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Monumental Architecture
Palaces
Palaces in Ancient Mesopotamia were reserved for rulers and administrators of Mesopotamia. One of the most famous palaces was owned by Sennacherib, the ruler of Babylon and Assyria. The Palace was massive. It was 500m by 250m. The outside was made of baked bricks, which had a foundation of limestone bricks. His Palace had huge cedar doors which were decorated with shiny copper bands while the arches and copings were accompanied with colorful glazed tiles.
Palaces served as residences or homes for kings and their families. Kings enjoyed their personal and private gardens and orchards. Wall paintings would be common around a palace while sculptures of lions and other animals would guard the entrance. Wall paintings would represent victory and dynasty, and sometimes power and status of the king who would live there. Important rooms in the palace were decorated with reliefs carved from gypsum or limestone, which were painted in vivid colors and shades. (RP)
The palace that Sennacherib owned.
Sculptures of animals and wall paintings.
Model of a Mesopotamian palace.
Ziggurats
Ziggurats were used to be a home for the god of the city. As religion was central to Mesopotamian life, the ziggurat was the heart of a city. Starting around 3000 B.C., if the god was more important it would get a bigger ziggurat, and if the god was less important it would get a little smaller ziggurat. A king would take special pride in a ziggurat built during his reign and often name the monument.
Ziggurats were in the heart of the Mesopotamian main cities including Babylon, Akkadian and Assyria. You could see them from anywhere in the city. They had two to seven floors and were 300 by 300 square meters at their base . The reason is that the gods wanted a path from Earth to heaven. It was the closest point from Earth to heaven.
Ziggurats took a long time to make; they took about 100 years. Ziggurats were monumental temples that were constructed in ancient Mesopotamian and western Iran. The time of these amazing ziggurats was 2900 B.C - 2350 B.C. The material these amazing ziggurats were built with was mud bricks with burnt bricks facing outward. (MP)
Hanging Gardens
The Hanging Gardens in Babylon is one of the seven ancient wonders of the world and an architectural masterpiece constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II. The outer walls of the hanging gardens were 56 miles in length, 80 feet thick and 320 feet high. Inside these, double walls were fortresses and temples containing immense statues of solid gold. It consists of vaulted terraces raised one above another, and resting upon pillars. These are hollow and filled with dirt to allow trees of the largest size to be planted. Babylon rarely received rain and for the garden to survive, it would have had to be irrigated by using water from the nearby Euphrates River. King Nebuchadnezzar II built the Hanging Gardens for his queen who was apparently homesick for the verdant valleys and mountain meadows of her native land. The King thus came up with the idea of creating a blooming landscape for his wife in the very land of Mesopotamia, ancient Babylon. The Hanging Gardens are roughly from 600 BCE, That's like 2600 years ago! People say that the Hanging Gardens were destroyed by an earthquake in 226 BCE, almost 400 years after construction. (BZ)
Pictures Of Hanging Gardens Of Babylon
Royal Tombs of Ur
The Royal Tombs of Ur is one of the coolest places in my opinion in Iraq. It was a 4,800-year-old Sumerian burial site of around 2,000 graves located in the ancient city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia (in the south of modern day Iraq). In the 1920s the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley worked extensively at Ur and in 1926 he uncovered the huge cemetery.
These ‘Royal Tombs’ comprised sunken stone chambers with vaulted roofs, approached down steep ramps cut into the earth. Most had been robbed, but even these often still contained extraordinary treasures, like the ‘Standard of Ur’. It was made up of mosaic panels of lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl, it had once formed the sides of the sound- box of a lyre. One rich tomb, that of Queen Puabi (known from a seal buried with her), was found intact. The evidence of this and some of the other tombs revealed an elaborate funeral ritual involving human sacrifice on a mass scale. Wooley named "'the death-pits of Ur'". So that is why I think the Royal Tombs Of Ur is one of the coolest places. (AC)
Homes
Mud Brick Homes
Mesopotamia houses have 2-3 stories, they would use the balconies to hang up clothes and catch a breeze because it is so hot. The houses would usually have a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.The houses would usually be made of mud walls, reeds, clusters and hearth.
New cities and large towns created new possibilities for people who lived in small villages and were only occupied with hunting and farming.
The rich people, primarily the priests and merchants lived in double storey dwellings, whereas the trader people and craftsmen had single story houses.
The downstairs room for the more successful was reserved for guests and houses had a kitchen, fireplace and bathrooms. Bedrooms were located upstairs and opened up to a balcony.
The balcony was one that could come down easily to the courtyard. Usually you would find daily appliances that were used at the time inside the house though.
Most houses (approximately 90 square meters) had a square center room with other rooms built around an area that provided access to the light and ventilated the interior.
Places of shelter developed into smaller houses that sunk into the ground. Houses had an entrance, a mud wall and a hearth, and they played a very important roles in spiritual times.
The materials used by ancient Sumerians to build their houses were dried mud bricks.
The houses had a central courtyard for natural light and air while providing the much needed security and protection from bad weather.
When the mesopotamia community started to flourish, daily life began to change. (RK)
Reed Houses
As an architectural structure, Al-mūḍīf is an ancient iconic design, built by reeds only, and furniture wasput in later, mainly local-made rugs and kilims. The construction of Al-mūḍīf relies on the knowledge and skills of local artisans who studied and prepared for uniqe designs. These artisans represent traditional craftsmanship systems, directed by families, where knowledge is passed from fathers to sons, and specific production techniques are protected. However, due to many natural and man-made circumstances, the efficiency of this traditional system is declining. Furthermore, Al-mūḍīf supports the tribe’s socio-cultural climbing in power and wealth. Building Al-mūḍīf is a collective process, where members from each family in the tribe must participate, and help building.
The overall dimensions of a reed house reach 24 to 98 feet in length (based on the number of arches), and from 10 to 15 feet in width, the bigger the reed house was, the more it showed dominance, power, and wealth.
Houses had an entrance, a reed walls, and they were built with precision and unique ways of design. The materials used by ancient Sumerians to build their houses were just reeds. The houses had places to catch sunlight and sometimes abreeze would get through, and sometimes it would even get a little bit of a weather experience. (RK)
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