Great Ziggurat of Ur and temple-centred religion
- Date
- c. 2100 BCE
- Category
- Religion & ideology
- Region
- Mesopotamia (Iraq)
- Era
- Ancient Civilizations
- Significance
King Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur ordered the construction of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, a massive stepped temple platform dedicated to Nanna (Sin), the moon god and patron deity of the city.
Built of a mud-brick core faced with baked brick set in bitumen, the structure measured roughly 64 by 45 metres at its base, rose in tiers more than 30 metres high and was ascended by three monumental staircases leading to a shrine at the summit. The ziggurat anchored a larger temple complex that functioned simultaneously as a house of the god, a focus of public ritual and a centre of economic administration, controlling land, stores and labour. Such structures embodied the organised polytheism of Mesopotamia, in which each city was the earthly estate of a particular deity served by a professional priesthood, and in which monumental sacred architecture publicly fused religious devotion with royal authority. The ziggurat form, conceived as a link between earth and heaven, became the defining religious monument of Sumerian and later Babylonian civilisation.
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Empires active in c. 2100 BCE
- Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (Oxus Civilization)2250 BCE – 1700 BCE
- Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization2600 BCE – 1900 BCE
- Elamite Kingdom2700 BCE – 539 BCE
Related religion & ideology events
- Pyramid Texts inscribed in the Pyramid of Unasc. 2350 BCE
- Enuma Elish: the Babylonian epic of creationc. 1150 BCE
- Composition of the Rigvedac. 1500-1200 BCE
- Akhenaten's Atenist revolution and the Amarna periodc. 1348 BCE
- Zoroaster and the rise of dualist religionc. 1200–900 BCE
- Construction of Solomon's Temple (First Temple) in Jerusalemc. 957 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.
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