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History glossary

Etemenanki

the great ziggurat of Babylon dedicated to Marduk, possibly linked to later Tower of Babel traditions.

Category
Temple tower
Region
Ancient Babylon, modern Iraq
Date range
rebuilt in the first millennium BCE

What it means

Etemenanki was Babylon's huge ziggurat dedicated to Marduk. It stood in ancient Babylon, near modern Hillah in Iraq, and its scale may have influenced later stories about a great tower reaching toward heaven.

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