Page 99 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

PART one: MESOPOTAMIA

i

iU

30 METRES
IOO FEET

Figure 27. Assur temple of Tukulti-Niuurta I

Ziggurats then appear altogether inaccessible, but this is no doubt due to their bad state
of preservation. Nevertheless, we can be certain that such great stairways as, for ex-
am ple, at Ur (P^te 52) would have left traces if they had been used. We seem actually
to have evidence of an arrangement which might easily become incomprehensible when
a temple fell into decay: the Assur temple at Kar Tukulti Ninurta (Figure 27) was built
up against the Ziggurat, as had been the case at Mari.15 The Assur shrine had two en­
1 / trances, like the temple of Ishchali (Plate 55), and in both cases one entrance provides a
straight and the other a bent axis approach to the cella.16 We have discussed already the
origin of this arrangement (p. 54); we may now add that it was adopted in the north
and south at about the same time.17
The broad, shallow cella with its podium lies in front of a recess which is deeper than
the southern niches and is cut into the body of the Ziggurat, as if to emphasize that the
god, in his epiphany, came forth from the mountain (cf. Plate 72). The Ziggurat is
square (over ninety feet at the base) and has no stair or ramp leading up to it. But in
front of its south-western face lies a building which could very well accommodate a
staircase. It has been supposed, and I think rightly, that the roof of this gate house
might be connected by a bridge with the top of the first stage of the Ziggurat.18
The great Ziggurat of Assur, in the city of Assur, seems also to have been accessible by
means other than stairs or ramps. It stood alone in an enclosure, like the Ziggurats of
Ur and Erech, while the temple was a separate building. In figure 28 the comer of
this temple appears on the extreme right. Then follows the Assur Ziggurat, next the
Old Palace, the centre of the administration. To the left of this is a public square (Tarbas
Nishe, Square of the Foreign Peoples), with on the far side the double temple of Anu
and Adad (Heaven and Storm) with two Ziggurats presumably accessible from the
temple roof, and on the near side the double temple of Sin and Shamash (Moon and
Sun). The very large building on the extreme left is the New Palace, with the temple of
the god Nabu on the near side of the street running past it.
Most of these buildings were destroyed to such an extent that only foundations
.
survive. It is, therefore, impossible to discuss them in detail. But the variety m their
70