ziggurat

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The Word of the Day for March 7 is: 

ziggurat   \ZIG-uh-rat\   noun 
     : an ancient Mesopotamian temple tower consisting of a 
lofty pyramidal structure built in successive stages with 
outside staircases and a shrine at the top; also : a structure 
or object of similar form 

Example sentence:
     "The [dietary] guidelines will be turned into something 
like the familiar food pyramid. The new pyramid could be a 
circle or a ziggurat." (Richard Knox, NPR News, January 12, 
2005)

Did you know?
     French professor of archaeology Francois Lenormant spent a 
great deal of time poring over ancient Assyrian texts. In those 
cuneiform inscriptions, he recognized a new language, now known 
as Akkadian, which proved valuable to the understanding of a 
civilization that goes back 5,000 years. Through his studies, 
he became familiar with the Akkadian word for the towering 
Assyrian temples: "ziqqurratu." In 1877 he came out with 
_Chaldean Magic_, a scholarly exposition on the mythology of 
the Chaldeans, a people who lived 2700 years ago in what is now 
modern-day Iraq. In his work, which was immediately translated 
into English, he introduced the word "ziggurat" to the modern 
world in his description of the ziggurat of the palace of 
Khorsabad.