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.