Chogha Zanbil

Ziggurat is an ancient Mesopotamian temple tower consisting of a high pyramidal structure built in successive stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the top. Kings could display their religious deeds by building a ziggurat. It was believed that Gods can descend to earth through the ziggurat’s staircase. The best-preserved ziggurat is Elamite Chogha Zanbil in Iran.

Elamite king Untash built Chogha Zanbil around 1250 BCE to venerate the great highland and lowland God Inshushinak, at one site. Before the recent excavations, people did not know the Chogha Zanbil, calling it upside-down basket mound resembling its structure.

This square-based ziggurat measures 105.2 meters on each side and around 25 meters height in tree levels – originally had five levels to reach about 53 meters. The levels were not constructed on the top of the lower level, and all five levels of the ziggurat rose from the ground.

The ziggurat’s Façade was made of baked bricks, some which are carved with the names of Gods in the Elamite and Akkadian language. Cuneiform is one of the earliest systems of writing which was invented by the Sumerians.

An inscription found on a brick inside a gate reveals the history of this ancient temple: ” I, Untash-Napirisha, son of Hubannamena king of Anshan and Susa, desirous my life might be continually prosperous, and that my line might never come to an end, it is for this reason that I have built a temple of baked brick, a high temple with glazed brick; I gave it to Inshushinak of Siyan-kuk. I raised a ziggurat. That work I carried out, as an offering on my behalf, was agreeable to Inshushinak.”

Studies of the ziggurat and the rest of the archaeological site of Chogha Zanbil containing other temples, residences, tomb-palaces, and water reservoirs have made a central contribution to our knowledge about the architecture of this period of the Elamites.