Construction of the White Temple and Anu Ziggurat at Uruk
- Date
- c. 3500 BCE
- Category
- Religion & ideology
- Region
- Southern Mesopotamia (Iraq)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
At Uruk the Sumerians raised a high mud-brick platform in the Anu district and crowned it with the whitewashed sanctuary known to archaeologists as the White Temple, an early example of the stepped temple-platform tradition that would culminate in the monumental ziggurat.
Radiocarbon analysis of organic material in the structure points to construction beginning in the mid-fourth millennium BCE. Building the underlying terrace alone is estimated to have required around 1,500 labourers working long days for several years, implying centralised authority capable of mobilising and feeding a large workforce, very likely through corvée obligations. Elevated above the city and visible from afar, the temple expressed the central place of the gods in Sumerian life and the temple's role as an economic institution that owned land, stored grain and redistributed goods. The complex is a foundational monument in the history of monumental religious architecture.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Related religion & ideology events
- Mungo Lady: the earliest known human cremationc. 42,000 years ago
- Neanderthal mortuary behaviour at Shanidar Cavec. 75,000 – 60,000 years ago
- Plastered ancestral skulls of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Bc. 10,500 – 9,000 years ago (c. 8800–7000 BCE)
- The Löwenmensch (Lion-Man): earliest figurative sculpturec. 41,000–35,000 years ago
- Composition of the Rigvedac. 1500-1200 BCE
- Pyramid Texts inscribed in the Pyramid of Unasc. 2350 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Religion
Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.