Moore 1 Jade Moore Prof.

Costello Art History 1380 05 October 2012 Compare and Contrast of Nanna Ziggurat and Khafres Pyramid When living in the modern-day city, one would see massive skyscrapers and hundreds of buildings nearly every day. This abundance makes it seem that creating these towering structures is an effortless task. Yet in reality, we have all the resources and advanced technologies to construct them in such a short amount of time; we never stop to think about how hard it would have been to build them without the tools we have today. In the ancient times of the NeoBabylonian period in the Near East and the Old Kingdom period in Egypt, they lacked the resources we have, but they still managed to make admirable monuments such as ziggurats and pyramids. Two historical examples of these would be the Nanna Ziggurat created by the Sumerians circa 2100-2050 BCE and Khafres Pyramid created by the Egyptians circa 25202494 BCE (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 36-56). Although similarities may be found between the construction of the two structures, the differing cultural origins of the Sumerians and Egyptians greatly impacted the form, purpose, and context of both the Nanna Ziggurat and Khafres Pyramid. The Sumerians were located in the city-state of Sumer in the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, which was located between the Tigris and Euphrates river in present-day Iraq. The Sumerians were known for creating massive stepped structures made from mud-brick called ziggurats, which would have stairs running from the ground up to a temple or a shrine that would

Moore 2 be placed at the very top. Each platforms walls were sloped outward from the top to base, which was probably done to prevent rainwater from forming puddles and eroding the mud-brick pavement below (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 36). They had problems with periodic flooding in the area, so the ziggurats were kept elevated so that they could protect the shrines on top from any flooding that would occur. The origins of their design are unknown, but the first ziggurats would use the ruins from a previous sacred site as its new foundation. As for the Egyptians, they were located along the Nile River. They practiced building pyramids, large structures made from limestone and granite serving as tombs for the kings or royal members of Egypt. They were made with a square base with four sloping triangular faces on each side of the base that would meet in the center at the very top of the pyramid, and the deceased body of the king or royal was buried in a vault below the ground. The designers who oversaw these building projects were capable of the most sophisticated mathematical calculations, orienting the pyramids to the points of the compass that followed the suns eastwest path as well as incorporating other symbolic astronomical calculations (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 57). They created a labyrinth inside the pyramids as well to ward off any potential tomb robbers, using confusing passageways and false doors to keep them from getting to the underground burial chamber. A huge labor force would have to be assembled to create all the intricate parts of these large pyramids, using cut stone blocks that each weighed an average of 2.5 tons (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 57). Among the most notable ziggurats and pyramids ever created was the Nanna Ziggurat and Khafres Pyramid. The Nanna Ziggurat was created by the Sumerians under the leadership of King Urnammu of Ur to be dedicated to the moon god Nanna (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 36).

Moore 3 Its base is a rectangle that is 205 by 141 feet, with three sets of stairs converging at an imposing entrance gate atop the first of what were three platforms (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 36). Khafres pyramid was created by the Egyptians to be used as the tomb for King Khafre, and it has a square base that is 706.19 feet on each side with four sloped triangles connecting at the top and an entrance at the bottom (Bayuk). The size of their bases allowed them both to remain relatively stable for over 4,000 years. The appearances of their surfaces as well are rough and weathered, due to all the forces of nature that they had to withstand over time, and they both have a dull, earthy color as well. Among the other similarities of the forms between the two, the lines and shapes on both of the structures are very blunt and bold, giving the viewer a sense of how meaningful and vital the buildings truly are to each of the cultures. Although there are numerous physical similarities between the Nanna Ziggurat and Khafres Pyramid, there are many symbolic differences as well. The Sumerians created Nannas Ziggurat in dedication to the moon god Nanna, and it served as a lofty bridge between the earth and the heavensa meeting place for the Sumerians and their god (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 28). Because of this need for them to be closer to the heavens, the ziggurats were elevated very high off the ground, and their temples were placed up at the very top rather than at ground level. It also served as the central institution for distribution for the city, where they would give surplus of food and supplies to the temple as offerings, and they would give the surplus evenly distributed to others around the area. As for the Egyptians, they built Khafres Pyramid as a tomb rather than a temple to protect King Khafre, who reigned from 2520-2494 BCE (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 56). Ancient Egyptians believed that an essential part of every human personality

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is its life force, or soul, called the ka, which lived on after the death of the body in either the mummified body of the deceased or in the form of a sculpted statue, forever engaged in the activities it had enjoyed in its former existence (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 53). So they would create the pyramid as an elaborate place for the king to move safely to the afterlife, which is why they created a confusing maze on the inside so that no one would disturb the kings ka. It has also be found from inscriptions on the walls of pyramid tombs built in the Fifth and Sixth dynasties that the angled sides may have been meant to represent the slanting rays of the sun and that the deceased kings would climb up the rays to join the sun god called Ra (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 56). The cultural differences between the Sumerians and Egyptians not only affected the purpose of the ziggurats and pyramids, but the context of them as well. The Nanna Ziggurat was built to impress and overwhelm those that saw it, giving the viewer an idea of how important and divine the temple truly was to the Sumerians. Inside of the ziggurats were votive figures, offerings to the gods, as well as images of the divine reflecting the belief of the importance of religion to the Sumerians. It also proclaimed the wealth, prestige, and stability of a citys ruler and glorified its gods (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 28). As for the Egyptians, the period when they created Khafres pyramid was a time of social and political stability, despite increasingly common military excursions to defend the borders (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 55). The growing wealth of ruling families of the period is reflected in the enormous and elaborate tomb complexes they commission or themselves (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 56). Unlike the Sumerians who used the Nanna Ziggurat to glorify the moon god Nanna, the Khafres Pyramid was used to glorify the wealth and power of Khafre. Moore 5

Both the Nanna Ziggurat and Khafre Pyramid reflect the ancient cultures of the Sumerians and the Egyptians respectively, yet these differing cultures created contrasting purposes and contexts for each of the monuments. Stylistically, they both have a pyramid-like form, yet the Nanna Ziggurat concentrates more on religion and divinity of the culture while Khafres Pyramid concentrates more on funerary practices and wealth of the deceased individual.

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Works Cited Bayuk, Andrew. "The Pyramid of Khafre." Guardian's Egypt. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://guardians.net/egypt/pyramids/Khafre/KhafrePyramid.htm>. Stokstad, Marilyn , and Michael Cothren. Art History I. 2005. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.