The Ziggurat — Temple Mountain

The ziggurat was a mountain built in a land without mountains. In the flat alluvial plain between the Tigris and Euphrates, where the sky is enormous and the horizon is visible from every direction, the Sumerians built artificial mountains — stepped temple platforms that rose above the plain to bring the worshipper as close as possible to the divine realm above. The Great Ziggurat of Ur, built by King Ur-Nammu around 2100 BCE, is still standing in modern Iraq — three thousand years after it was built, three thousand years of wars, floods, and desert erosion, and its core remains. At its peak stood a temple that only the high priest and the moon god Nanna were permitted to enter. The god came down through the roof. The priest went up through the gates. The mountain was where they met.

These signs carry the stepped terraces of the ziggurat, the moonrise over Ur, the processional staircase, and the mountain that brought heaven to earth.