ArtSci’s Maddalena Rumor discussed discussed the ruins of Ur in Mesopotamia

Iraq’s answer to the pyramids

BBC: Maddalena Rumor, assistant professor in the Department of History at the College of Arts and Sciences, discussed Iraq’s ziggurats, the ruins of the great city of Ur, once an administrative capital of Mesopotamia. “A ziggurat is a sacred building, essentially a temple on a platform with a staircase,” she said. “The earliest temples show simple constructions of one-room shrines on a slight platform. Over time, temples and platforms were repeatedly reconstructed and expanded, growing in complexity and size, reaching their most perfect shape in the multi-level Ziggurat [of Ur].”