Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Sumerian architecture -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

The Sumerians were a people who lived in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) from the 4th millennium BC to the 3rd millennium BC. Their accomplishments include, the invention of urban planning, the courtyard house, and the Ziggurats (high adobe-brick buildings). No architectural profession existed in Sumer; however, scribes drafted and managed construction for the government, nobility, or royalty. The Sumerians were aware of 'the craft of building' as a divine gift taught to men by the gods (me 28). Sumerian Architecture is the foundation of later Near Eastern, Anatolian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Islamic, and to a certain extent Grecoroman and therefore Western Architectures.

Contents 1 Materials 2 Urban Design 3 Residential Architecutre 4 Civic Architecture 4.1 High temple 4.2 City temple 4.3 Palace 4.4 Fortification 5 Commercial Architecture 6 Landscape Architecture 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 Further Reading 11 External Links

Materials

The story of Sumerian architecture is overwhelmingly one of clay masonary and of increasingly complex forms of stacked bricks.

Because Sumer lacked both forests and quarries, the main material was adobe-brick also called mud-brick. Adobe brick was preferred over vitrious brick as the primary material because of its superior thermal properties and lower cost. Vitrious brick was used in small applications involving water, decoration, and monumental construction. A late innovation was glazed vitrious brick. Sumerian masonary was usually mortarless although bitumen was sometimes used. Brick styles, which varied greatly over time, are categorized by period:^[1]

• Patzen 80×40×15 cm: Late Uruk period (3600–3200 BCE)
• Riemchen 16×16 cm: Late Uruk period
• Plano-Convex

As plano-convex bricks (being rounded) are somewhat unstable, Sumerian bricklayers would lay a row of bricks perpendicular to the rest every few rows.

Buildings eventually deteriorate, so they were periodically destroyed, leveled, and rebuilt on the same spot. This constant rebuilding gradually raised the level of cities, so that they came to be elevated above the surrounding plain. The resulting hills are known as tells, and are found throughout the ancient Near East. Temples combated this problem by using cones of colored stone, terracotta panels, and clay nails driven into the adobe-brick to create a protective sheath that slowed the decay and decorated the facade.

Urban Design

The Sumerians greatest contribution to architecture was the development of the city itself as a built form. They were proud of this achievement as attested in the Epic of Gilgamesh .

Residential Architecutre

Residential design was a direct development from Ubaid houses. Sumerian cylinder seals also depict houses built from reeds, not unlike those built by the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq until recent years. The dominant house form was the courtyard house, a form continuosly used in Mesopotamia up the present day. The house faced inward toward an open courtyard which provided a cooling effect by creating convection currents. The external walls were featureless with only a single opening, the door which connected it to the street.

Civic Architecture

Temples often predated the creation of the urban settlement and grew from small one room structures to elaborate multiacre complexes across the 2,500 years of Sumerian history. Sumerian temples, fortifications, and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, and half columns.

Chronologically, Sumerian temples evolved from earlier Ubaid temples. As the temple decayed it was ritually destroyed and an new temple built on its foundations. The successor temple was larger and more articulated than its predasessor temple. The evolution of the E-apzu temple at Eridu is a frequently cited case-study. During the Uruk period temple design split into two stylistic typologies: the high temple and the city temple. The White Temple in Uruk is typical of a high temple and the Oval Temple in Khafajah is typical of a city temple at this time. Palaces and city walls came much later after temples in the Early dynastic period.

High temple

The high temple always included a ziggurats -- large terraced platforms with temples on top. Such ziggurats may have been the inspiration for the Biblical Tower of Babel (see Etemenanki).

Ziggurats typical of the Ubaid period were built very high on a platform of mud brick. On these large platforms were built gradually smaller and smaller concentric platforms, although sometimes there were ground level temples more typical of the protoliterate period. These were similar to some modern buildings in the shape of ziggurats. Many temples had inscriptions engraved into them, such as the one at Uqair.

City temple

The city temple was designed around a series of couryards leading to a cella.

Palace

Fortification

Commercial Architecture

Main article: bazaar

Landscape Architecture

The Sumerian irrigation agriculture created some of the first garden forms in history. The garden (sar) was 144 square cubits with a perimeter canal.^[2] This form of the enclosed quadrangle was the basis for the later paradise gardens of Persia .

See also

• Art and architecture of Babylonia and Assyria
• Sumerian
• Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement

Notes

1. ^ Harmansah
2. ^ Wikipedia, Sumer

References

• Downey, Susan B. (1988). Mesopotamian Religious Architecture: Alexander Through the Parthians. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 197. ISBN 069103589X. 

• Harmansah, Ömür (2007-12-03), The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Ceremonial centers, urbanization and state formation in Southern Mesopotamia, <http://proteus.brown.edu/mesopotamianarchaeology/699>. Retrieved on 11 August 2008 

• Kostof, Spiro (1995). A history of architecture : settings and rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 792. ISBN 0195083784. 

Further Reading

External Links

v • d • e History of architecture Architectural history · Architectural timeline · History of construction Neolithic  · Ancient Egyptian  · Armenian · Coptic · Chinese · Dravidian · Mayan · Sumerian · Classical · Mesoamerican · Ancient Greek · Roman · Incan · Sassanid · Byzantine · Islamic · Newari · Buddhist · Pre-Romanesque · Persian · Romanesque · Gothic · Hoysala · Vijayanagara · Western Chalukya · Renaissance · Ottoman · Baroque · Neoclassical · Neo-Renaissance · Gothic Revival · Rationalism · Modern · Postmodern

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 2 September 2008, at 07:36.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Sumerian architecture".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Sumerian_architecture

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.