Digging Up the Bible: The Ziggurat at Ur

DIGGING UP THE BIBLE
Important Archeological Finds that help Us Understand Scripture
pdf
Linda Manuel—1996

Ziggurat at Ur
(7^th century BC)

The Old Testament states clearly that Abraham's original home was in lower Mesopotamia in the city of Ur. He eventually migrated from there to Haran in upper Mesopotamia and then moved south to Canaan:

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. (Gen 11:3!)

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you...." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him.... He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. (Gen 12: 1 , 4a, 5)

"The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you." (Gen 17:8)

Before his arrival in Canaan, the people of Abraham were polytheistic, as Joshua records:

"The God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods." (24:2)

They would have been familiar with and perhaps even used the ziggurat.

In 1854 J.E. Taylor conducted excavations at the location of the ancient city of Ur and discovered some cuneiform cylinders stating that the ziggurat of King Ur-Nammu had been restored by Nabonidus of Babylon (556-539 B.C.). Further study of the area by H.R. Hall (1918) and C.L. Woolley (1922-1934) determined that Ur was among the best-known ancient sites of southern Babylonia. At the time of Abraham's exodus, Ur was one of the largest and richest cities in Mesopotamia.

The ziggurat was originally the shrine of Nannar, the moon god. His temple occupied the highest portion of this man-made mountain. King Ur-Nammu constructed the bulk of the mound, and his name is stamped on every brick! The tower was a solid mass of unbaked brick two hundred feet long, one hundred fifty feet wide, and about seventy feet high. An eight-foot thick layer of baked brick set

in bitumen (pitch) mortar covered the structure. This artificial hill was called a "high place." Some believe the tower of Babel was an edifice similar to this one:

They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Gen 11:3-4)

The worshippers of Nannar called him "the exalted lord," "the crown of heaven and earth," and "the beautiful lord who shines in heaven." He was to them both god and king. His ziggurat was the central and tallest building in Ur (so the people could ascend it to reach him more easily). Much of the city's resources and most of its citizens supported the temple in some way.



The Ur ziggurat of Abraham's day was probably erected on top of a smaller structure from the First Dynasty (2800-2600 B.C.) by Ur-Nammu (2135-2025 B.C.) when the city was in its most glorious period. The upper part was added later by Nabonidus. This building is the best example of a Mesopotamian high place discovered thus far and has helped to expand our understanding of pagan religious life in the 2^nd and 3^rd millennia. It also enables us to appreciate the potential sacrifice Abraham made in leaving the prominence and prosperity of Ur for the relative obscurity of Canaan.

Significance for Biblical Studies: The Ziggurat at Ur may have been inspired by the Tower of Babel as a means of getting close to God. Like that earlier structure, it failed to bridge the gap and, in fact, did not need to do so because "God...is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:27).

For a pdf go here.