64 architecture: The Middle East Teblitu River, whose course Sennacherib had changed to accommodate his building site, the king’s palace incorporated mud-brick stone and precious materials, including ivory and cedar brought from the forested mountains of Lebanon It included large columns of bronze or cedar The walls were lined with slabs of gypsum alabaster brought from Assyrian quarries and used because the soft stone was more easily carved than other types of stone in the area The doorways included stone statues of humanheaded winged bulls and lions as guardians on either side Smaller statues were also used to help support columns In addition, numerous stone reliefs of spirits and animals decorated the palace walls and were meant to protect the king from evil The palace contained more than 70 halls and chambers, most lined with stone panels depicting the king’s many accomplishments During the short-lived Neo-Babylonian Period (ca 625– 539 b.c.e.) builders combined both northern and southern architectural approaches and methods, including the polychrome glaze popular among the Assyrians The Chaldeans, who made enameled baked bricks by applying a colored paste before baking, used these bricks for the exterior of their palaces and temples, often completely covering the faces of the structures with them Their success in producing these bricks is evidenced by the fact that the remains of the brilliant blue, white, black, yellow, and red enameled bricks have maintained their brilliancy to modern times Some of the bricks included floral designs and animal figures The inside of the Chaldean palaces were also heavily decorated with murals Another decorative technique applied to the inner walls was a thick layer of clay stucco, in which dry cones of baked clay were buried within the wall The cones were visible on the wall’s surface at regular intervals and covered with various colors In addition, the cones’ heads were separated by colored geometrical lines During the Persian Empire (ca 538–331 b.c.e.) many of the Mesopotamian techniques were still being used in Near Eastern architecture By this time, however, the Persians had incorporated the extensive use of columns, as evidenced by the famous complex of palaces at Persepolis (518–460 b.c.e.), in which the throne room alone had 100 columns Founded by Darius the Great, who reigned in Persia from 521 to 486 b.c.e., the palace was not completed until approximately 100 years later by Artaxerxes I, who reigned from 464 to 424 b.c.e One reason construction took so long was that the construction of buildings could not even begin until a complex platform was completed, a technically difficult project because it was inserted into an irregular and rocky mountainside The palace complex was designed not only as a seat of government but also as a showplace and center for receptions and festivals The northern part of the palace was meant primarily for officials and included the Hall of the Apadana, the Throne Hall, and the Gate of Xerxes The rest of the complex included the Palaces of Darius and Xerxes, the Harem, the Council Hall, and other such facilities By the time of the Sassanians, who can be traced back to around 250 b.c.e., architects began using rough-hewn stone to construct their palaces At places like Firuzabad and Sarvestan the palaces featured triple aivans, which were huge, open-air entrance halls that led to reception halls, beyond which were situated the monarch’s residential quarters The Sassanians also made extensive use of stucco, which accounts for the loss of architectural remains of these triple aivans, whose existence is based on period literature Also worth mentioning is the Palace of Shapur I, who ruled from 241 to 272 c.e Found at Ctesiphon, southeast of the modern city of Baghdad, the palace features the largest single-span arch in the world HOUSES The earliest known dwellings in Mesopotamia consisted of round, mud-wall huts sunk into the ground with an entrance and a hearth In what was the northern region of Mesopotamia archaeologists have discovered huts dating to the ninth millennium b.c.e sunk into the ground with stone pillars made out of plaster Many houses connected to the Marsh Arabs and their reed culture were also built of tall reeds These reeds were staked into the ground in two parallel rows with their tops tied together and covered with matting A similar, more complex technique is still used in rural sections of modern Iraq Outside the marshlands, however, houses were built of mud bricks and mud plaster Typically, house construction varied according to the socioeconomic status of the occupants The poorer people lived in single-story houses of reinforced mud brick with floors of packed earth or mud bricks These houses were sometimes merely circular huts supported by a center post As building techniques progressed, however, those higher on the socioeconomic ladder had much grander living quarters that were two and sometimes even three stories high Based on archaeological excavations at Ur, the typical “upper-middle-class” home of around 2000 b.c.e was multistoried and built around an open-air courtyard, which allowed light to enter the windowless rooms Typical groundfloor areas included a kitchen with a fireplace, a long, narrow reception room where guests were received, a chapel with an altar, and a tomb under the pavement or ground The openair yard probably included storage sheds or stalls for sheep, goats, and other domestic animals The home’s second story was reached by stairs, sometimes leading to a wooden balcony supported by columns This balcony usually extended around the entire central courtyard, and the second floor usually consisted of bedrooms Despite this luxurious space for that era, a ladder was often used so that people could sleep on their rooftops on hot summer nights The roofs were buttressed with timbers packed with mud Eventually these houses also included a bathroom just off the courtyard For most houses the bathrooms were small enclosures with a central drainage hole paved on each side with bricks where people would place their feet and squat