HISTORY: Mesopotamian Architecture

Near Eastern Architecture
Sumeria Phoenicia Babylonia Elam Media Assyria
HISTARC 1
De la Salle College of St. Benilde

Tigris–Euphrates river system

Tigris–Euphrates river system
The Tigris and Euphrates, with
their tributaries, form a major
river system in Western Asia.

Euphrates river - Etymology
Ancient Greek Euphrátēs (Εὐφράτης)
Old Persian Ufrātu
Elamite ú-ip-ra-tu-iš
Sumerian Buranuna
Akkadian Purattu
Arabic al-Furrāt
Proto-Sumerian *burudu "copper"
an explanation that Euphrates was the river by which the copper ore was
transported in rafts

Mesopotamia was the center of copper
metallurgy during the period

Tigris river - Etymology
Ancient Greek Tigris (Τίγρις)
Old Persian Tigrā
Elamite Tigra
Sumerian Idigna
Akkadian Idiqlat
Hebrew Ḥîddeqel
Arabic Dijlah

The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek
root words μέσος (meso) "middle" and ποταμός (potamos) "river" and
literally means "(Land) between rivers“.

The Fertile Crescent
Earliest of all civilizations (although everyone knows it’s Indus Valley now) as
people formed permanent settlements
Mesopotamia is a Greek word that means “between the rivers”, specifically,
the area between the Tigris River and Euphrates River (present day Iraq)
Lasted for approximately 3000 years
Its peoples were the first to irrigate fields, devised a system of writing,
developed mathematics, invented the wheel and learned to work with
metal.

Widely considered to be one of the cradles of civilization by the
Western world, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the
Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all native to the territory
of modern-day Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-
Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires.

Mesopotamia’s popular kingdoms
chronologically
Middle Bronze Age
Early Babylonia
Late Bronze Age
Old Assyrian Period
Iron Age
Neo-Assyrian
Neo-Babylonian
Classical Antiquity
Persian-Babylonia (Achaemenid Dynasty)
Roman Mesopotamia
Late Antiquity
Muslim Conquest (Rashidun)

The Mesopotamians believed their kings and queens were descended
from the City of Gods, but, unlike the ancient Egyptians, they never
believed their kings were real gods.
Most kings named themselves “king of the universe” or “great king”.
Another common name was “shepherd”, as kings had to look after their
people.

Climactic Conditions
• Little rainfall
• Hot and dry climate
• windstorms leaving muddy river valleys in winter
• catastrophic flooding of the rivers
in spring
• Arid soil containing little minerals
• No stone or timber resources

Then why the hell live in Mesopotamia?
NATURAL LEVEES: embankments produced by build-up of sediment over
thousands of years of flooding

Natural Levee
• create a high and safe flood plain
• make irrigation and canal construction easy
• provide protection
• the surrounding swamps were full of fish & waterfowl
• reeds provided food for sheep / goats
• reeds also were used as building resources

Religion
Polytheistic religion consisting of over 3600 gods and demigods
Prominent Mesopotamian gods
• Enlil (supreme god & god of air)
• Ishtar (goddess of fertility & life)
• An (god of heaven)
• Enki (god of water & underworld)
• Shamash (god of sun and giver of law)

Religion
• Position of King was enhanced and supported by religion
• Kingship believed to be created by gods and the king’s power was divinely
ordained
• Belief that gods lived on the distant mountaintops
• Each god had control of certain things and each city was ruled by a
different god
• Kings and priests acted as interpreters as they told the people what the god
wanted them to do (ie. by examining the liver or lungs of a slain sheep)

Sumerians
• social, economic and intellectual basis
• Irrigated fields and produced 3 main
crops (barley, dates and sesame seeds)
• built canals, dikes, dams and drainage systems
• develop cuneiform writing
• invented the wheel
• Abundance of food led to steady increase of population (farm, towns, cities)
• first city of the world
• Developed a trade system with bartering: mainly barley but also wool and
cloth for stone, metals, timber, copper, pearls and ivory
• Individuals could only rent land from priests (who controlled land on behalf of
gods); most of profits of trade went to temple
• However, the Sumerians were not successful in uniting lower Mesopotamia

Akkadians
• Leader: Sargon the Great
• Sargon unified lower Mesopotamia (after conquering Sumerians in 2331
BCE)
• Established capital at Akkad
• Spread Mesopotamian culture
• However, short-lived dynasty as Akkadians were conquered by the invading
barbarians by 2200 BCE

Babylonians KING HAMMURABI’S BABLYON
• (6th Amorite king) who conquered Akkad and Assyria
(north and south)
• He build new walls to protect the city and new canals
and dikes to improve crops
• Economy based on agriculture and wool / cloth
• individuals could own land around cities
• Artisans and merchants could keep most profits and
even formed guilds / associations
• Grain used as the medium of exchange > emergence of
measurement of currency: shekel = 180 grains of barley;
mina = 60 shekels
• Mina was eventually represented by metals which was
one of first uses of money (but it was still based on
grain)
• Hammurabi’s Legacy: law code
• Babylonians reunited Mesopotamia in 1830
BCE
• central location dominated trade and
secured control
• YET AGAIN, Mesopotamia was not unified
for long…

Code of Hammurabi
• To enforce his rule, Hammurabi collected all the laws of Babylon in a code that
would apply everywhere in the land
• Most extensive law code from the ancient world (c. 1800 BCE)
• Code of 282 laws inscribed on a stone pillar placed in the public hall for all to
see
• Hammurabi Stone depicts Hammurabi as receiving his authority from god
Shamash
• Set of divinely inspired laws; as well as societal laws
• Punishments were designed to fit the crimes as people must be responsible for
own actions
• Hammurabi Code was an origin to the concept of “eye for an eye…” ie. If a
son struck his father, the son’s hand would be cut off
• Consequences for crimes depended on rank in society (ie. only fines for
nobility)

• 10th century BCE, Assyria emerged as dominant force in the north
• City of Assur- became important trading and political centre
• After Hammurabi’s death, Babylon fell apart and kings of Assur controlled
more of surrounding area and came to dominate
• Made conquered lands pay taxes (food, animals, metals or timber)
• Rule by fear as kings were first to have a permanent army made up of
professional soldiers (estimated 200 000 men)
• Made superior weapons of bronze and iron
• iron changed lifestyles in Mesopotamia in weapons and in daily life ie.
replaced wooden wheels and applied to horse drawn chariots
• Assyrian reunited Mesopotamia and
established the first true empire
• However, states began to revolt and ONCE
AGAIN, Assyrian Empire collapsed by late 7th
century BCE
• By 539 BCE, Mesopotamia part of the vast
Persian Empire (led by Cyrus the Great)
• Persian Empire dominated for 800 years until
Alexander the Great
Assyrians

Assyrian Soldier
The secret to its success was
a professionally trained
standing army, iron weapons,
advanced engineering skills,
effective tactics, and, most
importantly, a complete
ruthlessness which came to
characterize the Assyrians to
their neighbors and subjects
and still attaches itself to the
reputation of Assyria in the
modern day.

Interesting Facts!
• Mesopotamia, specifically Babylon used a mathematical system based
on sixty as all their numbers were expressed as parts of or multiples
of sixty
• Some parts of the ‘base-sixty’ system still remain today: 360 degrees
in a circle, 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in 1 hour
• Devised a calendar base on cycles of the moon (number of days
between the appearance of two new moons was set as a month; 12
cycles made up a year

Who was the best?
Sumer
• Closely tied to
environment
• Irrigation techniques
for farming
• wheel
• Trade- bartering
• Writing- cuneiform
• Religion tied to
government as
priests and kings
made decision for
gods
• ziggurats
Babylon
• Production of food
through farming
• Private ownership of
land vs ownership by
the gods
• Developed
mathematics and
calendar system and
system of units for
currency
• Hammurabi’s law
code
Assyria
 Kings conquered
lands to create
empire of Assyria
 Cooler climate could
produce crops with
little irrigation
 Deposits of ore
allowed for
development and use
of iron
 Assyrian army
became most
effective military
force

Legacies of Mesopotamia
Revolutionary innovations emerged in
Mesopotamia such as:
• codified laws
• ziggurats
• Cuneiform
• Irrigation
• Metal working, tools
• Trade
• transportation
• wheel
• Writing
• mathematics
• prosperous living based on large scale agriculture

“Architecture” of Mesopotamia

Ziggurats
Ziggurats were built by the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians,
and Assyrians for local religions.
According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of
these shrines have survived.
Great Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq

Ziggurat
One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the
priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and
occasionally flooded for hundreds of miles.
Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security.
Nabonidus

Ziggurat
Since the shrine was accessible only by way
of three stairways, a small number of guards
could prevent non-priests from spying on
the rituals at the shrine on top of the
ziggurat, such as initiation rituals such as
the Eleusinian mysteries, cooking of
sacrificial food and burning of carcasses of
sacrificial animals.
Granite “Stele” of Nabonidus

Ziggurat
Each ziggurat was part of a
temple complex that
included a courtyard,
storage rooms, bathrooms,
and living quarters, around
which a city was built.

Sumerian masonry was usually mortarless although
bitumen was sometimes used.
Brick styles, which varied greatly over time, are categorized by period;
Patzen 80×40×15 cm: Late Uruk period (3600–3200 BC)
Riemchen 16×16 cm: Late Uruk period (3600–3200 BC)
Plano-convex 10x19x34 cm: Early Dynastic Period (3100–2300 BC)

Urban Planning
The very first cities were
founded
in Mesopotamia after the
Neolithic Revolution, around
7500 BCE. Mesopotamian
cities included Eridu, Uruk,
and Ur. Early cities also arose
in the Indus Valley and
ancient China.

Uruk
The Sumerians were the first society to construct the city itself as a
built form.
They were proud of this achievement as attested in the Epic of
Gilgamesh which opens with a description of Uruk its walls, streets,
markets, temples, and gardens.
Uruk itself is significant as the center of an urban culture which both
colonized and urbanized western Asia.

Gilgamesh
• Gilgamesh is an ancient story or epic written in
Mesopotamia more than 4000 thousand years
ago
• Gilgamesh is the first known work of great
literature and epic poem
• Epic mentions a great flood
• Gilgamesh parallels the Nippur Tablet, a six-
columned tablet telling the story of the creation
of humans and animals, the cities and their
rulers, and the great flood
ANALYSIS
• Gilgamesh and the Nippur tablet both parallel
the story of Noah and the Ark (great flood) in the
Old Testament of the Jewish and Christian holy
books
• Modern science argues an increase in the sea
levels about 6,000 years ago (end of ice age)
• the melting ice drained to the oceans causing the
sea level to rise more than ten feet in one
century

Assyrian Architecture
Palaces – came with or without a ziggurat, “hypostyle hall”, monumental
entrances.

Palace of Nebuchanezzar II in Babylon

Building Types
• Palaces – “seraguo” (palace proper which includes the king’s
residences, statehalls, men’s apartments and reception, haram
(private chamber), khan (private chamber).

HISTORICAL CONDITION: The ancient architecture of West-Asiatic
developed FROM 3000 BC TO 330 BC. in the following period.
(a) Early Sumerian (3000—2000 BC)
(b)Old Babylonian (2016-1595 BC) ---NEO Babylonian (626-539 BC)
(c) Assyrian (1859—626 BC)
(d)Persian (750—330 BC)

SUMERIAN ARCHITECTURE
 The transition from prehistory was made around 4500 BC with the
rise of the Sumerian civilization.
 The major cities of the Sumerian civilization were Kish, Urukand,
Ur.

 The Sumerian were the first civilization to make a conscious
attempt of designing public buildings.
 Mud was their building material.
 Mud was formed into brick, sun dried and built into massive walls.
 Walls were thick to compensate the weakness of mud.
 They were reinforce with buttresses.

 Spaces were narrow because of the walling material
 Facade of buildings were white washed and painted to disguise the
lack of attraction of the material.
 Buttresses and recesses also relieve the monotony of the plastered
wall surfaces.
 Temples was their major building type.

 Cities were enclosed in walls with Ziggurat temples and palace as
centers of the city.
 Fabric of the city is made up of residences mixed with commercial
and industrial buildings.
 The houses were densely packed with narrow streets between
them.
 Streets were fronted by courtyard houses of one story high.

 The houses streets were usually punctuated by narrow openings
that serve as entrance to houses.
 Temples were the principal architectural monuments of Sumerian
cities.
 Temples consist of chief and city temples.

WHITE TEMPLE (URUK)
 Uruk was a major Sumerian city by 3300 BC.
 Uruk is also known as warka in Arabic.
 The white temple was built around 3000 BC.
 IT is an example of earliest development of
Sumerian temples and Ziggurat.
 The temple is place on a great mound of
earth called Ziggurat, rising more than 12
meters above ground.
 The ziggurat and temple are built with mud
bricks.
 The temple is rectangular in shape.

 Temple walls were thick and
supported by buttresses.
 In the inner part of the temple was a
long sanctuary, that contains an alter
and offering table.
 Rooms oblong and in shape and
vaulted surrounded the long side of
the sanctuary.
 The temple had imposing doorways
located at its either end.
 Worshippers enter to the temple
through a side room.

 Series of staircases and stepped levels lead worships to the
entrance of the temple.
 The temple was plastered white externally, making it visible for
miles in the landscape.

GREAT ZIGGURAT (UR)
 Ur was a Sumerian city located near the
mouth of the Euphrates river.
 It was constructed of mud bricks
reinforced with thin layers of matting
and cables of twisted reeds.
 The Great Ziggurat was located as part of
a temple complex.

 The king was the chief priest of the temple and lived close to
it.
 The temple sits on a three multi-tiered Ziggurat mountain.
 Access to the temple is through triple stairways that converge
at the summit of the first platform.
 From this stage, one passed through a portal with dome roof
to fourth staircase.

 The fourth staircase gave access to the second and third
stages of the ziggurat and to the temple.
 The temple is usually accessed only by the priest, where
gods are believed to come down and give instructions.
 The people believed that climbing the staircase of the
ziggurat gives a holy experience.
 The chief temple was also used as a last line of defense
during times of war.

 Most of what is known about what exist on top of the
ziggurat is projection

BABYLONIAN ARCHITECTURE
 After the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC and
the end of the Assyrian civilization, focus
of Mesopotamian civilization shifted to
old Babylon.
 A new dynasty of kings, including
Nebuchadnezzar, revived old Babylonian
culture to create a Neo-Babylonian
civilization.
 Old Sumerian cities were rebuilt.
 The capital old Babylon was enlarged
and heavily fortified.

 The capital old Babylon was enlarged and heavily fortified and
magnificent new buildings were built.
 The traditional style of Mesopotamian building reached its peak
during the period.
 Traditional building was enhanced by a new form of facade
ornament consisting of figures designed in colored glazed brick
work.
City of Babylon:
 The city of Babylon is shaped in the form of a quadrangle sitting
across and pierced by the Euphrates.

 The city was surrounded by a fortification
of double walls.
 These had defensive towers that project
well above the walls.
 The walls also had a large moat in front,
which was also used for navigation .
 The length of the wall and moat is about
five and a quarter miles.
 The city had a palace located on its
northern side on the outer wall.

ISHTAR GATE
 From the palace originated a procession
street that cuts through the city raised
above the ground to the tower of Babel.
 The procession street enters the city
through the famous Ishtar gate.
 The Ishtar gate is built across the double
walls of the city fortification.
 The gate had a pair of projecting towers
on each wall.

 All the facades of gates and adjoining
streets were faced with blue glazed bricks
and ornamented with figures of heraldic
animals-lions, bulls, and dragons.
 These were modelled in relief and glazed
in other colors.
 None of the buildings of old Babylon has
survived to the present age.

Architecture in the city of Babylon:
 Nebuchadnezzar’s palace covered a land
area of 900 feet by 600 feet.
 It had administrative offices, barracks, the
king’s harem, private apartment all arranged
around five courtyards.
 The palace is also praised for its legendary
hanging garden.

 This is recorded as one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world, but exact
knowledge of the nature of this garden is
not known.
 Temples and towers were also prominent
architectural elements of Babylon.
 The legendary tower of Babel located at
the end of procession street is mentioned
in the Christian bible.

ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE
 The principal cities of Assyria were Nineveh,
Dun, Khorsabad, Nimrudand Assur.
 The Assyrians were great warriors and
hunters, and this was reflected in their art.
 They produced violent sculptures and relief
carving in stone that was used to ornament
their houses.
 During the Assyrian periods, temples lost
their importance to palaces.

 Palaces were raised on brick platforms, and their principal entrance
ways were flanked by guardian figures of human headed bulls or
lions of stone.
 Their halls and corridors were lined with pictures and inscriptions
carved in relief on stone slabs up to 9 feet high.
 The interiors were richly decorated and luxurious.
 The walls of cities were usually strengthened by many towers
serving as defensive positions.

PALACE OF SARGON:
 The palace is approached at ground level
through a walled citadel.
 Within the citadel is found the main palace,
two minor palaces and a temple dedicated
to Nabu.
 The main palace was set on a platform
located on the northern side of the citadel.
 All the buildings within the citadel were
arranged around courtyards.

 The palace was arranged around two
major courtyards about which were
grouped smaller courtyards.
 The palace consisted of large and
smaller rooms with the throne room
being the largest.
 The building was decorated with relief
sculpture and glazed brick.

PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE
 Their architectural solutions were a synthesis of ideas gathered
from almost all parts of their empire and from the Greeks and
Egyptians.
 Their materials of construction was also from different locations.
 Material included mud-brick from Babylon, wooden roof beams
from Lebanon, precious material from India and Egypt, Stone
columns quarried and carved by Ionic Greeks.
 Despite sourcing materials and ideas from different areas, their
architecture was original and distinctive in style.

PALACE OF PERSEPOLIS:
 Persian architecture achieved its greatest
monumentality at Persepolis AND WAS
constructed as a new capital for the Persian
Empire.
 It is set along the face of a mountain levelled
to create a large platform 1800 feet by 900
feet.
 It was surrounded by a fortification wall.
 The site was more than half covered by
buildings
 The palace consisted of three parts:
1) An approach of monumental staircases, gate
ways and avenues.

2) Two great state halls towards the center of
the platform.
3) The palace of Xerxes, the harem, and other
living quarters at the south end of the site.
 Structurally, the buildings relied on a
hypostyle scheme throughout.
 Some of the spaces were very big and
generally square in plan.
 The spaces were enclosed by mud brick
walls.
 The most impressive aspect of the palace
was the royal audience hall.

 The Royal audience hall was a square 250 feet in length.
 It contained 36 slender columns widely space & 67 feet high.
 The columns had a lower diameter of only 5 feet.
 The centers of the columns were spaced 20 feet or 4 diameters
apart.
 The column was the greatest invention of the Persians.
 The columns were fluted and stand on inverted bell shaped bases.

 Their capital combine Greek motifs with
Egyptian palm leaf topped by an impost of
paired beast.
 Another famous aspect of the palace at
Parsepolis was the throne room.
 This was also known as hall of a 100 columns.
 The columns in the room were 37 feet high,
with a diameter of only 3 feet.
 They were spaced 20 feet apart or seven
diameters from axis to axis.
 The slim nature of the column created room
and spacious feeling in the room when
compared to the audience hall.

 The monumental entrance to Parsepolis is
also one of the unique aspects of the
Palace.
 The monumental gateway ensure a
dramatic entry to the Palace.
 It was heavily adorned with relief sculpture
ornamenting its stairway.
 The relief structure addresses different
themes relating to the role of Parsepolis as
the capital of the Persian Empire.
 In some places, the sculpture shows
delegates from the different parts of the
Persian bringing gifts and rare animals to
the king during celebrations.

 In some palaces, royal guards and nobles of the
imperial court are shown.
 Elsewhere, the king is seen in conflict with
animals or seated beneath a ceremonial
umbrella.
 Some columns supporting the halls of the great
halls have survived.
 The mud brick fabric of the palace and its
enclosing walls have perished completely.
 Only the sculptures which adorn doorways or
windows and openings and the relief
ornamenting its entrance way remain.

HISTORY: Mesopotamian Architecture

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