Time line starting 5000 BC until A.D

Mesopotamia empire

Architecture of Mesopotamia

A reconstructed Sumerian ziggurat in Bablyon

The architecture of Mesopotamia is the ancient architecture of the region of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, encompassing several distinct cultures and spanning a period from roughly the 23rd to 6th centuries BC.

The region known to modern historians as Mesopotamia (Land of the Rivers) largely corresponds to modern-day

Iraq, Northeastern Syria, Southeastern Turkey and Southwestern Iran.

The Bronze Age cultures that produced Mesopotamian architecture were the

Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires

Among the Sumerian architectural accomplishments are the development of

urban planning, the courtyard house, and Ziggurat step pyramids.

No architectural profession existed in Sumer; however, scribes drafted and managed construction for the government, nobility, or royalty. The Sumerians regarded 'the craft of building' as a divine gift taught to men by the gods.

Contents 1 Regional history 2 Building materials 3 Urban planning 4 Houses 5 The Palace 6 Temples

o 6.1 Ziggurats 7 Design of Assyrian buildings, fortifications and temples 8 Commercial architecture 9 Landscape architecture

Regional historyThe indigenous Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians & Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC and after his death it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthians. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia (particularly Assyria) coming under periodic Roman control. In 226 AD, it fell to the Sassanid Persians, and remained under Persian rule until the 7th century Arab Islamic conquest of the Sassanid Empire.

Building materialsThe story of Mesopotamian architecture begins in Sumeria, and is overwhelmingly one of clay masonry and of increasingly complex forms of stacked mudbrick.

Adobe-brick was preferred because of its superior thermal properties and lower manufacturing costs.

Red brick was used in small applications involving water, decoration, and monumental construction.

A late innovation was glazed vitreous brick. Sumerian masonry was usually mortarless. Brick styles, which varied greatly over time, are categorized by period.

Cities are elevated above the surrounding plain. The hills are known as tells, and are found throughout the ancient Near East.

Babylonian temples are massive structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains.

One such drain at Ur was made of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, and of frescoes and enamelled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with zinc or gold, as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones for torches were also embedded in the plaster.

Babylonia was the original home of copper-working.

The forms of Assyrian pottery are graceful; the porcelain, like the glass discovered in the palaces of Nineveh, was derived from Egyptian models. Transparent glass seems to have been first introduced in the reign of Sargon. Stone, clay and glass were used to make vases, and vases of hard stone have been dug up at Girsu similar to those of the early dynastic period of Egypt.

Urban planningThe Sumerians were the first society to create the city itself as a built form.

The growth of the city was partly planned and partly organic.

Planning is evident in the walls, high temple district, main canal with harbor, and main street.

The finer structure of residential and commercial spaces is the reaction of economic forces to the spatial limits imposed by the planned areas resulting in an irregular design with regular features. Because the Sumerians recorded real estate transactions it is possible to reconstruct much of the urban growth pattern, density and property value.

The typical city divided space into

residential, mixed use, commercial, and civic spaces.

The residential areas were grouped by profession. At the core of the city was a high temple complex always sited slightly off of the geographical center. This high temple usually predated the founding of the city and was the nucleus around which the urban form grew. The districts adjacent to gates had a special religious and economic function.

The city always included a belt of irrigated agricultural land including small hamlets. A network of roads and canals connected the city to this land. The transportation network was organized in three tiers:

wide processional streets public through streets and private blind alleys

The public streets that defined a block varied little over time while the blind-alleys were much more fluid. The current estimate is 10% of the city area was streets and 90% buildings. The canals; however, were more important than roads for transportation.

Houses

The materials used to build a Mesopotamian house were the same as those used today:

mud brick, mud plaster and wooden doors,

Which were all naturally available around the city.

Most houses had a square center room with other rooms attached to it, but a great variation in the size and materials used to build the houses.

The houses were built by the inhabitants themselves.

Residential design was a direct development from Ubaid houses.

Courtyard house was the predominant typology, which has been used in Mesopotamia to the present day.

This house faced inward toward an open courtyard which provided a cooling effect by creating convection currents.

This courtyard called tarbaṣu (Akkadian) was the primary organizing feature of the house, all the rooms opened into it.

The external walls were featureless with only a single opening connecting the house to the street.

Movement between the house and street required a 90° turn through a small antechamber.

From the street only the rear wall of the antechamber would be visible through an open door, likewise there was no view of the street from the courtyard.

The Sumerians had a strict division of public and private spaces. The typical size for a Sumerian house was 90 m2.

The PalaceThe palace came into existence during the Early Dynastic I period. From a rather modest beginning the palace grows in size and complexity as power is increasingly centralized.

The palace is called a 'Big House'.

The palaces of the early Mesopotamian elites were

large-scale complexes, and lavishly decorated.

Earliest known examples are from the Diyala River valley sites such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar.

These third millennium BC palaces functioned as

a large-scale socio-economic institutions, and therefore, along with residential and private function, they housed craftsmen workshops, food storehouses, ceremonial courtyards, and are often associated with shrines.

For instance, the so-called "giparu" (or Gig-Par-Ku in Sumerian) at Ur where the Moon god Nanna's priestesses resided was a major complex with multiple courtyards, a number of sanctuaries, burial chambers for dead priestesses, and a ceremonial banquet hall.

Gates and important passageways were flanked with massive stone sculptures of apotropaic mythological figures.

The architectural arrangement of these Iron Age palaces were also organized

around large and small courtyards. Usually the king's throne room opened to a massive ceremonial courtyard

where important state councils met and state ceremonies were performed.

TemplesSumerian temples, fortifications, and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, and half columns.

The form of a Sumerian temple is manifestation of Near Eastern cosmology, which described the world as a disc of land which was surrounded by a salt water ocean, both of which floated on another sea of fresh water called apsu.

The role of the temple was to act as that axis mundi, a meeting place between gods and men.

The plan of the temple was rectangular with the corners pointing in cardinal directions to symbolize the four rivers which flow from the mountain to the four world regions.

The orientation also serves a more practical purpose of using the temple roof as an observatory for Sumerian timekeeping.

The temple was built on a low terrace of rammed earth meant to represent the sacred mound of primordial land which emerged from the water called dukug, 'pure mound' during creation.

The doors of the long axis were the entry point for the gods, and the doors of the short axis the entry point for men. This configuration was called the bent axis approach, as anyone entering would make a ninety degree turn to face the cult statue at the end of the central hall. The bent axis approach is an innovation from the Ubaid temples which had a linear axis approach, and is also a feature of Sumerian houses. An offering table was located in the center of the temple at the intersection of the axes.

Temples of the Uruk Period divided the temple rectangle into tripartite, T-shaped, or combined plans The tripartite plan inherited from the Ubaid had a large central hall with

two smaller flanking halls on either side. The entry was along the short axis and the shrine was at the end of the long axis. The T-shaped plan, also from the Ubaid period, was identical to the tripartite plan except for a hall at one end of the rectangle perpendicular to the main hall.

The high temple was a special type of temple that was home to the patron god of the city. Functionally, it served as a storage and distribution center as well as housing the priesthood. The White Temple of Anu in Uruk is typical of a high temple which was built very high on a platform of adobe-brick. In the Early Dynastic period high temples began to include a ziggurat, a series of platforms creating a stepped pyramid. Such ziggurats may have been the inspiration for the Biblical Tower of Babel.

Ziggurats

A suggested reconstruction of the appearance of a Sumerian ziggurat

Ziggurats were huge pyramidal temple towers built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.

There are 32 ziggurats known at, or near, Mesopotamia—28 in Iraq and 4 in Iran.

Notable ziggurats include

Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, Iraq, Ziggurat of AqarQuf near Baghdad, Iraq, ChoghaZanbil in Khūzestān, Iran and Sialk near Kashan, Iran.

Ziggurats were built by

Sumerians , Babylonians , Elamites , and Assyrians as monuments to local religions.

The earliest examples of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period during the fourth millennium BC, and the latest date from the 6th century BC.

The top of the ziggurat was flat, unlike many pyramids. The step pyramid style began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period.

Ziggurat was a pyramidal structure, built in receding tiers upon a

rectangular, oval, or square platform,

Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside.

The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance.

Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks.

The number of tiers ranged from two to seven, with a shrine or temple at the summit.

Access to the shrine was provided by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit.

It has been suggested that ziggurats were built to resemble mountains.

Classical ziggurats emerged in the Neo-Sumerian Period with articulated buttresses.

The Ziggurat of Ur is the best example of this style. Another change in temple design in this period was a straight as opposed to bent-axis approach to the temple.

The most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are the temple complexes at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples and palaces from

Early Dynastic period sites in the Diyala River valley such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar,

Third Dynasty of Ur remains at Nippur (Sanctuary of Enlil) and Ur (Sanctuary of Nanna),

Middle Bronze Age remains at Syrian-Turkish sites of Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Aleppo and Kultepe, Late Bronze Age palaces at Bogazkoy (Hattusha), Ugarit, Ashur and Nuzi,

Iron Age palaces and temples at Assyrian (Kalhu/Nimrud, Khorsabad, Nineveh), Babylonian (Babylon), Urartian (Tushpa/Van Kalesi, Cavustepe, Ayanis, Armavir, Erebuni, Bastam) and Neo-Hittite sites (Karkamis, Tell Halaf, Karatepe).

The Sumerians also developed the arch, which enabled them to develop a strong type of roof called a dome. They built this by constructing several arches.

Sumerian temples and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and clay nails.

Landscape architectureOpen space planning was a part of the city from the earliest times.

Uruk has one third of that city set aside for orchards.

Similar planned open space is found at the one fifth enclosure of Nippur.

Another important landscape element was the vacant lot (Akkadian: kišubbû) which was used alternatively for agriculture and waste disposal.

External to the city, Sumerian irrigation agriculture created some of the first garden forms in history. The garden was 144 square cubits with a perimeter canal. This form of the enclosed quadrangle was the basis for the later paradise gardens of Persia.

In Mesopotamia, the use of fountains date as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. An early example is preserved in a carved Babylonian basin, dating back to circa 3000 B.C., found at Girsu, Lagash. An ancient Assyrian fountain "discovered in the gorge of the Comel River consists of basins cut in solid rock and descending in steps to the stream." The water was led from small conduits.

The city Babylon

In this painting of Babylon, the artist has recreated the view of the eastern portion of the city as it is thought to have looked during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (ca. 604-562 B.C.).

In the foreground is the Euphrates River, which ran through the center of the city.

Next to the Euphrates is the sacred temple complex of the god Marduk (the "Esagila") including the ziggurat, a stepped tower, which probably gave rise to the famed Biblical account of the Tower of Babel.

Beyond the Esagila lies the rest of the eastern section of Babylon and its defensive walls.

Beyond the walls are the open cultivated fields of the Mesopotamian plains. The city of Babylon (ca. 600 B.C.) was considered a marvel of the ancient world, with a population of 200,000, and system of defensive walls that ringed the city for ten miles.

For the ancient Mesopotamians, their cities were the centers of life. When they looked back to the beginning of time, they did not see a Garden of Eden, but rather an ancient site called Eridu, which they believed was the first city ever to be created.

Ancient Mesopotamia is where the world's first cities appeared around 4000 - 3500 B.C.

No one knows for sure why urbanization began in Mesopotamia.

The development of cities could have occurred due to environmental conditions. Lack of rainfall might have been the inspiration for people to organize themselves in a common effort to build canals for the irrigation of farmland.

Another reason may have been the need for protection on the open plain, which could have led people to gather together to create walled enclaves. Whatever the reasons, this was the first time in history that humankind channeled its energies towards addressing the needs of a community as a whole.