Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...

Mud brick, unbaked and baked, reed,
wood, and stone were the chief building
materials of the ancient Near Eastern
world. The collapse of successive mudbrick
walls gradually led to the formation
of mounds, which mark the sites of human
occupation in the Near East (see figs. 44,
49, 51). Because stone is rare in southern
Mesopotamia, mud brick and reeds
were used to fashion structures. Wood
was also generally lacking in the south,
where the only common tree was the
date palm (see figs. 4, 39). In Syria and
Anatolia, however, wood formed an integral
part of all large structures. On a clay
cult tower probably made in Syria (see fig.
22), sizable wooden beams are represented
between the two stories and in
the framework of the building.
The walls and doorways of most important
royal and cult buildings were embellished
with different materials, stone,
metal, and painted plaster. Clay bricks
molded into figural and plant forms first
appear as a type of decoration in architecture
of the second millennium B.C. in
Mesopotamia and Syria. Some of the
most impressive examples of molded
bricks come from the city of Babylon.
The walls of gateways, the royal buildings,
and a long processional road, built
during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II
were faced with molded
(604-562 B.C.),
bricks covered with yellow, blue, black,
7 lgSIBW Iwhite, and red glazes. The lions (see fig.
11