The more pretentious dwellings of nobles and kings were placed on artificially constructed heights—huge piles of brickwork, in order to raise them above the gnats and the malaria-breeding fogs of the marshes. The huts of the poor were located wherever opportunity offered. While these contained but one or two rooms with small apertures in the clay walls for windows, and had no floor save the ground, the houses of the wealthy were frequently several stories high, the upper floors being reached by outside stairways. The use of the arch was known in Babylonia from 4000 B.C., a perfect keystone example having been found at Nippur by the University of Pennsylvania expedition. Windows were furnished with tapestries to exclude the storms and intense heat of noonday. Flat roofs supplied a place for the women to perform many household duties, or, if these were performed by slaves elsewhere, they sat here to embroider their tapestries and to chat with their friends. Here too, on hot nights, mattresses were thrown down for the hours of sleep.
Wherever possible a garden surrounded the house. The pride of the Babylonian, as of the Egyptian, was his carefully tended garden, whether it was a tiny plot of land or a vast overhanging terrace like that of Babylon's queen.
Streets were narrow and exceedingly dirty, for into them all refuse and rubbish from the houses accumulated. We learn that sometimes the entire street would be filled up to the very doors of the dwellings, and then, instead of clearing them out, an upper story was added to the houses, new doors provided, and the occupants started anew on a fresh elevation.
In homes of the wealthy the furniture was simple, and in the huts of the poor it was scanty indeed. Chairs, stools, and tables were in use; a mat often constituted the bed, although pictures of most uncomfortable looking bedsteads have been preserved, these being possessed only by the wealthy.
The Assyrians who went from Babylonia into their northern land, took with them the habits and customs there acquired. While stone was plentiful, they used it only for foundations, or for the less important portion of their buildings, continuing to make mud brick for the rest, as they had done before. While hills and elevations were now available on every hand, they still erected huge piles of brick or stone and crowned these by their buildings. The Assyrian blood, unmixed with other tribes or peoples, produced no ingenuity, no inventive genius. The Assyrian remained an imitator—never a creator. For this reason, we find close similarity between the houses of the two countries.
Certain features which became inseparable with later architecture had their beginnings in Babylonia. In early times the roof which covered the mud hut was supported by dried palm stems; gradually a more substantial support was substituted, and in this way the column had its origin and was adopted and improved upon by the Greeks. Again, interior house decoration may be traced back to these Babylonian houses built of brick. In houses of the well-to-do, the unsightly bricks were covered by a coating of stucco and upon this were painted various scenes and ornamentations. In Assyria, slabs of soft lime-stone were used instead of the stucco, and figures of horses and men, hunting scenes and battles, were carved in bas-relief upon them. Indeed much of our knowledge concerning the life of the people has been gained from a study of the reliefs discovered in buried palaces.
Regarding the daily lives of those who dwelt within these mud brick houses, we have less detailed information than concerning the ancient Egyptian. Fewer scenes of ordinary life were painted in the Tigris-Euphrates valleys, and whatever was entrusted to the clay stood far greater chance of being destroyed than that committed to Egyptian stone.
Family Life.
In considering the family life, the position accorded to woman and the marriage laws and regulations are of first importance.
In early times in Babylonia, a man received a dowry with his wife. Polygamy was not infrequent but a strong check was placed upon it by requiring the husband, in case of divorce, to return the wife's dowry to her and allow her to return home or maintain her own establishment. The income from the dowry was enjoyed by both husband and wife, but it remained the portion of the wife and could be willed according to her pleasure. In case of a woman's second marriage, her first dowry belonged to her, subject to the claim of her children for one-half of its value.