How to Study Architecture, Charles H. Caffin [best manga ereader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Charles H. Caffin
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While Assyria borrowed its culture from Babylonia, the character of the two nations was very different. Babylonia was a country of merchants and agriculturists; Assyria, an organised camp. The latter’s dynasties were founded by successful generals; while in Babylonia it was always a priest whom a revolution raised to the throne and the king remained to the last a priest under the control of a powerful hierarchy. The Assyrian King, on the contrary, was an autocratic general, supported in earlier times by a feudal nobility and, from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, by an elaborate bureaucracy. In each country there was a large body of slaves.
In Assyria education was confined to the ruling class; whereas in Babylonia every one, women as well as men, learned to read and write. Most of the Babylonian cities and temples had their libraries and the genius of the people displayed itself most characteristically in literature. Among works which have been discovered, whole or in fragments, were the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” consisting of twelve books each of which recounts an adventure in the hero’s career; another epic, that of the Creation, and the “Legend of Adapa,” the first man. In astronomy and astrology the Chaldæans and Babylonians from early times were adepts; observatories being attached to the temples from which reports were regularly submitted to the King. They were also skilled in mathematics and mechanics. For example, a glass lens, turned on a lathe, was discovered by Layard at Nimroud, among the remains of glass vases which bear the name of Sargon.
While the Chaldæans in time had become mingled with the Babylonians, so that the latter name was used to designate both peoples, the term Chaldæan came to be used in a special sense. The “Wisdom of the Chaldæans” continued to be recognised, and it was probably to the pure race of Chaldæans that the priests, “astrologers” and “magicians” belonged. And their distinction as wise men even survived the overthrow of Babylon. In all likelihood they were Chaldæans, those “Wise men from the East,” who saw and interpreted the star and followed it to Bethlehem.
CHAPTER IVCHALDÆAN, ASSYRIAN, AND BABYLONIAN ARCHITECTURE
Brick Construction.—In its principal features and general character of construction, the architecture of each of these three civilisations is similar, being based upon the methods that originated with the Chaldæans. These methods were the direct result of the geographic and climatic conditions of the country they inhabited. For Lower Mesopotamia, Babylonia proper, is an alluvial plain, interrupted by a single ridge of limestone hills which were sparsely covered with small trees, especially the scrub-oak. Timber and stone were scarce, while everywhere clay abounded. Accordingly, the chief material of construction was brick, shaped in wooden moulds and sun-dried. The limited amount of fuel permitted only the making of burnt bricks for special purposes: namely, the facing of the structures and the paving of the floors. And these superior bricks or tiles were frequently glazed and decorated with ornament in bright colours.
Meanwhile, in Upper Mesopotamia, Assyria proper, the ground was comparatively arid and plentifully supplied with limestone. Yet such was the habit of the Assyrians to imitate the Southern kingdom in matters of civilisation, that they also relied upon sun-dried brick for construction, and employed glazed earthenware for decoration. In time, however, they came to employ stone for facing as well as for the sculpture, which was a characteristic decorative feature of the palaces.
Platforms.—We shall see presently how the fierce heat affected the principles of architectural construction, noting in advance the means taken to provide against the periodical inundations due to the torrential rains and the overflow of the Tigris. From earlier times all important buildings were erected upon platforms, constructed of sun-dried bricks and faced with fired bricks or stone, the walls having a batter, that is to say, sloping inward. Approach to the summit was either by flights of steps or an inclined roadway that paralleled the wall—technically known as a ramp. Intersecting these mounds or platforms was a system of arched culverts, designed, as in modern railroad embankments, to carry off the water.
In course of time, as buildings fell into decay or were replaced with newer ones by later builders, the height of the mound increased. The result is that the plain of Babylonia for 220 miles is studded with immense mounds, some of them a mile in diameter and attaining 200 feet in height, crowned with the remains of towns. Beneath these, the modern explorer, cutting down into the interior of the mound, comes upon successive stages of foundations, representing the remains of various epochs.
Temple at Nippur.—The earliest example, so far disclosed, is a temple at Nippur, which bears a close resemblance to the oldest pyramid in Egypt, Medum, before the latter had been faced. It is on the principle of the stepped-pyramid, consisting of several stories, each of which sets back from the one below it, while the walls of all have a batter. The terraces on one side are of extra width to allow for the stairways. This old type of stage-temple, called in the East ziggurat (holy mountain), derived probably from the ancient custom of worshipping in “high places,” was still preserved in the famous
“SARGON’S CASTLE,” NEAR KHORSABAD
Conjectured Restoration. P. 67
PART OF “LION FRIEZE” AND “FRIEZE OF ARCHERS”
Executed in Glazed Tiles. P. 72
DETAILS OF WALL DECORATION AT KOYUNJIK
Showing (Left) the Handling of a Colossal Bull Statue; and (Right) That the Assyrians Used Some Form of Dome-Roofs
Temple of Nebo, rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar at Borsippa. Only four stages of the latter survive, but a record discovered in the ruins shows that the original number was seven, dedicated to the seven planets and decorated with the colours sacred to each. The ground story of this temple was 272 feet square and 45 feet high, while the total height of the structure was about 160 feet. It is noteworthy that the tomb-pyramid of Medum also consisted of seven stories.
In a ziggurat at Tello, opened up by the French savant, de Sarzac, was discovered a magnificent collection of statues of diorite—a mixture of granite, felspar and hornblende—dark grey in colour—which is now in the Louvre. One of these, which has lost its head, represents a certain Gudea, priest-king and architect of Lagash. He is seated and carries on his lap a tablet, on which a fortified enclosure is engraved, while in the corner appear a dividing scale and a stylos.
Sargon’s Castle.—The oldest palace remains have been discovered at Nimroud, the ancient Calah. They belong to the palace of Assur-nazar-pal (885-860 B.C.). Ten miles to the northeast, at Khorsabad, the French explorer P. E. Botta, discovered in 1843 the remains of a tower and palace, which subsequent excavations have proved to be the ruins of Dur-Sharrukim, “Sargon’s Castle,” built by Sargon as a royal residence (705-702 B.C.). The remains of the palace, being the most extensive of those hitherto explored, can be studied as a type of Assyrian palace architecture.
The platform on which the palace stood, constructed of sun-dried bricks and faced with cut stone, reaches the immense size of nearly a million square feet, raised forty-eight feet above the surrounding level country. The total platform, therefore, measured about 23 acres, as compared with the 3½ acres occupied by the Capitol at Washington, or the 8 acres occupied by the Houses of Parliament in London. Making allowance for the fact that the Assyrian Palace did not extend over the whole of the platform space, its actual dimensions must have been approximately twice as large as the Houses of Parliament and four and a half times those of the Capitol.
Leading up from the level on the northeast side appears to have been a double ramp, for the use of chariots and for general service, while the state entrance was at the southeast by a double flight of steps. These mounted to a terrace that extended the whole length of the palace front, some 900 feet. In the centre of this façade was the principal gate, which was small in actual size, but flanked by two tower-like projections of masonry. These, for the moment, may recall the pylons that flanked the entrance to an Egyptian temple. But the latter stately structures, built with a batter and crowned with a cavetto cornice, were designed for monumental dignity. On the other hand, the towers of Sargon’s Castle were pierced near the top with loop-holes and surmounted by battlements. They were designed to serve the purpose of warlike defence and suggest appropriately that the entrance is not only to a palace but also to the castle or stronghold of a feudal chieftain. The same suggestion is prolonged in the battlemented walls, free of windows and only occasionally pierced with loopholes, which seem to have surrounded the entire structure.
Gateway.—The towers were embellished with a notably structural decoration, a system of rectangular panelling, filled with semi-circular shafts. The ornamental details were derived from the Chaldæan use of glazed tiles, decorated with rosettes, palmettes, lotus-flowers and the guilloche or repeat of intertwined bands, arching round a central button. Similarly decorated is the archivolt which surrounds the arch of the entrance, the latter being a barrel- or semi-circular-vaulted passageway, carried right through the thickness of the walls.
Colossal Bulls.—In Egypt the entrance to the temples was made solemn and magnificent by colossal statues of the monarch. Here, the beholder must have been filled with awe by the colossal monsters that stood as guardians of the portal, projecting from the side-posts of the gateway and ranged in pairs at the foot of each tower. These monsters, which are now in the British Museum, fitly embody the warlike ideals of the Assyrian nation. They loom up in height to twelve feet. Their bodies are those of bulls, mighty in bulk and thews; yet they are quick to attack, having eagle’s wings, while dominating them is the head of a man, large-eyed, thick-lipped, square of jaw and hairy, implacably sensual and cruel.
The modeling of these monsters is for the most part as broad as a Barye bronze; though minute detail is attained in the sculpturing of the beards, hair and head-dresses. But, while their treatment is in the main naturalistic, their motive is not representation of nature, but the representation of an idea through natural suggestion. Accordingly, each embodiment has five legs; the two forelegs, planted side by side, being supplemented by another in the act of walking; so that whether the monster be viewed from the front or the side, the full significance of the legs is emphasised—the forelegs representing firmly established power; the side view showing the legs in free and powerful movement.
No Columns.—The arched entrance leads into a large open court that corresponds to the great court of an Egyptian temple, although here the sides are not embellished with colonnades. For, nowhere in Assyrian architecture has the column been found as a structural member. The single example which has been excavated, measured only three feet four inches in height and, it is conjectured, was used for a pavilion, possibly to support an awning. The absence of columnar construction in the early buildings of the Lower Kingdom is easily accounted for by the scarcity of stone; and the northern builders in dispensing with columns were only following their usual habit of imitation.
No Windows.—Meanwhile, another reason for the absence of columns may be found in the fierce heat of Mesopotamia, against which colonnades would prove no protection. The same cause explains the absence of windows in Assyrian palaces,
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