WESTERN ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE Many architectural records are to be found in the countries north-east of Egypt, where archaeologists have unearthed the remains of Assyrian and Persian structures. A great deal of historic value in explaining the movements of people in the development of dominant monarchies has come to light. About Boo B.C. the Assyrians seem to have begun to build the magnificent series of palaces from which were brought the winged man-headed bulls and the sculptured slabs now in the British Museum. A type of architecture different from that of Egypt was developed, on account of disparate religious forms, dynasties less firmly estab lished, less durable building materials and flat country subject to inundations which required erection of platforms to build on.
Structurally, the masonry arch, the barrel vault and even the dome were new factors, although records of the last are only preserved in bas-reliefs, not in situ. Excavations recently under taken by the University of Pennsylvania have revealed indications of the same piling up of one culture on the ruins of a preceding one that is characteristic of many great cities of modern Europe. Such researches are of intense historic interest, and many beauti ful objects of art, both in metals and tiles, have been discovered. But the existing remains of the palaces, even those giving fairly definite clues, are not sufficiently intact to permit restoration, or to have had any marked influence on recent architectural progress.
Plans of these palaces show long lines of parallel walls, evidently carrying vaults, and a general absence of columns, which were a dominant characteristic of the Egyptian work. The symmetry of the Egyptian temple is absent ; while such features as entrance doors, interior courts and special rooms were symmetrical, the plans as a whole seem to have been evolved without the precon ceived and broad conception evident in Egyptian work. The restorations show stylistic treatment of distinctive designs. The buildings themselves did not stand long enough to have much bearing on later architecture.
Designers of modern high buildings have turned with interest to existing restorations of ziggurat towers. Probably the ziggu rats, representing an early effort of man to rise to any consid erable height above the flat alluvial plains, were the most striking architectural feature of the ancient Assyrian cities. The Tower of Babel, of Biblical renown, was undoubtedly a construction of the ziggurat type. Ziggurats were built in several storeys set back one behind the other with a winding ramp carried round the rectangular tower ; or the set-backs of each storey formed terraces extending around the structure. At the great temple of Borsippa at Birs Nimrud the ground storey was 2 7 2 f t. square, and it is known from a description on a cylinder found on the site that there were seven storeys, dedicated to the planets, each coloured with the special tint prescribed; the total probable height was i 6of t., and on the top was a shrine dedicated to the god Nebo. Such towers are a marked illustration of how forms of religious wor ship have expressed themselves in architecture. Scarcely any rec ords remain of the habitations of the common people ; they were probably simple huts of sun-dried brick roofed with vaults of the same material. Only the ruling forces of religion and monarchy remain architecturally recorded.
Persian architecture, which had its origin in the Assyrian and Median dynasties, to whose empire the Persian monarch succeeded by conquest in 560 B.C., borrowed from the earlier types many features, such as the raised platform on which their palaces were built, the broad flights of steps leading up to them and the winged human-headed bulls flanking the entrance portals. The point of architectural interest is the reappearance, probably from Media, of the great halls of columns ; but while in plan scheme they recall Egyptian practice, in detail they bear no resemblance to Egyptian form ; these columns probably derived their form from the wooden ones at Ecbatana described by Polybius; the capitals are formed by twin bulls ingeniously arranged to carry the stone architraves that supported the roof. The plans of these palaces were symmetrically arranged and strikingly similar, with open porticos on at least one and sometimes three sides. But they lacked the preconceived Egyptian balance as was shown clearly when new palaces were added to the great platform on which earlier ones had been built, as at Persepolis.
In these new architectural forms we begin to see evidence of a less dominant ruling class, a freer population, more extensive forays into neighbouring countries, increasing intercommunication between nations and the consequent influence on architectural design. (See also WESTERN ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE, from Egypt to Archaic Greece.)