Key facts

• King Untash-Napirisha and the Elamite Civilisation: the most ambitious building project of the Elamite kingdom — the Elamite civilisation (c. 3200–539 BC) occupied the territory of modern Khuzestan (the Iranian lowlands, corresponding to ancient Susiana) and the Zagros foothills; its capital was Susa (Shush), one of the oldest cities in the world (inhabited continuously from c. 4200 BC); the Elamites were the principal rivals of Mesopotamian civilizations (Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria) and alternately fought, traded with, and influenced them throughout the Bronze Age; King Untash-Napirisha (r. c. 1275–1240 BC), the most powerful ruler of the Middle Elamite period, built the city of Dur Untash (“City/Fortress of Untash”) as a completely new religious capital; the city was intended as a shared sacred space for the gods of both the Elamite highlands and the Mesopotamian-influenced lowlands, with a large temple dedicated to the divine couple Inshushinak and Napirisha (the two principal Elamite deities) at the centre; the city was largely abandoned after the death of Untash-Napirisha and appears never to have been fully completed
• The ziggurat (the “Tower Temple”): the best-preserved ziggurat in the ancient Near East — the Chogha Zanbil ziggurat is of a type specific to Elam (as opposed to the Mesopotamian ziggurat type); the Mesopotamian ziggurats (such as the famous one at Ur) were built as solid terrace platforms supporting a small temple at the top, constructed layer by layer from the bottom up; the Elamite ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil was constructed differently: the lowest level was built as a complete walled enclosure, then a second complete walled enclosure was built inside the first and on top of it, and so on for each successive level; this construction method means that each level is a structurally independent building rather than a platform, which is why the Chogha Zanbil ziggurat has survived comparatively well; three of the original five levels survive to the current height of approximately 25 metres (reduced from an estimated original height of 52 metres); the exterior is built entirely of sun-dried mud brick faced with kiln-fired brick, with elaborate terracotta glazed tile decoration and inscribed bricks (the name of Untash-Napirisha appears on the inscribed bricks that line every third course of the facade); the four entrance stairways to the lowest level are among the best-preserved examples of Elamite monumental stone staircase design
• The 22 temples and the three enclosures: the religious city of Dur Untash was designed to accommodate multiple cults within a single sacred precinct — beyond the inner enclosure (containing the ziggurat), the middle enclosure contained 13 temples dedicated to the major deities of the Elamite pantheon: temples of Inshushinak (the city god of Susa), Napirisha (the supreme deity of the Elamite highlands), Kiririsha (the great goddess), Adad (the Mesopotamian storm god, showing Mesopotamian religious influence), Nin-Hursag, Simut, Ishnikarab, and others; some of the temples in the middle enclosure have yielded the most important examples of Elamite glazed brick decoration (polychrome terracotta panels with human and divine figures) ever found; the outer enclosure contained the royal palace complex and residential areas for the temple priests and administrators; water was brought to the site by a sophisticated underground aqueduct system (qanat) from the Dez River, approximately 40 km away
• The destruction by Assurbanipal (640 BC) and the exceptional preservation: the paradox of Chogha Zanbil — the Assyrian king Assurbanipal destroyed Susa in 640 BC after a decade of wars against Elam; Chogha Zanbil was looted and partially burned; however, because the city was largely abandoned before completion and was not rebuilt after the Assyrian destruction, it was covered by the accumulation of desert dust and soil over the following 25 centuries, preserving the mud-brick structures far better than any inhabited city would have been; the site was first identified from aerial photographs by a British oil company geologist (E.A. Speiser) in 1935; the first systematic excavations were conducted by the French archaeologist Roman Ghirshman from 1951 to 1962; Ghirshman’s excavations uncovered the ziggurat, the temples, and the palace complex and established Chogha Zanbil as one of the best-preserved Bronze Age cities in the world; it was the first Iranian site to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, in 1979
• Heritage: UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tchogha Zanbil, inscribed 1979 (first Iranian UNESCO WHS)
• GPS: 32.0097° N, 48.5218° E