This document provides an overview of West Asiatic architecture from 3000 BC to 330 BC. It describes the key periods and influences, including the Early Sumerian period, Old Babylonian period, Assyrian period, and Persian period. The main influences were geographical, geological, climatic, historical and social factors. It then provides details on architectural developments and features in early Mesopotamian architecture from 5000-1300 BC, Assyrian architecture, and Neo-Babylonian architecture, highlighting important sites and structures from each period.

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