Chogha Zanbil

32.0083°N, 48.5208°E.

The ziggurat of Chogha Zanbil — ancient Dur-Untash — in modern Khuzestan Province, Iran. Built by the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha between approximately 1275 and 1240 BCE as the central monument of a new royal city dedicated to the god Inshushinak. Original base 105 metres per side; original height estimated at 53 metres on five terraces — the largest and best-preserved ziggurat surviving anywhere in the world, and the only major ziggurat outside Mesopotamia. Construction is fired and unfired mudbrick faced in baked-brick courses set with bitumen, with cuneiform inscriptions stamped at regular intervals into the brick faces naming the king and the dedication. Excavated by Roman Ghirshman for the French Archaeological Mission in Iran between 1951 and 1962. The city was sacked by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 640 BCE and abandoned. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 — the first Iranian site to receive that designation.

The largest intact ziggurat on Earth, in an empire whose language and writing system have only been partially deciphered, dedicated to a god whose worship ended with the empire that built it.