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Monumental Architecture
Palaces
Mesopatamian palaces were often big. They would have throne rooms, halls, and spaces for numerous activities. The luxurious abode would be surrounded by orchards and gardens, for food and enjoyment. Sometimes the palaces would be so big they would have markets.
King Sennacherib's palace was named “the palace without a rival" . It was big at a whopping 500 x 200 meters. Tens of thousands of baked bricks were stacked on top of each other on the limestone foundation. Some bricks were glazed in ocean blue for a flashy interior.And giant cedar wood doors with golden ring handles guarded the palace. All of the walls were covered in paintings all telling different stories. And finally they had creepy man headed-winged bull statue. (HP)
Gates to palace
Complex of palace
Ziggurats
A Ziggurat was a place of worship built on many levels with steps all around it. Ziggurats were usually located at the very centre of Mesopotamian cities and, after 2000 BC, they could be found in most of those cites.
Ziggurats were designed to drain water and even had internal drainpipes to get rid of the water. Many ziggurats had layers of reeds, grass-like plants, and bitumen, a black, waterproof tar, between the mud bricks on each level to help protect from water damage.
The ziggurats were often very tall structures. Clay tablets, which were the books of the time, describe temples with as many as seven levels. In a similar manner to other religious buildings, the idea was to create a connection between heaven and earth so height was considered to be very important. Not all ziggurats were so tall though, with many only four or five levels high.
The stairs around the ziggurat allowed priests and other religious leaders to walk up the building to the very top where they could perform rituals on the high temple. During these religious rituals, ordinary people would be located at the bottom of the building listening to and participating in the hymns and prayers. In certain cases, the ziggurats even had special areas where marriages took place.
Hanging Gardens
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are a big part of history in many different ways. For example king Nebuchadnezzar Built the Hanging Gardens for his Wife Queen Amytis who lived in the Hanging Gardens because she missed the rolling hills and green grass from her hometown. The Hanging Gardens are also one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. (EC)
Ishtar Gate
The Past
The Ishtar Gate was constructed in 575 B.C.E by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. It depicted the goddess of love named Ishtar, the god of storms Abad, and the chief of all gods Marduk. Nebuchadnezzer decorated the gate with colorful bricks. Nebuchadnezzer depicted 120 bulls, lions, dragons, and flowers all made out of glazed blue bricks.The gate stands at a whopping 45 feet (13.7) meters tall. The Gate stands in front of Persian Avenue. It stood as the great entrance into the city of Babylon, it was like entering into the USA and seeing the Statue of liberty as an immigrant coming in the early 20th century.
The Present
The Ishtar Gates were excavated by a German archaeology team in 1902 to 1914 and relocated to a museum in Pergamon. The Gate was originally a double gate but the museum was too small for the other part so they only got one part. The other part of the gate is in storage and some of the bricks were sent to other museums around the globe. (CK)
Royal Tombs of Ur
The richness of the tombs and the grotesque funerary ritual represented by them shed a sharp new light on the origins of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia. The implication was of a complex and highly stratified society in which an exceptionally wealthy and powerful elite had been elevated above society to almost god-like status. And it was also a death pit. The Royal Tombs of southern Ur is a 4,800-year-old Sumerian burial site of around 2,000 graves located in the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia.
Some thing to know about the Royal Tombs consisted of a vaulted or domed stone tomb chamber set at the bottom of a deep pit, to which a ramp provided access.
Homes
Mud Brick City Homes
A Mesopotamian mud brick home is a house that people built with tall reeds that were placed in parallel rows on the ground; as for the tops they were tied together and covered in matting. There were balconies in the house and they were built in a different way so that the people could easily access the courtyard. People in Mesopotamia were put into 3 classes, the upper class included the richest and most influential people such as kings, priests, and government officials. The middle class included farmers, fishermen, merchants, and traders. The lower class included enslaved people who were captured and sold and bought among the upper class civilians. The average mud brick house was a small one story structure made of mud brick. It contained several rooms grouped around the courtyard. people with more resources like the upper class probably lived in two story houses which were plastered and whitewashed and had about 10 or 11 rooms equipped with wooden doors for each room. Sometimes under the floor of the house there was a mausoleum where the dead family members were buried. (EC)
Mud brick house
Straw Country Homes
A straw country home is a house that people built out of sun dried bricks and or construction reeds but it depended on wealth. People tied reed bundles or plaited them into mats and set them vertically into the grounds, like columns, in two parallel rows, and then their peaks were tied. Such primitive homes are still made and used by the marsh-dwellers of southern Iraq. In a hot climate like Iraq’s, a well-designed house must protect its dwellers from the sun’s heat. The reed houses accomplished this by providing shade. In addition, the thick bundles of reeds provided some insulation. If the house was rectangular and there was an opening at either end, its owners may have enjoyed cross-ventilation as well. (EC)
Straw country houses
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