A city built for the gods
Around 1250 BCE, the Elamite king Untash-Napirisha founded a new city, Dur Untash, with a singular purpose: to create a holy complex that would unify the gods of his kingdom. The centerpiece of this city is a massive ziggurat, a stepped pyramidal structure that is now the best-preserved example of its kind. The original structure was a monumental achievement, with a square base measuring 105.2 meters on each side and an estimated original height of 53 meters across five levels. Today, it stands at just under 25 meters, its upper levels lost to time.
The ziggurat was dedicated primarily to Inshushinak, the patron god of the nearby city of Susa. The entire complex was enclosed by three concentric walls. The innermost area contained the ziggurat, built over an earlier square temple. The middle zone held eleven temples for other gods, though twenty-two were planned before construction halted. The outer region contained royal palaces and a funerary complex with five subterranean tombs.
Construction was abruptly stopped, likely after the death of King Untash-Napirisha. The city was never fully populated and was later sacked by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal around 640 BCE. This abandonment left behind a striking archaeological detail: thousands of unused bricks stacked and waiting for builders who never returned.
An engineering time capsule
The construction of Chogha Zanbil shows Elamite engineering. The core of the ziggurat is made from mud-brick, protected by a 2-meter-thick facing of baked bricks. Unlike Mesopotamian ziggurats built level by level, Chogha Zanbil's five stories were built, all rising from the ground up from a central courtyard. Access to the upper levels was provided by vaulted staircases hidden within the ziggurat's layers, another departure from the external stairways common in Mesopotamia.
One feature is the extensive use of inscribed bricks. Every tenth or eleventh row of the baked brick facade features bricks hand-inscribed with cuneiform script, naming the king and dedicating the structure to the god Inshushinak. Over 5,000 of these inscribed bricks have been found. These inscriptions, in Elamite and Akkadian, record the ziggurat's purpose.
The site also includes an advanced water management system. To supply the city, engineers constructed a canal over 45 kilometers long to bring water from the Karkheh River. This water fed a large reservoir with a capacity of 337 cubic meters, which filtered the water before distributing it through a network of canals. This system was essential for protecting the mud-brick structures from the region's heavy rains.