From High to Low: Reflections about the Emplacement of Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

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Nicola Laneri
From High to Low: Reflections about
the Emplacement of Religion
in Ancient Mesopotamia
Recent political events have demonstrated the continuing entanglement between ma-
terial culture and religion by believers, which reminds us why we should consider the
material aspects of religious beliefs as quintessential elements in the process of inves-
tigating and interpreting ancient, modern, and contemporaneous forms of religiosity.
Such a ‘material turn’in research is recognizable over the last 30 years within
numerous branches of the humanities including religious studies, anthropology,
and archaeology, in which the relationship between the spiritual and material di-
mension of religiosity is envisioned as part of a whole. Thus, the materialization of
religious beliefs represents an answer in the process of defining the role played by
religious ‘things’and ‘action’in framing the cognitive schemata of the members of
a given group as well as their relationship with the divine and their consequent reli-
gious beliefs.
In archaeology, materiality has slowly become a useful tool in the search for
the interpretation and reconstruction of ancient religious beliefs and ritual practi-
ces, especially in contexts in which textual sources are not available. In fact, as cor-
rectly pointed out by Insoll
1
ancient material culture cannot be considered only as
just ‘there’, but rather ‘interrogated as to how it symbolizes, represents, misleads,
and informs the archaeologist attempting to explore the subtleties of ritual practice
and religion’.
Thus, this contribution will follow such an approach within which the material-
ity of ancient religiosity will be viewed and interpreted as part of a complex network
of relationships between forms of materiality and beliefs in supernatural beings. In
particular, I will focus my attention towards religious architecture and how it
framed the religiosity of ancient Near Eastern communities and specifically how the
concept of the High Temple, the so-called ziggurat, originated and developed in an-
cient Mesopotamian during the fourth and third millennia BCE, slowly becoming a
symbol of ancient Near Eastern religions as highlighted in the Old Testament as a
negative symbolic element for the emplacement of the divine.
Insoll 2011, 2.
Open Access. © 2022 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110798432-020

1 The Beginning: Elevating the Sacred
The creation of a physical locale constructed in order to house a community to per-
form ceremonial acts to stimulate the connection with the supernatural world is a
quintessential element in human nature. In the Near East, such a connection be-
tween the materiality of ‘ritual houses’and the spirituality of the divine essence is
visible starting in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. In particular, the numerous stone enclo-
sures unearthed at the southeastern Turkish site of Göbekli Tepe have been inter-
preted as the first examples of religious architecture associated with forms of
animism during a phase in which the urge to create a sense of community appears
pivotal for a society that was transforming towards new subsistence strategies asso-
ciated with farming. However, these enclosures cannot be called as a clear emplace-
ment of the divine, but rather places that ‘brought people together for what was
then a novel set of tasks’.
2
It is at the end of the Neolithic period that an increase in
the social differentiation is linked to greater complexity in religious architecture
dedicated to housing the physical presence of the divine in Mesopotamian cities.
In fact, the egalitarian social organization of the previous periods is slowly
substituted by a more complex and hierarchal form of social organization. Starting
at the end of the seventh millennium BCE, this increase is especially recognizable
in the architecture that begins to emerges in the architectural plan of Mesopota-
mian villages with the creation of an enlarged tripartite house with a central long
courtyard separating two abutted wings of smaller rooms that served the purpose of
inhabiting extended families.
3
This kind of architectural plan will become more vis-
ible throughout the fifth and fourth millennia BCE when the ‘tripartite house plan’
will characterize emerging elites in charge of the administrative and political power
of Mesopotamia. Within this framework, the establishment of larger centers in Mes-
opotamia is noticeable in which specialized activities were controlled by emerging
elites.
Within the social transformation, a different perspective is needed to define ritu-
alistic and ceremonial places that are used by the community or family to share di-
vine essences. Slowly the connection between the materiality of the architecture of
southern Mesopotamian cities and human religiosity will become entangled through
the use of tripartite buildings with highly decorated outer surfaces highlighting the
visibility of such buildings that were centrally located and, at a certain point, built on
high terraces. Such a transformation affected the religiosity of these communities
with, as pointed out by Flannery and Marcus,
4
‘a shift from men’s houses to temples.’
Bernbek 2013, 44.
Butterlin 2018.
Flannery/Marcus 2012, 295.
372 Nicola Laneri

The creation of buildings dedicated to the veneration of deities authorizes new forms
of power by the emerging elites to whom they owe their right to lead society.
Within such a transforming social and religious landscape, the increase in so-
cial complexity will also bring with it a different perspective on religious practices
and beliefs that will move from a belief in spirits embedded either in nature or in
ancestral figures, to more complex systems of beliefs based on the veneration of
structured cosmological figures that are embedded in the world of the living (i.e.,
cosmotheism) and the use of specific locales to practice such veneration (i.e., the
temple of a god or goddess).
However, it is starting from the fifth millennium BCE (i.e. the Chalcolithic pe-
riod)
5
that the use of buildings dedicated to ritual and ceremonial practices will be-
come a quintessential force in framing Mesopotamian and Iranian communities.
Moreover, for defining the beginning of the use of temples for venerating deities
during the fifth millennium BCE, Frank Hole
6
has suggested that it is at the most
important Iranian site of Susa that we can signal the first correlates of an ‘increas-
ing institutionalization of religion’in which control over production starts to be
centered in the hands of a small community of priests.
7
This interpretation is based
on a series of elements that include: increasing complexity in burial data, the com-
plexity of the decorative motifs depicted on the vessels, the creation of anthropo-
morphic figures, the presence of the monumental 10 meter high stepped platform of
unbaked mud bricks with the possible presence of a temple on top within the 15
hectares village, as well as the iconography engraved on the seals (with the so-
called ‘master of the animals’) at Susa during the late fifth millennium BCE.
8
Within
this perspective, Rothman adds that the case of Susa demonstrates how religious
ideology, the mobilization of labor in the service of god and community, and the
use of pottery style and mortuary behavior to signify new statuses and reward polit-
ical allies combined to catalyze growth, functional segregation, and the develop-
ment of leadership in Susiana.
9
However, it is ‘ritual public architecture’
10
that clearly defines a radical trans-
formation with the previous periods. This is especially evident in Mesopotamia
where, during the so-called ‘Ubaidperiod(i.e., ca.5000–3800 BCE) such ‘ritual
public architecture’, as pointed out by Stein, is characterized by ‘rectangular tem-
ples with their corners oriented to the cardinal points [that] share a set of canonical
Butterlin 2018, 141–142.
Hole 1983, 315.
Butterlin 2018, 206–212.
Pollock 2008, 176.
Rothman 2004, 102.
 Roaf 2013.
From High to Low 373

architectural features such as altars, offering tables, niches, buttresses, and a tri-
partite, “long-room”ground plan’.
11
The 17-level building discovered at the ancient settlement of Eridu further
proves the importance of the creation of newly founded buildings in high terraces
for further connecting humans with higher celestial deities between the fifth and
fourth millennia BCE. At Eridu, a series of layers testify to the transformation from a
one cella into a tripartite building during this fundamental period of state formation
in southern Mesopotamia.
12
The earliest level temple (XVI) is a small squared mud-
brick building (ca. 2 × 3 m) with a niche opposite to the entrance, in which a mud-
brick pedestal is located; whereas another pedestal, that was heavily burnt and
covered with ashes, was located in the center of this small building.
13
The building
was plastered, but no other signs of outer decoration are visible.
In the sacred hill of Eridu, the transformation both in plan and decoration of the
building occurred starting from Level XI onward (i.e. Obeid 3–4, ca. 5100–4500 BCE)
when the ‘temple’was also built on a raised mud-brick platform and decorated with
buttresses, recesses and niches that will then become typical of the temples of the
fourth millennium BCE.
14
In its final phase (i.e. Eridu VIII–VI),
15
the building reaches
its definite tripartite plan with a long central room, an altar along the short side, a 90-
degree entrance through a staircase and an offering table aligned with the altar located
on the opposite one-third of the long room. During these later phases, the two wings of
the temple were composed of a series of rectangular rooms and, in one of the corners,
a staircase suggesting a second floor was present. Moreover, the surfaces of the outer
walls are highly decorated with a series of niches and recesses that will slowly become
a marker of southern Mesopotamian tripartite ceremonial buildings.
16
Thus, the tripartite house that was originally used to inhabit the extended family
has reached a new dimension, located in a high place in order to be more visible by
the members of the community, but, most of all, to be connected with the cosmological
dimension of the divine.
17
The divine that will become a pater familias for the whole
community and will be represented by a chief and later by the so-called king-priest
and finally the pious Mesopotamian king who will use such a position for establishing
his charismatic political and ideological power. The temple thus becomes a material
form of religiosity that will slowly affirm its role as the house of the god as well as the
house for connecting with the divine in order to define sources of power for the king
 Stein 1994, 39.
 Butterlin 2018, 146–149.
 Safar et al. 1981, 88, fig. 39.
 Safar et al. 1981, 94.
 Butterlin 2018, figs. 151–155.
 Roaf 2013.
 Butterlin 2018, 178–195.
374 Nicola Laneri

mediated by the clergy. Thus, as affirmed by Steinkeller,
18
among southern Mesopota-
mian societies ‘the dominant role in that organization of temple communities, that is,
massive groupings of nuclear families that exploited collectively economic resources
nominally “owned”by individual deities.’
Starting from this period, the construction of terraced religious buildings will
become a distinctive element of the Mesopotamian built environment. In particular,
Eridu will represent the temple of one of the most important gods of Mesopotamia,
that it is Enki the master of freshwater (the Sumerian Apsu). To add to this, accord-
ing to the famous Sumerian king list, it is at Eridu that kingship descended from
heaven. Thus, the series of temples constructed on the terrace of Eridu represents a
clear indicator of the relationality between nature, the divine and a form of social
authority (i.e., kingship) that will determine the nature of leadership in the Near
East.
19
2 The Constitution: The Creation of the Sacred
Terraces at Uruk
Even though the idea of a tripartite building for ceremonial purposes originated during
the Ubaid period, the monumentality of the ‘ceremonial’architecture reaches its acme
during the end of the Chalcolithic period; it is in fact during this period that urban
centers are marked by the presence of temples, some of which were built on high ter-
races, that are similar in architectural plan as those of the previous Ubaid period, but
in terms of size their monumentality and decorative pattern are clearly indicating a
dramatic increase in the social and economic relevance of such religious-political
institutions.
20
Within such an increase in architectural monumentality, the most important center
and probably the one from which architectural monumentality originated is the ancient
city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia, that was marked by the presence of two sacred
precincts, the one dedicated to Anu, and the Eanna precinct dedicated to the goddess
of love and war, Inana.
21
The two areas were separated but they were both constructed
on high terraces in order to increase their visibility.
22
In particular, the Anu precinct
shows a terracing system that initiated during the Ubaid period and ended during the
mid-fourth millennium when a large tripartite building (17.5 × 22 meters), most proba-
bly dedicated to the Sumerian god of heaven, Anu, was located on a high platform
 Steinkeller 2019, 113.
 Stein 1994.
 Roaf 2013.
 Butterlin 2018, 352–405.
 Eichmann 2013.
From High to Low 375

(ca. 12 m tall and about 45 × 50 meters at the base) and was reachable by a long stair-
case that led to a large terrace centred around an altar that testifies to outdoor cere-
monies most probably open to the public.
23
The building was built on top of the
basement, the corners followed the orientation of the cardinal points and a staircase
led to the entrance which was directly connected to the main long-room, and with a
90-degree turn towards the altar that was located on the left short side of the long
room; the presence of a staircase suggests access to a second floor. In the Anu pre-
cinct, at the bottom of the large terracing system on top of which was constructed the
White Temple, a Stone Building (i.e.theSteingebäude)
24
was constructed with a se-
ries of concentric perimetral walls (27 × 32 m) and a sloping ramp going underground
as its entrance. The floor was made of stone and at the center was located a pedestal
made out of plaster and stone in which five holes formed a small square in which
originally was probably located a sacred object. Even though all that remains of the
stone building is its underground stone structure, due to the presence of ten evenly
spaced postholes on top of the remaining stones of the inner wall it is possible to
envision a raised structure. Moreover, the terracing system on which the White Tem-
ple was constructed appears to have been started during the Ubaid period and the
final platform, on which the White Temple was constructed, is the result of a series
of constructions and terracing from the late fifth until the mid-fourth millennia BCE
similar to what occurred at Eridu. Clear radiocarbon dates suggest that the final stage
of organization of the Anu precinct (with the White Temple and the Stone Building)
occurred around 3450 BCE.
25
The Eanna precinct (i.e., ‘the House of Heaven’that was most probably dedicated
to the goddess of love and fertility, Inana, as suggested by later written sources) was
located not far from the Anu Ziggurat area and composed of a series of buildings lo-
cated on a 10 meter high-terrace, which included large outdoor spaces, halls and
buildings with a tripartite plan.
26
Similar to the Anu Ziggurat area, the Eanna precinct
was originally constructed during the end of the fifth millennium BCE, however no
traces of the original terrace were found by the archaeologists that instead unearthed
relics of ‘reed architecture’.
27
Among the over twenty levels, there are four levels dat-
ing to the second half of the fourth millennium BCE that are of great interest for re-
constructing the role played by the Eanna precinct during the acme of city of Uruk.
In particular, the buildings of the precinct are characterized by their monumentality
(e.g., the so-called Limestone Building totals 2.280 sq meters in extension, i.e., 76 ×
30 m), the continuous use of the tripartite plan combined with a few other squared
 Butterlin 2018, 317–318.
 Eichmann 2007, 438–459.
 Eichmann 2013, 98.
 Heinz 2012, 179–185.
 Eichmann 2013, 99.
376 Nicola Laneri

open spaces (as is the case of the Great Court that was a low garden with a well for
the water), the presence of imported materials for roofing the large courtyard and the
foundations with limestone, as well as the use of colored stone and clay cones for the
purpose of decorating with different colors and geometric motifs the outer perimeter
walls of these buildings.
28
In particular, the monumentality of these buildings as well
as the presence of numerous entrances along the remains of the walls have suggested
that ‘these buildings were meant to hold gatherings of large numbers of people some-
how related to administrative functions’.
29
However, it is interesting to notice that
within the Eanna precinct there are two superimposed buildings belonging to phases
VI–IVb (i.e., the Stone-Cone Building, Steinstiftgebäude) and top phase IVa (i.e., the
Reimchengebäude) that are separated from the rest of the large precinct and are
smaller in size as well as in shape. In fact, the earlier Stone-Cone Building has a tri-
partite plan, a smaller size as compared to the contemporaneous Limestone building
and more similar to the White Temple of the Anu Ziggurat, a strange L-shaped basin
coated with bitumen along the northern short wall and the outer walls were deco-
rated with stone cones forming geometric motifs; in addition, the foundations of the
wall were deeply excavated in the natural bedrock and covered with reeds. The Reim-
chengebäude is instead very small, underground, and recalls the labyrinthic organi-
zation of the inner spaces encountered in the Stone Temple of the Anu area. The
similarities are also related to the fact that these are the only buildings in which ritual
objects were found stored
30
and they probably belong to the latest phase of occupa-
tion during the end of the fourth millennium BCE period, in which a building for as-
tronomical observations (i.e., the Hallenbau) was erected in the other sector of the
Eanna precinct.
Thus, it appears that at Uruk during the second half of the fourth millennium
BCE the architecture recognizable in both the Anu Ziggurat and the Eanna Precinct
had a primary ceremonial purpose with smaller buildings (i.e., the White Temple,
the Stone Temple, the Stone-Cone Building and the Reimchengebäude)thatwere
most probably used as religious buildings associated with the quintessential aspect
of a temple, that is housing the god, whereas other buildings in the Eanna precinct
were probably representing the locale in which the king-priest was delivering his
administrative functions to the public. In so doing, it was important to create open
spaces not far from the religious buildings that were visible from a distance. The
visibility of these religious buildings was of great importance as is recognized in
the decoration of the outer wall surfaces made with a very innovative decorative
technique, using clay and stone colored cones embedded in a layer of plaster; the
mosaic decoration consisted of geometric decorative patterns of losange, zig-zags,
 Butterlin 2018, 318–320, fig. 348.
 Eichmann 2013, 101.
 Selz 2008.
From High to Low 377

triangles of white, black and red colors
31
and, together with recesses, niches and
buttresses typical of the Uruk architecture, must have imbued the whole building,
as well as the precinct, with an incredible interplay of light and color.
32
The economic and political power of the elites was thus represented by the
monumentality of these large tripartite buildings as well as by these outstanding
decorative patterns. Moreover, the lack of large indoor spaces within these primeval
religious buildings at Uruk can suggest that during the second half of the fourth
millennium BCE, Uruk’s religious practices were spatially and socially exclusionary
and, at the same time, performance-oriented rather than participatory. In fact, in
part due to climate conditions it appears that the use of outdoor spaces for the per-
formance of rituals and the public display of power gained by the religious elites
was a common religious practice in the Near Eastern tradition and in southern Mes-
opotamia during the fourth millennium BCE, also recognizable in the iconographic
representations seen in the impressions of cylinder seals. Thus, the visibility of
monumental religious buildings from afar becomes a priority of Uruk’selites,
which was further emphasized by their highly decorated facades that were adorned
with either wall paintings or colorful stone and clay cones embedded in the outer
walls, to create a sort of proto-mosaic effect. In so doing, religious monuments were
built in order to impress not only the entire urban community, but also the people
arriving at this large urban center through ‘a visual statement of power’.
33
Within this context, the figure of a political/religious leader (the so-called king-
priest) is part of an innovative iconography typical of the late Uruk period. He is usu-
ally portrayed standing with a beard and clothed in a rounded hat and net skirt and
sometimes bearing weapons while confronting enemies, hunting or offering tributes.
This figure was also probably represented in the missing part of the famous meter
high Uruk alabaster vase, in which the natural world (represented at the bottom with
water, plants and flocks of animal) is linked with the procession of naked humans
bestowing offerings to a goddess (most probably Inana) in the upper section of the
vase.
34
The scenes depicted on the vessel are part of the hierarchical Mesopotamian
system, in which gods and goddesses represent different aspects of nature and man-
kind, and their earthly representative, i.e., the king-priest, is given their consent to
control and dominate nature owing to his pious devotion to them. The representation
on the vase was part of a broader network for the materialization of religious practices
and beliefs (Fig. 1), where every element of religious materiality was entangled with
politics and economics through the performance of ritual activities in which the tem-
ple, located on a high platform, was the symbolic reference to this devotion.
35
 Butterlin 2018, 254–264; Eichmann 2013, figs. 16.8–10.
 Roaf 2013.
 Pollock 2008, 178.
 Pollock 2008, 189–190, fig. 7.7.
 Fowles 2013, 4–12.
378 Nicola Laneri

3 Reaching High: The Ziggurat for a New
Form of Connection with the Cosmic World
At the beginning of the third millennium, the pivotal role played by the temple (Su-
merian esh
3
) among southern Mesopotamian communities is confirmed also by the
so-called city-seals in which each city-state was represented by the local god sanctu-
ary as part of an intra-city cooperation as well as common cultic activities that
served the purpose of making the southern Mesopotamian city-states resilient in a
moment of transformation, as is the case of the collapse of the Uruk world-system.
36
Thus, the temple will be used as a symbol of continuity among southern Meso-
potamian communities within a transforming social organization that will show the
emergence of new royal families. It is in fact during the third millennium BCE that
the ‘High Terraced’temple will become the religious and political point of reference
of the communities inhabiting these city-states.
37
The sanctuary of the most impor-
tant city deity was thus built on top of a terrace through the means of stepped
towers (i.e., the ziggurat –ziqquratu in Akkadian) reminiscent of the stepped plat-
forms built at Susa and Uruk between the end of the fifth and throughout the
fourth millennia BCE, and slowly became the marker of Mesopotamian religious
architecture.
38
Fig. 1: A Reconstruction of the Materialization of Religious Beliefs
at Uruk during the Late Fourth Millennium BCE (© author).
 Matthews/Richardson 2019.
 Roaf 2013.
 Butterlin 2019; Quenet 2016.
From High to Low 379

The centrality of the High Temple will also represent a perfect replica of the Su-
merian cosmology in which the sanctuary was the axis mundi in connecting the ce-
lestial world of the above with the earth, the world below and the primordial ocean.
Within Mesopotamian cities, Early Dynastic temples (2900–2350 BCE) could be
distinguished by those embedded in the urban fabric and those built on high terra-
ces, or else as those representing institutional religious buildings and those associ-
ated with more domestic religious practices. This is clearly evident in important
centers such as Khafajah in the Diyala (Iraq), where there was a distinction between
institutionalized religious buildings, as in the case of the Temple Oval that repre-
sented the tradition of the shrine built on top of a high terrace, along with the Sin
Temple, a ‘low’temple with a monumental entrance, large open courtyard, a series
of annexed rooms and a long cella room with a bent-axis entrance, in contrast to
other low and smaller temples (e.g., the Small Temple)
39
built in a different section
of the city and embedded in a non-public urban fabric that might have served the
purpose of ‘popular religion’(i.e., the religion of ‘common’people).
40
Regarding the institutionalized temples built on top of high terraces, these
have been clearly recognized by archaeologists in numerous third millennium BCE
Mesopotamian city-states in which these construction underwent an evolution
marked by earlier examples in which ‘the high house of the main god of the city’
41
was not standardized as is the case of those typical of the end of third millennium
characterized by a series of concentric storeys, quadrilateral terraces and staircases
to reach the top on which the main sanctuary was built. In origin, the terrace of the
High Temples of the Early Dynastic period were ca. 800 sqm. in size and, in south-
ern Mesopotamia (as is the case of Obeid, Khafajah, Lagash and Girsu), it was part
of a larger monumental center with an oval layout.
42
Among these examples, the famous Oval Temple of Khafajah stands out as one
of the best reconstructed examples thanks to brilliant excavation and report done
in the ‘30s by an expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago
43
(Fig. 2).
The temple was originally built during the ED II period and went through a se-
ries of transformations during the subsequent two phases of reconstruction ending
in a more squared temple with a monumental entrance during the latest phase, in-
dicating its later use as the standardized ‘high temple’of the Ur III period.
44
As in
the case of the fourth millennium BCE stone cone temple of the Eanna precinct,
also in this case the temple’s construction went through a careful ritual process in
which the whole area was excavated to the virgin soil. Together with the ritual
 Heinz 2012, 188.
 Pollock 2008, 192.
 Butterlin 2019, 199.
 Lawecka 2011.
 Delougaz 1940.
 Delougaz 1940, fig. 103.
380 Nicola Laneri

importance given to assure the purity of the location in which the temple was con-
structed, its height and monumentality were also fundamental aspects of the Oval
Temple. In order to reach the target, the whole building was raised by 70 cm with
the need of a few steps in order to enter into the building from the main western
gate. The building was then conceived using double concentric walls, oval in
shape, with the use of two courtyards and finally a large square terrace on top of
which was probably constructed the main temple cella that has been imagined by
the archaeologists as a typical long room temple with a bent-axis entrance typical
of the Early Dynastic. However, only traces of the terrace to a height of 1 m were
found and no traces of the cell have ever been found.
The whole building was conceived as a place for a journey in which the raised
levels of the different terraces were reachable thanks to the presence of staircases
starting from the few steps of the main gate until the perpendicular staircase lo-
cated along the northern corner of the wider side of the main rectangular terrace.
Another blind staircase was located on the other corner of the same side of the rect-
angular terrace as well as a long staircase that was embedded within the rooms sur-
rounding the second squared and raised courtyard, exactly opposite to the terrace
in which the cella was located. The presence of numerous wells in the higher open
Fig. 2: The Temple Oval at Khafajah (after Delougaz 1940: Plate V).
From High to Low 381

terrace must have been related to ritual activities associated with water in the area,
in which the devotes were allowed to gather, probably along with animals, as rec-
ognizable by the presence of footsteps on the clay floor of this higher terrace.
However, the temple also had an administrative function as demonstrated by
the ‘House D’located in the northern corner of the ‘lower circle’of the Oval Temple.
A building that has been correctly interpreted as the ‘private’house of the chief
priest and in which a small shrine (probably similar to the cella located on top of
the rectangular terrace) was also unearthed. Additionally, the rooms located along
the perimeter of the ‘higher terrace’must have had a practical function in the ritual
activities practiced there, and the burial of some of the ritual paraphernalia in ritual
pits within the courtyard suggest a tradition that is typical of the ancient Near East
that consists of burying ritual objects at the end of their life giving their materiality
a sense of continuity.
Moreover, since its first appearance during the Late Chalcolithic period, the
temple functioned not merely as a center for religious activities, but also as a com-
plex administrative structure in which beginning from the third millennium BCE
the presence of archives with cuneiform written documents an established control
over economic activities by the religious authorities, from the production and ex-
change of goods to the organization of labor.
45
While it was originally thought that
the Mesopotamian cities primarily functioned as ‘city-temples’, the important role
played by the palaces and rulers in controlling the administration of the cities has
more recently been defined.
It is still unclear the reason southern Mesopotamian communities constructed
oval-shape monumental religious buildings. In the north, this peculiar way of
building monumental temples on top of raised terraces probably occurred at the
northern Syrian site of Tell Mozan, whereas at the site of Mari along the Euphrates
valley the large ‘Massif Rouge’was based on quadrilateral terraces allowing us to
suggest that ‘every terrace was part of a local religious topography’,
46
but that the
importance of ‘raising’the house of the god was a priority in embedding the com-
munities’topography into a cosmological dimension.
It is, however, during the end of third millennium BCE that the need to stan-
dardize the ziggurats in ancient Mesopotamia becomes an element embedded with
the centralization of the political authority first during the Akkadian period and,
later, during the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur as well as the dynasty emerging
in Lagash. It is not a random case that, as a consequence of the introduction of po-
litical centralization by the rulers in ancient Mesopotamia, we witness a standard of
the High Temple that will slowly become the symbol of Mesopotamian religion for
the future millennia. In particular, during the Third Dynasty of Ur the phenomenon
 Postgate 1992, 109–136.
 Butterlin 2019, 199.
382 Nicola Laneri

of standardization of the ziggurats in the most important southern Mesopotamian
cities (e.g., Ur, Uruk, Eridu and Nippur) becomes a fundamental element in plan-
ning and constructing religious architecture in ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, both
in terms of size (i.e. they are all between 2000 and 3000 sqm) and architectural
plan (i.e., they all have squared terraces and staircases to reach the different levels)
they have striking similarities determining the importance of standardization for
the new rulers of the Third Dynasty of Ur who wanted to be considered as pious
rulers devoted to re-constructing Sumerian power in southern Mesopotamia.
This is particularly evident in the case of the famous ziggurat dedicated to the
moon god Nanna, the patron deity of their capital city Ur (Fig. 3).
The ziggurat was originally built during the Early Dynastic III period when Ur was
controlled by the rulers of the First Dynasty, who were buried in the rich Royal Cem-
etery located near the corner of the religious temenos.
47
However, it is with the first
king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (i.e., Urnamma, 2112–2094 BCE) that the whole reli-
gious area was reconstructed and the large squared and stepped ziggurat was built,
as discovered by the excavations run by the Sir Leonard Woolley and the British
Museum during the ‘30s.
48
Moreover, at Ur the ziggurat was part of a large raised sacred temenos of an
extension of ca. 4 hectares in which the ziggurat and the introductory ‘court’were
Fig. 3: A View of the Reconstructed Ziqqurat of the Moon God Nanna at Ur (after Nadali
and Polcaro 2016: Fig. 4).
 Benati 2013.
 Woolley 1939.
From High to Low 383

located along the northwestern side, whereas the rest was occupied by a series of
buildings including the gipar (i.e., the temple dedicated to Ningal, goddess of reeds
and wife of the moon-god Nanna, as well as residence and burial place of the entu-
priestesses of Nanna), the ganunmah (i.e., a large brick sacred storehouse) and the
palace ehursag. By far, the ziggurat and its entrance appendix with a large rectan-
gular outdoor court paved with baked-bricks (the so-called Nanna court) was the
central element of the temenos both in size and height.
49
The ziggurat itself had a
rectangular ground plan of 62.50x43 meters with corners aligned following the car-
dinal points and three staircases meeting at a right angle located along the north-
western side; in total it was composed of at least three stages on top of which there
should have been the temple dedicated to the god Nanna that was not recovered
during the excavation.
50
In addition, recent studies
51
have suggested that the
ziggurat might have been built during a Major Lunar Standstill that occurred dur-
ing the second year of the kingdom of Urnamma (i.e., 2108 BCE) and was probably
oriented following the lunar orientation.
Structurally, the building was composed of sun-dried mudbricks and mud mortars,
whereas the outer casing and the steps of the staircases was composed of baked bricks
and bitumen as mortar. Moreover, the ziggurat was outfitted with a series of drains
used to protect it from the rainfall that was then collected in a nearby well. Inscribed
bricks allow us to define that the building was originally built by Urnamma and later
restored by his son Shulgi and by other later rulers. The temenos and the ziggurat rep-
resented such an important religious locale that the whole area was restored and en-
larged by the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonedo almost 1.500 years later. In fact, it is
starting from the late third millennium that the construction of standardized ziggurats
became a typical architectural element in defining the skyline of Mesopotamian cities
with the famous É.TEMEN.AN.KI of Babylon (that is ‘House of the Foundation Platform
of Heaven and Underworld’)
52
dedicated to the main Babylonian god Marduk that was
probably originally built by Hammurabi, but that possibly became the famous refer-
ence to the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament as the building restored by Nebuchad-
nezzar II in the sixth century BCE. At this time the ziggurat was squared in plan, with a
height of ca. 60 meters and a base of 91 meters per side. It has seven stages and stair-
cases to be used to reach the temple that was located on top of the last stage.
Thus, the high temple appears, at least starting from the fourth millennium
BCE, a quintessential element in relating southern Mesopotamian communities to
the divine world and especially the cosmological figures located in the celestial
world. However, this type of religious architecture was also an element connecting
the celestial world with the earth and the netherworld as demonstrated by the case
 Sauvage 1998.
 Woolley 1939, 98ss.
 Nadali/Polcaro 2016, 106–107.
 George 2007, 78; Quenet 2016, 233–239, fig. 6.
384 Nicola Laneri

of the Anu Ziggurat and the stone temple, and, most of all, the final stage of this
long evolving building represented by the ziggurat of Babylon that represented the
link between the heaven and the underworld.
4 Conclusions
In conclusion, it is clear from these data that in the initial construction of southern
Mesopotamian religiosity the connection between religious architecture, the altar in
which the image of the divine figure was located and the written reference to his/her
cosmological representation was pivotal for structuring Mesopotamian polytheism in
its early form. Such a connection facilitated the construction of a form of cosmotheism
(or panentheism) which the gods pervade and penetrate every aspect of the cosmos. In
particular, the High Temple, through the presence of staircases and terraces, creates
that physical link between the below and the ‘great above’that is visible from far away.
Visibility and relationality are thus the role played by religious architecture in con-
structing the early form of Mesopotamian polytheism that will slowly be embedded
into the cognitive schemata of southern Mesopotamian communities through the oral
narration of the connection between the human world and the anthropomorphization
of the cosmos that will be, starting from the third millennium BCE, inscribed into the
written documents. Such an organization of the divine world will thus become a
model to be followed by Near Eastern societies at least until the emergence of the Yah-
wistic monotheism during the first millennium BCE, when the fight against this con-
nection will be clearly represented in the negative role played by the ‘Tower of Babel’
as it was represented in the Bible. In fact, as correctly pointed out by Assmann,
53
monotheism was against a cosmotheistic approach, in a sense that ‘it was directed
against the divinization of the world, which implies a divinization of mastery.’
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