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Jade Moore

Prof. Costello

Art History 1380

05 October 2012

Compare and Contrast of Nanna Ziggurat and Khafre’s 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 con-

struct 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 Neo-Babylonian

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 Khafre’s Pyramid created by the Egyptians circa 2520-2494 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 Khafre’s 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 zig-

gurats, which would have stairs running from the ground up to a temple or a shrine that would

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be placed at the very top. Each platform’s 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 de-

ceased 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 calcula-

tions, orienting the pyramids to the points of the compass that followed the sun’s east-west 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 Khafre’s 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).

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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).

Khafre’s 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 rela-

tively stable for over 4,000 years. The appearances of their surfaces as well are rough and weath-

ered, 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

Khafre’s Pyramid, there are many symbolic differences as well. The Sumerians created Nanna’s

Ziggurat in dedication to the moon god Nanna, and it served as a lofty bridge between the earth

and the heavens—a 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 distrib-

uted to others around the area. As for the Egyptians, they built Khafre’s 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 king’s ka. It has

also be found from inscriptions on the walls of pyramid tombs built in the Fifth and Sixth dynas-

ties 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 pur-

pose 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, offer-

ings 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 city’s ruler and glori-

fied its gods (Stokstad and Cothren 2012, 28). As for the Egyptians, the period when they created

Khafre’s pyramid was a time of social and political stability, despite increasingly common mili-

tary 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 Khafre’s Pyramid was used to glorify the

wealth and power of Khafre.

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Both the Nanna Ziggurat and Khafre Pyramid reflect the ancient cultures of the Sumeri-

ans 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

Khafre’s 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.