Großbaustellen in Sumer. Aufwand und Kosten

Monumentality by numbers

“…If one traveled through ancient Mesopotamia in the 21 st century BCE, one would feel immediately at home in all major cities, because all of them had a standardized ziggurat as their central element. 1 A recent article by Hagen Brunke has shown that building a ziggurat in the 21 st century BCE, an endeavor that was executed by the king, probably did not even really impact on the economy of the state (Brunke et al 2016: 284;Brunke 2018). The real purpose of these monumental programs could have been to keep the people -who were workers and farmersoccupied during non-harvest times, as an ancient form of a job creation scheme.…”