The Assyrians built almost as much as they waged war, and they were great warriors. Each Assyrian ruler wanted to build his own palace built for the glory of Ashur. On the walls of these palaces the scribes recorded the history of their kings through clay tablets, bas-reliefs, sculptures and paintings.[1].
The two great empires, the Chaldean or Babylonian and the Assyrian, which followed one another in the ancient region of the Tigris and the Euphrates, gave rise to two also different and successive civilizations, although in art they were closely linked by mutually copying the forms, inherited from the Sumerians and the Akkadians. The first empire was initially based in different cities of Chaldea that, although they did not maintain political unity, ultimately respected the hegemony of the famous Babylon and the second, in Assyria, finally its capital being the famous Nineveh. After this city was destroyed by the Median Cyaxares, the Chaldean Empire was reborn with Nabopolassar and had its most brilliant period with Nebuchadnezzar II, his son, to end with the taking of Babylon by the Persians. Assyrian-Chaldean architecture was very far from reaching the perfection that the Egyptian architecture had and despite the repeated excavations that have taken place, a perfect knowledge of it has not been achieved due to the weakness of its construction material and in view of the lamentable state of the ruins. The best known era in the architectural field is that of the Assyrian Empire, especially with the exploration of the palaces of Nimrud and Nineveh.
Assyrian architecture
Assyrian art imitated Chaldean or Babylonian, both in buildings and inscriptions, although in these it abandoned the proto-Chaldean language, using Assyrian and in those it built with more solidity, sumptuousness and perfection in ornamentation. Although in Assyria, in the north of Mesopotamia, more mountainous than the southern plain, there is no shortage of stone quarries and good limestone and marble were extracted from the nearby mountains of Armenia, the Assyrians built with bricks and adobe in imitation of the Chaldeans and only used stone for wall coverings and for the base of buildings, which were mainly temples, ziggurats and palaces. Hardly anything is known about the tombs in the Assyrian empire and there is no doubt that they did not care about them when they have left no relevant samples. The towers or ziggurats were made up of seven platforms with the same purpose and meaning as in Chaldean art. But they differed from the Babylonians in that they did not have an external staircase or ramp (except for the one that served for the lower embankment), access to the upper platforms being granted by an internal staircase that started from a vestibule with its monumental door located at the foot of the building on one of its sides. There were, in addition, other minor temples for secondary divinities, either in the form of small towers, or as aedicules or temples with their porticoed pediment in the Greek manner, although rudimentary.
Assyrian architecture
Introduction
The Assyrians built almost as much as they waged war, and they were great warriors. Each Assyrian ruler wanted to build his own palace built for the glory of Ashur. On the walls of these palaces the scribes recorded the history of their kings through clay tablets, bas-reliefs, sculptures and paintings.[1].
The two great empires, the Chaldean or Babylonian and the Assyrian, which followed one another in the ancient region of the Tigris and the Euphrates, gave rise to two also different and successive civilizations, although in art they were closely linked by mutually copying the forms, inherited from the Sumerians and the Akkadians. The first empire was initially based in different cities of Chaldea that, although they did not maintain political unity, ultimately respected the hegemony of the famous Babylon and the second, in Assyria, finally its capital being the famous Nineveh. After this city was destroyed by the Median Cyaxares, the Chaldean Empire was reborn with Nabopolassar and had its most brilliant period with Nebuchadnezzar II, his son, to end with the taking of Babylon by the Persians. Assyrian-Chaldean architecture was very far from reaching the perfection that the Egyptian architecture had and despite the repeated excavations that have taken place, a perfect knowledge of it has not been achieved due to the weakness of its construction material and in view of the lamentable state of the ruins. The best known era in the architectural field is that of the Assyrian Empire, especially with the exploration of the palaces of Nimrud and Nineveh.
Assyrian architecture
Assyrian art imitated Chaldean or Babylonian, both in buildings and inscriptions, although in these it abandoned the proto-Chaldean language, using Assyrian and in those it built with more solidity, sumptuousness and perfection in ornamentation. Although in Assyria, in the north of Mesopotamia, more mountainous than the southern plain, there is no shortage of stone quarries and good limestone and marble were extracted from the nearby mountains of Armenia, the Assyrians built with bricks and adobe in imitation of the Chaldeans and only used stone for wall coverings and for the base of buildings, which were mainly temples, ziggurats and palaces. Hardly anything is known about the tombs in the Assyrian empire and there is no doubt that they did not care about them when they have left no relevant samples. The towers or ziggurats were made up of seven platforms with the same purpose and meaning as in Chaldean art. But they differed from the Babylonians in that they did not have an external staircase or ramp (except for the one that served for the lower embankment), access to the upper platforms being granted by an internal staircase that started from a vestibule with its monumental door located at the foot of the building on one of its sides. There were, in addition, other minor temples for secondary divinities, either in the form of small towers, or as aedicules or temples with their porticoed pediment in the Greek manner, although rudimentary.
The palaces, which in Assyrian architecture offer extraordinary importance, also rise on wide platforms or ramparts with a long rectangular plan and oriented like towers. They enclose in their perimeter large patios, around which rise the bodies of the building divided into different rooms of extraordinary length whose richer interior walls and sometimes even the pavements were covered to a certain extent with alabaster slabs, adorned on the walls with historical reliefs and inscriptions and higher up the walls were covered with enameled bricks or tiles that showed beautiful polychrome paint. Bronze and gold also abounded in these palatine decorations. It is most likely that the palaces did not have more than a single floor and that they received light through the open roof of the patios, while the roofed rooms were flat and decorated with sculpted wooden beams. Next to the royal palace the temple tower rose.
Although the Assyrians knew the vault, both false and true (half-barrel and pointed), they did not give great importance to these architectural elements but they did give great importance to the semicircular arch and the elliptical for the monumental doors. Nor did they frequently use the columns "Column (Architecture)") judging by the remains found and it is likely that they built these of wood on a round stone plinth "Zócalo (frieze)"). Next to the main doors of the royal palaces, both to magically defend the entrance and to symbolize the power of the sovereign, there were large figures of winged sphinxes "Sphinx (sculpture)"), sometimes up to five meters high, which usually had the head of a man (androsphinxes) with a curly beard, the body of a bull or a lion and the wings of an eagle, sphinxes that, on the other hand, had already begun to be used in Chaldean art primitive. Among the ornamental motifs, stepped battlements, fretwork, pine cones, palmettes, flowers, warrior actions and hunts are very commonly found.
The ruins of the Assyrian cities most explored by archaeologists are those of Nineveh, Nimrud or Kalhu (the Chale of Genesis) and Assur which had high crenellated walls, defended by numerous towers and enclosed magnificent palaces. The most notable of these palaces, whose ruins have been discovered and studied are:
The art of the second Babylonian empire does not differ from the Assyrian except in the exclusive use of adobe brick, as the region lacked stone, for constructions and in the fact that pictorial and relief decoration was more abundant in enameled bricks for cladding, instead of the marble bricks that were used in the preceding Assyrian art. The ziggurats and tombs, however, in lower Chaldea followed the form already described of the first Empire.
Famous in all times has been the great city of Babylon, greatly embellished in this last period by Nebuchadnezzar II the great (605 BC to 562 BC). At this time it reached 500,000 inhabitants. Its walls were double, seven meters wide and with a moat in front connected to the river, the space between both perimeters, about twelve meters, was filled with earth throughout its height and there was a defensive tower every 50 meters, so it is estimated that there were almost 350. Its famous temple of Belo with the tower embraced a perimeter of 1,480 meters, the ziggurat called Etemenanki rising in seven descending stories with between sixty and ninety meters high with ninety-two sides; served as inspiration for the mythical tower of Babel. The main bridge over the Euphrates, a river that crossed it diagonally, was built by Nebuchadnezzar with stone pillars to replace the previous one made entirely of wood and was about one hundred and twenty-three meters long by ten meters wide. The tunnel that passed under the same river was also enormous, the first known in the world. The hanging gardens or those built on pilasters and arches, the palaces, the fortresses and the temples (which numbered forty-three), everything was superb and colossal as witnessed by the ruins that have survived to this day. Among them, two ancient ziggurats stand out but rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar that have obtained universal fame for the memories that are attached to them. The largest is the so-called Bit-Sagatu, or temple of Belo, which must have risen about ninety meters with the same base and which was mythologized as the tower of Babel. The other is Bit-Zida in the Borsippa acropolis, which reached seventy meters high and seventy meters wide at its base, which according to contemporary inscriptions Nebuchadnezzar ordered to be covered "with lapis lazuli."
Despite the grandeur and lavish ornamentation that distinguishes Chaldean-Assyrian architecture, it is devoid of true elegance, it is poor or very simple in its lines and heavy and monotonous in its forms. In the pyramidal shape of the towers, in the number of their bodies, in the orientation and other details, great religious symbolism must be recognized, as occurs in Egyptian architecture.
References
[1] ↑ Laroche, Lucienne (1971). De los sumerios a los sasánidas, pág. 71. Valencia, Mas-Ivars editores.
The palaces, which in Assyrian architecture offer extraordinary importance, also rise on wide platforms or ramparts with a long rectangular plan and oriented like towers. They enclose in their perimeter large patios, around which rise the bodies of the building divided into different rooms of extraordinary length whose richer interior walls and sometimes even the pavements were covered to a certain extent with alabaster slabs, adorned on the walls with historical reliefs and inscriptions and higher up the walls were covered with enameled bricks or tiles that showed beautiful polychrome paint. Bronze and gold also abounded in these palatine decorations. It is most likely that the palaces did not have more than a single floor and that they received light through the open roof of the patios, while the roofed rooms were flat and decorated with sculpted wooden beams. Next to the royal palace the temple tower rose.
Although the Assyrians knew the vault, both false and true (half-barrel and pointed), they did not give great importance to these architectural elements but they did give great importance to the semicircular arch and the elliptical for the monumental doors. Nor did they frequently use the columns "Column (Architecture)") judging by the remains found and it is likely that they built these of wood on a round stone plinth "Zócalo (frieze)"). Next to the main doors of the royal palaces, both to magically defend the entrance and to symbolize the power of the sovereign, there were large figures of winged sphinxes "Sphinx (sculpture)"), sometimes up to five meters high, which usually had the head of a man (androsphinxes) with a curly beard, the body of a bull or a lion and the wings of an eagle, sphinxes that, on the other hand, had already begun to be used in Chaldean art primitive. Among the ornamental motifs, stepped battlements, fretwork, pine cones, palmettes, flowers, warrior actions and hunts are very commonly found.
The ruins of the Assyrian cities most explored by archaeologists are those of Nineveh, Nimrud or Kalhu (the Chale of Genesis) and Assur which had high crenellated walls, defended by numerous towers and enclosed magnificent palaces. The most notable of these palaces, whose ruins have been discovered and studied are:
The art of the second Babylonian empire does not differ from the Assyrian except in the exclusive use of adobe brick, as the region lacked stone, for constructions and in the fact that pictorial and relief decoration was more abundant in enameled bricks for cladding, instead of the marble bricks that were used in the preceding Assyrian art. The ziggurats and tombs, however, in lower Chaldea followed the form already described of the first Empire.
Famous in all times has been the great city of Babylon, greatly embellished in this last period by Nebuchadnezzar II the great (605 BC to 562 BC). At this time it reached 500,000 inhabitants. Its walls were double, seven meters wide and with a moat in front connected to the river, the space between both perimeters, about twelve meters, was filled with earth throughout its height and there was a defensive tower every 50 meters, so it is estimated that there were almost 350. Its famous temple of Belo with the tower embraced a perimeter of 1,480 meters, the ziggurat called Etemenanki rising in seven descending stories with between sixty and ninety meters high with ninety-two sides; served as inspiration for the mythical tower of Babel. The main bridge over the Euphrates, a river that crossed it diagonally, was built by Nebuchadnezzar with stone pillars to replace the previous one made entirely of wood and was about one hundred and twenty-three meters long by ten meters wide. The tunnel that passed under the same river was also enormous, the first known in the world. The hanging gardens or those built on pilasters and arches, the palaces, the fortresses and the temples (which numbered forty-three), everything was superb and colossal as witnessed by the ruins that have survived to this day. Among them, two ancient ziggurats stand out but rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar that have obtained universal fame for the memories that are attached to them. The largest is the so-called Bit-Sagatu, or temple of Belo, which must have risen about ninety meters with the same base and which was mythologized as the tower of Babel. The other is Bit-Zida in the Borsippa acropolis, which reached seventy meters high and seventy meters wide at its base, which according to contemporary inscriptions Nebuchadnezzar ordered to be covered "with lapis lazuli."
Despite the grandeur and lavish ornamentation that distinguishes Chaldean-Assyrian architecture, it is devoid of true elegance, it is poor or very simple in its lines and heavy and monotonous in its forms. In the pyramidal shape of the towers, in the number of their bodies, in the orientation and other details, great religious symbolism must be recognized, as occurs in Egyptian architecture.
References
[1] ↑ Laroche, Lucienne (1971). De los sumerios a los sasánidas, pág. 71. Valencia, Mas-Ivars editores.