Buried Beneath the Sand, The Ziggurat of Jiroft May be Largest and Oldest of its Kind in the World

The Ziggurat of Jiroft, known also as the Konar Sandal Ziggurat, is an ancient monument located in Jiroft in the southern Iranian province of Kerman, a place that some say is Iran’s cradle of civilization. This ziggurat was discovered in 2002, and it has been reported that it is the second ziggurat to be found in Iran, the first being the Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat. According to some sources, the Ziggurat of Jiroft is the largest and oldest structure of its kind in the world.

The excavation at Jiroft’s Konar Sandal (Wikimapia)

The word ziggurat may be translated as ‘temple-tower’, and is a structure consisting of several levels, the topmost of which was probably a high temple. Ziggurats are most commonly associated with the Mesopotamian civilization, which today roughly corresponds to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, and the eastern parts of Syria. Nevertheless, some of these monumental structures have also been found in the western part of Iran. One of the ways of distinguishing between Mesopotamian and Iranian ziggurats is the way these buildings were accessed. It has been pointed out that in the former, the structures were accessed by an external flight of stairs. On the other hand, the ziggurats in Iran were accessed by ramps.