Visiting the ZiGURRRRRRat
A few days ago, Josh took me to a very interesting place: The Ziggurat of Ur (or, as I call it, the ZiGURRRRRRat of GURRRRRRR). The Ziggurat is a building that is over 4,000 years old! It was originally built by people known as the Sumerians, and it was a temple to the moon-god that they worshipped. The base of the structure is actually just piled-up mud surrounded by brick walls. The holes in the brick walls let the water drain out so the mud doesn't get too soupy when it rains. There used to be some very fancy structures on top, but they have long since fallen down.
Still, the Ziggurat is very well-preserved considering how old it is. You can even walk up the stairway to the top! It's really amazing to think of how old this building is - almost as old as the pyramids of Egypt.
Hmm...I wonder why no-one has ever built anything this big to worship the Spirit of the Great White Bear.
Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of me on the steps of the ZigGURRRRRat. Behind me you can see some Iraqi Army officers who took the tour with me:
Comments
Your blog is wonderful. I got quite a few chuckles-the pictures are priceless! It's going on my daily read list!
Stay safe. Thanks for what you do.
Posted by: KC | June 17, 2006 11:38 PM
Hi there! I don't want to be pedantic, but the Ziggurath was rebuilt quite recently. These structures are made from mud bricks, and the sumerians rebuilt them every few decades or so (or after the occasional barbarian invasion, whichever came first).
When the sumerian civilization was rediscovered in the 19th century Ur and other sites were piles of rubble.
Under the rubble there were many layers, each with the remains a new Ur built on top of an older one, spanning thousands of years, as the ciry was built, destroyed, rebuilt and eventualy abandoned. What we know about the sumerians (which is considerably more than we know about many later civilizations) comes from the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets covered with coneiform script found at Ur and other sites.
Posted by: Bruno Mota | June 21, 2006 02:44 AM
Stone Cold - how come you never mentioned the new addition to Josh's family? Isn't Amy important to you? I'm saddened by your lack of recognition to this historic event!! 8)
Posted by: toni | June 21, 2006 07:51 PM