Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
set in place, and the sequence of operations continued from this new level. In
this way skyscraper proportions were achieved in the same way as a garden wall.
h ese traditionally constructed southern Arabian skyscrapers show clearly that
in ancient Mesopotamia it was possible to buld Ziggurats with virtually no site
developments and installations.
3.
Bastard Ashlar Construction
h is type of stone masonry is a very old and rational development, which because
of its convenience has remained in use more or less anywhere at any time. Details
of the assemblage may vary but the principle remains the same—that is to dress
i nely only the exposed face of the facing blocks of wall masonry so that they can
be set i nely jointed, while leaving the remainder of the block (i.e. rising joints,
bed joints and back) roughly hewn and splaying inwards so that behind the face
the joints gape apart. In this way the masonry combines the convenience of rubble
in structure with the distinction of ashlar in aspect. It thus may be regarded as a
hybrid, rubble in structure and ashlar in aspect or, in ef ect, “bastard ashlar”, i.e.
spurious ashlar.
It was the earliest type of i ne stone masonry, evolving from the direct inl uence of
brick. Without doubt the i rst examples of bastard ashlar stone masonry to occur
were in Mesopotamia during the latter part of the 4th millenium BC e.g. the Stein-
gebäude at Uruk (E. Heinrich,
Die Tempel . . . . im Mesopotamien
, pp. 46, 67; J.O.
Forest,
Les Premiers Temples de Mesopotamie
, pp. 75-130). However early stone
building of this nature according to all archaeological evidence remained very excep-
tional in Mesopotamia and it was elsewhere that it came into great prominence.
Towards the end of the 4th millenium BC mud brick building on the Mesopotamian
model and on a monumental scale was introduced into late predynastic Egypt—
principally for mastabas, imposing funerary structures with highly decorative
niched façades (AAAE, pp. 24-26). In turn during the Early Dynastic period (ca mid
27th cent BC), as a striking innovation such buildings were constructed at Saqqarah
in stone (by, it seems, a man of all round genius, Imhotep, the minister of public
works of Pharaoh Zoser). h e manner of this stone construction was the bastard
ashlar style; and it is clear that Imhotep sought to transform the existing mode of
brick construction by taking it as it stood and investing it with a new dimension,
eternity. In short the new stone construction procedure remained essentially that
of the preceeding brick building (AAAE, pp. 30-38).
Bastard ashlar is by nature a facing to ruder masonry, generally coursed rubble—
and this is so at Saqqarah. It is façade masonry and quite ot en false façade masonry
with no functional apartments behind it. It is essentially aspectual rather than
structural in signii cance and reproduces the i ne aspect of the brick mastabas,
Limited
instal-
lations
required
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