To get here, I"d been packed into the backseat of a taxi hurtling through the desert for hours, until I began to see the city"s famed monument looming in the distance: the Ziggurat of Ur, a 4,100-year-old massive, tiered shrine lined with giant staircases. A tall chain link fence barricading the entrance and a paved parking lot were the only hints of the modern world.