ABSTRACT
Only the exterior of these solid monuments could be utilised, and ramps and stairways gave access to the top. One unique sanctuary on the summit of a ziggurat was found (at URUK) and it is not certain whether the later (2nd and 1st millennia BC) structures also had ‘High Temples’. Herodotus (Hist. I. 185) describes a ritual known as the Sacred Marriage, which culminated in the sexual union of a priestess and the king to symbolise the communion of mankind and the gods; this was supposedly celebrated in a temple on top of the ziggurat. There is, however, no support for this account in Akkadian texts, and the association of the ziggurat with Sacred Marriage rites, which was assumed as factual in most earlier publications discussing ziggurats, needs to be revised. It has been suggested (Lenzen) that the ziggurat developed from the rectangular socle or platform of early Mesopotamian temples.
