JAN ŽIŽKA OF TROCNOV. — First military leader of the Hussites, born c. 1353–58 at Trocnov (southern Bohemia), died of plague on 11 Oct. 1424 during the siege of the castle of Přibyslav.
Ž. came from minor Czech nobility, first serving in the troops of powerful local lords, then in the armies of the King of Poland and those of King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia. In 1419 he took part in the first Hussite uprisings at
ZIRC (Nova Clara Vallis). — Complex of abbey buildings (1913).
In the ruins of ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cities, ziggurats have been discovered in large numbers, since there was no important city in the land that did not have its tower, often rebuilt and altered in plan, height, number of steps or terraces, and in the form, direction, and length of the stairways or ramps leading to the summit.
Originally, in prehistoric times, the ziggurat consisted of a single high terrace or several terraces, piled one above the other without a fixed number; generally, the forms of ziggurats varied from city to city and from era to era, though not greatly, and finally the tower with seven stages, like the number of the planets, crowned by a small temple and approached by a staircase, became the typical ziggurat. Ziggurats have been found both in the prehistoric layers of the cities of southern Babylonia (Ur, Uruk, etc.) and in those of the Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian periods (Babylon, Barisippa, Aššūr, Kalhu, Dūr-Šarrukēn [Horsābād], Nineveh, etc.); the most famous was that of the temple of Marduk at Babylon, which bore the Sumerian name Etemenanki; its dimensions are known because they were recorded on a tablet written in the Neo-Babylonian period by a certain Anubēlšunu.
The purpose for which the ancient Mesopotamians built ziggurats and the precise religious significance of these structures remain unknown. Some scholars maintain that they were imitations, in the Mesopotamian plain, of the hills on whose summits the ancient Sumerians worshipped their deities when they still dwelt on the Iranian plateau before descending into Mesopotamia; others see them as royal burial places, like the pyramids of Egypt; still others regard them as places where the deities descended from heaven to earth, while others offer yet different interpretations of these temple towers.
Probably that of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon. Benjamin of Tudela and other travelers after him mistook the ziggurats of ‘Aqar Qūf (Dūr-Kurigalzu) or of Barsippa (Bīre Nimrūd) for the tower of Babel of the Old Testament.
Prague (v. CHUS) and soon became its military and political leader. Ž. followed the more radical current of the Hussites centered at Tábor (hence Taborites) in southern Bohemia, in opposition to the moderate Prague faction. The Taborites, largely peasants and artisans, proclaiming themselves “soldiers of God and of His law,” fought fanatically for the Hussite reform, and Ž. believed himself called by God to bring it to triumph by the sword and fire. Though completely blind from 1421, Ž. won great victories over the numerically superior armies of King Sigismund and his partisans. In addition to Ž.’s strategic genius, his particular military technique contributed to these successes: armored wagons equipped with bombards and carrying troops, which he maneuvered and deployed with great skill. In captured cities, Ž. put to the sword all who refused to adhere to the Hussite movement and destroyed all “worldly vanities,” i.e., works of art, libraries, archives, etc. Though he cared paternalistically for his soldiers and served the Hussite cause sincerely and selflessly, his sectarian fanaticism prevented him from deriving lasting advantages from his military successes, even for the political and national aims of the movement. Without Ž., the Hussite movement would likely not have moved beyond the realm of theological debate and ecclesiastical reform, nor degenerated into the long fratricidal wars that profoundly disrupted the religious, cultural, and political life of the Kingdom of Bohemia, causing immense material and moral damage.