LEAD CITY UNIVERSITY, IBADAN
FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE
SEMESTER/SESSION: 1ST SEMESTER 2021/2022
Course Particulars
Course Code : ARC 103
Course Title: Introduction to Architecture I & II
Course Units: 2
Course Status: Compulsory
Lecture Notes
WEEK 1 Introduction; What is Architecture; Meaning of Architecture, Evolution and
Significance
Introduction; What is Architecture?
Architecture is generally something people take for granted, moving toward it, around it,
through it, using it without a thought. It is simply there, an unassuming backdrop, a mute,
utilitarian container.
Architecture is much more, however; it is the crystallization of ideas.
It has been defined many ways—
as shelter in the form of art, a blossoming in stone and a flowering of geometry (Ralph
Waldo Emerson),
frozen music (Goethe),
human triumph over gravitation and the will to power (Nietzs che),
the will of an epoch translated into space (architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe),
the magnificent play of forms in light (architect Le Corbusier),
a cultural instrument (architect Louis I. Kahn),
and even inhabited sculpture (sculptor Constantin Brancusi).
More recently, architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable framed a rather clinical
definition, calling architecture a “balance of structural science and aesthetic expression
for the satisfaction of needs that go far beyond the utilitarian.”
Architecture is the unavoidable art. Almost every moment of our lives, awake or asleep, we are
in buildings, around buildings, in spaces defined by buildings, or in landscapes shaped by human
artifice. Architecture constantly touches us, shapes our behaviour, and conditions our
psychological mood.
Moreover, aside from being shelter or a protective umbrella, architecture is also the
physical record of human activity and aspiration; it is the cultural legacy left to us by all
preceding generations.
Architecture is a nonverbal form of communication, a mute record as a form of dialogue
with the past and future of the culture that produced it.
Architecture is understood to be the whole of the human-built environment, including
buildings, cities, urban spaces, and created landscapes.
Architecture is the chambered nautilus shell of the human species; it is the environment that we
build for ourselves, and that, as we grow in experience and knowledge, we change and adapt to
our expanded condition. If we wish to understand ourselves, we must take care not to eliminate
the “shell” of our past, for it is the physical record of our aspirations and achievements.
Unlike the other arts, architecture has the power to affect and condition human behaviour; the
colour of walls in a room, for example, can help determine our mood. Architecture acts on us,
creating in some buildings a sense of awe such as one might feel while walking through the huge
doors of the Ecunumerical Church in Abuja.
We should remember, too, that architecture, besides providing shelter, is symbolic expression.
As Sir Herbert Read wrote, art is “a mode of symbolic discourse and where there is no symbol
and therefore no discourse, there is no art. This symbolic content is most easily perceived in
religious and public buildings, where the principal intent is to make a broad and emphatic
proclamation of communal values and beliefs. If a building seems strange to someone, it is likely
because the symbol being presented is not in that person’s vocabulary.
Meaning of Architecture,
Evolution and Significance
Eons ago, our hominid ancestors learned to control fire, to recognize a social link with each
other, to maintain a bond with the remains of their dead, to engage in symbolic thought, and to
fashion symbolic images and objects. We became persistent in our endeavours, developed the
power of speech, devised codes of morals, and nurtured an ability to care for the helpless and
aged. We also learned how to build, to create artificial environments that made our lives safer,
more enjoyable, and more psychologically rewarding. The exact time that we humans learned to
build may never be known with certainty, for our earliest constructions were probably fashioned
from organic materials—branches, brush, hides, and such—that quickly returned to the earth
without a trace.
Architecture is the crystallization of ideas, a physical representation of human thought and
aspiration, a record of the beliefs and values of the culture that produces.
In an introductory study such as this, we must start at the beginning, but this raises the intriguing
question of exactly when it was that humans began to develop ways of thinking and of making
things to convey symbolic thought. We need to move well back from the period of recorded
history, to the dim ages when the ancestors of Homo sapiens appeared. In doing so, we uncover
traces of the origins of human society and human institutions.
In every period of human history, new buildings/ forms of shelter to accommodate prevailing
needs replaced what had been built before.
Early Hominids
The first hominids appeared at least 5 million years ago in central Africa. They were forest
dwellers, consuming a vegetable diet of fruit and leaves. Located in what is now Ethiopia, and
modern-day Kenya. About half a million years later (roughly 3.5 million years ago), another
species, developed in what is now South Africa. A piece of jasperite shaped like the face of this
species was found in 1925 in a cave at Makapansgat, South Africa. The evidence suggests that
the pebble was picked and kept perhaps because of the perceived resemblance to the hominid’s
facial features. This suggests the very beginnings of symbolic thought and self-awareness. These
species lived on the warm equatorial savannas and probably had no pressing need for shelter;
nor, apparently, did they control or use fire.
About 1.5 million years later (2 million years ago), there appeared a new species of early
hominid, called Homo habilis, or “handy man,” and this scientific name choice indicates that
these individuals were much more like modern humans than the preceding “southern apes.” They
made stone tools (and no doubt many others of wood), carrying their tool-making materials over
long distances. They moved out of the forest into more open savannas—or, perhaps more
accurately, the forests diminished in size in the drier, cooler climate that was part of the first ice
age in the Northern Hemisphere. These hominids began to eat meat, a dietary change that greatly
accelerated the physical and complex social changes required in hunting. The brains of this
species increased in size, allowing individuals to hold a larger mental map of the territories they
traversed and to track game.
Around 1.25 million years ago, a new descendant subspecies appeared in the Olduvai area of
Tanzania. This group was given the name Homo erectus in reference to its clearly erect posture
and bipedal locomotion. Because of their mental planning abilities and tool-making skills,
members of Homo erectus were unlike any creature that had lived before, for they were not
genetically or physically limited to living in one fixed climatological area. They could control
their immediate climate, providing shelter against the climatic element, capturing fire from
natural sources such as lightning strikes. They could migrate, and did, gradually moving
northward out of central Africa into southern Asia and China, and into Europe.
This species began to form aesthetic judgments arriving at a more pleasing mentally
preconceived shape which was evident in their stone and wood work. Their movement into
Europe would not have been possible without the use and control of fire, for soon after Homo
erectus arrived in Europe, the second great age of glaciation—the Günz glaciation—began,
lasting from roughly 1 million to 900,000 years ago. With skills in tool-making, hunting, and the
resultant knowledge of leather-making, they survived this ice age and the next.
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age)
As Homo erectus groups moved into the more challenging climates of Europe, they had to find
or make their own shelter. Earlier excavations in Nice on France’s Mediterranean coast reviled a
springtime camping ground — the remains of the oldest known fabricated shelter—what,
perhaps by extension, might be called the first architecture. At this spot, since called Terra
Amata (Latin for “beloved land”),Archeologist found remains of twenty one dwellings, eleven
of which were rebuilt on the same spot year after year on the top of an ancient sand dune above
the primeval Mediterranean coast. Roughly oval in plan and measuring about 26 to 49 feet (7.9
to 14.9 m) in length by 13 to 20 feet (4.0 to 6.1 m) in width, the dwellings had side walls made of
a palisade of branches 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter and pushed into the sand Against the edges
were piled rocks, some of which were 1 foot (0.3 m) in diameter. Down the centre were posts up
to 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter, although the roof they supported left no trace (perhaps the side
branches leaned against a centre ridge beam supported by the posts). In each shelter was a central
hearth, with a windbreak of stones on the northwest side, the direction from which prevailing
winds still blow in Nice. In one hut were indications of a toolmaker, for around a stone stool
were chips and flakes of rock, some of which could be reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle to form
the original cobble.
Terra Amata, Homo erectus dwelling, Nice, France, c. 400,000–300,000 before present (BP). Reconstructed from
holes left by decayed wooden structural members and by the rocks placed around the perimeter, this represents the
earliest known human-constructed dwelling. From Scientific American, May 1969.
Dwellings of Homo sapiens
A number of dwelling sites of early humans (both Neanderthals and later Cro-Magnons) have
been uncovered across Europe. Those of Eastern Europe show a type of house that was
apparently typical for that region. Round, perhaps domed or conical in shape, these houses had
internal frames of wood covered presumably with hides; the dwellings were braced at the bottom
with massive mammoth bones, often with rings of mammoth skulls locked together. Remains of
such houses have been found in several locations in Moravia (Czech Republic) and also in the
Ukraine in Russia, near the Dniester River. The Ukraine site revealed superimposed habitation
levels going back as far as 46,000 years ago, with the most recent dating from about 12,000 years
ago. These dwellings may have accommodated extended family groups, for some houses
measured roughly 30 feet (9.1 m) in diameter. Both Moravian sites were occupied by successive
generations from roughly 29,000 to 24,000 years ago. These dwellings were nearly the same as
those found in the Ukraine. They were ringed with massive bones and measured about 20 feet
(6.1 m) in diameter; one house, however, measured about 50 by 20 feet (15.2 by 6.1 m) and had
five hearths.
Cro-Magnon dwelling, Ukraine, c. 46,000–14,000 BP. Such dwellings, some of them 30 feet (9.1 m) across, had
masses of mammoth bones piled around the perimeter and apparently were covered with hides. From Scientific
American,
June 1974.
Neolithic Dwellings and Structures
Architectural advances are an important part of the Neolithic period (10,000-2000 BC), during
which some of the major innovations of human history occurred. The domestication of plants
and animals, for example, led to new economics and a new relationship between people and the
world, an increase in community size and permanence, a massive development of material
culture and new social and ritual solutions to enable people to live together in these communities.
New styles of individual structures and their combination into settlements provided the buildings
required for the new lifestyle and economy, and were also an essential element of change.
Although many dwellings belonging to all prehistoric periods and also some clay models of
dwellings have been uncovered enabling the creation of faithful reconstructions, they seldom
included elements that may relate them to art. Some exceptions are provided by wall decorations
and by finds that equally apply to Neolithic and Chalcolithic rites and art.
A new age had begun, the Neolithic or New Stone Age, and humans increasingly settled for
extended periods and began to build more permanent settlements. Organic materials were used in
dwelling construction, an evidence of such was discovered in late 1975, not in Europe but at a
site called Monte Verde in southern Chile, in a village complex built by humans moving into the
Western Hemisphere. The organic materials used in constructing these dwelling units were base
timbers, portions of the mammoth hide covers, and even wood stakes and fiber cordage.
Monte Verde dwellings plan, together with reconstructed view, Monte Verde site, Chile, c. 14,800 to 13,800 years
ago.Here the oldest yet-discovered organic dwelling fragments were found under a layer of peat that had sealed off
oxygen, thus preserving the fugitive wood and leather remains.
In some areas the old hunting and gathering traditions lingered, as indicated by the remains of a
settlement at Lepenski Vir, dating from about 7,000 to 6,600 years ago (5000–4600 BCE), at a
prime fishing location on the Danube, in the Iron Gates region in present-day Serbia. Facing the
river, a group of about twenty dwellings of trapezoidal plan were built in a technique resembling
that used by Homo erectus at Terra Amata, with a palisade of branches on either side of the
house leaning against an inclined central ridge pole. Here the floors of the huts were of packed
earth plastered hard around a central stone-lined hearth.
Middle Stone Age village, Lepenski Vir, Serbia, c. 5200–4800 BP. Groups of such dwellings were built in terraces
on the banks of the Danube. The houses had trapezoidal plans, measuring from 8 to 11 feet lengthwise, and hard
limestone plaster floors, with central stone-lined hearths. From D. Srejović, New Discoveries at Lepenski Vir (New
York, 1972).
At Střelice, in the Czech Republic, in the remains of a Neolithic settlement of about 6,500 years
ago (4500 BCE) was found a clay model of a rectangular house. It had straight, vertical walls
and a double-pitched, or gable, roof. The walls of the model suggest that actual houses may have
had walls made of woven wood mats covered with mud plaster, perhaps with a roof of thatch.
Fragments of a similar clay model found at Ariucd, Romania, are inscribed with curved
geometric patterns, suggesting that the houses may have been painted. Remains of houses of this
type have been found at the Cucuteni Tripolye settlement at Hǎbǎşeşti, Romania.
Clay model of a house, Střelice (near Brno), Czech Republic, c. 4700 BP. From N. K. Sandars, Prehistoric Art
inEurope (Harmondsworth, England, 1968).
At Sittard, in what is now the Netherlands, and at many other sites in places such as Poland,
Hungary, and the Ukraine, wood longhouses were built with substantial timber frames, up to 260
feet (80 m) long, with walls and inner partitions of wattle and daub (a basket work of sticks
covered with clay plaster). Dating from around 7,300 years ago (5300 BCE), these longhouses
accommodated several families or perhaps one extended family in each building.
Another village survived in remarkable detail, covered by a lake at Biskupin, Poland, about 90
km northeast of Poznań. Discovered during an extended drought in 1933 that lowered the water
level, the village had been built about 3,000 to 2,500 years ago (1000–500 BCE). More than one
hundred large oak and pine longhouses, with individual family chambers, about 26 × 33 ft (8 ×
10 m) each, were arranged in rows on wood-paved streets about 10 feet wide, all facing south.
The entire village was enclosed within an oval-shaped protective log wall, with one entry
protected by a watchtower. Following extensive excavations by a Polish team (1934–1936),
followed by a German team (1940–1942) and then again by Polish archaeologists (until 1974),
the village has been rebuilt as an open-air museum.
View of the reconstructed village at Lake Biskupion, Poland, archaeological remains dated 1000–500 BCE.
Because the site was flooded with water for two millennia, the wood structural members did not disappear through
decay. Photo: Ludek.
Connecting with the Dead and the Cosmos
As Lewis Mumford noted: “Mid the uneasy wanderings of Paleolithic man, the dead were the
first to have a permanent dwelling: a cave, a mound marked by a cairn, a collective barrow.
Since that was written in the 1950s, new archaeological discoveries have proven Mumford
perceptive beyond even his most extreme projections. What Mumford proposed was that the
earliest permanent human built structures were not intended for individuals: they were not
houses for the chiefs in the villages but, rather, communal undertakings—structures that focused
on shamanistic rituals or served as places for the dead or even as devices for tracking the course
of time. While stone was not used in the oldest solar observatory yet discovered, its antiquity and
that of the most ancient ritual temples recently discovered have pushed our understanding of
human sacred construction back several millennia from the Pyramids in Egypt or the stone
megaliths of Stonehenge.
The Gobekli Tepe Sanctuary (Southwestern Turkey).
It was once assumed that cities and the significant religious structures within them did not arise
until after agriculture was developed and cattle, sheep, and goats were domesticated; in other
words, it seemed impossible that hunter-gatherers in their nomadic movements could have
engaged in significant permanent building, much less the establishment of fixed religious
centers. The geography in southeastern Turkey twelve millennia ago was far more lush and rich
with game animals than the arid landscape of today; nomadic people came together here at
intervals and created a shrine or sanctuary dedicated to the dead. They built usinglarge T-shaped
stone piers set in rings on bedrock or a prepared hard floor, positioned radially like spokes, each
carved with various animal images including foxes, lions, cattle, hyenas, wild boar, wild asses,
cranes, ducks, scorpions, spiders, phalluses, geometric patterns, and many snakes. These T-
shaped pier stones reach lengths of 23 feet (7 m) and weights of 11 to 22 tons (10 to 20 metric
tons). Taken from scattered quarry sites around the sanctuary complex, the stones were moved as
far as 1,640 feet (500 meters) away to construct six or more “temples” (perhaps as many as
sixteen), ranging from 30 to 100 feet in diameter. Estimates suggest that as many as five hundred
people worked here at times.
Temple structure, Gobekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey, c. 9,600 BCE. Built as a group of several round
ceremonialstructures (possibly temples), these buildings were abandoned and deliberately buried. Photo: c
National Geographic Image Collection/Alamy.
Nabta Playa (Southwestern Egypt).
The desire to understand the cycles of the sun led to the creation of a solar and stellar
“observatory”. Naturally occurring broken stone slabs of sandstone from an exposed outcrop
located over a mile away were dragged to the site, some laid flat and others set vertical in the
earth. The observatory consisted of a roughly 12-foot-diameter ring of about thirty stones, with
two pairs of vertical stone slabs, one pair aligned with true north and the second pair arranged
toward the summer solstice horizon, marking the time when the annual monsoons started. Other
alignments were made with separate vertical stone slabs erected a mile or so distant; these
alignments were at that time oriented toward Sirius (the brightest night star), Dubhe (the
brightest star in Ursa Major), and stars in the belt of Orion. 15 By 4,800 years ago (2800 BCE),
however, the monsoons had shifted well to the south and the Nubian Desert reemerged, with
people abandoning the Nabta, perhaps moving east to the dependable water of the Nile.
Star observatory, Nabta Playa, Egypt, 4,800–4,000 BCE. Stone slabs removed from nearby exposed outcrops
were set upright at critical spots to mark out alignments of sun positions and star rising points. Drawing: L. M.
Roth after T. G. Brophy, The Origin Map . . . (2002).
Given the Greek name hypogeum, “cellar,” it was a catacomb for housing seven thousand
dead.this complex was built in stages, with connected clusters of rounded rooms
defined by parallel walls of large, limestone facing blocks, the space between them filled with
stone rubble and earth. The inner walls were partially finished in more carefully cut blocks of a
deep-yellow limestone, some carved with spirals and other curvilinear patterns. What the upper
structure of these temples may have been is not clear, but beams and rafters of wood may have
formed the roofs.
emple complex called Ggantija, Malta, c. 4200–2900 BP. This is only one of many buildings in stone on the Maltese
islands, built over several centuries, apparently as religious centers. Drawing: L. M. Roth.
Lanyon Quoit, Cornwall, England, c. 3200 BP. Originally covered by great mounds of soil, such stone structures
seemto have been burial chambers (judging from the few artifacts found in some examples). Photo: Visual
Resources Collection,Architecture & Allied Arts, University of Oregon.
A Neolithic Village: Skara Brae
Skara Brae,located in the forbiddingly harsh and stony Orkney Islands north of Scotland, was
revealed by accident after a lashing storm in 1850 blew off the sand that had covered the village
for more than 3,000 years (it had most likely been buried by just such a storm). Because there is
virtually no wood on the islands, the houses were built almost entirely of stone, with stone
shelving, tables, and beds. Hence, they were preserved from decay, affording us an intimate
glimpse of how life was lived in northern Neolithic Britain
Skara Brae,
Orkney Islands, off Scotland, c. 3200–2200 BCE. In this forbiddingly harsh climate there is little wood,
so almost all parts of the houses were made of stone and thus have been preserved. Drawing: David Rabbitt.
Skara Brae. View into one of the dwellings. Photo: Courtesy, Marian Card Donnelly.
Çatalhöyük (Southwest Turkey)
Large, permanently inhabited Neolithic cities appeared at almost the same geological moment
the glaciers retreated. Catalhoyuk covered an area of 32 acres (12.9 hectares), of which about a
quarter was excavated during 1961–1966, an area that turned out to be a residential quarter.
Excavation was resumed in earnest in 1993. There were no streets as such through the town, but
tightly clustered rectangular houses instead, with an occasional courtyard between them that
served as a rubbish dump. Entry to each house was by means of a hole in the roof that also
served as the vent for the smoke of the central hearth. The residences were built with timber
frames, the panels between the posts and beams filled with mud brick, plastered, and often
painted.
View of Level I, Catalhoyuk, Turkey, c. 7500 BCE. The houses were packed tightly together, with no streets; access
to the dwellings was through openings in the roof. From J. Mellaart, Catal Huyuk (New York, 1967).
The Invention of Architecture
As modern human beings moved into Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, structures that
were more developed were crafted, and, with the growing division and specialization of labor not
to mention the emergence of increasingly complex, centralized social organizations—energy
could be devoted to fashioning more permanent structures of stone for ceremonial purposes and
ritual celebrations. The next step was an increased concentration of peoples in towns that grew
into cities. Monumental architecture had begun.
Hypostyle Hall, Temple of Amon, Karnak, Thebes, Egypt, c. 1315–1235 BCE. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource,
NY.
The Architecture of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is most noted for its construction of mud-brick buildings and the construction of
ziggurats, occupying a prominent place in each city and consisting of an artificial mound, often
rising in huge steps, surmounted by a temple. The mound was no doubt to elevate the temple to a
commanding position in what was otherwise a flat river valley. The great city of Uruk had a
number of religious precincts, containing many temples larger and more ambitious than any
buildings previously known.
The word ziggurat is an anglicized form of the Akkadian word ziqqurratum, the name given to
the solid stepped towers of mud brick. It derives from the verb zaqaru, ("to be high"). The
buildings are described as being like mountains linking Earth and heaven. The Ziggurat of Ur,
excavated by Leonard Woolley, is 64 by 46 meters at base and originally some 12 meters in
height with three stories. It was built under Ur-Nammu (circa 2100 B.C.) and rebuilt under
Nabonidus (555–539 B.C.), when it was increased in height to probably seven stories.
Assyrian palaces had a large public court with a suite of apartments on the east side and a series
of large banqueting halls on the south side. This was to become the traditional plan of Assyrian
palaces, built and adorned for the glorification of the king. Massive amounts of ivory furniture
pieces were found in some palaces.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE
Differentiate how Mesopotamian cultures approached domestic and public architecture
Domestic and public architecture in Mesopotamian cultures differed in relative simplicity and
complexity. As time passed, public architecture grew to monumental heights.
Mesopotamian cultures used a variety of building materials. While mud brick is the most
common, stone also features as a structural and decorate element.
The ziggurat marked a major architectural accomplishment for the Sumerians, as well as
subsequent Mesopotamian cultures.
Palaces and other public structures were often decorated with glaze or paint, stones, or
reliefs.
Animals and human-animal hybrids feature in the religions of Mesopotamian cultures
and were often used as architectural decoration.
The Mesopotamians regarded "the craft of building" as a divine gift taught to men by the gods,
and architecture flourished in the region. A paucity of stone in the region made sun baked bricks
and clay the building material of choice. Babylonian architecture featured pilasters(A rectangular
column that projects partially from the wall to which it is attached; it gives the appearance of a
support, but is only for decoration.) and columns, as well as frescoes and enameled tiles.
Assyrian architects were strongly influenced by the Babylonian style, but used stone as well as
brick in their palaces, which were lined with sculptured and colored slabs of stone instead of
being painted. Existing ruins point to load-bearing architecture as the dominant form of building.
However, the invention of the round arch in the general area of Mesopotamia influenced the
construction of structures like the Ishtar Gate in the sixth century BCE.
Domestic Architecture
Mesopotamian families were responsible for the construction of their own houses. While mud
bricks and wooden doors comprised the dominant building materials, reeds were also used in
construction. Because houses were load-bearing, doorways were often the only openings.
Sumerian culture observed a rigid division between the public sphere and the private sphere, a
norm that resulted in a lack of direct view from the street into the home. The sizes of individual
houses varied, but the general design consisted of smaller rooms organized around a large central
room. To provide a natural cooling effect, courtyards became a common feature in the Ubaid
period and persist into the domestic architecture of present-day Iraq.
Ziggurats
One of the most remarkable achievements of Mesopotamian architecture was the development of
the ziggurat, a massive structure taking the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively
receding stories or levels, with a shrine or temple at the summit. Like pyramids, ziggurats were
built by stacking and piling. Ziggurats were not places of worship for the general public. Rather,
only priests or other authorized religious officials were allowed inside to tend to cult statues and
make offerings. The first surviving ziggurats date to the Sumerian culture in the fourth
millennium BCE, but they continued to be a popular architectural form in the late third and early
second millennium BCE as well .
The Chogha Zanbil ziggurat was built in 1250 BC by Untash-Napirisha, the king of Elam, to honor the Elamite god
Inshushinak.
The image below is an artist's reconstruction of how ziggurats might have looked in their
heyday. Human figures appear to illustrate the massive scale of these structures. This impressive
height and width would not have been possible without the use of ramps and pulleys.
An artist's reconstruction of a ziggurat
Like most Mesopotamian architecture, ziggurats were composed of sun-baked bricks, which
were less durable than their oven-baked counterparts. Thus, buildings had to be reconstructed on
a regular basis, often on the foundations of recently deteriorated structures, which caused cities
to become increasingly elevated. Sun-baked bricks remained the dominant building material
through the Babylonian and early Assyrian empires.
Political Architecture
The exteriors of public structures like temples and palaces featured decorative elements such as
bright paint, gold, leaf, and enameling. Some elements, such as colored stones and terra
cotta panels, served a twofold purpose of decoration and structural support, which strengthened
the buildings and delayed their deterioration.
Between the thirteenth and tenth centuries BCE, the Assyrians replaced sun-baked bricks with
more durable stone and masonry. Colored stone and bas reliefs (Sculptures that minimally
project from their backgrounds.) replaced paint as decoration. Art produced under the reigns of
Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE), Sargon II (722-705 BCE), and Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE)
inform us that reliefs evolved from simple and vibrant to naturalistic and restrained over this
time span.
From the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2350 BCE) to the Assyrian Empire (25th century-612
BCE), palaces grew in size and complexity. However, even early palaces were very large and
ornately decorated to distinguish themselves from domestic architecture. Because palaces housed
the royal family and everyone who attended to them, palaces were often arranged like small
cities, with temples and sanctuaries, as well as locations to inter the dead. As with private homes,
courtyards were important features of palaces for both utilitarian and ceremonial purposes.
By the time of the Assyrian empire, palaces were decorated with narrative reliefs on the walls
and outfitted with their own gates. The gates of the Palace of Dur-Sharrukin, occupied by Sargon
II, featured monumental alto reliefs (A sculpture with significant projection from its
background.) of a mythological guardian figure called a lamassu (also known as a shedu), which
had the head of a human, the body of a bull or lion, and enormous wings. Lamassu figure in the
visual art and literature from most of the ancient Mesopotamian world, going as far back as
ancient Sumer (settled c. 5500 BCE) and standing guard at the palace of Persepolis (550-330
BCE).
This is only one example of how a lamassu would appear in Mesopotamian art. Other sculptures wear conical caps,
face the front, or have the bodies of lions. In literature, some lamassu assumed female form.
Although the Romans often receive credit for the round arch, this structural system actually
originated during ancient Mesopotamian times. Where typical load-bearing walls are not strong
enough to have many windows or doorways, round arches absorb more pressure, allowing for
larger openings and improved airflow. The reconstruction of Dur-Sharrukin shows that the round
arch was being used as entryways by the eighth century BCE.
Palace of Dur-Sharrukin . Round arches can be found in the central portal, as well as in each window on the right
and left.
Perhaps the best known surviving example of a round arch is in the Ishtar Gate, which was part
of the Processional Way in the city of Babylon. The gate, now in the Pergamon Museum in
Berlin, was lavishly decorated with lapis lazuli complemented by blue glazed brick. Elsewhere
on the gate and its connecting walls were painted floral motifs and bas reliefs of animals that
were sacred to Ishtar, the goddess of fertility and war.
Ishtar Gate (c. 575 BCE) The reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
The photograph above shows the immense scale of the gate. Constructed in about 575 BCE by
the order of King Nebuchadnezzar II, the Ishtar Gate shown above was excavated in the early
20th century and is now on display in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. Since excavation, it has
undergone some reconstruction using the original bricks to maintain its form.
Detail of bull relief on Ishtar Gate. An aurochs, or bull, above a flower ribbon
