<P> Etemenanki, the name for the structure, is Sumerian and means "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth". The date of its original construction is unknown, with suggested dates ranging from the fourteenth to the ninth century BCE, with textual evidence suggesting it existed in the second millennium . </P> <P> According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines have survived . One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally flooded for hundreds of kilometers, for example, the 1967 flood . Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security . Since the shrine was accessible only by way of three stairways, a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from spying on the rituals at the shrine on top of the ziggurat, such as initiation rituals such as the Eleusinian mysteries, cooking of sacrificial food and burning of carcasses of sacrificial animals . Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, bathrooms, and living quarters, around which a city was built . </P>

The largest structure of an ancient sumerian city was the