Architecture 170A
Fall 1998
UC Berkeley
College of Environmental Design
Architecture Department

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Professor Kathleen James  September 1, 1998  Lecture 2:

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Jericho 
House of pre-pottery 
Fountain of Elisha 
Plan 

Catalhuyuk 
bird’s eye 
shrine 

Uruk 

Temple of Anu 
exterior
view 

Mohenjo-daro 
Great Bath 
axon 
Citadel 
plan 

Ur (Iraq) 
plan 
house sites 
private 
Ziggurat 

Khorsabad
plan 
citadel 

Babylon 
Ishtar Gate 
plan 

The Beginnings of Urban Civilization

I. Neolithic (stone age) towns in the Middle East: 
Jericho (Israel, Occupied West Bank) settled c9000 BCE.  Round single room houses c7000 BCE and rectilinear shrine c6000 BCE.  Fortified wall and tower. 
«atalh–y¸k (Turkey) c6500-5650 BCE.  more extensive evidence of individual dwellings and of religious practices. 

II. Rise of urban culture as people gathered together in the fertile floodplains of the Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Nile Rivers.  Urbanization supported (and was supported by) intensive agriculture, including irrigation, and facilitated growth of technology and trade. 

III. Early Cities: 
Sumerian city state of Uruk (modern Warka, Iraq) c 3500 BCE.  organized around temples, which served as administrative as well as religious centers.  Temple of Anu, the sky god, set atop an artificial mound.  mountain-like place of worship that would bring people closer to their gods. 

Harappan city of Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan), which flourished c 2300-1750 BCE.  disagreement over whether primary function of citadel was religious or political.  highly developed infra-structure of water supply and drainage system serving courtyard houses. 

Sumerian city state of Ur (Iraq) urban fabric c1950 BCE.  differentiation of urban and architectural form: streets and squares, markets and schools.  largest houses two stories high and arranged around courtyards.  Ziggurat c2113-2006, a three-stage platform crowned by a temple to the god Ur-Nammu. 

Shift from temple to palace focus in Assyrian capitals, such as the new city of Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad, Iraq) built 721-705 BCE by Sargon II and abandoned soon after his death.  Combined palace/temple complex located at one end (rather than center) of rectangular city.  Ceremonial route through Citadel in which low relief sculpture in stone testifies to the greatness of the emperor. 

Babylon (Iraq) dwarfed all preRoman cities.  cultural memory of the spiral ziggarat of its Tower of Babel.  emphasis on collective rather than individual and enhancing of old rather than creation of new patterns in the glazed brick Ishtar Gate built c 575 BCE by Nebuchadnezar 

Marked entrance into ceremonial way leading to central zone of temples and palaces; now rebuilt in Pergamon Museum, Berlin (Germany).