HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE

HISTORY
• Started as villages on the flat land between Tigris and Euphrates rivers - “Mesopotamia”
• Turned into city-states with populations of thousands
• Each city-state surrounded by a wall and dominated by a large temple
• Society of kings, craftsmen, soldiers, farmers, priests
• Fought and traded with each other
• Sometimes would conquer each other and form an empire

Mesopotamian
• City-states of Ur, Babylon, Agade, Ashur and Damascus
• 2334 BC, King Sargon of Agade formed the first major empire
• 1792 BC, next by King Hammurabi
• Instituted laws to keep order
• Invention of writing - pictograms or cuneiform records on clay tablets
Assyrian
• Based in Ashur, biggest empire under King Ashurbanipal – conquered Mesopotamia, Syria,
Palestine and Egypt
Persian
• Begun by Cyrus the Great from 559 to 529 BC
• Covered Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Eastern Mediterranean, Bactria, Indus Valley and North Africa
• Darius I had provinces ruled by a satrap, who guarded the roads, collected taxes and controlled
the army
• Local peoples were allowed to keep their religions and customs
• Capital moved from Susa to Persepolis
• Network of roads linking the royal court to other parts of the empire – from Susa in Persia to
Sardis in Anatolia
• Traded raw materials, carpets and spices
• Darius and Xerxes tried to conquer Greece
• Ended with the defeat of Darius III to Alexander the Great of Macedonia

RELIGION
• Each city-state worshipped their own god for protection
• People aimed to make peace with their wrathful god
GEOGRAPHY and GEOLOGY
Fertile Crescent:
• Marshlands with few natural advantages aside from water and soil
• Import materials like hardwood and metals
Also:
• Deserts of the Arabian Peninsula
• Mountains and plateau from west to east

MATERIALS
• Only materials readily available was clay, soil, reeds, rushes
• Bricks made of mud and chopped straw, sun-dried or kiln-fired
• Timber, copper, tin, lead gold, silver imported

DECORATION
• Colossal winged-bulls guarding chief portals
• Polychrome glazed bricks in blue, white, yellow, green
• Murals of decorative continuous stone

MESOPOTAMIA

The Tigris and Euphrates, with their tributaries, form a major

river system in Western Asia.

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 as people formed permanent settlements

The rivers flood every year and leave behind a thick bed of silt
It is termed as the Fertile Crescent – dense network of cities and villages, grain- bearing valleys

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)

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)

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 did they choose to live in Mesopotamia?

NATURAL LEVEES - embankments produced by build-up of sediment over thousands of years of flooding

• 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

Due to the fertile soil in Mesopotamia, farming was very successful. In fact, people were able to grow a
surplus of food. This meant that some people could stop farming and begin doing other things
As cities began to develop, people began to worry about others who might come and invade their city.
They wanted to protect themselves from enemies, so people in Mesopotamia built walls around their
cities.
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

• Babylonians reunited Mesopotamia in 1830 BCE

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
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)
Assyrians
• 10th century BCE, Assyria emerged as dominant force in the north
• City of Assur- became important trading and political center
• 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 7 th 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

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.

Legacies of Mesopotamia
Sumer
• Closely tied to environment
• Irrigation techniques for farming
• wheel
• Trade- bartering
• Religion tied to government as priests and kings made decision for gods
• ziggurats
 Writing - A system of writing develops. The earliest form of writing dates back to 3300 B.C.
People back then would draw "word-pictures" on clay tablets using a pointed instrument
called a stylus. These "word-pictures" then developed into wedge-shaped signs. This type of
 script was called cuneiform (from the Latin word cuneus which means wedge).

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
“Architecture” of Mesopotamia
Ancient Mesopotamian Houses(3500BCE)
• Basic building material – Mud and Timber
• Mud was mixed with reeds and laid in horizontal
courses to make wall
• Houses had rectilinear rooms – Each side measuring 1.5
to 2m.
• Interior wall surfaces were decorated with gypsum
plaster
• Rock Gypsum was found in northern Iraq and Syria –
Used locally and also exported as a trade commodity

“Tower of Babylon”

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

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.
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.
Ur
 The city of Ur was oval in shape, with
Euphrates flowing along its side
• Partly planned, partly organic
• Harbors on north and west sides – Temple
complex was between them and formed the
focal point in the city
• The sacred complex had a rectilinear
layout and was in the north- west to catch
the breeze
• Surrounding walls to protect and impress
• The city was surrounded by cultivated
fields and villages outside the walls
• Gates to enter within the city walls were
had huge towers and decoration
 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
• The Ziggurat was a free standing structure
• Base – 100m X 65m; Height – 21m
• 3 terraces with the sacred shrine on the highest one
• Main lines were built with slight curves to correct optical illusion
• Mud bricks reinforced with reeds
Materials:
• Earth plaster used to seal and finish exterior and interior spaces of common residences
• Lime plaster used to seal and finish exterior and interior spaces of wealthy residences, places, and
temples
• A type of terrazzo used as flooring (Burnt lime + clay + natural color pigment)
• Terracotta panels used for decoration
• Bitumen used to seal plumbing
Residential Quarters of Ur – Domestic Architecture

• Hierarchy of Streets - Main wide boulevards ; narrow, twisting

alleys
• Streets varied from narrow lanes to 2-3 m wide
• Streets were used as passageways and also to dump garbage
• Houses were built of sun-baked mud bricks
• Windows were rare
• Accumulation of garbage led to an increase in the elevation of
the street – door threshold had to be raised
• Roofs were made of mud layered on mats which were placed
on wooden rafters
• The processional road leading to the sacred temple precinct
was the only planned passageway
• House quality depended upon the wealth of the occupant
• Houses had rooms organized around small courtyards
• Better houses – baked brick foundation walls
• The principal room was opposite to the entrance - used for
meals and reception
The houses were, for the most part, one storey structures of mud-brick, with several rooms wrapped
around a central
court. There were usually no outside windows, no attempt to contribute to a street architecture.
The wealthier classes of Ur lived in ample hoses of dozen or so rooms, arranged on two storeys, and
whitewashed inside and out.

Assyrian Architecture
Palaces – came with or without a ziggurat, “hypostyle hall”, monumental entrances.
 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 façade 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.
 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.
 The principal cities of Assyria were Nineveh, Dun,
Khorsabad, Nimrud and 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

Palace Platform at Persepolis

 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.

DWELLINGS
 Known as Megaron
Entrance at end rather than on the long sides
 Portico - colonnaded space forming an entrance or vestibule, with a roof supported on one side
by columns
Suited to climate of Anatolian plateau

DECORATION
 Colossal winged-bulls guarding chief portals
 Polychrome glazed bricks in blue, white, yellow, green
 Murals of decorative continuous stone