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Updated: June 16, 2025
Prom the fact that they built their ziggurats, or temple towers, of huge masses of unburnt brick which rose high above the surrounding plain, and that their ideal was to make each "like a mountain," it has been argued that they were a mountain race, and the home from which they sprang has been sought in Central Asia.
One generation of watchers succeeded another, scanning the heavens nightly from our ziggurats, and we have learned the laws of the constellations; the laws of Sin the moon, the laws of Samas the sun, the laws of the planets, the laws of the fixed stars. Their motions and their influence on the affairs of men our fathers discovered, and have handed their wisdom down to us."
In front of the temple, but not exactly opposite its centre, may be seen the prophylaea, consisting of a squared doorway placed under a battlemented wall, between two towers also battlemented. It is curious that the paths do not lead to the propylaea, but seen to curve round the hill. Remains of ziggurats similar to this have been discovered at Khorsabad, at Nimrud, and at Kileh-Sherghat.
While the Egyptian temple was spread superficially over a large area, the Chaldæan temple strove to attain as high an elevation as possible. These "ziggurats" were composed of several immense cubes piled up on one another, and diminishing in size up to the small shrine by which they were crowned, and wherein the god himself was supposed to dwell.
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