Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
building is essentially “blocked out” building and any surface articulation is con-
stituted in patterned laying of whole bricks. h us drawings are not required to
set this articulation out since it can be set out directly on the ground by simply
arranging whole bricks. In this connection there is, however, a highly individual
rei nement. At Teppe Gawra, where the early 4th millennium temples exhibit a
striking initial development of the niched façade, a strange class of objects were
found—model (burnt) bricks at a scale of 1:10. h ese objects function in the nature
of children's building blocks, whereby patterns of brick laying in three dimensions
can be mocked up on the ground conveniently and rapidly.
Draw-
ings &
models
Models
h e majority of model buildings anywhere and everywhere are out of clay, and
there are a number of model buildings of clay from Mesopotamia. However none of
these models give any indication that they were used to guide building projects.
2.
Egyptian Building
(v Heisel pp. 76-153)
Drawings
Surviving drawings of buildings from Ancient Egypt are considerably less in num-
ber than those from Ancient Mesopotamia, but it is evident that the practice of
using such drawings as “project drawings” to guide construction was established in
Egyptian (monumental) building. Nonetheless there are rather striking dif erences
in the nature of the surviving material from Egypt and that from Mesopotamia.
h is dif erence may be partly due to the fact that the material used in (monu-
mental) Egyptian building was i nely dressed stone, whereas in Mesopotamia it
was brick.
Drawings of buildings were made in Ancient Egypt over approximately the
same period as in Mesopotamia. h e i rst occurred during the Middle Kingdom
(ca 2000 BC) but the bulk are from New Kingdom (from ca 1500 BC) and later,
and they do not survive from Graeco-Roman times, except for one or two items
from Meroe. As in Mesopotamia the drawings are of all common (monumental)
building types but these types are, of course, not identical with those from Meso-
potamia. In Egypt the drawings mostly represent temples and tombs, with notable
examples of (h eban) rock cut tombs of the Kings.
Several vehicles were used for these drawings. h e most substantial was a “slice”
or l ake of stone (generally limestone) but numbers of drawings were made on
papyrus sheets. In general the drawings were freely painted on in colour (mostly
red and black). h e expression of this brushwork technique is highly character-
istic. It conforms with the dimensioning and labelling to give a “quick notebook
3, 5, 6
4, 7
