The Ziggurat at Ur
We left the Barada Hotel in Najaf and drove south. We were stopped several times by the police or army which made the journey longer.
We stopped at the Zigguarat at Ur at 2pm. We paid our IQD25,000 (a bit less than USD20) entry fee. We walked up to the main building. It is a stepped pyramid built with mud bricks and faced with fired bricks. It has three stairways ascending to the top, now 16 metres high but it used to be 26 metres high.
It was built by the Samerian king Ur Nammu and inaugurated in 21st century BC so it is more than 4,000 years old. It predates the stepped pyramids in Egypt and it is believed that those were inspired by this and similar structures built in Mesopotamia.
The name ziggurat comes from the Samerian word zigguratum meaning pinnacle.
Visitors are no longer able to climb to the top to preserve the monument. Neither are they allowed to walk around the site, just to view the main building from the front.
As there was so little to see, we soon moved on to our hotel, the Gudea Hotel in Nasiriyah.
No photos as the camera decided not to work but there are photos on the internet.
And then it changed its mind when I wanted a photo of a pontoon bridge over the Euphrates and the sunset.
No comments:
Post a Comment