Ziggurat of Agar Quf, Dur-Kurigalzu, Iraq, 1977. Ziggurats were temple towers of terraced pyramid form built by the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. The example at Dur-Kurigalzu was built by the Kassites, who ruled Babylon from the 16th to the 12th century BC. The lower level was restored by the Iraqi government in the 1970s.