Page 37 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART ONE: MESOPOTAMIA
for a shrine situated among houses, but its adaptation in fact changed its character. At
first (Figure 5) the temple was given an entrance at one side only, and the openings of
figure 4 became mere niches in the outside walls. At the opposite side of the shrine a
suite of small rooms had corresponded exactly with those near the entrance vestibule.
At Khafajc (Figure 5) this second suite of rooms has been replaced by a single narrow
space accommodating a stair to the flat roof and a store-room underneath the stair.21
But in addition to these internal changes some organization of the area adjacent to the
entrance had become necessary. A number of activities connected with the religious
service were carried out on the open spaces of the Anu Ziggurat at Warka. Tethering-
rings built into the ramp leading to the top22 indicate that sacrificial animals were tem­
porarily tied there. But where a temple was constructed among houses, space had to be

20 METRES
GO FEET

Figure 6. Sin Temple V, Khafajc

found for such purposes within the built-up area. We observe at Khafaje that an irregular
plot of ground, such as happened to be available, was walled in to serve as a forecourt
(Figure 5). In figure 6, a later stage of the same building, three successive courts were walled
off, each accommodating against its southern wail storerooms, offices, and other quarters
required by the temple staff. Bread-ovens were placed in the second court, while the
innermost court now contained the staircase to the roofwhich had formerly occupied the
south-western space beyond the cella. That space (marked 1 in figure 6) was blocked up
and disused, probably to prevent a continuous coming and going through the sanctuary
- for during summer the early hours of the day and the evening and night are passed on
the roofs. The purely practical change in the plan of the temple - the development of
forecourts, the blocking of entrances, the disuse of the space beyond the cella - had the
effect of changing the character of the shrine. From an isolated building open on all sides
(Figure 4) it became a complex structure, in which the cella was no longer the central
feature, but an innermost sanctuary.
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