ARCHITECTURE AND DECORATION.
Architecture is evolved from religion as well as from nature. Generally
speaking, we find temples of worship to be the first buildings erected
by every people.
Because the Babylonians were limited by lack of other material to sun or
kiln-dried brick, and the Assyrians, devoid of originality, limited
themselves to the same baked clay, we would scarcely expect to find
pleasing or artistic buildings in either state. Even in the dwellings of
rich and poor, the great difference was one of size. It was impossible
to make a clay wall very ornate, but the wealthy could have more walls
and broader expanse of bricks. Size, or hugeness, then, signified
superiority. It naturally followed that the temple, the noblest
structure attempted by the Mesopotamians, was especially large, being
called by a word which meant "mountain house."
Large tracts of land were dedicated to the temples. Having been
consecrated by libations of wine, oil and honey, the temple proper,
consisting of halls or rooms surrounding an inner court, was first
erected. Near this arose the ziggurat or tower, and many smaller
buildings, not unlike private dwellings. These served as residences for
the priests, for the temple school, store-houses for the sacred oil and
other articles pertaining to worship, and many other purposes. The
entire area was enclosed by a wall, and was ordinarily remote from the
noises of the city. Within this large enclosure other walls surrounded
buildings of special sanctity and importance. Within the temple proper
was an inner room where the statue of the god was kept. This
corresponded to the "holy of holies" in a Jewish synagogue, and was
entered only by the priest or king.
The ziggurat or mountain house--for this alone was massive and
high--built as symbolic of the mountain form which the whole earth was
supposed to assume, was a tower, some times three, some times five or
even seven stories high. The remains of one of these ziggurats was
discovered by Dr. Peters and his explorers at Nippur, and is supposed to
have been built as early as 2700 B.C.
The ziggurat at Borsippa had a base of earthwork 272 feet on each side,
and was 26 feet high. Above this foundation arose two stories, 26 feet
in height, each 42 feet less on a side than the story below. Four
stories, each 15 feet high, followed, decreasing 42 feet on a side like
the lower ones, and the last, or seventh, story, was just 29 feet
square. Stairways wound around the outside of the tower, and it was
thought pleasing to the gods that worshippers should ascend to the top.
Each story was sacred to some particular god whose statue it contained
while the shrine of the most important deity was placed on top.
Sometimes each story was painted a different color.
The mass of worshippers, however, assembled at the temple rather than
the tower, and offerings were made at the base of the ziggurat instead
of at the top.
It was the ambition of the kings that the inner walls of their
buildings, whether temples or palaces, should "shine like the sunlight,"
and to this end gold, silver and precious stones lent their gleams and
glows to mural decorations.
Next in importance to the temples were royal palaces, and in Assyria,
where religion was given less prominence, the temple was a mere adjunct
of the palace. Here again, a large inner court was surrounded by halls
and rooms. The palace court was paved and decorated and upon the inner
walls of the palace the skill of the artist was expended. The floors
were made of tiles, and these followed ingenious patterns. Sometimes the
floors were formed of bricks or tablets covered with inscriptions deeply
cut; then molten metal--brass or bronze--was poured over the whole, and
filling the depressions, caused the entire floor to look like a curious
and intricate design.
It was comparatively easy to lay floors and raise walls of bricks, but
it was quite another thing to make roofs of them. The longest rafters
were obtained from the cedars of Lebanon and these ranged from 30 to 40
feet in length. This practically determined the width of the halls and
rooms, which seem to have been even four times their width in length.
The monotony of the inner walls was relieved by alabaster reaching
around the halls from twelve to fifteen feet above the floors, and held
in place by strong iron clamps. On this soft, yielding substance were
portrayed scenes in the life and exploits of the king--his campaigns,
hunts, works of peace, and acts of worship. These were executed in
bas-relief after the slabs were fitted into place. Above them extended a
frieze perhaps three feet in width, made of tiles painted in delicate
colors and laid in such a way as to form a picture or design. We miss
the gaudy colors so popular in Egypt. It has been well said that the
Assyrian artist sought to please by the elegance of his forms and the
harmony of his hues--not to startle by a display of bright and strongly
contrasted colors. The palace of Sennacherib, second only to the temple
of Karnak in grandeur--covered an area of eight acres, and contained
some eighty apartments. The palace of Sargon at Khorsabad had no less
than 209 rooms. Of the scenes depicted on the slabs of alabaster in the
state apartments Rawlinson writes at length: "The most striking
characteristic of Sennacherib's ornamentation is its strong and marked
realism. Mountains, rocks, trees, roads, rivers, lakes were regularly
portrayed, an attempt being made to represent the locality, whatever it
might be, as truthfully as the artist's skill and the character of his
material rendered possible. The species of trees is distinguished,
gardens, fields, ponds, reeds, are carefully represented; wild animals
are introduced, as stags, boars and antelopes; birds fly from tree to
tree, or stand over their nests, feeding the young who stretch up to
them; fish disport themselves in the water; fishermen ply their craft;
boatmen and agricultural laborers pursue their avocations; the scene is,
as it were, photographed, with all its features.
"In the same spirit of realism, Sennacherib chooses for artistic
representation scenes of a commonplace and everyday character. The
trains of attendants who daily enter his palace with game and locust for
his dinner, and cakes and fruit for his dessert, appear on the walls of
the passages exactly as they walked through his courts bearing the
delicacies in which he delighted. Elsewhere he puts before us the entire
process of carving and transporting a colossal bull, from the first
removal of the huge stone in its rough state from the quarry to its
final elevation on a palace mound, as part of the great gateway of a
royal residence. We see the trackers dragging the rough block, supported
on a low flat-bottomed boat, along the course of a river, disposed in
gangs, each gang having a costume of its own which probably marked its
nation, under taskmasters armed with staves, who urged on the labor with
blows. The whole scene must be represented, and so the trackers are
there, to the number of three hundred, each delineated with as much care
as if he were not the exact image of ninety-nine others. We then observe
the block transferred to land, and carved into the rough semblance of a
bull, in which form it is placed on a rude sledge and conveyed along
level land by gangs of laborers, arranged nearly as before, to the foot
of the mound at whose top it has to be placed. The construction of the
mound is elaborately represented. Brickmakers are seen moulding the
bricks at its base, while workmen with baskets at their backs, full of
earth, brick, stone, or rubbish toil up the ascent--for the mound is
already half raised--and empty their burdens out upon the summit. The
bull, still lying on its sledge, is then drawn up an inclined plane to
the top by four gangs of laborers, in the presence of the monarch and
his attendants. After this the carving is completed, and the colossus,
having been raised into an upright position, is conveyed along the
surface of the platform to the exact site which it is to occupy."
Guarding the portals of the palaces stood the winged bulls and lions, in
pairs. They were thought to ward off demons and to inspire awe in those
who beheld them. They were formed with five legs, in order that the
spectator, whether he viewed them from the front or side, might still
see the usual four. Speaking of these great stone creatures, Layard
wrote: "I used to contemplate for hours these mysterious emblems, and
muse over their intent and history. What more noble forms could have
ushered the people into the temple of their gods? What more sublime
images could have been borrowed from nature by men who sought, unaided
by the light of revealed religion, to embody their conception of the
wisdom, power and ubiquity of a Supreme Being? They could find no better
type of intellect and knowledge than the head of a man; of strength,
than the body of a lion; of rapidity of motion than the wings of a bird.
These winged human-headed lions were not idle creations, the offspring
of mere fancy; their meaning was written upon them. They had awed and
instructed races which flourished three thousand years ago. Through the
portals which they guarded, kings, priests, and warriors had borne
sacrifices to their altars long before the wisdom of the East had
penetrated to Greece, and furnished its mythology with symbols long
recognized by the Assyrian votaries.
"They may have been buried, and their existence may have been unknown
before the foundation of the Eternal City. For twenty-five centuries
they had been hidden from the eye of man, and they now stood forth once
more in their ancient majesty. But how changed was the scene around
them! The luxury and civilization of a mighty nation had given place to
the wretchedness and ignorance of a few half-barbarous tribes. The
wealth of temples and the riches of the great cities had been succeeded
by ruins and shapeless heaps of earth. Above the spacious hall in which
they stood the plow had passed and the corn now waved. Egypt has
monuments no less ancient and no less wonderful, but they have stood
forth for ages to testify her early power and renown, while these before
me had but now appeared to bear witness, in the words of the prophet,
that once 'the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches....
Now is Nineveh desolate and dry like a wilderness, and flocks lie down
in the midst of her.'"
Babylon was probably the most beautiful city of antiquity.
Nebuchadnezzar II. surrounded the capital with walls of such solidity
that it is supposed the city could never have been taken by assault. His
father began the fortifications, and it was left for the greatest
Babylonian king to complete them and make them even more secure. Between
the outer and inner walls, wide distances were left. Here trees and
gardens were planted. This space was provided for nearby villagers in
times of siege, and it was also intended that here fields of grain might
be grown to sustain the population under such trying conditions.
Herodotus described these walls: "And here I may not omit to tell the
use to which the mould dug out of the great moat was turned, nor the
manner wherein the wall was wrought. As fast as they dug the moat, the
soil which they got from the cutting was made into bricks, and when a
sufficient number were completed, they baked the bricks in kilns. Then
they set to building and began with bricking the borders of the moat,
after which they proceeded to construct the wall itself, using
throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposed a layer of
wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of the bricks." According to
this writer the outer wall was 14 miles in circumference, 93 feet thick,
and 370 feet in height, but it is supposed that he included the city of
Borsippa, across the river, within the length of wall, and no doubt he
computed the height to include the lofty towers built at intervals along
the wall, to give sentinels a wide outlook over the country. These walls
the Greeks included among the wonders of the world, and probably ancient
warfare could not have destroyed them.
The Hanging Gardens of this great city were also enumerated among the
world's wonders. These are said to have been built by Nebuchadnezzar for
his Median queen, who wearied of the dull, flat country of Babylonia,
and pined for her mountain home. The lowest terrace arose some 500 feet
square, and three other terraces, supported by arches and pillars, were
constructed above it, each smaller than the one beneath. These four
platforms or terraces were covered with soil drawn up in carts, and the
earth was deep enough to grow large trees, as well as all kinds of
plants and vines. A pump house was located on top, water being drawn
from the river and forced all through the structure, while the pipes
were carefully concealed. Broad stairways led up to the uppermost
terraces where a residence was built for the favorite queen. Hanging
gardens had been built in Nineveh by former kings, but none so splendid
as these nor on so gigantic a scale. Seen from afar, overtowering the
high walls of the city, their height accentuated by the vast expanse of
level land, the effect was that of a low mountain, clothed in verdure
and scenting the breeze with the blended fragrance of its beautiful
flowers.
The population of Babylon was probably above 500,000 and the city
contained more wealthy families than any other in Asia. The houses of
these added to the beauty of the place, while two royal palaces, one on
either side of the Euphrates, exceeded all former splendor in the
southland. Streets were laid out at right angles, and the more important
ones terminated in high gates leading out of the city walls. These gates
were made of cedar and covered with bronze plates. Well might
Nebuchadnezzar exclaim: "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built
for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power, and for the
glory of my majesty?" And again: "For the astonishment of men I built
this house; awe of the power of my majesty encompasses its walls. The
temples of the great gods I made brilliant as the sun, shining as the
day. In Babylon alone I raised the seat of my dominion, in no other
city!"
[Illustration: DECORATION IN ENAMELED TILES ON ONE OF THE GATES OF THE
HAREM IN SARGON'S PALACE.]