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Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Situated along an east-west-trending limestone ridge between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, the town of Dur Kurigalzu was founded by the Kassite King Kurigalzu I in the late 15th or early 14th century BC. Today, the ruins contains among other a well-preserved ziggurat.
Dur-Kurigalzu was a city in southern Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Diyala rivers, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of the center of Baghdad. It was founded by a Kassite king of Babylon, Kurigalzu I and was abandoned after the fall of the Kassite dynasty. The city was of such importance that it appeared on toponym lists in the funerary temple of the Egyptian pharaoh, Amenophis III at Kom el-Hettan". The prefix Dur is an Akkadian term meaning "fortress of", while the Kassite royal name Kurigalzu is believed to have meant "shepherd of the Kassites". The tradition of naming new towns Dur dates back to the Old Babylonian period with an example being Dūr-Ammī-ditāna. The city contained a ziggurat and temples dedicated to Mesopotamian gods, as well as a royal palace which covered 420,000 square meters.
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جامع أم القرى
A mosque built to commemorate the "victory" in the 1991 Gulf War, the minarets are shaped like barrels of guns and SCUD missiles.
قصر الفاو
Also known as the Water Palace for its site beside the Tigris River. Used as a military base for US troops
الحضرة الكاظمية
One of the most important Shi'ite religious sites in Iraq. It was finished in 1515 and the 7th Musa ibn Jafar al-Kathim and the 9th Imams Mohammed Al-Jawad were buried there.
One of Baghdad's most prominent Sunni mosques, it surrounds the tomb of Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.
One of several tombs claiming to be the tomb of Joshua, the first High Priest at the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity around 500 BCE.
Historic mosque and shrine, dating back to the Abbasid era.