The state and culture of Mesopotamia, formed in the basins of the Tigris and Euphrates, formed the first significant civilization in the history of mankind. The heyday of its development falls on the IV-III millennium BC. e. For many branches of human life, embodied and known in later civilizations, it was Mesopotamia that was the birthplace: architecture, writing, mathematics, the state apparatus, social structure and so on.
Unfortunately, the millennia that have passed since that time have destroyed many of the achievements of this cradle of humanity. Almost everything that we know about it is known thanks to material artifacts that survived in the earth: cuneiform tablets that give an idea of an ancient letter found in a stone stele that preserved the laws of Hamurappi (the oldest official legislation, whose homeland was Mesopotamia). Architecture, which tells about religious ideas, the social and political structure of these peoples, and so on, also plays an important role in this. Actually, it is the remains of ancient buildings that provide the most complete information about long-vanished states.
Mesopotamia: architecture as a 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 was molded, and later burnt brick. Actually, the emergence and evolution of mud brick buildings is the main contribution to the world architecture made by the most ancient Mesopotamia.
The architecture of Mesopotamia already at the end of the VI millennium BC. e. characterized by the appearance of adobe houses consisting of several rooms. This was at a time when most of the world’s population did not even think about moving to agriculture, living in random camps and hunting for hunting and gathering. With the birth of the state in Sumer, monumental places of worship also appear here . The people who inhabited this territory built characteristic temples in the form of stepped towers and ziggurats. Ziggurats had, as a rule, a pyramidal shape. It is interesting that the biblical tower of Babel, which fell into the bible from the more ancient myths of the peoples of the Entre Rios , has exactly their appearance.
The palaces and royal residences of the rulers 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 his courtyard was abundantly riddled with canals and vaulted ceilings. The palace itself was one-story, but had many courtyards around it. In one part there were royal apartments, and in the other - chambers for women. In addition, public services and temples were also located in the palace.
In the arrangement of cities, the architecture of ancient Mesopotamia is characterized by continuous building of blocks with common walls between two separate houses, as well as with blind facades facing the street and small windows located under the roof. Inside such a building, as a rule, a courtyard was located.