ARTH Watkin

what is Mesopotamia also called?

“the land between rivers”

Tigris and Euphrates

Sumerian civilization of Mesopotamia

·       Excavations began in the mid-nineteenth century

·       Growing mastery of irrigation led to surpluses of grain

·       Enabled the cultivation of a variety of lifestyles

Mesopotamia architecture

·       Mud-brick temples, including elevations with alternating buttresses and recesses

·       Giant ziggurats and palatial temples

·       Sumer, Babylon and Assyria

·       Gods were believed to own the cities = essential to protect and house them with strength and security

Uruk architecture (the biblical Erech; today Warka)

·       During fourth millennium BC one third of area was given to temples and public buildings

·       Groups of temples were connected by portico of two rows of massive circular columns of mud brick

·       Mud brick

·       The first free-standing columns known

·       Decorated with terracotta cones (about 4 inches long, colored; red, buff and black, and placed in geometrical patterns

The white temple (of Uruk)

·       Stands on top of high platform with high sloping sides

·       Perhaps the origin of the ziggurat or temple-tower

Ziggurat at Ur

·       Mud brick

·       Has a facing of burnt brickwork and dramatic ramped staircases

·       Roughly 59 feet (18m)

Ur

·       Walled city with two enclosed harbours to accommodate shipping from Euphrates

·       Principal public buildings, temples, and palaces were enclosed in an inner fortification where stood the great ziggurat

·       This was all part of a wealthy urban culture based on trade and agriculture

·       Key inventions

·       Writing on clay tablets in c.3200BC

·       Monumental architecture

·       Sculpture

·       Origin of the city state

Assyrian (Royal city of Khorsabad in northern Iraq)

·       Built by Sargon || (reigned 721-705BC)

·       Square-planned city with towered walls, covering nearly a square mile

·       First Assyrian excavations began in 1843 here

·       Site contained a palace for the kings brother, the grand vizier; a temple to Nabu, god of writing and wisdom, most important of the Assyrian gods; official buildings; and the vast palace of Sargon

·       Covering 10 hectares (23 acres)

Sargons building

·       Arranged round three courtyards

·       Was a terraced building with ramps and stairs

·       Raised on a platform with a heavy facing dressed stone, incorporating a complicated system of terracotta drains

·       Notable for its details

·       Featured rich woods such as cedar and cypress

·       Few columns

·       Painted plaster walls

·       Polychrome glazed bricks

·       Arches

·       Winged lions

·       Bulls with humanoid heads

·       Reeded ornament and crenellations

·       Corner of the palace there was a temple-ziggurat

City of Babylon

·       Following the fall of Nineveh in 612BC and of the Assyrian Empire, the centre of power moved from the upper Tigris to the lower Euphrates where the kings of a neo-Babylonian dynasty rebuilt the city of Babylon

·       Name comes from Bab-ili “gate of the gods”

·       Nebuchadnezzar || reigned from 604-562BC

Excavations in Iraq revealed the city’s grid plan

·       Double walls

·       Towers

·       Canal connecting to river

·       Foundations of brick-built temples, palaces, fortifications and the famous ziggurat which was the origin of the legend of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament

·       Main approach to the city was wide paved road now know as Processional Way

·       Its facades faced with polychrome glazed bricks

Entrance to the city was through the Ishtar Gate

·       Also faced with glazed bricks of a vivid blue, with yellow and white bulls and dragons in relief

·       Surviving elements of the Ishtar gate have reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin

·       West of the gate was Nebuchadnezzar’s palace

·       Planned round 5 courtyards

·       With facades ornamented with glazed brick

Ishtar

the goddess of love and warfare

Euphrates delta

·       Buttresses remained a distinguishing feature of sacred buildings

·       Emphasized the structure

Hanging gardens

·       Little known about

·       Were one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world

Mesopotamian civilization

·       It and its architecture were brought to an end in 539BC with the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achamenid dynasty in Persia, the country we now know as Iran

·       Persians adopted the style of those they had vanquished

Persepolis

·       Began as a ceremonial centre for Darius in c.518BC and completed in 460BC by Artaxerxes |, was a glorious conclusion to Mesopotamian architecture

What was a closed society, largely untouched by foreign influence

·       Egypt

Egyptian architecture

·       Some of the finest examples of ____ were put up by Roman emperors, including Augustus, Trajan and Hadrian, who would today be condemned for creating ‘pastiche’

Ancient Egyptians

·       Had no belief in expressing the nature of materials, for theirs was an architecture of symbolical rather than practical function

·       In the early period it incorporated elements derived from mud-brick buildings/ tree and plants, forms not ideally suited to stone

Pharaoh

·       Is the ancient Egyptian word for king, deriving from pr-o meaning ‘great house’

·       The king and pharaoh

·       Always referred to as god

·       Only a divine king was able to carry out the rituals that preserved Egypt and hence the universe

Official cults

·       Were dedicated to the perpetuation of the cosmic order in which the king and god were mutually interdependent

·       The god granting favors to the king in return for the performance of ritual functions

·       The king was also via the gods, the source of architectural inspiration, so he sometimes depicted as preparing the foundations of monumental buildings

Egyptian tombs and temples

·       Origins were in modest secular buildings of an agriculture people

·       Most buildings by the Nile were made from degradable materials

·       Mud brick

·       Wood

·       Reed mats

·       Mud brick architecture ultimately accounts for much of the form of mature Egyptian stone buildings

·       Massive pylons have canted sides, originally used in mud-brick buildings

·       Corners of mud brick buildings were strengthend with plant stems

·       Echoes in stone architecture as three-quarter roll mouldings

Saqqara

·       First colossal stone-built structure in Egypt, and perhaps the world

·       Funeral complex built in 2650 BC by King Djoser

·       Founder of Dynasty|||

·       Reigned c. 2630-2611 BC

·       Early example of axial planning

·       Combined architecture, painting and sculpture

·       Dominated by a vast stepped pyramid

·       Almost 200 feet (60m) high

·       Surrounded by a columned processional hall and other buildings

Saqqara and development of Egyptian architecture

·       Initiated a period of powerful architecture expansion

·       Use of stone represented a technological revolution

·       Enabled construction of pyramids reaching towards the heavens

·       Sides sometimes inscribed with solar discs

·       Culminated about a century later in the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza

Great Pyramid

·       Built in 2500 BC for the kings of Dynasty |V

·       Regarded by ancient people as one of the Seven Wonders of the World

·       Covered 123 acres (49.2 hectares)

·       480 feet (146m) high

·       Sides 755 feet (230m) long

·       One of the largest structures ever raised by man

·       Plan twice the size of St. Peter’s in Rome

Construction of what is still mysterious?

·       No wheel, carts, cranes, or pulleys were available

·       Wedges, cradles, levers and rockers were used to move the giant stones

·       Great Pyramid

Rubber ramps were built around the outside of what?

·       Great Pyramid

·       Served as roadways for transporting materials

·       Were removed once finished

Who built the Great Pyramid?

·       Construction worker were

·       Prisoners of war

·       Captive peoples

·       Agricultural laborers

·       Employed during annual period

Giza necropolis

·       Great Pyramid followed by adjacent pyramids

·       Pyramid of Cheop’s son, King Chephren

·       Pyramid of his successor, King Mycernius

·       Together with the Sphinx, formed an impressive royal necropolis

·       Each pyramid had an associated temple

·       Connected to the pyramid complex by a causeway

·       Smaller pyramids were also built for the pharaohs’ wives

Sphinx (great pyramid)

·       Lies beside the causeway leading to the pyramid of Chepren

·       241 feet (73.5) long

·       Largest monument sculpture of Ancient Egypt

Thebes

·       The tradition of royal pyramid temples came to an end with the collapse of the old Kingdom

·       Memphis was replaced as a power centre by Thebes in Upper Egypt

King Mentuhotep ||

·       Reunified the nation

·       Reigned 2040-2010 BC

·       Created rock-cut tombs himself and military and political associates at Deir el-Bahri (Arabic for ‘northern monastery”

King Mentuhotep tomb

·       Buried deep in the mountains

·       Oriented toward the east where the sun rises

·       Represents creation of the world

·       Also the daily birth of the sun

Deir el-Bahri complex

·       Can be seen as a kind of landscape architecture

·       Placed at the foot of the vertical rock-face

·       Towering cliffs bound the valley on three sides

·       Origin of the Greek Doric order some thousand years later

Queen Hatshepsut

·       c. 1470 BC

·       Built her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri

·       Deliberately echoed the adjacent ramped temple of Mentuhotep

Karnak

·       At the north end of Thebes

·       Thebes remained the religious centre of Egypt for 2000 years

·       Temple-city of Karnak dedicated to Amon-Re

·       Eventually known as the “king of the Gods”

Modest shrine to Amon-Re

·       Successive additions made Karnak the most important religious centre in Egypt

·       Amon-Re believed to emit vital energy from Karnak

·       Energy sustained the rhythm of the seasons

·       Including annual flooding of the Nile

·       Guaranteed successful crops and stability of the Egyptian state

Unlike Greek temples, Egyptian temples became a succession of buildings

·       Successive pharaohs added to them

·       Included great hypostyle halls

·       Height diminished behind a chain of towering pylons

Entrance to Karnak

·       Harbour basin in front of entrance pylon

·       Connected by a canal to the Nile

·       Allowed divine image of Amon-Re to sail ceremonially in a barque to Luxor

·       Avenue of sphinxes led to entrance pylon

Great court

·       Represented a link between earth and heaven

·       Open to the sky

·       Flanked by columns with plant capitals

·       Resembled trees in the fertile Nile valley

·       Led to the Hypostyle Hall

·       238 × 170 feet (104 × 84m)

·       Begun by Seti I and completed by Ramses II

·       Largest enclosed space in Egyptian architecture

·       134 columns in 16 rows

·       Papyrus capitals created the impression of a plantation

·       Central aisles: 69 feet (21m) high

·       Outer aisles: 42½ feet (13m) high

·       Allowed central area to be lit by stone window grilles

·       Anticipated lighting of medieval cathedrals

·       Interiors covered with incised coloured reliefs and inscriptions

·       Honoured kings and gods

Inner sanctuary of Amon-Re

·       Approached circuitously

·       Golden statue of Amon-Re stood on a block of red granite

·       Reserved for the king or high priest

·       Climax of the entire sequence of spaces

·       Daily cult rituals took place here

·       Man and god met

·       Walls and ceilings contained representations of the cosmos

·       Rituals extended to the holy lake

·       Image of the primeval ocean where the sun-god Re first appeared

Temple at Luxor

·       Centre of the mystic relationship between the king and the god Amon

·       King celebrated his divine marriage annually

·       Similar grand layout to Karnak

·       Entrance pylon erected c. 1250 BC by Ramses II

·       One of the greatest builders in Egyptian history

·       Long reign dominated much of the XIX Dynasty in the New Kingdom

·       One of two red granite obelisks from before the pylon remains in place

·       Other has been in the Place de la Concorde, Paris since 1836

The Ptolemaic period

·       Egyptian temple architecture continued even after the defeat of the Egyptian empire

·       Extraordinary examples of continuity

·       Temples such as those at Edfu, Dendera and Philae

·       Commissioned by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty

·       304–30 BC

·       Greek-Macedonian dynasty ruling Egypt