MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHITECTURE - ziggurat.pdf

The ziggurat is an awe-inspiring testament to the architectural and religious achievements of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations, particularly prominent in the regions of Sumer, Akkad, and Babylon. These monumental structures, dating back to the 3rd millennium BCE, served as sacred platforms dedicated to the worship of deities and as symbols of the connection between gods and humanity.

At its core, a ziggurat is a massive terraced pyramid-like structure, typically built using sun-baked mud bricks reinforced with bitumen. Its distinctive step-like design consists of multiple tiers or levels, each smaller than the one below, culminating in a flat summit. This tiered construction not only provided stability but also created a visually striking form that dominated the ancient cityscape.

The base of a ziggurat was often rectangular or square, with sides oriented to the cardinal directions, symbolizing cosmic order and the gods' dominion over the universe. Access to the summit was facilitated by a series of ramps or staircases, allowing priests and devotees to ascend for rituals and ceremonies. Each level of the ziggurat might have housed a temple dedicated to a specific deity, serving as a focal point for religious activities and offerings.

The most famous ziggurat is perhaps the Great Ziggurat of Ur, built during the reign of King Ur-Nammu of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2100 BCE). This structure, dedicated to the moon god Nanna, stood about 64 meters (210 feet) high and covered an area of approximately 64 x 45 meters (210 x 148 feet) at its base. Its construction exemplifies the engineering prowess and organizational skills of the ancient Mesopotamians, who managed to coordinate large-scale labor and resource management.

Beyond their architectural significance, ziggurats held profound religious importance. They were believed to serve as meeting points between the mortal realm and the divine realm, enabling communication between humans and gods. The ziggurat's elevated platform brought worshippers closer to the heavens, emphasizing its role as a sacred space where rituals, prayers, and sacrifices were conducted to seek favor from the gods or to commemorate important events in the life of the city-state.

The symbolism of the ziggurat extended beyond religious contexts. It represented the power and authority of the ruling elite, who commissioned their construction as grandiose expressions of political and religious hegemony. These structures also served as visible symbols of a city's prosperity and divine protection, reinforcing social cohesion and identity among its inhabitants.

Over time, ziggurats fell into disrepair or were demolished, often repurposed as sources of building materials for subsequent construction projects. The decline of ziggurats paralleled the shift in political and religious dynamics in the region, as new empires rose and fell, altering the cultural and architectural landscapes of ancient Mesopotamia.

Today, ziggurats k

1. ZIGGURAT OF UR
URBAN PLANNING OF BABYLON THE CITY
Presented by :
13. Vidhi Gajjar
22. Kanishka Kahar
23. Foram Kanthariya
28. Krishi Patel
50. Mahek Parekh
63. Puusha Shrivastava
84. Honey Tanna

2. Babylon
a city in ancient Mesopotamia
known as: Iraq
Located in: Kuwait, Turkey & Syria
Founded in: 2300 B.C.
founded by: Akkadian speaking people
Today, the city is located along the
banks of Euphrates river,
approximately 85 km south of Baghdad
in Hillary, Iraq.
Babylon was the capital city of the
ancient Babylonian empire.
The city was built along both the
banks of the Euphrates river and had
steep embankments to contain the
river's seasonal floods.

3. CITY PLAN OF BABYLON

4. The City of Babylon
There were 24 streets in Babylon, running
either parallel to the river or at a right angle
to it.These streets were narrow, irregular,
ranging from about four to twenty feet in
width with high windowless walls on each
side. The streets were not paved, with the
exception of the Processional Way, but
instead created with raw earth. Streets
provided access to houses, temples, and public
buildings. They also carried the burden of
becoming the dumping grounds for the city.
The citizens of Babylon, not unlike those of
Renaissance England, their garbage and filth
into the streets. Then, they covered it up with
layers of clay. As a result, the streets of
Babylon began to rise, and eventually, houses
needed to be built on higher ground.The
street known to the Babylonians as Aibur-
shabu (the enemy shall never pass) was the
name of the road leading from the north to
the Ishtar gate. It was a broad paved road that
ran for 200m between high walls (the eastern
wall of the northern palace and the western
side of the eastern outer bastion).

5. Simple houses could be constructed out out
of bundles of reeds which would be tied
together and then inserted into the ground.
More complex houses were constructed on
stone foundations with the house being made
out of mud bricks wood, Asher blocks and
rubble were also popular material used to
make the house.
The Ancient Mesopotamian houses were built
of cut sandstone blocks, mud brick or of
reeds, depending on where they were
located.
In the poorer sections, they would share
walls to cut down construction costs.
Material Pallete

6. 01 — Roxborough House, 1997
02 — Opera House, 1685
walls with slightly projecting decorative
buttresses,
vertical channeling
stepped or triangular battlements
Staged towers, known as ziggurats, that
resembled a pile of diminishing square
platforms, each stage smaller than that
below. They were associated with temples
The Sumerians had evolved a sophisticated
architecture using brick, and set the
architectural agenda until Hellenistic times.
They built arches with voussoirs and vaults,
and used cedarwood in great quantities.
In important buildings, walls were decorated
with colored terracotta cones placed in
geometrical patterns.
Other characteristic elements were:
Architecture

7. Code of Hamurabi
It was one of the earliest and most
completely written legal codes and was
proclaimed by the Babylonian King
Hammurabi.
he reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C.
He expanded the city state of Babylon
along the Euphrates river to unite all
the southern Mesopotamia.
The codes have served as a model for
establishing justice in other cultures
and are believed to have influenced laws
established by Hebrew scribes, including
those in the Book of Exodus.

8. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by
Hellenic culture. They were described as a
remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending
series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of
trees, shrubs, and vines, resembling a large green
mountain constructed of mud bricks. It was said to
have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near
present-day Hillah, Babel province, in Iraq.
Diodorus ascribes the construction to a Syrian king.
He states that the garden was in the shape of a
square, with each side approximately four plethora
long. The garden was tiered, with the uppermost
gallery being 50 cubits high. The walls, 22 feet thick,
were made of brick.
Hanging Gardens

9. The Tower, in the case of
Metropolis, features an eclectic
architectural style referencing
Bauhaus Modern to Art Deco and
to Expressionism. The sci-fi, black
and white film shows the Tower as
a grim and shady “futuristic”
structure where industrial and
office workers are in a never-
ending loop of work cycles in the
super modern maze.

Through all the different
architectural stylistic portrayals
of the Tower of Babel, the
unrealized potential of its story
continues to offer opportunities
for its visualization.
tower of babel

10. The Ishtar Gate was
the eighth gate to the
inner city of Babylon.
It was constructed in
575 B.C.E. by order of
King Nebuchadnezzar
II on the north side of
the city.
It was part of a grand
walled processional
way leading into the
city. The walls were
finished in glazed
bricks mostly in blue,
with animals and
deities in low relief at
intervals, these also
made up of bricks that
are molded and
colored differently.
Ishtar Gate

11. The ziggurat is the most distinctive
architectural invention of the
Ancient Near East.
Like an ancient Egyptian pyramid, an
ancient Near Eastern ziggurat has
four sides and rises up to the realm of
the gods. However, unlike Egyptian
pyramids, the exterior of Ziggurats
were not smooth but tiered to
accommodate the work which took
place at the structure as well as the
administrative oversight and
religious rituals essential to Ancient
Near Eastern cities.
Ziggurats are found scattered around
what is today Iraq and Iran, and stand
as an imposing testament to the power
and skill of the ancient culture that
produced them.
The great Ziggurat

12. in the 1920s Sir Leonard Woolley, in a joint
project with the University of Pennsylvania
Museum in Philadelphia and the British
Museum in London, revealed the monument
in its entirety.
What Woolley found was a massive
rectangular pyramidal structure, oriented
to true North, 210 by 150 feet, constructed
with three levels of terraces, standing
originally between 70 and 100 feet high.
Three monumental staircases led up to a
gate at the first terrace level. Next, a
single staircase rose to a second terrace
which supported a platform on which a
temple and the final and highest terrace
stood.
The core of the ziggurat is made of mud
brick covered with baked bricks laid with
bitumen, a naturally occurring tar. Each of
the baked bricks measured about 11.5 x 11.5 x
2.75 inches and weighed as much as 33
pounds.
The lower portion of the ziggurat, which
supported the first terrace, would have
used some 720,000 baked bricks.

13. Ziggurats commonly had a shrine at the
top, middle, and bottom levels.
Ziggurat temple interiors were
constructed from mud brick, and the
exterior was covered with baked brick.
Ziggurats are made of mud-bricks
because the building material such as
stone is rare in the near east.
Ziggurats were not only a visual focal
point of the city, they were a symbolic
one, as well.
They were at the heart of the theocratic
political system. So, seeing the
ziggurat towering above the city, one
made a visual connection to the god or
goddess honored there, but also
recognized that deity’s political
authority.

14. The sides of the ziggurat were very broad
and sloping but broken up by recessed
stripes or bands from top to bottom, which
would have made a stunning pattern in
morning or afternoon sunlight.
The only way up to the top of the ziggurat
was via a steep stairway that led to a ramp
that wrapped around the north end of the
Ziggurat and brought one to the temple
entrance
The flat top of the ziggurat was coated
with bitumen and overlaid with brick, for a
firm and waterproof foundation for the
White temple.
The temple gets its name for the fact that it
was entirely white washed inside and out,
which would have given it a dazzling
brightness in strong sunlight.

15. Plan, Section & Elevation of Ziggurat
ELEVATIONSECTION
64 m
45 m
30 m

16. ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS AND
DESIGN FOUND AT ZIGGURAT'S
FAÇADE AND WHITE TEMPLE OF
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