Page 34 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE PROTOLITERATE PERIOD

a community which remained agricultural in essence was henceforth concentrated in the
towns.
However, Sumerian society was not secular, and the towns were dominated by one
or more shrines (Plates 12 and 55). Their structure, their very appearance, revealed a
basic belief (explicitly stated in Sumerian poetry and in the Babylonian Epic of Creation)
that man was created to serve the gods. The city was a means to this end; each township
was owned by a deity in whose service the community enjoyed prosperity.
At Warka, the biblical Erech, this conception found a grandiose expression. A temple
of the Protoliterate Period, preserved by an extraordinary chance,12 and probably dedi­
cated to the god Anu, repeats in its plan (Figure 4) the main features of the shrine at
Eridu (Figure 3), but the process of clarification has proceeded farther. The corner bas­
tions arc gone and the plan has become a simple oblong decorated with a uniform system
of buttresses and recesses. The principal change, however, appears in the elevation. The
platform found at Eridu is here replaced by an artificial mountain, irregular in outline,
and rising forty feet above the featureless plain, a landmark dominating the country­
side for miles around (Plate 1). Its corners were orientated to the points of the compass.

o 5 TO 20 METRES

O 20 40 60 FEET

Figure 4. The ‘ White Temple* on its Ziggurat, Warka
C
5