Ziggurat which means to build on a raised land, is an ancient Mesopotamia temple tower, which has a form of terraced pyramid with continuous receding stories. Ziggurats are a form of temple that is in common to the Assyrians, Babylonians and the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia. Ziggurat has been in existence since the third millennium BCE.

Ziggurat is built in receding steps on a rectangular, square or oval platform and it takes the shape of a pyramid. The major component of ziggurat is the sun baked bricks and the facings of a fired brick is used on the outside of ziggurat. The facing of ziggurat is most times glazed with different shades of colours and they have astrological significance.
The numbers of ziggurat stories can be either two through to seven and it is topped with either a temple or a shrine. The summit can be assessed by a spiral ramp that runs from the base to the top or with a series of ramp on the side of the ziggurat. The most renowned examples of ziggurat are the Khorsabad in Mesopotamia and the great Ziggurat of Ur.

There are some religious beliefs associated with the Ziggurats in Mesopotamia, this temple is not allowed for public ceremonies or worship, they were taken as place where the gods dwell. The gods that dwell in this temple were believed to be close to mankind and all the cities has there own god. The only set of people that are allowed into the ziggurat are the priests whose responsibility is to care and attend to the needs of the gods, and this now made the priests very powerful among the people of Sumerians. Iran has four ziggurat with the most recent discovery in Sialk, in the central part of Iran, this four ziggurat are among the thirty two that are close to Mesopotamia and Iraq has the majority of the remaining number.