Page 192 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE LEVANT IN THE SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.

had a Mesopotamian origin. The pillared entrance is here moved to the very front of
the group and gives access to the forecourt. The features which in the later bit-hilani
were to have an unchanging place and function are, at this stage, still used experiment­
ally. If these buildings were temples and not palaces, their relevance to the history of the
bit-hilani would be questionable.

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Figure 79. Temple oflevel ib, Tell Atchana

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Figure 7S. Temple oflevel ia, Tell Atchana

In architecture we can trace a continuity between the second and first millennium
in Syria which in most other fields is lost. For the twelfth century was a time of
turmoil. All the sites we have mentioned in this section show contemporary layers of
ash and charred remains, and they were either deserted entirely or survived in a very-
reduced form. The rich cosmopolitan civilization of the Levant and the related My­
cenaean world is submerged in a dark age which also hides from us the first achieve­
ments of the Hellenes. In the ninth century, when a little light falls on the Greek de­
velopment, the new conditions of the Levant also become discernible.

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