Mesopotamia: the architecture of the ancient civilization

The state and culture of Mesopotamia, formed in the basins of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, formed the first significant civilization in the history of mankind. The flowering of its development falls on the IV-III millennium BC. E. For many branches of human life, embodied and become known in later civilizations, Mesopotamia was the birthplace: architecture, writing, mathematics, state apparatus, social structure and so on.

Unfortunately, the millenniums that have passed since that time have destroyed much of the achievements of this cradle of mankind. Almost everything that we know about it is known due to the material artifacts preserved in the earth: the tablets for cuneiform writing, which gives an idea of the ancient letter found by the stone stele, which preserved the laws of Hamurappi (the oldest official legislation, the birthplace of which was Mesopotamia). Architecture, which tells about religious ideas, social and political structure of these peoples, and so on, also plays a significant role in this. Actually, it is the remnants of ancient constructions that give the most complete information about the long-extinct states.

Mesopotamia: architecture as the face of civilization

In the conditions of almost complete absence of stone and wood in this area, the main building material for Sumer, Assyria and Babylonia was clay, from which the so-called raw brick, and later the burned brick, was molded. Actually, the emergence and evolution of buildings from adobe bricks is the main contribution to world architecture, which was made by the ancient Mesopotamia.

The architecture of the Mesopotamia was already at the end of the 6th millennium BC. E. Characterized by the emergence of mud houses, consisting of several rooms. This was at a time when most of the world's population still did not even think about switching over to agriculture, living in random parking and trading with hunting and gathering. With the birth of the state in Sumer, there are monumental religious buildings. People who inhabited this territory built characteristic temples in the form of stepped towers and ziggurats. Ziggurats were, as a rule, pyramidal. It is interesting that it is their appearance that the Bible Tower of Babel, which got into the Bible from the more ancient myths of the peoples of the Mesopotamia , also has its appearance.

The palaces and royal residences of the lords of Assyria and Babylonia had a very complex structure. So, for example, the palace of Sargon II in the city of Khorsabad was a powerful citadel, having a height of twenty meters. And its courtyard was abundantly lined with canals and vaulted ceilings. The palace itself was one-story, but had many inner courtyards around it. In one part, the royal apartments were located, and in the other - rooms for women. In addition, the palace also housed public services and churches.

In the structure of cities, the architecture of ancient Mesopotamia is characterized by the continuous construction of blocks with the presence of common walls between two separate houses, as well as with the deaf facades and small windows located under the roof facing the street. Inside such a building, as a rule, there was a patio.