Mesopotamia and Iran · 6th–1st millennium BCE
All the types of ziggurat
A ziggurat is a stepped temple mountain of mud brick. It is not a single form but several schools: from the Ubaid platform to the seven tiers of Babylon and the Elamite core with its internal staircases.
Ziggurats
A classification by construction, region and method of ascent — this is how archaeologists tell Ur from Chogha Zanbil and Etemenanki. The last card is not an architectural type but a selection, "Surviving today": monuments whose ruins still stand today, with photos from open sources.
Iran and Iraq
Other countries →The main surviving and reconstructed ziggurats. The "Surviving today" filter shows monuments whose ruins still stand today — each one has a photo from open sources.
Map
From Eridu in southern Sumer to Sialk on the Iranian plateau and the Assyrian capitals on the Tigris.
Ziggurats in other countries
Strictly speaking, a ziggurat is a stepped temple tower of Mesopotamia and Elam. But the idea of a "sacred mountain" on which a temple or tomb is raised arose independently in other civilisations as well. Below are not ziggurats but their global parallels — similar stepped structures, grouped by region: .
The stepped profile, axial staircases and orientation to the cardinal points link these buildings to the ziggurats, but they are independent traditions: each has its own functions, materials and cults. The real ziggurats of Iraq and Iran are in the "Catalogue" and on the "Map" above.
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