Ancient Near Eastern Architecture

The Uruk Expansion, which took place during various phases throughout the 4 th millennium BC, also developed in Northern Mesopotamia. In the area of Birecik, in eastern Turkey, on the edge of the Euphrates, various archaeological sites have been discovered, showing different phases of expansion of the Uruk culture. We focus this study on the Surtepe site, a 8 ha settlement, where we have distinguished a possible Late Calcolithic 5 ritual building, in a phase that we consider Terminal Uruk within the chronology of this Mesopotamian culture.

The terrace of Pasargadae, Tall-i Takht, is one of the few Achaemenid period monuments in the Persian heartland that “directly” feature characteristics of Ionian-Lydian architecture. According to earlier scholarship, the beginning of construction of the platform of Tall-i Takht dates to the reign of Cyrus, but it remained unfinished when Cyrus died, and Darius changed its function. In fact, leaving aside some few blocks at the center of the western facade and on the southern one, the majority of blocks of the terrace still await final dressing. A new analysis of the unfinished state of these blocks has provided significant information about the construction of the terrace, including the organization of labor, allowing for a reconsideration of the origins of Achaemenid masonry and indeed of cross-cultural interaction between Persians and the West.

Abstract: This paper deals with those Urartian columns which were uncovered by the local people in the village of Mdjeser during activities of construction or cultivation in the last four decades. In addition, some notes about the architecture of the city of Muṣaṣir depicted on one of the reliefs in the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad are given, as well as notes concerning the weather and topography of that area and its effect on the ancient and modern architecture. On the basis of this evidence I add some notes concerning the probable location of Muṣaṣir/Ardini and of the temple of Haldi.

This course is an introduction to ancient gardens and their art historical, literary, and archaeology evidence.  Various aspects and methods of garden archaeology, which play an important role in locating and faithfully reconstructing ancient gardens, are emphasized.  Formal garden design, environmental diversity, and symbolic functions of gardens across Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures are interpreted and compared.

Die vorliegende Abhandlung widmet sich den archäologischen Belegen für Baudekor im Mesopotamien des zweiten Jahrtausends v. Chr. und versucht, unter Berücksichtigung verschiedener zeitgenössischer Quellen die unterschiedlichen Aspekte dieser architektonischen Ausdrucksform zu beleuchten.
Im Vordergrund stehen Sakralbauten, da die Fülle an Belegen sie als den bevorzugten und nicht selten einzigen Träger der hier behandelten Formen des Baudekors ausweist. Der plastische Baudekor an den Außen- und Hoffassaden altorientalischer Tempel ist neben ihrer monumentalen Bauweise einer der unmittelbarsten architektonischen Formalismen, mit deren Hilfe der sakrale Raum bildkräftig von der übrigen Stadtbebauung abgegrenzt wird. Die ostentative Morphologie sakraler Baukörper unterstreicht die architektonische Distinktion zwischen „Tempeln“, „Wohnhäusern“ oder „Palästen“, die im altorientalischen Sprachverständnis deutlich unschärfer zu Tage tritt. Darüber hinaus bilden die oft über Jahrhunderte gepflegten Sakralbauten innerhalb des wechselhaften urbanen Umfelds eine wichtige architektonische Konstante und stehen in dieser Hinsicht den zumeist kurzlebigeren Palast- und Profanbauten entgegen.
Die sakrale Architektur wird dadurch zu einem bedeutenden und vor allem dauerhaften Bezugspunkt für die räumliche Orientierung der Stadtbewohner und ist daher nicht nur als leblose, räumliche Kulisse der Gesellschaft zu verstehen, sondern als eigenständiges, aktives und lenkendes System, dessen Kommunikationspotential selbst nach Jahrtausenden nicht erloschen ist.



This study investigates the archaeological examples of architectural ornamentation in 2nd-millennium Mesopotamia. Diverse contemporaneous sources have been examined and analysed in the attempt to elucidate the differing aspects of this architectural form of expression. The emphasis is on sacred buildings as they provide the overwhelming majority of examples of those forms of architectural ornamentation that are treated here. Besides the monumentality of construction, the elaborate arrangements of buttresses and niches on the outer as well as on the courtyard façades of temples are among the most obvious architectural features that mark sacred space off from other urban buildings in the ancient Near East.
The ostentatious design of sacred buildings underlines the differences between 'temples', 'dwelling-houses' and 'palaces', a differentiation which is far from obvious from the terms used for different types of buildings in ancient Mesopotamian languages. The sacred buildings were carefully looked after throughout centuries, thus forming an important architectural landmark within a changing urban environment – in contrast to more short-lived palaces and other profane buildings. In this way, sacred architecture becomes a meaningful and long-lasting reference point for the inhabitants’ orientation: the sacred architecture of Mesopotamia was more than a lifeless backdrop fort he activities of the population, providing an independent, dynamic structure which guided these activities.

RTC 145, a tablet from Tello in southern Iraq dating to the third millennium BC, bears a building plan in which the names and the dimensions of the rooms were written. The drawing and the dimensions are not in agreement: this article discusses the nature of the building shown on the tablet and suggests possible ways to resolve the inconsistency between the building plan and the measurements of the rooms recorded on it.

Edited by Pinar Durgun.

With the right methods, studying the ancient world can be as engaging as it is informative. Many K-12 teachers, university instructors, and museum educators use hands-on, project-based, and experiential activities in their classes to increase student engagement and learning. This book aims to bring together such pedagogical methods and teaching activities about the ancient world for any educator to use. The teaching activities in this book are designed in a cookbook format so that educators can replicate these teaching "recipes” (which include materials, budget, preparation time, levels of students) in their ancient art, archaeology, social studies, and history classes. They can be implemented online or in-person, in schools, universities, libraries, museums, or at home.

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The excavation of the Northern Fort (Fig. 1) began in the autumn of 1996 after an accurate survey of the area to extend the research of the fortification system of the Middle Bronze Age in Ebla (c. 1950–1600 B.C.). The Fortress M had previously been excavated in 1971 on the southeastern sector of the rampart and the V Fort in 19951 on the central-eastern front. Both of these defensive structures have shown many similarities in dimension and in planning; formed by a stairwell with external access and six smaller rooms that do not appear to have passages between them and the stairwell, makes an entrance from an higher level conjecturable. Unlike to Fortress M which, having had no further surveys, presents itself as an isolated defensive structure, the North Fort appears to be formed by a functionally more articulated
complex, characterized by an open central court building and by three wings of rooms that delimit it. The function of these rooms is tied to the activities that take place in the fortress itself.

This course offers an in-depth introduction to the art and architecture of Egypt and the ancient Near East (with emphasis on the region of Mesopotamia). Visual and material culture is considered within both ancient and modern/contemporary historical and social contexts. This course includes visits to the Brooklyn Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As part of ongoing research into the significance of light in ancient Mesopotamian architecture and ideology,
a reorientation of the main external gateways of city temples can be identified, occurring from around the
beginning of the Ur III period. This change in orientation allowed temple gateways to receive direct sunlight
onto their external façades during the morning throughout the year. One possible explanation for this
architectural change is found in the legal practices of the late third and second millennia B.C. It is proposed that
access to sunlight, and therefore the presence of the sun god, was significant for the taking of oaths and the
administration of law at temple gateways from the Ur III period onwards, thereby promoting a south-easterly
orientation for these gateways. With this in mind, the careful provision of morning light access to the doorways
of the neighbourhood chapels of residential Ur may be taken as evidence for the local neighbourhood
administration of some legal functions. This in turn suggests a possible cultic and legal basis for the formation
of these localised subdivisions of urban communities.

Over more than ten years, a team of expert archaeologists at Brown University have lead the excavation works of one of the most important architectural complexes in the ancient capital of the Nabataean kingdom. The Great Temple of Petra houses various structures whose purpose and function are still unknown. We will try to show here the results and discoveries that have been carried our, tryings to shed some assumptions which bring us closer, perhaps, to understand this extraordinary building.