University of Duhok

College of Engineering
Department of Architecture

History of Architecture I
Second Class
2010-2011

Architecture of Ancient Mesopotamia

Lecture 1

Assistant Lecturer:
Shermeen A. Yousif
M. Arch. Anhalt University, Germany
Architecture of Ancient Mesopotamia

The architecture of the Ancient Near East, ANE is considered under the
following headings:
• Early Mesopotamian (fifth to second millennia BC)
• The first Babylonian period ( 4000-1290 BC)
• Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian (1859-539 BC)
• Median and Persian (750-350 BC)
• Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian (312 BC-AD 641)

Architectural Character

• Materials: In the alluvial (‫ )طمي‬plains of the Tigris and Euphrates stone

and timber suitable for building were rare or unobtainable except by
importation. There was, however a plenty of clay which compressed in

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 moulds (forms) and either dried in the sun or baked-fired, provided
bricks for every kind of structure.
• Buildings: Besides massive, towered fortification, the outstanding
constructions were temple-complexes or palaces, temples being typical
of Babylonian architecture and palaces of Assyrian. Buildings were
raised on mud-brick platforms, and the chief temples had sacred
“Ziggurats”, artificial mountains made up of tiered, rectangular stages
which rose in number from one to seven in the course of
Mesopotamian history.
• Construction: Away from the fortifications and the Ziggurats, buildings
of all types were arranged around large and small courts, the rooms
narrow and thick-walled, carrying brick barrel vaults and sometimes
dome. The roofs were usually flat outside, except where domes
noticeable. Alternatively, in early or commonplace buildings, palm
wood supported reeds and packed clay served for coverings, or for the
best work, cedar (‫ )خشب االرز‬and other fine timber was imported.
Burnt brick was used sparingly for facings or where special stress was
expected. Walls were white washed or, as with the developed ziggurat,
painted in color.
• Elements of construction: Essentially, architecture was arcuated, the
true arch with radiating and having been known by 3000 BC. For want
of stone, columns were not used, except in a few examples in the late
Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian work. Towers or flat buttress strips were
commonly vertically paneled and finished in stepped battlements ( ‫سور‬
‫ )مع فتحات‬above and stone edges below, with winged bulls (ox)
guarding the chief portals.
Facing with polychrome glazed bricks, introduced by the Assyrians, was
another mode of decoration, especially favored by the Neo-Babylonians
instead of sculptured stone slabs, since in Babylonia stone was less than
in Assyria.

Examples

Early Mesopotamian Architecture

Eridu is the first significant example of the initial association of the

Mesopotamian tradition in architecture with that of the Sumerians. A

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succession of remains of temples has been excavated dating back probably
earlier than any yet known elsewhere in Sumer.

Temple 16, the earliest to be uncovered in its entirety, already reveals the
central feature of the typical Mesopotamian temple
temple:

1. The “Cella” or sanctuary

2. The altar with a central offering table
3. The Niche

The later temples in this sequence at Eridu are on a much larger scale, with
the emergence of the tripartite plan, having subsidiary rooms on either side
of the cella, this plan was to become standard. Here too was first manifested
the ornamentation of exterior by alternating niches and buttresses.
buttre
The exact orientation of a Mesopotamian temple was of great religious
significance from this time onward. The tendency for established sites led to
enduring continuity in the sites of temples, themselves the nucleus each of its
own city

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