The Ziggurat of Ur

A ziggurat is an artificial mountain of millions of mud bricks, faced with fired brick set in bitumen, with three stairways leading to the shrine at the top. In a flat country it is the only height there is, and it stands at the city's centre like a stair between heaven and earth. Ur-Nammu — the same king who left the oldest law code known — raises ziggurats in several cities at once. Later, on this model, Babylon will build Etemenanki, the tower that tradition linked with the confusion of tongues.