CHAPTER XIV.
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!"
DECORATION IN ENAMELED TILES ON ONE OF THE GATES OF THE HAREM IN SARGON'S PALACE.