Hammurabi and the First Dynasty of Babylon and small scale new urban foundations

Hammurabi, King of Babylon: First Babylonian dynasty. Famous with his law code (in the Louvre, copy of it in the University museum: another stele: 8 feet high stela, originally kept in Babylon, taken to Susa as trophy: the stele presents the most impressive monumental inscription of the king: outlines the legals aspects of how a just society is understood), even though several texts survive from his time period, no architectural remains can be studied from his capital city due to the reason that the Old Babylonian levels at Babylon are under the water table. He ruled from 1792 to 1750 BC. The stele is usually referred as a law code however this is a bit misleading since it was not an operationalized legally binding social document, it was a monument that represented Hammurabi as a just king. However it does give us some fascinating ideas about what sorts of legal regulations were in use,a nd in what sort of a social structure.

Awilum: the free men, Mushkenum: the dependants, wardum slaves.

During the Ur III period, Babylon was not a significant city. From the textual sources we can tell that Babylon had a palace and several temples, at the time of Hammurabi.

Development of scribal tradition under the Mesopotamian kings of early 2nd millennium BC: dub-sar of the the palace, temple and the scribal schools (e-dubba), especially from Nippur and Ur. Often referred as the “old babylonian school corpus. Starts under the patronage of Ur III kings and continues even more vigorously in the Old babylonian period. Formation of the standard Babylonian dialect. Very influential in the survival and preservation of certain literary compositions of the past: dubsar processes of sifting through and selecting material. City Laments- very interesting corpus. Also the process of establishing a collectively recognized Mesopotamian past: “the kings of Uruk” a mytho-poetic past.

Instead of Babylon, I will tell you briefly about a few small sites, which were very well planned small scale new foundations, new urban foundations, and several of such settlements are known from the South with similar size.

The early 2nd millennium Old Babylonian realm in the Greater Mesopotamian landscape witnessed the construction of several regularly planned new towns (foundations and re-foundations), most of which followed similar urban layouts and architectural features. Some archaeologically known examples are Mashkan-Shapir/Tell Abu Dhuwari, Shaduppum/Tell Harmal, Haradum/Khirbet ed Diniye and finally Mound D at Khafajah.

The resemblance of all of these settlements in urban layout and size is particularly revealing: Monumental city walls were laid out with a rectangular plan, single city gate, “Babylonian” type temples and large administrative buildings, as well as orthogonally laid main streets.

Haradum/Khirbet ed Diniye is located on the Euphrates, 90 km. southeast of Mari. The site measures 150x150 m. roughly, and it was occupied in 18th and 17th centuries BC as a small Old Babylonian town. Its plan is almost a perfect square, and covers about 1.3 ha. Not very large. Central town square to where the temple opened, as well as a building identified by the excavators as the city-ruler’s house. It might definitely have an administrative function rather than a residential one. The town was intersected by a number of straght thoroughfares, and I would like to make note of the little plaza just inside the city gate to the south, which probably accted as a marketplace.

Shaduppum/Tell Harmal is located 10 km east of Baghdad. Excavated by the Iraqi government. The fortified enclosure measures 147x133 m in avarage, and functioned as a provincial administrative center of city-state of Eshnunna. Its ancient name is known from the textual sources as Shaduppum, literally meaning “the treasury, or accountant’s office” which is self explanatory about the function of such settlements, established in the Mesopotamian landscape, for purely administrative purposes.

The heavily fortified enclosure had a fairly large temple in the center, guarded with two peculiar life size terracotta lions, which seems to be a veryu common feature at this time of the gate lion idea. The association of lions with the gates, spreads wildly.

Mound D at Khafajah is also a similar enclosure. You will remember the important Early Dynastic site where the Temple Oval was. At this time period, the settlement moves to an adjacent mound. Mound D. Same type of settlement with major central cross-street, heavy fortifications, imptressive gates, a large central compound guarded by terracotta lions. The similarity to this detail is really revealing, impressive. This settlement is larger than the others though.

Modern Tell Hariri. Middle Euphrates, the right (west) bank, very close to the modern day border between Syria and Iraq. Important river crossing. Particular points along the Euphrates were important since not every location offered access to the ther side of the river, and the important river crossings became important locations in the Ancient Near East, where all the major caravans who crossed the desert would have to pass by. Since the river itself was a main North-South transportation route, a river crossing would be the crossroads of two important routes. Several cities with such locations prospered economically in this way. In the Iron Age we will see how Karkamish developed in such a way to the North, in North Syria.

French excavation that has been going on for several years since 1933, under Andre Parrot; currently Jean-Claude Margeuron.

In the Early Dynastic Period Mari was an important city-sate in the Middle Euphrates; sharing the architectural and artisanal traditions, material culture of Southern Mesopotamia, and became an important trading center under the shakanakku (lit. governor) dynasty in the Akkadian and Ur III periods, Mari was a significant city with a dynasty of rulers. A major royal residence, palace as well as a number of temples were built in the city through out its Early to Middle Bronze Age history.

Domination of a series of Amorite kings from the 19th century until its destruction in 1760 BC by Hammurabi of Babylon. At one point in its history, Shamshi Adad about whom we talked about installed his son Yasmah Addu as the ruler of Mari, while the son of the local Amorite dynasts fled to Aleppo. This was the famous ruler Zimri-Lim, who later took the royal seat at Mari and built a spectacular palace.

Under the Amorite kings it gained an incredibly important role in the Mesopotamian political and economical geography perhaps only comparable to Assur and Babylon. The palace of these Amorite kings is what I will be introducing to you, which revealed an imperssibe amount of texts as well in the form of tablets in Akkadian, enough to study a separate Mari dialect of Akkadian. Mari also developed a very distictive artistic style too. Their inscriptions which were mainly recovered from Mari are the first important annalistic texts that actually establish a narrative correlation between military campaigns expeditions with building activity in cause and effect manner. They built cities, had expeditions to the Mediterranean sea, washed their sacred weapons there, erected commemorative monuments, dug out canals for their cities.

Best known building from the Mari excavations is the famous palace.

Palace at Mari:

The Zimrilim’s palace that was built in the most prominent location in the city its Northern side, was colossal in its scale with 260 rooms total that is known, must have been one of the most impressive monuments of its kind at the time period. One Ugarit king is known to have sent his ambassador to Mari, just so that he would see the palace and report to him, the marvels of the palace was very famous at its own time. The total complex measures approximately 200 m by 120 m. It was built between two smaller scale structures, the Ishtar temple to the SW and Ninni-zaza temple to the east side. The prominent and northerly location was probably preferred for the Northerly winds.

One major entrance is known to date: from its NE corner of the structure: it is called the North Gate which does include a prominent Gate structure, far more monumental and even symbolically important than a simple vestibule. The importance of the Gate, we will see reach its culmination in the Late Bronze and Early Iron age with a very specific building type of its own, the bit hilani.

Various units of the palace was arranged around two major courtyards. The forecourt 131 and the inner court 106. But if you look closely there is a whole hierarchy of small courtyard-halls with rooms arranged around them, so the whole palace design is really a multiplication of this idea. These two major courts were massive open spaces that served for public gathering. Forecourt 131 is approached by the North Gate, through a smaller court, which really preapares the visitor small by small the experience of the different scales of the building.

The small rectangular unit to the Northeast corner around a small court is identified as a “hostel”, with a really domestic artifact assamblage. There were kitchens in it which probably served any public feasting in this more public zone. Al Khalesi suggested that the whole unit was a massive kitchen which may have housed the servants.

Forecourt 131, measures some 48 by 32 m, a true public court, where probably the king met large groups of ambassodors, representattives, officials whatnot. It has been suggested that at least 400 people could be accommodated in this large court at a time. The local text mention the frequent gatherings the administrative personnel. It really acted as the central nexus of the Eastern half of the building complex.

The forecourt 131 was paved only at the edges and not at the middle which led the excavators suggest that the so-called “the Court of the Palms” mentioned in the Mari texts where palm tress were planted must be this court and no other one. Quite possible. The room 132, which opens to the court in a very special way with a semicircular flight of stairs is suggested to be the audience chamber of the king; and it also has a brick podium at the back of it. A large number of wall paitings were recovered from this room. fragmentary but at least 5 registers of mythical religious scenes.

Al Khalesi suggested that the unit just behind this Audience chamber was a funerary complex , bit kispim, for Zimri-Lim’s kispu-cult. The location of the Audience chamber had to related to this funerary banqueting area.

To understand the genral layout let us look at the main scheme of the building associated with different functions. The large unit at the North East side with the gate and the structures around the forecourt form the Reception wing where the king met his officials and vistors etc. The inner court acted like a circulation area, while the North west wing was identified as the housing for thr high officials, occupying the Northern and Western side of the Inner court. While to the South wing especially to the west is the residence of the king. Finally to the southeast, archaeologists identified a temple with its own separate entrance from outside the complex through the western wall.

The badly preserved Southeastern triangular section was probably workshops and artisanal quarters, since some metalwoking tools and related texts were found. Just to the West of it in the most orderly planned secion of the building was the storage unit, with a square hall with loading and unloading and regularly arranged 21 rooms on either side of a long corridor.

Coming to the most important section of the palace for us perhaps is the Inner Court 106, which was accessible only through the forecourt by means of a dog-leg passage. This was the heart of the palace, which is understood from the elaboration in the building of the whole section, especially the spectacular set of wall paintings found on its walls. This area was obviously reserved for high ranking officials of the king or high visiting elites. Just to the south of it lay the spectacula double throneroom suite.

In the south wall of the court, the famous panel called the “Investiture of Zimrilim” is found in situ in excellent condition. Gypsum plaster painting. A truely international style brought together, with Egyptian, Eastern Mediterranean, and even Aegean influence. With the possiblilty of trade such interconnections was now possible at the heart of this city. There are ome striking differences in the style of paintings themselves too.

The investiture scene depicts in two registers the king invested with power by the god Ishtar in the presence of other deities. The whole scen is then framed by mythical animals and palm trees. There was another set of paintings in a more fragmentary state found with a procession of officials.

South of the court, two longitudanal halls, really monumental stood. In the first hall Room 64, was alarge podium set against the south wall opposite the doorway, with a limstone casing painted to imitate marble. The fine statues of a goddess was found partly in this room and partly in the basin.

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