Samarra

   A Mesopotamian city with an unusually long history. Located about 60 miles (125 km) north of modern Baghdad, Iraq, Samarra began as a prehistoric farming community sometime in the seventh millennium b.c. Because rainfall in the area was scarce, the inhabitants built irrigation canals that channeled water from the nearby Tigris River into their fields. The town was notable for its distinctive pottery, appropriately dubbed Samarra ware by archaeologists. Its items feature regular geometric bands on the outside and pictures of people and insects on the inside.

   Samarra remained a relatively insignificant town during the great ages of the ancient Mesopotamian empires. In the Muslim period, however, it gained sudden prominence, and in the ninth century a.d. it became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, which controlled the region from 750 to 1258. The newly expanded city featured a minaret (narrow tower usually accompanying a mosque and used for religious purposes) with a spiral ramp winding around it. Modern experts think this design was based on similar ramps encircling ancient Mesopotamian ziggu-rats. In any case, a number of medieval European painters used the Samarra minaret and its ramp as the inspiration for their renditions of the biblical Tower of Babel. The minaret still stands in Samarra, today one of the leading cities in Iraq.

   See also: Muslim period; pottery; Tower of Babel