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Anu Ziggurat
The Anu ziggurat is a ziggurat in the city of Uruk. The single massive terrace makes up the area traditionally called the Anu district. It was originally proposed to have been dedicated to the Sumerian sky god Anu. Sometime in the Uruk III period (3100–2900 BC) the massive White Temple was built atop the ziggurat. Under the northwest edge of the ziggurat an Uruk VI period structure, the Stone Temple, has been discovered. It is often assumed that the so-called "White Temple," which dates back to the Uruk IV period (3500–3100 BC) was Anu's original cult center, and it is even sometimes referred to as the "Anu ziggurat" in modern literature. However, there is no evidence that Anu was actually worshipped in this structure. With a height of 13 metres, it overtook the Tower of Jericho as the History of the world's tallest structures, world's tallest structure from its creation around 4000 BC until around 2650 BC when it was overtaken by the Pyramid of Djoser. The temple was bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muthanna Governorate
Muthanna Governorate ( ''Al Muthannā'') or Al Muthanna Province, is a province in Iraq, named after the 7th-century Arab general al-Muthanna ibn Haritha. It is in the south of the country, bordering Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The provincial capital is the city of Samawah. It has the highest poverty rate in Iraq, with a rate of 52%. History Before 1976 it was part of the Diwaniya Province, which included present-day Najaf Governorate and al-Qādisiyyah Governorate. Samawah is very close to the ancient Sumerian-Babylonian city of Uruk (Aramaic: ''Erech''), which is possibly the source of the name Iraq. After the decline of Babylon following the Seleucid founding of Seleucia Seleucia (; ), also known as or or Seleucia ad Tigrim, was a major Mesopotamian city, located on the west bank of the Tigris River within the present-day Baghdad Governorate in Iraq. It was founded around 305 BC by Seleucus I Nicator as th ..., Uruk became the largest city in southern Babylonia, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uruk King Priest Feeding The Sacred Herd
Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilometers (58 miles) northwest of ancient Ur, 108 kilometers (67 miles) southeast of ancient Nippur, and 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of ancient Larsa. It is east of modern Samawah. Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. By the final phase of the Uruk period around 3100 BC, the city may have had 40,000 residents, with 80,000–90,000 people living in its environs, making it the largest urban area in the world at the time. Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the ''Sumerian King List'' (''SKL''), ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. After the end of the Early Dynastic period, with the rise of the Akkadian Empire, the city lost i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buildings And Structures Completed In The 4th Millennium BC
A building or edifice is an enclosed Structure#Load-bearing, structure with a roof, walls and window, windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for numerous factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, monument, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the concept, see ''Nonbuilding structure'' for contrast. Buildings serve several societal needs – occupancy, primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical separation of the :Human habitats, human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) from the ''outside'' (a place that may be harsh and harmful at times). buildings have been objects or canvasses of much architecture, artistic expression. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assyriology
Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia''), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies, is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers Pre Dynastic Mesopotamia, Sumer, the early Sumero-Akkadian city-states, the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, the Akkadian and Imperial Aramaic speaking states of Assyria, Babylonia and the Sealand Dynasty, the migrant foreign dynasties of southern Mesopotamia, including the Gutians, Amorites, Kassites, Arameans, Suteans and Chaldeans. Assyriology can be included to cover Neolithic pre-Dynastic cultures dating to as far back as 8000 BC, to the Islamic Conquest of the 7th century AD, so the topic is significantly wider than that implied by the root "Assyria". The large number of cuneiform clay tablets preserved by these Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian cultures provide an extremely large resource for the study of the period. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeological Sites In Iraq
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America – the four-field approach), history or geography. The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Mesopotamia
The Civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources. Mesopotamia has been home to many of the oldest major civilizations, entering history from the Early Bronze Age, for which reason it is often called a cradle of civilization. Short outline of Mesopotamia Mesopotamia (; ) means "Between the Rivers". The oldest known occurrence of the name Mesopotamia dates to the 4th century BC, when it was used to designate the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The name was presumably translated from a term already current in the area—probably in Aramaic—and apparently was understood to mean the land lying "between the (Euphrates and Tigris) rivers", now Iraq. Later and in the broader sense, the historical region ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk chalk. Gypsum also Crystallization, crystallizes as translucent crystals of selenite (mineral), selenite. It forms as an evaporite mineral and as a Mineral hydration, hydration product of anhydrite. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness defines gypsum as hardness value 2 based on Scratch hardness, scratch hardness comparison. Fine-grained white or lightly tinted forms of gypsum known as alabaster have been used for sculpture by many cultures including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and the Nottingham alabasters of Medieval England. Etymology and history The word ''wikt:gypsum, gypsum'' is derived from the Greek language, Greek word (), "plaster". Because the quarry, quarries of the Montmartre district of P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bucrania
Bucranium (; , , referring to the skull of an ox) was a form of carved decoration commonly used in Classical architecture. The name is generally considered to originate with the practice of displaying garlanded, sacrificial oxen, whose heads were displayed on the walls of temples, a practice dating back to the sophisticated Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in eastern Anatolia, where cattle skulls were overlaid with white plaster. Etymology and sphere of application The word "bucranium" (latin ''bucranium'') comes from Ancient Greek: βουκράνιον – being composed of βοῦς (''ox'') and κρανίον (''skull'') – and literally means "ox skull". Analogic, the Greek word αἰγικράνιον (''latin'' aegicranium) means a "goat skull", also used as a decorative element in architecture. The technical term "bucranium" was originally used in the description of classical architecture. Its application to the field of prehistoric archeology is relatively recent and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terrazzo
Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical binding), polymeric (for physical binding), or a combination of both. Metal strips often divide sections, or changes in color or material in a pattern. Additional chips may be sprinkled atop the mix before it sets. After it is cured it is ground and polished smooth or otherwise finished to produce a uniformly textured surface. "Terrazzo" is also often used to describe any pattern similar to the original terrazzo floors. Modern forms of terrazzo include polished concrete. History Terrazzo proper Although the history of terrazzo can be traced back to the ancient mosaics of Egypt, its more recent predecessors come from Italy. The form of terrazzo used today derives partly from the 18th century ''pavimento alla Veneziana'' ( Venetian pavement) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Turkish Straits to the northwest, and the Black Sea to the north. The eastern and southeastern limits have been expanded either to the entirety of Asiatic Turkey or to an imprecise line from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta. Topographically, the Sea of Marmara connects the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and separates Anatolia from Thrace in Southeast Europe. During the Neolithic, Anatolia was an early centre for the development of farming after it originated in the adjacent Fertile Crescent. Beginning around 9,000 years ago, there was a major migration of Anatolian Neolithic Farmers into Neolithic Europe, Europe, with their descendants coming to dominate the continent a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PPNA
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to years ago, that is, 10,000–8800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and Upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent. The time period is characterized by tiny circular mud-brick dwellings, the cultivation of crops, the hunting of wild game, and unique burial customs in which bodies were buried below the floors of dwellings. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) were originally defined by Kathleen Kenyon in the type site of Jericho, State of Palestine. During this time, pottery was not yet in use. They precede the ceramic Neolithic Yarmukian culture. PPNA succeeds the Natufian culture of the Epipalaeolithic Near East. Settlements PPNA archaeological sites are much larger than those of the preceding Natufian hunter-gatherer culture, and contain traces of communa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cella
In Classical architecture, a or naos () is the inner chamber of an ancient Greek or Roman temple. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings: of a hermit's or monk's cell, and (since the 17th century) of a biological cell in plants or animals. Greek and Roman temples In ancient Greek and Roman temples, the ''cella'' was a room at the center of the building, usually containing a cult image or statue representing the particular deity venerated in the temple. In addition, the ''cella'' might contain a table to receive supplementary votive offerings, such as votive statues of associated deities, precious and semi-precious stones, helmets, spear and arrow heads, swords, and war trophies. No gatherings or sacrifices took place in the ''cella'', as the altar for sacrifices was always located outside the building along the axis and temporary altars for other deities were built next to it. The accumulated offerings made Greek and Roman temples virtual treasuri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
