Great Ziggurat of Ur

30.9627°N, 46.1031°E.

The Great Ziggurat of Ur in southern Mesopotamia, modern Tell el-Muqayyar in Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. Construction was initiated by the Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (~2100 BCE) and completed by his son Shulgi as the central temple of the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of Ur. Original base 64 by 46 metres; original height estimated at 30 metres on three terraces, with a temple on the summit. The structure is built of mudbrick faced with fired baked-brick set in bitumen mortar — the bitumen visible to this day in the lower courses. Excavated by Leonard Woolley between 1922 and 1934 in one of the most extensively documented digs of the early twentieth century. King Nabonidus of Babylon restored and partially rebuilt it ~550 BCE, raising the height to seven terraces and recording his work in cuneiform foundation cylinders that Woolley recovered intact.

The best-preserved ziggurat in Mesopotamia, in the city the book of Genesis names as the home of Abraham, in a substructure whose bitumen mortar is still gluing the bricks together after four thousand years.