Step pyramid

The 4100 year old Great Ziggurat of Ur in southern Iraq

Pyramid of Djoser

A step pyramid or stepped pyramid is an architectural structure that uses flat platforms, or steps, receding from the ground up, to achieve a completed shape similar to a geometric pyramid. Step pyramids are structures which characterized several cultures throughout history, in several locations throughout the world. These pyramids typically are large and made of several layers of stone. The term refers to pyramids of similar design that emerged separately from one another, as there are no firmly established connections between the different civilizations that built them.

Ziggurats were huge religious monuments built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. There are 32 ziggurats known at, and near, Mesopotamia. Twenty-eight of them are in Iraq, and four of them are in Iran. Notable Ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, Iraq, the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad, Iraq, Chogha Zanbil in Khūzestān, Iran, the most recent to be discovered – Sialk near Kashan, Iran and others. Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites and Assyrians as monuments to local religions. The probable predecessors of the ziggurat were temples supported on raised platforms or terraces that date from the Ubaid period during the fourth millennium BC, and the latest date from the 6th century BC.

The earliest ziggurats probably date from the latter part of the Early Dynastic Period of Sumer. Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven, with a shrine or temple at the summit. Access to the shrine was provided by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. It was also called Hill of Heaven or Mountain of the gods.

The earliest Egyptian pyramids were step pyramids. During the Third dynasty of Egypt, the architect Imhotep designed Egypt’s first step pyramid as a tomb for the pharaoh, Djoser. This structure, the Pyramid of Djoser, was composed of a series of six successively smaller mastabas (an earlier form of tomb), one on top of another. Later pharaohs, including Sekhemkhet and Khaba, built similar structures.

In the Fourth dynasty of Egypt, the Egyptians began to build “true pyramids” with smooth sides. The earliest of these pyramids, located at Meidum, began as a step pyramid built for Sneferu. Sneferu later made other pyramids, the Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid at Dahshur, which were the first true pyramids to be built as such from the beginning. With this innovation, the age of Egyptian stepped pyramids came to an end.

A step pyramid exists in the archaeological site of Monte d’Accoddi, in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari near Porto Torres, dating to the 4th millennium BC. It is the site of a megalithic structure, the oldest part are dated to around c. 4,000-3,650 BC. The structure has a base of 27 m by 27 m and probably reached a height of 5.5 m. It culminated in a platform of about 12.5 m by 7.2 m, accessible via a ramp. It has been variously described as an altar, a temple or a step pyramid.

It is a trapezoidal platform on an artificial mound, reached by a sloped causeway. At one time a rectangular structure sat atop the platform. The site was frequented from the Middle Neolithic on, but the platform dates from the Copper Age (c. 2700-2000 BC), with some minor subsequent activity in the Early Bronze Age (c. 2000-1600 BC). Near the mound are several standing stones, and a large limestone slab, now at the foot of the mound, may have served as an altar.

Similarities between Los Millares architecture and the step pyramid at Monte d’Accoddi in Sardinia have been noticed. Los Millares is the name of a Chalcolithic occupation site 17 km north of Almería, in the municipality of Santa Fe de Mondújar, Andalusia, Spain. The complex was in use from the end of the fourth millennium to the end of the second millennium BC and probably supported somewhere around 1000 people.

Los Millares participated in the continental trends of Megalithism and the Beaker culture. Analysis of occupation material and grave goods from the Los Millares cemetery of 70 tholos tombs with port-hole slabs has led archaeologists to suggest that the people who lived at Los Millares were part of a stratified, unequal society which was often at war with its neighbours. The Los Millares civilisation was replaced circa 1800 BC, with the arrival of Bronze by the El Argar civilisation, whose successor culture is embodied in the contemporary culture of Vila Nova de São Pedro in nearby Portugal.

Step pyramid