Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
h e following remarks will deal only with that question and thus e.g. many
interesting models will not be mentioned. For the most part these have a religious
ambience. Of course these objects may af ord very valuable evidence for the history
of building form, but that is quite another subject.
Drawings of buildings to serve as project drawings have been made using a
great variety of media, e.g. clay tablets; pot sherds (ostraka); stone fragments; stone
blocks; stone wall faces; papyrus; parchment etc. and employing the appropriate
instrument—scriber, brush etc. together with rule, dividers, compasses etc. h e
subject matter of project drawings appears to separate out into two classes: plans
of buildings and drawings of architectural details. h e former of necessity are
made to a small scale on portable objects; the latter generally are at natural scale
inscribed on standing wall faces of the building concerned. Ancient models are
far the most part of terra-cotta, but those intended to serve as project documents,
i.e. for reference in constructing buildings, appear to be of stone.
It is probably best to present the evidence by way of the main schools of ancient
building: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman rather than separate it out
in the i rst instance into drawings and models.
Draw-
ings &
models
1.
Mesopotamian Building
(v Heisel pp. 7-75)
Drawings
Plans inscribed on clay tablets ot en dimensioned and labelled were of common
occurrence in Mesopotamia through much of antiquity—the earliest known ca
2300 BC and the latest in Seleucid times (i.e. at er 300 BC). h ey include rep-
resentations of most of the common types of buildings of the period: Ziggurats,
Temples, Houses—and there are also fragmentary town plans. h e standard of
draughtsmanship evidenced on these tablets is good. In many instances the draw-
ings are very tidy drawings indeed, ot en neatly dimensioned and labelled and
recognisably to scale.
h e
raison d'être
of these plans on clay tablets has occasioned controversy. It
has ot en been claimed that they are documents supporting land and titles regis-
tration; on the other hand they have been seen as school exercises, i.e. pertaining
to the education of scribes. h ese explanations may hold good in some instances,
nonetheless considered generically, these drawings are “project drawings”, for
reference in constructing buildings.
h e modalities of Mesopotamian brick building make for dif erences in the
nature of project drawings from drawings for the stone building of Egypt and
Classical Greece. Notable is the fact that whereas well drawn plans dimensioned
and to scale are found, there is an entire absence of architectural detail drawings
to natural or large scale, which occur in Egypt and Greece. Mesopotamian brick
1, 2
2.3
