Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
not by the absence of columns, but by the absence of columns used structurally,
since in various manners most columns occuring in Mesopotamian building are
ornamental in purpose rather than structural. Typically columns are used to l ank
important entrance ways (for a conspectus v D. Collon, Mesopotamian Columns
JANES
2, 1967, pp. 1-18).
Evidence for the use of wooden columns in the mud brick building of Meso-
potamia is (as elsewhere) largely indirect, since (as elsewhere) material remains
of wood do not readily survive. In the i rst place abundant indication that palm
trunk columns were an ancient feature of building construction in Mesopotamia
is provided by mud brick imitations of such columns. h ere are many interesting
examples of mud brick columns intricately fashioned to simulate the imbricated
aspect of the palm trunk given by lopped of branches (D. Oates, “Innovations in
mud brick . . . in Ancient Mesopotamia,” WA 21, 1990, pp. 3, 92-98; pls 1, 2; i gs 314).
More direct evidence of the actual use of wood columns surviving across the ages
is af orded through the practice of ennobling wooden columns by metal (copper
sheathing) and this metal plating was decorated to resemble a palm trunk. An early
example of this technique was discovered at 1st Dynasty Ur. Even more striking
were the remains of palm trunk columns at Al Ubaid in the Early Dynastic III
period. Here were found not only fragments of copper plated wooden columns,
but also palm logs coated with bitumen overlaid by mother of pearl, limestone
and shell bitumen mosaic in palm tree aspect (Hall and Woolley Ur Excavations
I, Pls IV, XXXIV.3, XXXV.6.7, XXXVIII). h at the device endured in the land is
demonstrated by its later occurence in Syria—Palestine and by its adoption by the
Hellenistic Greeks during Seleucid times to become an accepted mode of luxury
decoration at e.g. Delos and Delphi (Martin, p. 160, Vallois, pp. 299-310).
In quite other manner wooden columns came to be used in Assyrian imperial
building as a direct inl uence (or import) from Neo Hittite North Syria. h is can
be seen in the occurence of the characteristic decorated stone “bowl” bases, and is
also specii cally referred to in Assyrian inscriptions, e.g. “A portico patterned at er
a (Neo) Hittite Palace which they call
bit hilani
in the Amorite tongue I built in
front of (the palace) gates. Eight leaves in pairs. . . . of shining bronze, four ceder
columns exceeding high I placed on top of the lion colossi and set then up as posts
to support the (palace) entrance” (Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia I,
p. 804; II pp. 84, 367, 883).
Wooden
columns
with
metal
sheathing
h e Levant and Anatolia
h ere was a well established use of columns in the Levant, not wholesale as in
Egyptian and classical Graeco-Roman building but as occasional elements. Ot en
these were principally of aspectual signii cance—e.g. to distinguish a main entrance.
As a rule such columns were of wood and remains of stone columns in the area
