ALRAFIDAN Vol. XVIII 1997281 PSEUDOPERIPTERAL TEMPLES IN LATE-ANTIQUITY MESOPOTAMIA —A NOTE ON THE LAST STAGE OF THE BABYLONIAN TRADITION IN ARCHITECTURE— Yasuyoshi OKADA* According to the twenty-years’ study on at-Tar textiles which has untiringly been conducted and organized by Professor Fujii, it would be in the time range roughly from the second to third century A.D. that the caves were used for human burials [Fujii and Sakamoto 1994: 75], when the drawn-out conflict between the Parthians from the east and the Romans from the west spread out mainly in the western fringe of the Mesopotamian plain. At that time, while the plain may have been politically unstable, construction activities seem to have enjoyed rather unrestricted circumstances. For, whereas the conventional planning scheme can be perceived in a number of religious buildings, such as the Assyrian fashion in those at Hatra and the Babylonian tradition at Dura Europos [Downey 1987: 47], a traditional context was forced, perhaps for the first time since the Babilonian style had been settled there at latest in the beginning of the second millennium B.C., to be broken down by the introduction of novel structural elements to monumental buildings, of which most notable are the iwan and the colonnade. The iwan is a large hall with one end widely open, usually roofed with a barrel vault. Needless to say, it contributed greatly to the invention of certain styles for a new age, such as the Sasanian palace, and later the Muslim architecture. On the other hand, still disputable is how the colonnade, a row of columns arranged in a certain order, made a contribution toward the immediately later architecture. In Mesopotamia, archaeology has ever attested it in some palatial buildings with a peristyle court, at Nippur and Assur, and in some temples with a columned porch in front at Hatra and Dura-Europos, and most impressive are the examples of the peripteral, or pseudoperipteral in fact, temple style. As far as we know from Mesopotamia, there are three examples of the pseudoperipteral temple, of which the ‘Peripteros’ from Assur and the temple of Gareus at Uruk are well-known since they have often quoted as evidence for the Parthian temple. ‘The last one from Hatra, labelled Building E but usually called the Hellenistic temple, has scarcely been discussed in architecture, other than in deities, since the full report was published in Arabic (Safar and Mustafa 1974]. It is wondered that the excellent drawings of details in the report have perhaps never introduced in any other publications. Thus, this paper aims at exemplifing briefly how the Parthian religious architecture became diversified through the introduction of the peripteral temple style and its incorporation into the Babylonian tradition, ‘The habitation at Hatra is said to have been originated in the Assyrian time, and to have later acquired autonomy and fortified the city with some religious installations in the middle of the Ist century B.C. then in the Ist century A.D., according to Aramaic texts, it seems to have become a capital of a local Arab kingdom, which functioned undoubtedly as an important caravan station under the Parthian rule [Safar 1951: 4-6]. In the center of the city is a fortified temenos covering a rectangle of 440 m by 320 m in plan, consisting of a temple enclosuer in the west and a forecourt in the east, separated and at the same time connected each other by a partition wall with several monumental gates. The so-called Great Temple is situated in the center of the temple enclosure, with a couple of typical facades of triple- iwan construction open to the east. The southern iwan is assigned to the god “MRN”, usually read Maran, the chief of the triad of Hatra (Salihi 1975: 75), associated behind by a square temple which has * The Institute for Cultural Studies of Ancient Iraq, Kokushikan University, 844 Hirohakama, Machida, Tokyo, 195 Japan282 Yasuyoshi OKADA ever been considered to be dedicated to the sun god Shamash, and in front by a gate in the partition wall. The Temple E, with an appearance of the Hellenistic peripteral style, is located somewhat northerly in front of the gate, facing the east. The mark E was given by the German mission directed by W. Andrae in the beginning of this century [Andrae 1912: Taf. III], but itis not until 1950s that the original structure, as well as a hoard of sculptures, was brought to light by the Iraqi team [Safar and Mustafa 1974: 344-7}, Although the peripteral design of the temple comes no doubt from the west, the deity here is convincingly explained as the son of Maran mentioned above, named “BRMRYN”, identifiable with the Babylonian ‘moon god Sin [Salihi 1975: 75-80]. There seems to be little literary clue to date the foundation of the temple, but westem fashion in the Roman time is emphasized in spite of the indigenious character of the deity [Colledge 1977: 46} The building was reconstructed entirely in ashlar masonry, except for the roofing, as it were where it had been, by use of old and new building materials. It had been planned basically in a dipteral style, but different from the western examples, following details should be noted (Fig. 1): 1) The naos, or cella, consists only of one simple room with the outer frontage of 6.9 m and the depth of 9.8 m, a common doorway opening in the eastern front, quite different from a type of the megaron, 2) On the stylobate, 10.5 m by 15.2 m, erected are columns only of the inner colonnade, the outer columns being erected on the ground level pavement of stone slabs. 3) The area of the outer peristyle covers 16.3 m in the width by 20.0 m in the length (measuring on centers, 15.0 m by 18.7 m); the ratio of the width to the length, nearly 8.1/10, is considerably large to compare it with those of ordinary Greek temples 4) There is no structural relation making rigid frames, i.e. Rahmen, between the outer and inner colonnades, because each bay of the former, measuring about 2.39 m on centers, is quite different in span from the latter bay, about 1.84 m. 5) The diameter of the outer columns, tapering from bottom, 0.9 m, to top, 0.7 m approximately, fairly exceeds that of the inner ones, about 0.6 m at the bottom. 6) The outer columns are surmounted with decorative capitals known as the composite order, the entablature being fully ornamented with variety of sculptures against every course down from the architrave up to the cornice, while the inner ones are surmounted simply with Tonic volutes. 7) Inthe reconstructed facade, if it is enough reliable, most notable and sophisticated must be the front, surmounted with a tympanum spanned over the width of the stylobate and scooped out in the shape of arch in the lower center, showing a tripartite design by omitting three of the outer columns in front and instead by installing the wide stairs there to approach up to the cella. eooe tom Fig. 1 Temple E at Hatra [Safar and Mustafa 1974: Fig. 8].PSEUDOPERIPTERAL TEMPLES IN LATE-ANTIQUITY MESOPOTAMIA. 283 Thus, however it may looks a Greek fashion ata glance, the concept of temple construction must have been arisen in greater part from a certain local tradition, including the Mesopotamian tripartite scheme for the front elevation of a temple. Even the simple rectangular cella lacking a cult niche in the rear wall, which may seem to have no parallel in the vicinity, is considered with most probability to derive from cellae of other small temples at Hatra, once discussed in relation with an Assyrian sanctuary form [Downey 1987: 47-8]. Ever since the Sumerian civilization, Uruk had almost without a break occupied the seat of leadership in the south, Immediately after the fall of Babylon under the Persian aggression, the city is said to have once declined in prosperity. However, in the Ist century B.C. it revived in the context of the Parthian strategy, when a temenos, or a sacred enclosure, of 60 m by 63 m, surrounded by the “peribolos”, was newly constructed with mud-bricks, Axially in the center of the temenos was erected a little shrine built of baked bricks and ornamented with stucco, into which a mud-brick building as a forerunner had been converted, according to the excavator [Heitich 1935: 33-6] (Fig.2). Excavations in 1930s brought about the discovery of literary evidence for the temple of Gareus. It sa limestone plate with an inscription dated the year of 110 A.D. mentioning the name of the god unfamiliar so far. ‘The dedicator is regarded aS a group of newcomers perhaps concerned in commercial activities [Meier 1960: 114]. ‘The followings are to be noted: 1) The plan of the central shrine measures 10.5 min the frontage and 13.7 m in the depth; the ratio of the frontage to the depth is about 7.7/10. 2) The interior space is divided in plan by a pair of modest projections into two transverse rooms, of which the deepest one with a cult niche is formed approximately in square plan different from the conventional Babylonian fashion. 3) Each side of the exterior is accentuated by four half or three quarter columns probably with arched bays in between supported by rectangular pilasters associated with the engaged columns. 4) Parallel to the shrine front, there remained a row of six column bases each in the square plan with a hight of at least twenty-five courses of bricks; curiously enough, on the other three sides, no trace of columns can be found. 5) There remained some vestiges of the fluting and Ionic capital of columns, as well as terra-cotta fragments of the entablature and parapet. Whether the front columns might have functioned simply as a boundary separating a sanctuary court from a forecourt [Schmidt 1978: 34~7], the combination of the above-mentioned engaged columns and six frontal columns reminds us strong enough of Roman pseudoperipteral temples such as Maison a ees S ° 19m ry 2 Temple of Gareus at Uruk (Schmidt 1978: Taf. 41]284 Yasuyoshi OKADA, Carree and Fortuna Virilis. Thus, though the interior may represent a vestige of Babylonian fashion, the design as a whole gives a impression of a novel concept introduced from the west. In Parthian Assur the main temple of the God Assur was shifted to the northern spot of the temenos and rebuilt in the form of the triple iwan just like the Great Temple at Hatra. To the southwest of the temenos, adjacent to the old ziggurat, a new sacred court was installed, enclosed partly by colonnade, where an iwan-type temple, named “Freitreppenbau", was erected in the west, and in the north was a kind of a peripteral building, called “Peripteros” by the German mission, facing south. The latter must have been a temple, to judge from religious materials unearthed in front of it [Andrae 1977: 257-60], In contrast to the examples above, both of which were reconstructed where once they had been, archaeological evidence for “Peripteros” at Assur is only the record of excavations conducted by R. Koldewey in 1919, ‘who made a simple drawing with necessary measurements utilizing the German “elle” as the unit, which can roughly be equivalent to about fifty centimeters [Andrae 1933: 66] (Fig. 3). Following Andrae’s deduction, Koldewey's measurements gives a 20.5 m frontage and a 28.0 m depth to the plan of “Peripteros”. Despite the designation the building has colonnades on three sides, the front being easily reconstructed as the iwan facade. Just behind the central iwan is a double-cella sanctuary in the Babylonian fashion. Most noteworthy here is the fact that three different traditions of architecture, if the iwan can be recognized as the Parthian character, encountered together in one and the same building, as Andrae interpreted this building [Andrae 1977: 258]. This could be the unique concept of architecture in the Parthian Mesopotamia eww yy ° 40m Fig. 3 “Peripteros” at Assur [Andrae and Lenzen 1933: Abb. 36]. So many years have passed since O. Reuther once discussed on Parthian religious architecture in Mesopotamia. He concluded tentatively that there seemed “to have been at least four variants” [Reuther 1938: 435-9] 1) “the old Babylonian form” 2) “an iwan structure, with or without a Hellenistic prostas” 3) “an iwan used as the pronaos of a naos with several rooms, with a Greek peristasis” 4) “a type in which the characteristic feature as a square cella with an encircling corridor”. In his discussion above, two of the peripteral examples from Uruk and Assur had already been included, He regarded the Gareus temple perhaps as the first category, the Babylonian form, together with another well-known example, Temple A at Assur, while he identified “Peripteros” asthe third. The example from Hatra was not revealed at that time. If we accepted such a classification as above, whichPSEUDOPERIPTERAL TEMPLES IN LATE-ANTIQUITY MESOPOTAMIA 285 category it would fall under? No one would find the answer, in my view, unless such a new category as the Hellenistic or western origine form were added as the fifth. In this case, the Gareus temple could not remain under the first, because of its Roman design fairly different from the indigenous Babylonian, not Assyrian, form of Temple A. Later, M. Colledge noted, of course, the Babylonian tradition in his admirable work [Colledge 1977: 36-7, 78-9], but his attention seems to be too partial to the “broad room” variety and to be scarcely paid to the discrimination between the Babylonian sancuary and the Assyrian, the latter of which is characterized with the deepest cella of longitudinal room, or “lange raum”, though often associated with a “broad room” antecella. S. Downey also paid attention to the Babylonian temple architecture, and considers the following factors to be the Babylonian scheme: 1) a main court, at the rear of which lies the antecella-cella group; 2) difference between the axis of an outer gate and that of a cella-antecella complex; 3) symmetrical arrangement of subsidiary rooms aroubd a court [Downey 1988: 38-42]. In my view, the axial difference can perhaps be less essential than the axis and symmetry around a main courtyard, because a number of Babylonian temples acqired an entire axis and symmetry, such as Marduk Temple at Babylon, Khursagkalamma Temple at Kish, and much erlier examples in the Diyala valley. ‘Thus, what is the Babylonian tradition is still unavoidale question in the late-antiquity Mesopotamia. 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