Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat, Khuzestan

Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat, Khuzestan

Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat

Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat is an archaeological site belonging to the ancient Elamite civilization. the remains of Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat are located in present-day Iran, near the city of Shush (current name of Susa, which was one of the capitals of the Achaemenid Persian Empire).

Chogha zanbil Ziggurat is the ruins of the sacred city of the kingdom of Elam, surrounded by three concentric walls. The construction of the city, founded around 1250 BC, remained unfinished after the invasion of Asurbanipal, as attested by the thousands of unused bricks found around Chogha Zanbil.

The construction of Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat, that at first was called Dur Untashi, started in the Middle Elamite period (1500-1000 BC), from when the Elamite king Untash Napirisha or Untash-Gal (who ruled 1275-40 BC) ordered a sacred city to be built in this place. He wanted a large ceremonial complex that would serve as a religious sanctuary and pilgrimage center, as well as a mausoleum for the king and his family. The complex was endowed with various temples, a palace and a superb ziggurat.

Elam was a country in the east of Mesopotamia, the mythical land of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and is known to be a very important civilization center in the world. Its location coincides with what is now the region of Khuzestan, in western Iran, from south and the country of Iraq from west. this territory was the subject of a bitter dispute in the Iran-Iraq war, which took place between 1980 and 1988.

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This is the reason why for a long time Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat could not be trodden down by the feet of foreigners, who were prohibited from entering the area because it was a restricted military zone, a prohibition that lasted for many years after the end of the war. The ruins had been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1979 (being the first of Iran's sites to be inscribed on such a list).

The knowledge of the history of ancient Elam comes from references culled from the literature of Mesopotamia, derived from the permanent contact and commercial exchanges that took place between the two countries. The Mesopotamian works of art could have been the source of inspiration for the emerging Iranian art. For example, the famous stelae of Naram-Sin (Akkadian Empire) and Hammurabi (Babylonian Empire) were found in archaeological excavations in Susa, which was the capital of Elam, where they had been taken as spoils of war. It is thus very understandable that the statues, reliefs and seals made by the Elamite artists followed the conventions of contemporary Mesopotamia.

During the second millennium BC, Elam enjoyed a period of great prosperity and political stability, under the reign of a powerful kings. The characteristics of the Elamite architecture of this period were revealed to the world when, in 1951-61, under the direction of the Russian-French archaeologist Roman Ghirshman, the ruins of the great Templar complex of Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat were excavated.

Surrounded by three concentric walls, in the center of this triple fence, stands a majestic building, of the type known as the ziggurat. A ziggurat is a temple in the form of a stepped pyramidal tower, typical of the religious architecture of Mesopotamia, particularly of the Chaldean and Assyrian cultures. There is the paradox that while almost all the ziggurats that, better or worse, have survived the passage of millennia are found in the land that was once called Mesopotamia and today is called Iraq, the largest and best preserved ziggurat of all that they exist is not Mesopotamian, but Elamite, and is found in Iran.

The ancient Mesopotamians and Iranians attached great symbolic-religious importance to the mountains, a geographical feature that was scarce in the plains of Mesopotamia and Elam. That is why they made their own imitations, creating this characteristic type of pyramidal building.

The remains of the ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil measure 105 m sideways in the square of its base and reach 24 m in height, although its original estimated height would be about 60 m, with the last two floors having disappeared. The ziggurat is built mostly of raw adobe bricks, each weighing 18 kilos

Although in a much smaller proportion, clay bricks were also used in certain courses of the walls, which are easily distinguished by their smoother surface and their shiny patina.

Some of these courses of cooked bricks in Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat contain inscriptions in Elamite language and cuneiform writing, referring to the god to which the temple was consecrated (Inshushinak, god of Sumerian origin Susa, and Napirisha, god of Anshan, a district of Elam).

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Sometimes the clay courses run through the rigging in parallel lines at different heights, with a separation between the upper and lower rows of 10 courses of raw adobe bricks

The sporadic presence of some other brick with remains of bluish enamel suggests the possibility that the surfaces of some ziggurat walls were once covered with blue enameled bricks, as is the case with the Ishtar gate on the walls of Babylon, although coatings have disappeared in their entirety, leaving bare, exposed, the underlying bricks.

Marked on a pavement of mud slabs of the ruins of Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat you can see two footprints of a child and a dog. In some zones of the ziggurat, the raw bricks have been matted by the rains and the length of the centuries to the point of degrading into muddy dome that are not distinguished from a natural mountain terrain. Other parts of the building, on the other hand, have been partially restored and consolidated.

Originally the temple was a quadrangular building, which was later added four floors and a top temple to convert it into a ziggurat. However, the structure of this ziggurat has little to do with that of the Mesopotamians. While in these the roof of each floor serves as the basis for the upper floor, forming together a staggering of overlapping terraces. In the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat the solid masses of the four floors start from the same floor of the central patio.

Four doors, one in the center of each face, give access to different vaulted stairs that lead to the first floor, with the exception of the southwestern side, where there are three stairs that lead to the upper floors. The doors that lead to the main staircases were flanked by statues of guardian animals (bulls or taps) in glazed terra-cotta.

Perhaps someone is surprised by the fact that these doors are semicircular arches, and that there are also vaulted passages with a half-barrel vault and architectural elements whose presence refutes the widespread idea that in Mesopotamian cultures the arc was not known and the vault was used instead.

Other doors are in shape of parabolic arch and keep the pieces to insert the wooden crossbars that blocked them. In front of two of the doors rise platforms of cylindrical shape equipped with flared niches (that their function is still unknown).

The paved area adjacent to the ziggurat was surrounded by an oval-shaped wall pierced with large portals, sheltering various subsidiary temples, whose dedications to two minor deities: Ishnikarab and Kiririsha, are credited by cuneiform inscriptions in Elamite language.

Many of the ornamental sculptures in Chogha Zanbil Zigguratcomplex were glazed terracotta. Another trapezoidal wall encircled the previous one, delimiting a vast almost empty area of buildings. Finally a third wall, tracing an irregular circle of kilometric perimeter, surrounded the whole.

Three palaces, including the residence of King Untash-Gal, have been excavated inside its compound, with five vaulted tombs in its cellars showing signs of cremation practices; a nearby temple dedicated to Nusku, the god of fire; and another temple with a large inner courtyard near the Puerta Real.

To supply water to the city's population, King Untash-Gal had a 50-km-long canal built, which led the waters from a pond north of the outer wall. The city also had a canalization system for water drainage.

The construction of the sacred city of Chogha Zanbil could never reach its conclusion, as it was interrupted forever in 640 BC by the invasion of the powerful warrior-king Asurbanipal, who conquered the country of Elam and destroyed his capital Susa, in the phase of maximum expansion of the Assyrian Empire.

In addition to the architectural vestiges, in Chogha Zanbil (name that means 'mount in the shape of a basket') a great variety of small objects of the middle Elamite period like anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statuettes, amulets, two panels of ivory mosaics and an important collection of stamps were found.

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