Database: Dur-Kurigalzu
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On the outskirts of Baghdad stands what looks at first sight like a hill battered by the winds. On closer inspection, however, the mound is made of baked bricks which form a 60-meter high structure. According to an inscription found on one of them, they were placed by King Kurigalzu II in the 14th century BCE. It is the last standing building of the former capital of the Kassite empire, Dur-Kurigalzu (the fortress of Kurigalzu).
The Kassites ruled over central and southern Mesopotamia (Iraq) from the 16th to the 12th century BCE. While their precise origins are uncertain, they adopted many of the cultural and political practices of their Babylonian predecessors. Amongst them was the construction of ziggurats, terraced compounds made of receding levels that served as temples. In Dur-Kurigalzu, this took the form of a 69 by 67-meter building, of which only the core survives. Around it were a royal palace and an entire city, both of which were destroyed by the Elamites of South-Eastern Iran around 1155 BCE. The ziggurat served as a temple for centuries, but it too was eventually abandoned. Devoured by time and sand, it nonetheless remains one of the most iconic buildings of the area, often confused with the Biblical Tower of Babel by medieval and early modern travelers.