Читать книгу Art History For Dummies - Jesse Bryant Wilder - Страница 85

Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon (605 BC–562 BC), gave ziggurats a bad rap by stealing holy objects from the temple in Jerusalem and housing them in the ziggurat of Babylon. He probably wanted to show that his gods had more power than the Hebrew god did. According to Chronicles II 36:7, “Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.”

To the captive Jews, Babylon’s mountain-high ziggurat must have symbolized Nebuchadnezzar’s overweening pride. But in general, the Sumerian and Babylonian peoples built ziggurats to put them in touch with the gods, not to elevate their egos.