9
READING COMPREHENSION
EXTENSION
1. Ziggurats
 Read the text, look at the picture and answer the questions.
Although there is very little information available about this kind of terraced construction, drawings and models
based on descriptions give a fairly good idea of what they must have looked like. It is almost certain that they were
terraced constructions with five or six levels, built of sun-baked bricks faced with fired bricks.
All the main cities located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers had a ziggurat. Their function has been the
subject of speculation throughout history. They don’t appear to have been funerary monuments, like the Egyptian
pyramids, but perhaps they were used as astronomical observatories.
Recent studies have suggested that they formed a bridge between divine beings and humans, between heaven
and Earth; but some historians have also interpreted them as symbols of the holy mountain that the Mesopotamians
considered the centre and axis of the world.
Enciclopedia Universal Multimedia
Micronet (Translated and adapted)
a) What is a ziggurat? What were they used for?
b) What civilisation do you associate with this kind of construction?
c) Where were ziggurats normally located? What materials were used to build them?
d) Why don’t we have very much information about them?
e) What Egyptian monument does a ziggurat look like?
PHOTOCOPIABLE RESOURCE / © Oxford University Press España S. A.
Social Sciences ESO 1
9
READING COMPREHENSION
EXTENSION
1. Ziggurats
Answer key
 a) They were terraces towers on several levels, the last of which had a temple. They had various functions: a place
of worship for the priests, and it is also thought that they were used as astronomy observatories.
b) Ziggurats were built by the Mesopotamian civilisation.
c) They were built in important cities. They were made of sun-baked bricks (adobe) and fired bricks.
d) We don’t have much information about ziggurats because very few have survived, since the materials used to make
them (bricks and adobe) are easily eroded by the action of wind, water, etc.
e) They are similar to the Egyptian pyramids.
© Oxford University Press España S. A.
Social Sciences ESO 1