Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/414

BABYLONIAN ART. quarries and of forests for timber. The tools re- quired were therefore extremely simple ; and the forms of ornamentation and composition were conditioned both by the material used and the physical surroundings. T!ie absence of stone tor walls and colnnins and of wood for timbers forced the builders to make their walls thick and their halls narrow, so that they could be spanned by brick vaulting;. Thus, at the veiw hp;,'inning the arcli and vault were invented — biitli the false corbel arch with straight courses, and the true voussoir arch. Both poirfted and rcnmd arches were used in barrel vaults. Since the country was verj' flat, it was diflicult to lend impressiveness to buildings. In almost every other country natural eminences could be found, but here artificial platforms had to be constructed to make the buildings bulk large in the landscape. On this immense stage arose solid artificial mounds supporting single build- ings or groups. The principal mound was al- ways that of the temple, which was in the shape of an immense stepped truncated pyramid. At Babylon the 'Birs Nimrud' is reckoned to have been over 2o0 feet high. The tower varied in ttie number of its stories from three to seven. The ascent was made in various ways — either by a continuous inclined ramp around the reced- ing stories, or by a combination of internal staircases through the mass. On t'he way up were shrines, and the summit was crowned by the principal sanctuary. The chambers, how- ever, were few and small. The stories appear to have been colored differently. In many temples the buildei-s used brick dipped in colored en- amel, to signify that each particular story was consecrated to one of the planetary deities. These brick were stuck into the mass of sun- dried brick, and formed both a preservative and a decoration, iloldings were used as well as color. The broad surfaces were broken into ])anels, often framed by pilasters or groups of palm-stem shafts, and even by series of convex flutings. The sites of nearly all the great Baby- lonian cities have been located, but natural dis- integration has redviced them all to masses so luipromising and shapeless, without traces of construction, as to have discouraged explorers. Now, however, the buildings of Sirpurla, Nip- pur, and Babylon itself are being brought to light, and something has been done at Lippara, Eridu, Larsa, Ur, and Erech. At Tel-lo ( = Sir- juirla) the French have unearthed a royal palace dating back to about B.C. .5000, but rebuilt by King Gudea. Its platform was 12 meters high, 200 meters long, and .50 meters wide, and was reached both by a stairway and by a ramp. The jialace itself is an elliptical rhomboid, almost like a barrel. The outer walls are decorated with pilasters and semi-columns. The rooms, 30 in all, are grouped around three courts, ]>resumably, as in the later Assyrian palaces, the centres of the three sections — state apart- ments, harem, and dependents' quarters. The decoration given to these apartments is un- known. In other sites brilliantly enameled cones were stuck into the soft bricks to form varied patterns. Far larger and more sumptu- ous palaces existed in other Babylonian cities, but they have not yet been excavated. Com- pared with our rapidly growing knowledge of the history, religion, and literature of the Baby- lonians, our knowledge of their architecture is small. No history of this architecture can yet be written. It would appear as if the recon- structions by the Neo-Babylonian kings, such as Nebuchadnezzar, of the ancient sacred shrines, such a-s the temples of Babylon and Ur, were substantially in the same style as the original structures built 2000 or 3000 years before. See Babylon : Babel, Tower of : Nippur.

The use of sculpture in relief and in the round appears contemporary with the earliest architecture. The only group of works in historic sequence yet found is that from the mounds of Telle. Many of these sculptures are carved with his- toric and dedicatory inscriptions of the rulers which make their date indisputable. There are very crude reliefs of the period c. 4500-4000, in- chuling the famous liattle and funeral scenes of the "Stele of the Vultures" ; there are reliefs more delicate in technique and advanced in form, belonging to the age of Sargon and Naramsin (3800-3700) ; then a series of colossal statues in ver}' hard stone of the time of King Gudea, a little later, i'esenil)ling in technique the statues of the ancient empire of Egv'pt, though clumsier in proportion than these. Statues, both stand- ing and seated, steles, friezes, carved basins, and other classes of reliefs show that the Baby- lonians practiced sculpture in more varied form than their successors, the Assyrians ; but so far as can be judged l)y the monuments yet dis- covered, they never attained to the skill of the Assyrians in low relief. There was a greater use of religious and mythological scenes, but the annals of the kings also supplied frequent themes. Of their ability to render genre scenes and animal life, in which the Assyrians were later successful, we can .judge only from a few examples, such as some later terracottas of animals and the seal cylinders. The treatment here is realistic and with good treatment of sur- faces, without the sharpness of line and energy of Assyrian work. It is only from the minute sculpture of the cut gems and stones of the cylinders and seals that some idea of the his- toric development of Babylonian sculpture can be obtained during its course of over 4000 years. Every Babylonian was supposed to wear his seal and use it as his signature on all occa- sions, impressing it on the soft clay used as the universal writing material. The variety of the scenes carved u])on them is wonderful, no two being exactly alike. Large collections of these small works have been made in Europe and America. The largest are those of the Louvre, the Biblioth&qiie Nationale, in Paris; of M. Le Clercq, also in France ; of the British Museum ; and of the Metropolitan JIuseum, New York. Several thousand can now be studied, and they illustrate the mythologj', theology, religious rites, manners, and customs of the country bet- ter than any other works that have been found. Some are of extremely primitive workmanship, often executed principally with the drill, round holes of various sizes representing heads, shoul- ders, elbows, hands, hips, knees, and feet, con- nected often by lines. Others, especially those between the time of Sargon (3S00) and T'rgur (2700), are wonderful in their technique, soft textures, and iJcrfect rendering of detail. Such subjects a.s the adventures of Gilgamesh — the Babylonian Hercules — the fight of Merodach