/ / Mesopotamia: architecture of ancient civilization

Mesopotamia: the architecture of the ancient civilization

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 heyday of its development falls on IV-III thousand. BC. er For many branches of human life, embodied and become known in later civilizations, Mesopotamia was the homeland: architecture, writing, mathematics, state apparatus, social structure, and so on.

Mesopotamia architecture

К сожалению, тысячелетия, прошедшие с того time, destroyed much of the achievements of this cradle of humanity. Almost everything that we know about it is known thanks to the material artifacts preserved in the earth: tablets for cuneiform, giving an idea of ​​the ancient letter, a stone stele that preserved the laws of Hamurappi (the oldest official legislation, of which Mesopotamia was born). The architecture telling 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 the ancient constructions that provide the most complete information about the long-disappeared states.

Mesopotamia: architecture as the face of civilization

В условиях почти полного отсутствия камня и леса In this area, the main building material for Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia was clay, from which the so-called raw brick was molded, and later, the burnt brick. Actually, the emergence and evolution of buildings made of mud brick is the main contribution to world architecture, which was made by ancient Mesopotamia.

architecture of ancient mesopotamia

Architecture of Interfluve at the end of VI millenniumBC er characterized by the emergence of mud houses, consisting of several rooms. It was at that time when most of the population of the planet had not even thought of switching to agriculture, living on random stands and hunting for hunting and gathering. With the birth of the state, monumental religious buildings appear here in Sumer. The people who inhabited this territory built characteristic temples in the form of stepped towers and ziggurats. The ziggurats were usually pyramidal in shape. It is interesting that it is precisely their appearance that the Biblical Tower of Babel has, which got into the bible from the more ancient myths of the peoples of the Entre Rios.

Palaces and royal residences of the rulers of Assyria andBabylonia had a very complex structure. For example, the palace of Sargon II in the city of Khorsabad was a powerful citadel, having a height of twenty meters. And his courtyard was abundantly pierced with canals and vaulted ceilings. The palace itself was a one-story, but it had many courtyards around it. In one part were the royal apartments, and in the other - the apartments for women. In addition, state services and temples were also placed in the palace.

culture of mesopotamia

In the device of cities the architecture of the ancientMesopotamia is characterized by continuous building of blocks with common walls between two separate houses, as well as with deaf facade facing the street and small windows under the roof. Inside such a building, as a rule, there was a patio.