Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat 

image © Wiki Commons

The Chogha Zanbil ziggurat was built around 1250 BC by the king of Elam, Untash-Napirisha. It
is believed that it was built as a way to honour the Elamite god Inshushinak. It was destroyed by
the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 640 BC, however, part of it was able to be excavated between
1951 and 1961 by Roman Ghirshman. Today the site is known as the first Iranian site to be
inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Lamassu
image © Flickr

Regarded as an assyrian protective deity, a lamassu takes the form of a human's head, a body of
an ox or a lion, and bird's wings. The lamassu seen above if from Dur-Sharrukin and came from
the Neo-Assyrian period dating between 721-705 BCE.

Ishtar Gate
image © Richard Mortel via Flickr

Constructed in about 575 BCE by the order of King Nebuchadnezzar II, the Ishtar Gate shown
above was excavated in the early 20th century and is now on display in the Pergamon Museum,
Berlin. Since excavation, it has undergone some reconstruction using the original bricks to
maintain its form.

Ziggarut of Ur
image © Wikimedia Commons

The Ziggurat of Ur was named after Ur-Nammu and is located in the city of Ur near Nasiriyah
which in present day is Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. In the 6th century BCE it was crumbled to ruins
but was then restored by King Nabonidus. The structure was excavated in the 1920's and 1930's
by Sir Leonard Woolley and in the 1980's it underwent reconstruction for its facade. Despite the
rehabilitation of the structure, the neo-babylonian structure can still be seen. 

The Royal Tomb of Ur

image © M.Lubinski via  Wikimedia Commons

The 4,8000-year-old Sumerian burial site was discovered in 1922 by archaeologist Sir Leonard
Woolley. Though the tomb demonstrates the architectural styling of the era, it ultimately reveals
more about how the people of Sumer lived. 
Tell Brak
image © Wiki Commons

An ancient city in Syria, Tell Brak was destroyed by Assyria in 1300 BC which caused it to lose
its former importance and remain as a small settlement. Excavation for the site was started by
Max Mallowan in 1937 but has since been halted due to the Syrian Civil War.

Sources: Boundless  Cover photo © wikimedia commons

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The earliest ancient cities in Mesopotamia are buried within tells,

great mounds of earth built up from centuries or millennia of building and
rebuilding on the same place. Further, much of southern Mesopotamia is alluvial
in nature: lots of the earliest sites and occupations at later cities are currently
buried under hundreds of feet of soil and/or building rubble, making it difficult
to say with absolute certainty where the location of first or earliest occupations
occurred. Traditionally, the first rise of ancient cities is attributed to southern
Mesopotamia, in the alluvial marshes above the Persian Gulf.

However, some fairly recent evidence at Tell Brak in Syria suggests that its urban
roots are somewhat older than those in the South. The initial phase of urbanism
at Brak occurred in the late fifth to early fourth millennium BCE, when the site
already covered 135 acres (about 35 ha). The history, or rather prehistory of Tell
Brak is similar to the south: an abrupt variation from the earlier small
settlements of the preceding Ubaid period (6500–4200 BCE). It is undoubtedly
the south which still currently shows the bulk of the growth in the early Uruk
period, but the first flush of urbanism seems to have come from northern
Mesopotamia.
 Early Uruk (4000–3500 BCE)
The Early Uruk period is signaled by an abrupt change in settlement pattern from
the preceding Ubaid period. During the Ubaid period, people lived primarily in
small hamlets or one or two largish towns, across an enormous chunk of western
Asia: but at the end of it, a handful of communities began to enlarge.

The settlement pattern developed from a simple system with large and small
towns to a multi-modal settlement configuration, with urban centers, cities,
towns, and hamlets by 3500 BCE. At the same time, there was a sharp increase in
the total number of communities overall, and several individual centers swelled
to urban proportions. By 3700 Uruk itself was already between 175–250 ac (70–
100 ha), and several others, including Eridu and Tell al-Hayyad, covered 100 ac
(40 ha) or more.

 Late Uruk beveled rim bowl, ca. 3300–3100 BCE from Nippur. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rogers Fund, 1962: 62.70.25 

Pottery of the Uruk period included undecorated, plain wheel-thrown pots, in

contrast to the early Ubaid hand-made painted ceramics, which likely represents
a new form of craft specialization. One type of ceramic vessel form that first
shows up in Mesopotamian sites during the Early Uruk is the bevel-rimmed-
bowl, a distinctive, coarse, thick-walled and conical vessel. Low-fired, and made
of organic temper and local clay pressed into molds, these were clearly utilitarian
in nature. Several theories about what they were used for include yogurt or
soft cheese manufacture, or possibly salt making. On the basis of some
experimental archaeology, Goulder argues these are bread-m

 
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he importance of the Mesopotamian holy city, Nippur (Fig. 1), is reflected even today in the
great size of the mound, Nuffar (Fig. 2), located between Baghdad and Basra in southern
Iraq. Nippur was one of the longest-lived sites, beginning in the prehistoric Ubaid period (c.
5000 B. C. ) and lasting until about A. D. 800, in the Islamic era (Gibson 1992).

 Figure. 1 Map of ancient Mesopotamia.

 Figure. 2 Plan of Nippur, with excavation areas indicated Tablet Hill is the mound vith
Trenches TA, TB, and TC.
From earliest recorded times, Nippur was a sacred city, not a political capital. It was this
holy character which allowed Nippur to survive numerous wars and the fall of dynasties that
brought destruction to other cities. Although not a capital, the city had an important role to
play in politics. Kings, on ascending the throne in cities such as Kish, Ur, and Isin, sought
recognition at Ekur, the temple of Enlil, the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon (Fig.
3). In exchange for such legitimization the kings lavished gifts of land, precious metals and
stones, and other commodities on the temples and on the city as a whole. At the end of
successful wars, rulers would present booty, including captives, to Enlil and the other gods
at Nippur. Most important, kings carried out for the city elaborate construction and
restoration of temples, public administrative buildings, fortification walls, and canals. Even
after 1800 B. C., when the Babylonians made Marduk the most important god in southern
Mesopotamia, Enlil was still revered, kings continued to seek legitimization at Nippur, and
the city remained the recipient of pious donations. The city underwent periodic declines in
importance [Gibson 1992) but rose again because its function as a holy center was still
needed. The greatest growth of the city (Fig. 2), which occurred under the Ur III kings (c.
2100 B.C), was almost matched in the time of the Kassites (c. 1250 B.C.) and in the period
when the Assyrians, from northern Iraq, dominated Babylonia (c. 750-612 B.C.).

he White temple was rectangular, measuring 17.5 x 22.3 meters and, at its corners,
oriented to the cardinal points. It is a typical Uruk “high temple (Hochtempel)” type with
a tri-partite plan: a long rectangular central hall with rooms on either side (plan). The
White Temple had three entrances, none of which faced the ziggurat ramp
directly. Visitors would have needed to walk around the temple, appreciating its bright
façade and the powerful view, and likely gained access to the interior in a “bent axis”
approach (where one would have to turn 90 degrees to face the altar), a typical
arrangement for Ancient Near Eastern temples.