Ziggurat of Nippur

32.1268°N, 45.2306°E.

The ziggurat of Nippur — Sumerian Nibru, the religious capital of Sumer — in modern Qadisiyah Governorate, Iraq. Construction was initiated in the Early Dynastic period and rebuilt at its largest scale by Ur-Nammu of the Ur III dynasty (~2100 BCE). Original base 57 by 39 metres; original height around 30 metres on three terraces. Dedicated to Enlil, chief god of the Sumerian pantheon and patron of kingship. Nippur held a unique status: every Sumerian and Akkadian king from the third millennium onward sought legitimisation by being recognised at Nippur, and every dynasty rebuilt the ziggurat as a condition of that recognition. Excavated by an American expedition from the University of Pennsylvania between 1889 and 1900 and by joint Penn–Chicago–Baghdad missions from 1948 onward. The Nippur excavations recovered approximately 30,000 cuneiform tablets — the single largest source of Sumerian literature in existence.

The ziggurat in the city no king could rule Sumer without controlling, in a temple library that produced more written Sumerian than the rest of Mesopotamia combined.