The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

414 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

But the growth in height was not displeasing to the priestly
builders. The higher the temple rose above the level of the plain,
the better they were pleased. A characteristic of the Babylonian
temple, in fact, was theziggurator“tower”attached to each,
whose head it was designed should“reach to heaven.”The
wordzigguratmeans a“lofty peak,”and the royal builders of
Babylonia vied with one another in making the temple towers
they erected as high as possible.
There was more than one reason for this characteristic feature
of religious Babylonian architecture. The first settlers in the
plain of Babylonia must soon have discovered that the higher
they could be above the surface of the ground the better it was
for them. The nearer they ascended to the clouds of heaven, the
freer they were from the miasmata and insects of the swamp.
The same cause which led them to provide a platform for their
temples, would have also led them to raise the temple as high as
they could above the level of the plain. This, however, will not
explain the origin of the tower itself. It would have been a reason
for building the temple as high as possible, not for attaching
[451] to it a tower. Nor was the tower suitable for defence against
an enemy, like the pylons of an Egyptian temple. At most it
was a convenient watch-tower from which the movements of a
hostile band could be observed. There must have been some
other reason, more directly connected with religious beliefs or
practices, which found its outward expression in the sacred tower.
The sanctuary of Nippur, it will be remembered, was the
oldest in Northern Babylonia. And from time immemorial it
had been known as Ê-kur,“the house of the mountain-land.”
It represented that underground world which was the home of
En-lil and his ghosts; and this underground world, we must
observe, was conceived of as a mountain. In fact, the cuneiform
character which signifies“country”also signifies“mountain,”
and the hieroglyphic picture out of which it developed is the
picture of a mountain-range. The land in which it was first