Antiquity[edit]

Ancient Mesopotamia[edit]
Main article: Architecture of Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia is most noted for its construction of mud brick buildings and the construction
of ziggurats, occupying a prominent place in each city and consisting of an artificial mound, often
rising in huge steps, surmounted by a temple. The mound was no doubt to elevate the temple to a
commanding position in what was otherwise a flat river valley. The great city of Uruk had a number
of religious precincts, containing many temples larger and more ambitious than any buildings
previously known.[6]
The word ziggurat is an anglicized form of the Akkadian word ziqqurratum, the name given to the
solid stepped towers of mud brick. It derives from the verb zaqaru, ("to be high"). The buildings are
described as being like mountains linking Earth and heaven. The Ziggurat of Ur, excavated
by Leonard Woolley, is 64 by 46 meters at base and originally some 12 meters in height with three
stories. It was built under Ur-Nammu (circa 2100 B.C.) and rebuilt under Nabonidus (555–539 B.C.),
when it was increased in height to probably seven stories. [7]
Assyrian palaces had a large public court with a suite of apartments on the east side and a series of
large banqueting halls on the south side. This was to become the traditional plan of Assyrian
palaces, built and adorned for the glorification of the king. [8] Massive amounts of ivory furniture
pieces were found in some palaces.

The Ziggurat of Ur, approximately 21st century BC, Tell el-Muqayyar (Dhi Qar Province, Iraq)

 

Illustration of a hall in the Assyrian Palace of Ashurnasrirpal II by Austen Henry Layard (1854)

 
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Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum (Berlin, Germany)

 

Assyrian reliefs from the Palace of Sargon II in Khorsabad, 721-705 BC, Oriental Institute
Museum (Chicago, USA)