Ziggurat
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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.
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[edit] Description
Ziggurats were a type of temple tower common to the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians of ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest examples of the ziggurat were simple raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period[1] 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 step pyramid style began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period.[2] 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. 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 Great Ziggurat of Ur and Khorsabad in Mesopotamia.
The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They 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 on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base 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.
There are 32 ziggurats known at, and near Mesopotamia. Four of them are in Iran, and the rest are mostly in Iraq. The most recent to be discovered was Sialk, in central Iran.
One of the best preserved ziggurats is Choqa Zanbil in western Iran, which has survived despite the devastating eight year Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's in which many archeological sites were destroyed. The Sialk, in Kashan, Iran, is the oldest known zigurrat, dating to the early 3rd millennium BCE. 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.
An 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.
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-metre hardened brick encasement constructed by King Nebuchadnezzar.
The ziggurat style of architecture continues to be used and copied today in many places of the world. Some examples are:
- The Temple of Eck in Chanhassen, Minnesota, USA.
- The University of Tennessee Hodges Library in Knoxville, Tennessee.
- The Ziggurat Building in West Sacramento, California, which is the home of the California Department of General Services.
- Halls of residence for students at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, United Kingdom.
- The SIS Building, also commonly known as the MI6 Building, which is the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
- Also, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York was conceived by architect Frank Lloyd Wright as an "inverted ziggurat."
[edit] Interpretation and significance
According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines has survived.[3] One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded for hundreds of miles, as for example the 1985 flood.[4] Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security. Since the shrine was accessible only by way of three stairways,[5] a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from spying on the rituals at the shrine on top of the ziggurat. These rituals probably included cooking of sacrificial food and burning of carcasses of sacrificial animals. The height of the ziggurat allowed the smoke to blow away without polluting city buildings. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, and living quarters, around which a city was built.[6]
The Biblical account of the Tower of Babel may be based on Mesopotamian ziggurats, or Etemenanki in particular.
[edit] Modern buildings resembling ziggurats
- The National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, DC, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
- The Chet Holifield Federal Building in Laguna Niguel, California, designed by William Pereira
- The MGM Grand resort hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada
[edit] Ziggurat in video games
Ziggurats are frequently portrayed in video games, and often used as a residence for the boss.
- In the computer role playing game series Xenosaga, Ziggurat 8, shortened to Ziggy by one of the game's protagonists, is a playable character.
- 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.
- A ziggurat like building, dubbed a "Nexus", is also the main base structure of the Protoss race in Blizzard's other well known real time strategy game, Starcraft.
- In the game City of Heroes, "the Ziggurat" (or "the Zig") is a common nickname for Zigursky Penitentiary, a giant pyramidal prison for super-villains in the Paragon City zone Brickstown. Also, with the introduction of City of Villains, players can break out of the Zig as a villain.
- The computer game Quake has a secret level called "Ziggurat Vertigo" featuring a central ziggurat-like structure. 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.
- The video game Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars for the Sega Master System mentions a Ziggurat in certain levels.
- The game Serious Sam: The Second Encounter has a level called Ziggurat (Mission Mesopotamia, Level 6)
- In the first edition of Age of Empires, the temples and wonders of the Babylon civilization are modelled after ziggurats.
- In the horror PC game "Clive Barker's Undying", at the end of the Oneiros level where Patrick Galloway must fight off Otto Keisinger, the boss battle revolves around a gigantic ziggurat.
- In the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII there is a temple, belonging to an ancient race called the Cetra, which resembles a ziggurat on the outside but is a labyrinth on the inside.
- In the PC game "Morrowind", in Vivec, there is a temple in the form of a ziggurat.
- In the PC game "Lineage 2", ziggurat is a gatekeeper that provide access to the catacombs.
[edit] Ziggurat in films
- The Ziggurat is a tower in the animated movie Metropolis (2001 film)
- A Ziggurat is seen in the movie Blade: Trinity, although computer graphics were used to reconstruct it.
- A Ziggurat was the focal building in the movie Ghostbusters, in which the ziggurat was constructed in order to bring forth Gozer from another dimension.
- A Ziggurat is seen in the movie Blade Runner as Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard is brought from the slums of the inner city to the interview with Tyrell. The aforementioned building in Laguna Niguel is often mistaken by Orange County residents as the Tyrell building seen in the film, which was in fact a five-foot-tall miniature built by the effects department.
- The Massassi Temple that houses the Rebel base (and later Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy) on Yavin IV in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is a Ziggurat.
[edit] See also
- Sialk ziggurat, Kashan, Iran
- Choqa Zanbil ziggurat, Susa, Iran
- Great Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq
- Ziggurat of Agargouf Tower, Iraq
[edit] References
- T. Busink, "L´origine et évolution de la ziggurat babylonienne". Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 21 (1970), 91-141.
- R. Chadwick, "Calendars, Ziggurats, and the Stars". The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin (Toronto) 24 (Nov. 1992), 7-24.
- R.G. Killick, "Ziggurat". The Dictionary of Art (ed. J. Turner, New York & London: Macmillan), vol. 33, 675-676.
- H.J. Lenzen, Die Entwicklung der Zikurrat von ihren Anfängen bis zur Zeit der III. Dynastie von Ur (Leipzig 1942).
- M. Roaf, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (New York 1990), 104-107.
- E.C. Stone, "Ziggurat". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. E.M. Meyers, New York & Oxford 1997), vol. 5, 390-391.
- J.A. Black & A. Green, "Ziggurat". Dictionary of the Ancient Near East (eds. P. Bienkowski & A. Millard, London: British Museum), 327-328.
- Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge University Press, (New York 1993), ISBN 0-521-38850-3.
- A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, University of Chicago Press, (Chicago 1977), ISBN 0-226-63187-7.
- ^ Crawford, page 73
- ^ Crawford, page 73-74
- ^ Crawford, page 73
- ^ Aramco World Magazine, March-April 1968, pages 32-33
- ^ Crawford, page 75
- ^ Oppenheim, page 328
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