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== How were the Ziggurats Built? ==
[[File: Ziggurats.jpg|300px250px|thumbnail|rightleft|Map Depicting the Distribution of Known Ziggurats in Ancient Mesopotamia: Note that Most Are in the Fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers]]
Like the most monumental building in the ancient world, ziggurats' development was a long process that took hundreds of years to reach its maturity. Unfortunately, there is no known extant text that explains precisely what ziggurats were intended to symbolize. Still, based on references to the structures in Sumerian and Akkadian language texts, modern scholars have determined that the ancient Mesopotamians believed they were their many deities' earthly homes. <ref> Mieroop, Marc van de. <i>A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000-323 BC.</i> 2nd ed. (London: Blackwell, 2007), p. 182</ref>
