The Ziggurat is the most characteristic structure found in
A huge staircase(refer to Main Entrance and Main Staircase and plans) perpendicular to the North-East side(refer to Plan), leads straight up to the highest platform on which the actual high temple building is built.No human being can climb such a high step in one stride. Two more staircases on either sides converge half way up to the second story from which further diverging stairways may have led up to the top. This symmetrical arrangement of the building gives a formalization and centrality to the structure.
The Ziggurat is the image of the cosmic Mountain, where everything begins and ends, linked to the source of life and not death. Its courtyard was used as a tribunal and storeroom for records.It was a part of a religious complex of massive buildings commissioned by Neo-Sumerian monarch in order to raise new sacred monuments.
If we compare the Ziggurat to the Egyptian pyramids, we can find a similarity in structure (especially the early stepped pyramids), but not in function. The Mesopotamians used them as places of worship, through which there gods would descend. Whereas the Egyptians used them as burial places, and as a transit to the afterlife for their kings.
ReplyDeletei like the monument a lot! and i like how you guys are interested in boosting its architecture forth.. It reminded me a lot of egypt and its monuments too.. I'm not an architect, but i actually am for preserving old monuments, rather than building modern and unstudied architectural buildings over them, which is the case in Lebanon... Lebanon is somehow losing its architectural identity by doing such acts. In addition, the controversy lies when we acknowledge that Lebanon still didn't achieve an identity in its architecture, which is somehow of a problem.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea there was such a colossal monument in Iraq. It is a good idea to spread the knowledge about it. I think it would be interesting to visit the monument to feel its architectural greatness.
ReplyDelete