Changes

The people of ancient Mesopotamia practiced a religion that modern scholars are only just now beginning to understand and the physical focal point of their religion were the monumental, triangular structures known as ziggurats. Today, many people like to compare ziggurats – which is derived from the ancient Akkadian word for the structures, <i>ziggurratu</i> – with their counterparts the pyramids in Egypt. Although both pyramids and ziggurats were constructed during the same time period, they served different functions and were built using different methods and from different materials. Ziggurats were also built over a much longer period than Egyptian pyramids and most importantly, ziggurats were built by a plethora of different people who inhabited ancient Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, unlike Egypt, was full of disparate and at times warring ethnic groups, but they all followed a similar religion and built ziggurats to appease their gods and as signs of temporal power.