Quezi

Babylon - courtesy Brilith - CC-BY

The Ziggurat of Marduk was located within a sacred precinct on the southern end of the ancient city of Babylon. The Biblical myth of the Tower of Babel was almost certainly inspired by the Ziggurat of Marduk. Its Sumerian name was Etemenanki “The Foundation of Heaven and Earth.”

A ziggurat is a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamians and had the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories. Ziggurats were not places for public worship. They were believed to be the dwelling places of gods. Because of the ziggurat, the gods could be close to humanity and each city had its own patron god. The size and magnificence of a ziggurat would demonstrate the city and king’s devotion to the particular city god being worshipped. They might have temples to other gods but they would only have one ziggurat to the god of the city. The Ziggarut of Marduk at Babylon was one of these towers dedicated to a city god, and was an example of a very extensive and massive ziggurat. Not much is left of this structure, yet archeological findings and historical accounts put this tower at seven multicolored tiers, topped with an indigo colored temple.

There are 32 ziggurats known. Twenty-eight of them are in Iraq, and four of them are in Iran. None of these ziggurats are preserved to their original height. Ascent was by an exterior triple stairway or by a spiral ramp, but for half of the known ziggurats, no means of ascent has been discovered. The sloping sides and terraces were often landscaped with trees, shrubs and flowers (perhaps the Ziggurat of Marduk was also the Hanging Gardens of Babylon).

Certainly references to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and its great buildings, have passed into the cultural heritage of the West. At its height Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was the center of a world power that had overcome Egypt and all else that lay in its path, including Israel.

For more information about ancient Mesopotamia