west asiatic architecture

1. WEST ASIATIC
 EARLY SUMERIAN PERIOD ( 3000 – 2000 B.C. )
 OLD BABYLONIAN ( 2016-1595 B.C. ) - NEO BABYLONIAL (626- 539 B.C.)
 ASSYRIAN PERIOD (1859-626 B.C.)
 PERSIAN PERIOD (750-330 B.C.)

2. Influences Geographical
 Arabian peninsula – desert
 Syria to Persian Gulf – fertile alluvial land (fertile
cresent)
 Anatolia
 Fertile plains of the twin rivers – Mesopotamia (mesos =
middle +potamos = river)
 Lacks natural defensive boundaries
 Check flooding and irrigation – canals and ditches
 Syria
 Lacks natural defensive boundaries
 Geological
 Mesopotamia
 Alluvial
 Bricks – sun dried or kiln-fired (for facing)
 Glazed with different colors for decoration
 Bricks sometimes laid in lime mortar, more often in bitumen
 Chopped straw mixed with clay
 Timber mostly imported
 Stone and metals were also lacking
 Anatolia
 Stone and timber were available
 Metals available but exploited by merchants
 Climatic
 Extremes of temperature

3.  Historical, social, religious
 Mesopotamia
 Mainspring of growth of cities – temples
 Religion dominated thoughts and their daily life
 zigurrats
 Settled communities – 9000BC
 First buildings appeared
 Scale of society was small
 Lived in groups of 3/4 households
 No difference in wealth or status
 Permanent agricultural villages – 7500-6000BC
 Villages with population in hundreds
 Mud-brick
 Mostly self sufficient villages but lack of public architecture due to lack of centralized policy
 Formative period – 6000-3500BC
 Beginnings of small independent settlements (city-states) ruled by councils and assemblies
 Population increased steadily due to increased agricultural activities, trade prospered
 Physical environment and political security - villages spread over long distances and loosely
connected
 By 4500BC Public architecture and cities emerged (diversion of resources towards public
architecture)
 Dense walled cities located on watercourses and were at least 10 hectares in extent

4. Materials
 Clay was abundant in the alluvial plains of Tigris and Euphrates
 Stone and timber were scarce
 Clay was compressed in moulds and either dried in Sun or kiln-fired
 Bitumen used for lining drains and mud-brick walls due to waterproofing nature
 Provided bricks for every kind of structure
Buildings
 Buildings were raised on mud-brick platforms - Temples (Babylon) and palaces
(Assyria)
 Main temples had sacred ‘ziggurats’
 All other buildings arranged around large and small courts
 Roofs were usually vaulted or flat except where domes protruded
 Walls were whitewashed and as in the later period ziggurats, painted in colour

5. Construction
 Massive thick walls – rooms narrow compared to their
length- due to brick vaults in mesopotamia.
 Stones scarce, usually columns not used
 Huge winged bulls guarding the chief portals
 In palaces, the dadoes of state courts and chambers
bore low-relief carving
 The walls above them being painted internally with
bands of continuous friezes on thin plaster base
 Assyrians introduced glazed brick facing. Babylonians
continued this practice as in Babylon stone was scarce.
 Persian architecture
 Columnar
 Flat timber roofs (with clay and reed on the top) on
wooden brackets and beams - allowed columns to
be slender with larger rooms
 Rooms more square in proportion
 Stone was plentiful but used sparingly - temples and
palace platforms, door and window surrounds,
columns and relief sculptures

6. EARLY
MESOPOTAMIAN
5000-1300BC

7. Eridu, 5400BC
Oldest known settlement in
southern Mesopotamia
 A ‘cella’ or sanctuary with an alter in
a niche and a central offering table
 Later became larger in scale having
rooms on either sides of the cella
 A flight of stair led to a door on the
long side
 Ladders in smaller rooms
occasionally gave access to upper
floors / roofs
 Exterior embellished by alternating
niches and buttresses
 Later temples had friezes decorated
with coloured ceramic cones and
bitumen

8. Warka, 5000-2340BC-largestsumerian
city.
Perimeter of about 9kms
About 1/3rd
of it was occupied by temples and
other public buildings
2 major areas of the city with important
buildings were Eanna (mother goddess) and
Anu (Sky God)
Eanna complex
 Contained impressive grouping of temples larger
than any previously built
 Cones of baked clay were set in mud plaster over
many of the wall faces forming a distinctive
decoration (suggesting palm trunk)
 Pillar temple
 Stood on a platform
 Included 2 rows of massive columns (2.6m dia)
 Crude construction – bricks laid radially to
form an approximate circular column
 Oldest surviving evidence of free-standing
columns
Anu complex
 Not ziggurut at all

10. The White Temple (Anu complex)
 Purpose
 Re-creation of a sacred mountain in flat
alluvial soil
 Remind importance of a temple
 The temple platform, 13m high, has
sloping sides with flat buttresses
 A second square of similar size
overlapping on the northern side at the
same level
 Long flight of easy steps and ramp from
mid-landing
 End-to-end hall – 4.5m wide flanked on
both sides by a series of rooms, 3 of which
contain stairways leading to the roof
 4 entrances, main one placed
asymmetrically on one long side giving a
bent-axis approach to the sanctuary (later
entrance at one end giving straight
approach to the alter)
 An alter platform 1.2m high on the
northern corner of the hall
 Nearby brick offering table adjoined by
low semicircular hearth
 Shallow buttresses – principle decoration
of hall and external walls

12. Ziggurat and Precinct of Ur
 Stood on a great rectangular platform
at the heart of an oval shaped walled
city
 The ziggurat 62x43m in base about
21m in height
 Carried the usual temple on its
summit
 Has a solid core of mud-brick
 Covered with burnt brickwork 2.4m
thick laid in bitumen and layers of
matting at intervals to improve
cohesion
 Sides slightly convex giving an added
effect of mass with broad shallow
corner buttresses
 Weep holes through brickwork
allowed drainage and slow drying out
of the interior
 Close to the ziggurat, was a building
with corbel-vaulted roof using kiln-
fired brick and approached down
long flight of steps
 This is usually described as
mausoleum of the kings but there
were no proof that they were buried
here

14. ASSYRIAN

15.  Ornamental brickwork
 Use of brick barrel vaulting
 Use of high plinths and dadoes of great
stone slabs placed on edge unusually
carved with relief sculptures
 Temples with both with and without
ziggurats were built
 But by 911-612BC, palaces were much
more numerous and important
emphasizing the central role of monarchy

16.  The city of Nimrud, 883-859BC
 Citadel had an area of
550mx320m
 Perimeter of town about 7.5km
enclosing an area of 358 hectares
 The N-W palace
 Chief residence of the king
 Has a large public court with a
ziggurat and associated temples
on the north
 A row of rooms later used for
administrative record purposes
on the north
 On the south side a huge throne
room and private wing of the
palace
 Became the traditional plan for
Assyrian palaces
 For the first time slabs adorned
with scenes of war and domestic
scenes
COURT
ADMIN
PVT WING

18. NEO-BABYLONIAN

19.  City of Babylon, 605-563BC
 It had and inner and outer part each heavily
fortified
 Inner town approximately square in plan
(1300m) containing principal buildings and
Euphrates river on the west
 Few main streets intersect at right angles
terminating at tower-framed bronze gates
 In between the main streets dwellings,
business houses, palaces, temples are housed.
 a grand processional way terminating in Ishar
Gate on the north
 Ishar gate
 Coloured glazed bricks
 Patterned with yellow and while bulls and
dragons against a blue background
 Palace complex
 Vast throne room 52x17m, its long façade
decorated with glazed bricks
 Hanging Gardens (275x183m) connected to
palace
 Temple of Marduk
 Chief temple located centrally site on the river
 Ziggurat – the Tower of Babel
 Triple stairway approach and massive lower tier
like in Mesopotamia
 Upper stages arranged spirally as in Aassyria
 Square plan, 90m sides
 7-tiers, summit with blue glazed bricks