Editing Pyramid (section)

=== West Asia ===

==== Mesopotamia ====
{{main|Ziggurat}}

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[[File:Choghazanbil2.jpg|thumb|[[Chogha Zanbil]] is an ancient Elamite complex in the Khuzestan province of [[Iran]].]]
The [[Mesopotamia]]ns built the earliest pyramidal structures, called ''[[ziggurat]]s''. In ancient times, these were brightly painted in [[gold]]/[[bronze]]. They were constructed of sun-dried mud-brick, and little remains of them. Ziggurats were built by the [[Sumer]]ians, [[Babylon]]ians, [[Elam]]ites, [[Akkadian Empire|Akkadians]], and [[Assyria]]ns. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included other buildings. The ziggurat's precursors were raised platforms that date from the [[Ubaid period]]<ref name="Crawford, page 73">Crawford, page 73{{Citation not found|date=October 2023}}</ref> of the fourth [[millennium]] BC.

The earliest ziggurats began near the end of the [[Early Dynastic Period of Sumer#Early Dynastic period|Early Dynastic Period]].<ref>Crawford, page 73-74{{Citation not found|date=October 2023}}</ref> The original pyramidal structure, the anu ziggurat, dates to around 4000 BC. The White Temple was built on top of it circa 3500 BC.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crüsemann |first1=Nicola |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=muCvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT325 |title=Uruk: First City of the Ancient World |last2=Ess |first2=Margarete van |last3=Hilgert |first3=Markus |last4=Salje |first4=Beate |last5=Potts |first5=Timothy |date=2019 |publisher=Getty Publications |isbn=978-1-60606-444-3 |page=325 |language=en}}</ref>  
Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a flat top. Sun-baked [[brick]]s made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had [[Astrology|astrological]] significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on them. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven. It is assumed that they had shrines at the top, but no archaeological evidence supports this and the only textual evidence is from [[Herodotus]].<ref>Crawford, page 85{{Citation not found|date=October 2023}}</ref> Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit.