significance. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven, with a shrine or temple at the summit. Access to the shrine was provided by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. Notable examples of this structure include the ruins at Ur and Khorsabad in Mesopotamia.

The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not the place of public worship or ceremonies but instead were believed to be dwelling places for the gods. Through the ziggurat the gods could be close to mankind and each city had its own patron god. Only priests were permitted inside the ziggurat and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. As a result the priests were very powerful members of Sumerian society.

Image:UT-Hodges Southeast.jpgOverall, 32 ziggurats are currently known to be existing from and around Mesopotamia. 4 of them are in Iran, and the rest are mostly in Iraq. The most recent to be discovered was Sialk, in central Iran.

The ziggurat style of architecture continues to be used and copied today in many places of the world. Some examples would be:

The University of Tennessee Hodges Library in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Ziggurat by the river, near downtown Sacramento, California, used as corporate office space.
Halls of residence for students at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, United Kingdom.

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Symbolic Interpretation and Significance

It has been suggested that the ziggurat was a symbolic representation of the primeval mound upon which the universe had supposedly been created. Moreover, the ziggurat may have been built as a bridge between heaven and earth. The temples of the Sumerians were believed to be a cosmic axis, a vertical bond between heaven and Earth, and the Earth and the underworld, and a horizontal bond between the lands. Built on seven levels the ziggurat represented seven heavens and planes of existence, the seven planets and the seven metals associated with them and their corresponding colors.

Joseph Campbell in his Masks of God series of books accounts that there is archaelogical evidence supporting a direct link between Mesopotamian ziggurats and the Pyramids of Egypt. Campbell also states that from Egypt, the Mesopotamian culture was passed on almost simultaneously on two separate fronts to Crete and India. From India, he continues, it reached China and from there it crossed the ocean to the pre-columbian societies of Central and South America, which could explain the similarities between ziggurats and Mayan pyramids.

Campbell further explores the geometry of the ziggurat and its philosophical and spiritual repercussions. According to Campbell, ziggurats first appeared during a sudden scientific and philosophical golden age where such other discoveries were made such as the invention of the wheel, the discovery of the calendar and astronomy, as well as the invention of the written word. For Campbell these are all related.

365 is the number of days needed for the Earth to make a single revolution around the Sun which is an approximation of the number of degrees in a circle. Ziggurats, like all pyramidal structures, have a square base which could be encompassed within a circular area. The square base theoretically represents the additional five days. The five days can be seen in the four points of the square as well as the fifth point in the middle, which is the point of the square's equilibrium as well as the point of equilibrium of whatever circle that encompasses it.

The fifth point would be the so called bridge between heaven represented by the circle, a universally considered symbol for infinity and perfection, and the terrestrial world in turn represented by the square. The highest point of a pyramid is a projection of the square's center point. This can be interpreted as the earth's highest point being heaven's lowest.

We see examples of the philosophies surrounding the ziggurat in all major aincient civilizations of the world, which Campbell has previously affirmed is no accident. Examples can be observed in the seven leveled Chakra system of India as well as the dualistic Yin-Yang of China.

The Biblical account of the Tower of Babel may be based on Mesopotamian ziggurats.

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References in video games

In the real time strategy computer game Warcraft 3, ziggurats are one of the many building structures available to the undead race. They can also be found in the Eastern Plaguelands in the MMORPG World of Warcraft.
In the game City of Heroes, the Ziggurat is a giant prison structure zone Brickstown. And, with the introduction of City of Villains, players can break out of the Ziggurat as a villain.
The computer game Quake has a secret level called "Ziggurat Vertigo". The level is accessible by entering an unobtrusive portal in level 4 in Episode 1 (E1M4: "The Grisly Grotto"). The Quake reference for the map is E1M8.
In the old video game "Alex Kidd in The Lost Stars" for the Sega Master System mentioned Ziggurat in certain levels.