Page 31 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART ONE: MESOPOTAMIA

scorpions, of figure ia; die fishes and birds (which hold fishes in their beaks) offigi ire m;
and the swastika at the centre of figure id, which joins in this pressure on the circle in
one direction. Figure ic shows how the predilection for whirl-like designs transformed
the Maltese cross, a common and suitable centre design for bowls, into a toy-wheel of
goats, by the simple device of prolonging one side of each triangle and making it into
a neck of a goat’s head with backward-sweeping horns. A little tail (inappropriately
shaped) was added to the opposite end of each triangle. This ‘animation’ of an abstract
design is less common than the gradual transformation, in the course of copying, of a
natural representation into an abstract pattern, which is best illustrated in the early pot­
tery of Susa or Persepolis (Figure 99 and pp. 202 ff), but both phenomena do occur,
and it is as one-sided to explain all representations as later additions to an abstract reper­
toire as to deny, widi some theorists, that die inherent rhythm of abstract designs has
ever been spontaneously employed for decoration. It must be added that in Mesopotamia,
as elsewhere, the finely decorated pottery of prehistoric times has no successor; it seems
that die improvement of technique enabled stone and metal vessels to take the place
formerly occupied by fine decorated pottery, and that from the Protolitcratc Period
onward plain pots of baked clay were used as kitchen-ware only.
The prehistoric clay figurines of men and animals do not differ in character from simi­
lar artless objects found throughout Asia and Europe. A history of art may ignore them,
since they cannot be considered the ancestors of Sumerian sculpture. But Sumerian
architecture has antecedents in the prehistoric age.

Architecture

The natural conditions of the plain did not favour the development of architecture. It
lacked timber and stone. For shelters, sheep-pens, huts, and the like, the tall reeds of the
marshes could be used. Larger and more permanent structures had to be built from the
one material that was everywhere available, and that in unlimited quantities - the alluvial
mud of the plain. Mud-bricks had been invented in Persia before the Al ‘Ubaid people
descended into the flat country: they were oblong, dried in the sun, and set in mud mor­
tar when walls were constructed.
At Abu Shahrein, ancient Eridu, the successive phases of a temple have been re­
covered, which show development from a primitive to an advanced stage of archi­
tectural design.6 The earliest layers contain a shrine measuring only about twelve by
fifteen feet and of the simplest shape. But it contained two features which were never to
be abandoned: a niche in one wall marked the place of the god’s appearance, and perhaps
already at this stage of his statue or emblem; and an offering table of mud-brick was con­
structed a little in front of the niche. In the course of subsequent rebuildings the temple
was enlarged and improved; the thin walls were strengthened with buttresses, and al-
though these were purely practical in origin, they were soon used to add some variety to
the exterior of the building. Mud-brick is unattractive in colour and texture, but but­
tresses regularly spaced can produce contrasts in light and shadow which rhythmically
articulate the monotonous expanse of wall. Within the Al ‘Ubaid Period the transforma-

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