| Fig. 15. Priene, house 33. (From Priene, by kind permission of the General Director of the K. Museen in Berlin.) | Fig. 16. Priene, house 24. (From Priene.) |
What is the principle which determined the arrangement of the rooms or groups of rooms within the bait, and of the baits within the palace? Professor Koldewey, in one of those generalizations, as profound as they are brilliant, which we owe to his learning and acumen, has laid down a law touching architectural grouping which will be of service in considering this question. Speaking of the intentional separation of the main chamber of a Babylonian temple from the encompassing wall, he says: ‘This intentional separation is perhaps connected historically with the origin of the Babylonian house, which must be dealt with in another place. In my view, a view which rests upon the study of Babylonian ground-plans in historic and in prehistoric times, the grouping of chambers in ground-plans throughout the Babylonian cultural sphere proceeds from the interior. The embracing wall, Duru, is the primary, the indispensable essential. Within the compass of the wall, the single chambers are set in such fashion, and in such fashion are they linked together, that ultimately a court remains over. In the Greek house, on the other hand, the single chambers, Megara, are so placed, and joined together in such manner, that ultimately a court results. The Italic house creates for itself a kind of court by sundering a roof which was originally continuous. It is therefore possible to distinguish between the different types of houses with courtyards by defining the Babylonian ground-plan as injunctive, the Greek as conjunctive, and the Italic as disjunctive.’[160]
Fig. 17. Palace at Pergamon.
(From Durm’s Baukunst der Griechen, by kind permission of Messrs. Gebhardt.)
With the disjunctive plan Mesopotamian archaeology is not concerned; nor do I believe that the conjunctive plan was either widely or permanently of importance, at any rate up to the period to which Ukhaiḍir belongs. The Greek scheme cannot be brought into sharper contrast with the Mesopotamian than by laying a plan such as that of the Pergamene palace ([Fig. 17]) beside a plan such as that of the smaller palace at Niffer ([Fig. 9]). I select with intention a building wherein Hellenism has influenced the details, but left the fundamental principle unchanged. At Pergamon the court results from the manner in which the isolated chambers are placed and linked together; at Niffer a court remains over from the manner in which the chambers or groups of chambers are placed within, and linked to, the encompassing wall. In the baits of Ukhaiḍir it is no less the encompassing wall which is the indispensable essential, and it may even be surmised that the latitudinal chamber which lies behind the lîwân is a survival of the intentional separation of the principal room from the wall. But it is not only the bait, the unit, which must be considered, it is the grouping of units. Now these units are so placed round the encompassing wall, and joined together in such fashion, as to leave a court over. In detailed and in general disposition Ukhaiḍir exhibits the injunctive plan.