Jacques Liegeard Mr.

Eichert Humanities 1 November 2012

Babylonian Ziggurats
Essay Question: What was the purpose of a ziggurat and why was it of such great size?

Babylon was one of the biggest cities of Mesopotamia and was located on the east bank of the Euphrates River in modern day Iraq. Babylon was a city of wonder. Its immense walls and the sheer size of the city itself were purely amazing (by the standard of those times, of course). This city was of great wealth and power and was doing well in its time. The Empire of Babylon had at one point overthrown the whole of Jerusalem and took the Jews as slaves. Babylon only lasted about 70 years but accomplished many great things. Ziggurats are huge stepped buildings that were made in the Mesopotamian region. Ziggurats were almost always the tallest building, towering over others. They were known to be about 150ft tall [Rusty, Russel. "Babylonian Ziggurats." Bible History. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.]! Nobody lived in the ziggurat. It was a place to worship the gods. They had about seven sets of steps to reach the top. The first ziggurat only had about three sets of steps. It was located in Sumer, the first Mesopotamian civilization. In order keep the ziggurat in shape, people had to do a lot of cleaning and fixing to maintain this place of worship. They did this because they thought it is respectful to keep the place of worship clean and tidy. There were many things to clean on the structure because it was used often and there were many fine details that needed to be spotless. [Rusty, Russel. "Babylonian Ziggurats." Bible History. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.] There were many purposes for the ziggurat. One purpose was to make offerings to the gods. Every day the priest or a wealthy individual would make a sacrifice at the top of the ziggurat. They would place it in a small box-like hut. They would make an offering of something like a piece of armor or some food. Sometimes when times were bad they may get more brutal with the sacrifices (but lets not talk about that). Many celebrations were held on the ziggurat. Ziggurats also became storage for money and banking, so the priests ended up being bankers. [Rusty, Russel. "Babylonian Ziggurats." Bible History. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.] Ziggurats are very large structures. They are large for a couple reasons. One is that the Babylonians like to be closer to the gods to make their sacrifices. A ziggurat was called "House of the platform of Heaven and Earth"[ Rusty, Russel. "Babylonian Ziggurats." Bible History. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.]. Another reason is that the ziggurat was

for the city god so it should be big and important to show that the god meant a lot to them. There may have been other gods that would have had smaller temples, but the city god was the kings god and was very important. Even in our modern day we still admire the creativity and immensity of these ancient structures. We marvel at the level of time, labor and effort put into these amazing buildings.

Sources: 1. Russell, Rusty. "Babylonian Ziggurat." Ancient Babylonia - The Ziggurat. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.bible-history.com/babylonia/BabyloniaThe_Ziggurat.htm>.