Asia

[Visited: January 2022]

After our memorable visit to Uruk, we are on our way further south. Our driver is making it clear that he expects a higher payment than the one we agreed on in the bus station of Samawah when we thought we struck a deal that seemed too good to be true. It turns out that, also in this case, it actually is too good to be true. We now assume that the driver thought that when we mentioned Uruk, he thought we referred to Ur, as Uruk is called Warka by most locals. In any case, we are stopped by several checkpoints on our way south, everyone believes I am Russian because of my travel companion, and we are happy when we finally get ordered to see a local officer. We know what is coming: more tea! We actually have a nice chat, talk about families, and while the agents first tell us that Ur is closed, after a while they suddenly announce that yes, it is open and we can go there straight away.
The largest prison of the country is nearby, and so there is another checkpoint where we can already see the enormous ziggurat rise from the plains in the distance. No tea is offered here, and we still have to buy the uniformly priced entrance fee to the site a little further on. Then, we can finally walk the boardwalk to the foot of the four thousand year old temple. From here, a staircase leads straight to the highest of the three platforms. There are two additional stairs on both sides of the middle one, but they only reach the first level of the ziggurat. This temple was dedicated to Nannar, the god of the moon and the main god of Ur. The corners point to the four cardinal points of the compass. It is late, and the sun is already below the western side of the rectangular structure.
Where the base of the ziggurat has been reconstructed, the top is still in crumbling ruins. From here, we can easily see the ruins of other temples and a palace nearby, and the prison a little further away. We walk down the stairs, and around the perimeter of the ziggurat. The late sun makes the ziggurat turn an orange glow. From its base, the ziggurat does not fail to impress. We find a small temple, with two rooms which gave worshippers isolation and solitude. A little further south, we find the ruins of the E-kur-Sag palace which was square. Unfortunately, a fence keeps visitors out, so we can only see the ruins from a distance and through rusting barbed wire and the fence. We hear that around the corner, we can find the house of Abraham, and we just open part of the fence to walk there. We come to a reconstructed old house where the biblical figure never lived of course. When we walk back, we see the sun set behind the ziggurat: it is time to drive the last stretch of this long day, give the driver a tip, have a shower and a well-deserved dinner in Nassiriyah.

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Ziggurat of Ur > Iraq > Asia

[Visited: January 2022]

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