Recent excavations in the ancient city of Borsippa, Iraq, have brought to light the foundations of a massive temple dedicated to the sky god Anu. Using ground-penetrating radar, the team located a massive mud-brick platform dating to the Seleucid period, which once supported a towering ziggurat-like structure. The site revealed a rare collection of cuneiform tablets describing astronomical observations made from the temple's summit.
The architectural layout suggests a blending of traditional Mesopotamian ziggurat design with newer Hellenistic proportions, indicating a period of cultural synthesis. Among the artifacts recovered are glazed clay tiles depicting celestial bodies and a bronze astrolabe fragment, reinforcing the temple's secondary purpose as a premier center for ancient astronomical study in the Near East.