Art History

Archaeologists have relied on the information of which is left behind from the many civilizations that once lived here millions of years ago. Thanks to their art and building structures left behind we have found out many interesting facts of their way of everyday life. We are still finding information as time goes on but the great fact is that we have already found painting and building structures in which we can interpret many things with what we are given. There of course are similarities and differences between the Nanna Ziggurat and The Great Pyramids of Giza and also the Great Sphinx Funerary complex of Khafre which I will explain in this paper.

As we can see from the first figure the, Nana Ziggurat in Ur, which is now present day Muqaiyir, Iraq. This building structure is set to have been built around c.2100-2050 BCE. It was built by the Sumerian people under the ruler of King Urnammu who helped restore the Sumerian language because of the destruction of the Akkadian empire. He sponsored the building of the ziggurat which was built in dedication to their moon god Nanna, also called Sin. This is how Sumerian people worshiped their God and gives us an idea on how they felt about their religion, ritualism, and their way of viewing life.

In architecture, material in which is used to build a structure is very important because of the meaning it means to the people who ask for it to be built. This ziggurat was built over an existing temple and the material used was mud-brick substance which held really well despite the massive structure with three sets of stairs converging at an imposing entrance gate atop the first of what were three platforms. Each platform’s walls slope outward from top to base, which was probably to prevent runaway rainwater from forming puddles and eroding the mud brick pavement below. The building stood by its rectangular base 205 by 141 feet which can tell us how very important this God meant to them because of the enormous stature that...