Zabu

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Zabu was the leader of the ‘Jebeliya’ tribe living between the mountains of Sinai during the 18th dynasty.

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Zagros

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The Zagros Mountains are a mountain range in southwestern Iran, extending northwest-southeast from the border areas of eastern Turkey and northern Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Ziggurat

 

Ziggurat (in Akkadian multi-storied temple) is a high pyramid-shaped tower characteristic of the major cities of Mesopotamia (now Iraq). It is an architectural structure, a terraced compound of successively receding levels with a shrine on the top. It was used for religious means from approximately 2200 until 500 BC., mainly in the cult of Marduk. (See Marduk) The ziggurats had a mud brick core, and the exterior was covered with baked brick. (As the internal mud bricks absorbed moisture from the weather, the ancient architects solved this problem with an ingenious drainage system of channels that dried the water from the inner core and conserved the stability of the structure. The archaeologists have found blue glazed bricks around the remains of a ziggurat (Ur), and they suspect these might have been part of the temple decoration. 

The ziggurats had no internal chambers and were usually square or rectangular, averaging either a square of 50 meters or a rectangle with 40 × 50 meters at the base. Today we know about 25 ziggurats with their locations equally divided among Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria.

Ascent was by an exterior triple stairway or a spiral ramp, and the sloping sides and terraces were often landscaped with columns, trees, sculptures and shrubs (hence the Hanging Gardens of Babylon). Its terraces were irrigated by pumps (a spiralling screw in a tube - an ingenious invention of the Babylonians) from the Euphrates River.

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Zika

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Zika was a Babylonian beggar boy born blind. He was a faithful friend and protector of Nanshaya, a handsome and fearless warrior who had tender, loving feelings for her all his life.