Eridu is the first significant example of the initial association of the Mesopotamian tradition in architecture with that of the Sumerians. A succession of remains of temples has excavated dating back probably earlier than any yet known elsewhere in Sumer. Temple XVI, the earliest to be uncovered in its entirety, already reveals the central feature of the typical Mesopotamian temple, the ‘cella’ or sanctuary, with an altar in a niche and a central offering-table with traces of burning. The later temples in this sequence at Eridu are on a much larger scale, with the emergence of the tripartite plan, having subsidiary rooms on either side of the cella: this plan was to become standard. Here too was first manifested the embellishment of the exterior by alternating niches and buttresses. The exact orientation of a Mesopotamia main temple was of great religious significance from this time onward. The predilection for established sites led to enduring continuity in the sites of temples, themselves the nucleus each of its own city.

Warka (Uruk: the Biblical Erech) was by far the largest of the Sumerian cities which eventually, in the Early Dynastic Period (c 2900-2340 BC), had a perimeter of over 9km (6 miles). About one-third of this great area was occupied by temples and other public buildings. The two major areas of the city with important buildings were the Eanna and the Anu precincts, associated with the mother goddess and the sky god respectively and dating back to the late fifth millennium BC. By the late Uruk (or Protoliterate A and B) period the Eanna precinct had become an impressive grouping of temples larger than any previously built. One of the most striking examples of this is the so-called Pillar Temple, which stood on a terrace or platform and include two rows of massive columns 2.6m in diameter. Their great girth and primitive, in which they are constructed, with bricks laid radially to form an approximate circle, suggest a hesitant and experimental approach to an advance in building techniques, this being the oldest surviving evidence of three standing columns. However, the pattern of cone mosaics clearly suggests imitation of a palm trunk. The Anu ‘ziggurat’ is more typically Mesopotamian in its tripartite plan for the temple: it is in fact not a ziggurat at all, but a series of temples, each built on top of the preceding one and each on a high platform.

White Temple - warka

The White Temple, the best preserved in the Anu Series, maybe said to illustrate the origin of the ziggurat, or temple tower in the pre-historic Mesopotamian temple set on its platform. The White Temple platform had sloping sides, three of which had flat buttresses; a subsidiary broad square platform of similar height overlapped the north corner served by a long flight of easy steps from which a circuitous ramp led off from an intermediate landing. The temple, originally whitewashed, had an end-to end hall with a span of 4.5m, flanked on both sides by series of smaller rooms, three of which contained stairways leading to the roof. Of four entrances, the chief was placed asymmetrically on one long side, giving a ‘bent-axis’ approach to the sanctuary, marked by an altar platform 1.2m high, in the north corner of the hall. Centrally nearby was a brick offering table adjoined by a low semicircular heart. Shallow buttresses formed the principal decoration of the hall and external walls. The platform stood 13m high, an impressive podium.

  White Temple

The Temple Complex, Ischali of the early second millennium BC was of the terrace type, without a ziggurat. It was rectangular in plan, with a large main terrace court and an upper one in which the temple lay at right angles to the chief axis. On the corresponding side of the main court there were two minor courts and all were lined with rooms.

   Ziggurat

The Ziggurat and Precinct of Ur, already very old, were extensively remodeled by Urnammu and his successors. The complex comprised the ziggurat and its court, a secondary court attached to it, and three great temples. All these stood on a great rectangular platform at the heart of an oval-shaped walled city, itself about 6.1m above the surrounding plain. The ziggurat, 62m x 43m at its base, and about 21m high, carried the usual temple on its summit and had the normal orientation. The ziggurat at Ur had a solid core of mud brick, covered with a skin of burnt brickwork 2.4m thick, laid in bitumen and with layers of matting at intervals to improve cohesion. Its sides were slightly convex, giving an added effect of mass, with board shallow corner buttresses. Weeper-holes through the brickwork allowed for drainage and the slow drying out of the interior. Close to the ziggurat precinct at Ur stood a building with rooms corbel-vaulted in kiln-fired brick and approached down long flights of steps. The floors had to be raised hurriedly, to avoid the Euphrates flood water. This is usually described as the mausoleum of the kings of the powerful Third Dynasty of Ur, although there’s no proof that they’re buried in the city.

  Ziggurat

The Temple Oval at Khafaje, north east of Baghdad, was an unusual complex, dating from the Early Dynastic and subsequent periods. Within the ovals the layout was rectilinear, the corners oriented to the four cardinal points. Of the three ascending terrace levels, the lowest made a forecourt approached through an arched and towered gateway from the town, with a many-roomed building on one side, either administrative or a dwelling for the chief priest. The second terrace, wholly surrounded by rooms used as workshops and stores, had at its further end the temple platform about 3.6m high. Near its staircase, against the side of the temple terrace was an external sacrificial altar, while elsewhere in the court were a well and two basins for ritual ablutions. Some special sanctity seems to have attached to the Temple Oval, for before its construction the whole area was dug down to virgin soil, through the accumulated depth of earlier building levels and then filled with clean sand; foundations of depth greater than structurally requisite were laid in the sand, and clay packed down against the walls. Thus the purity of the soil beneath the temple was assured. The later temple at Ischali had largely similar arrangements, though not within an oval perimeter. Just north-east of the Temple Oval stood the temple of the moon god sin at Khafaje, with ten successive phases, five to the three phases of the Early Dynastic Period. Thus Khafaje illustrates the northward extension of urban life centered upon the city temple, from its first beginnings in Sumer.

The hallmark of Sumerian architecture in the Early Dynastic Period, but neither before nor after, was the plano-convex mud brick: these were laid in herringbone pattern or sometimes with three diagonally laid courses, all learning in one direction, followed by two or three courses laid flat, with their convex sides upwards, thus acting as an imperfect bonding.

At Tepe Gawra in northern Mesopotamia, at a time approximately contemporary with the earliest levels at Warka, the first important manifestation of monumental religious architecture appeared, where in Level XIII three contiguous temples, the Northern formed a group unique at that early date. Bricks of a special size were used for these three temples.

The Royal Cemetery at Ur (Early Dynastic III period) displays at its best the engineering skills of Sumerian architects. The stone used in the royal tombs, at a time when brickwork was more and more superseding stone, was limestone, never dressed and only roughly split after quarrying. This use of rubble masonry makes all the more remarkable the ability of the Sumerian builders to roof a tomb chamber with a vault or dome. The true arch was known and so was the true barrel-vault, in stone, mud brick and burnt brick. Where the tomb itself set as at the roof a shaft, had more than one room, the connecting doors were often spanned by an arch. However no chronological sequence of the royal tombs at Ur can be drawn up on the basis of the construction of their roofs: corbel-vaulting, was used not only for some of the royal tombs but also very extensively in the Third Dynasty of Ur. In one of the royal tombs of the Early Dynasty III cemetery at Ur a wooden frames was found on the floor, perhaps used as centering. Two examples of the use of an apse were found. The dome is the best exemplified by one tomb chamber found intact: just as the principle of the true arch had been mastered by the Sumerian architects, do too had the use of pendentives.

At Tell Asmar (Eshunna), in the Diyala valley, three sequences of temples span the Early Dynastic period. In the Early Dynasty II period the square Temple was design round an interior court with two shrines added to the original one. Here a large cache of statues of provincial Sumerian style had been preserved.

The usual plan of Mesopotamia temple before the end of the Early Dynastic period had an indirect or ’bent axis’ approach, with the entrance in one of the longer walls. But later it became normal to have the entrance at one end, giving a long, straight approach to the altar.

The palace of Mari was founded in the late third millennium BC and endured until its destruction by Hammurabi of Babylon (c. 1757 BC). This great building combined within its walls the functions of the royal residence, center of for receptions and audiences, offices and a school for the civil service, servants’ quarters and numerous store-rooms; in some rooms were found the thousands of cuneiform tablets constituting the royal archives, one of the major sources of historical evidence uncovered in the ancient Middle East. There was the indirect access characteristic of palaces in ancient Middle East, preventing the shooting missiles from without into the great forecourt. The section of the palaces devoted to the private apartments of the royal family was embellished with mural paintings displaying contacts with the Minoan civilization of Crete, then at its height.

The four centuries of Kassite rule in Babylonia were undistinguished in art and architecture generally, being marked by restorations at Ur and elsewhere, but at the capital of Dur Kurigalzu, 32km west of present-day Baghdad, the royal palace has some new features, including a court bordered at two sides by an ambulatory with square pillars. To the east lay the kingdom of Elam, with its capital at Susa. Nearby was the ziggurat of Tchoga-Zanbil, of the thirteenth century BC built by Untash-Gal.

At Tape Gawrain northen mesopotamia, at a time approximately contemporary with the earliest levels at Warka, the first important manifestation of monumental religious architecture appeared, where in level XIII three contiguous temples, the northern Temple, the Central Temple and the Eastern Shrine, formed a group unique at that early date. Bricks of a special size were used for these three temples. < p align="justify"> The Royal Cemetery at Ur (Early Dynasty III period) displays at its best the engineering skills of Sumerian arhitects. The stone used in the royal tombs, at a time when brickworks was more and more superseding stone, was limestone, never dressed and only roughly split after quarrying. This use of rubble masonry makes all the more remarkable the ability of the sumarian builders to roof a tomb chamber with a vault or dome. The true arch was known, and so too was the thrue barrel-vault, in the tomb itself, set at the foot of a shaft , had more than one room, the connecting doors were often spanned by an arch.

At Tell Asmar (Eshnunna), in the Diyala Valley, three sequences of temples span the Early Dynastic period. In the Early Dynastic II period the Square Temple was designed round an interior court with two shrines added to the original one. Here a large cache of statues of provincial Sumerian style had been preserved. The usual plan of Mesopotamia temple before the end of the Early Dynastc period had an indirect or ‘bent axis” approach, with the entrance in one of the longer walls. But letter it become normal to have the entrance at one end, giving a long, straight approach to the altar.

The Palace at Mari was founded in the late third millennium BC and endure until its destruction by Hammurabi of Babylon (c. 1757 BC ). This great building combined within its walls the funtions of royal residence, centre for reseptions and audiences, offices and a school for the civil service, servants’ quarters and numerous store-rooms; in some rooms were found the thousands of cuneiform tablets constituting the royal archives, one of the major sources of historical evidence uncovered in the ancient near East. There was the indirect access characteristic of palaces in the acient Near East, preventing the shooting of missiles from without into the great forecourt. The section of the palace devoted to the private aparments of the royal family was embellished with mural painting s displaying contacts with the Minoan civilisation of Crete, then at its height.

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