How Do We Want the Past to Be?: On Methods and Instruments of Visualizing Ancient Reality 9781463236687

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How Do We Want the Past to Be?

Regenerating Practices in Archaeology and Heritage 1 Editorial Board Gemma Tully Mal Ridges Leif Isaksen Richard Madgwick

Regenerating Practices in Archaeology and Heritage is a new interdisciplinary series, exploring emerging debates in Archaeology and Heritage studies. Shaping future directions for research through contemporary theory and practice, the volumes in this series are intended to build on and complement each other, developing perspectives and positions taken by other authors in the series, showing connectivity between diverse scales of discourse and between different subfields in Archaeology and Heritage. The series encompasses methodological, scientific and theoretical themes in both edited volumes and monographs and will encompass: collaborative archaeology; museum practice; digital humanities; archaeological fieldwork methodologies; and the intersection between scientific techniques and new understandings of the past.

How Do We Want the Past to Be?

On Methods and Instruments of Visualizing Ancient Reality

Edited by

Maria Gabriella Micale Davide Nadali

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34 2015

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2015 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2015

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ISBN 978-1-4632-0544-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Micale, Maria Gabriella, editor of compilation. | Nadali, Davide, editor of compilation. Title: How do we want the past to be? : on methods and instruments of visualizing ancient reality / edited by Maria Gabriella Micale ; edited by Davide Nadali. Other titles: Methods and instruments of visualizing ancient reality Description: Piscataway, NJ : Gorgias Press, 2015. Identifiers: LCCN 2015031517 Subjects: LCSH: Virtual reality in archaeology. | Excavations (Archaeology)--Interpretive programs. | Antiquities--Interpretive programs | Palaces--Iraq--Assyria. Classification: LCC CC80.4 .H69 2015 | DDC 930.1028--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015031517

Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 DOCUMENTS Working on Old Near Eastern Excavations ........................................ 7 FRIEDHELM PEDDE Mesopotamia: A Source of Inspiration for Architecture in the 20th Century .................................................................................... 27 BRIGITTE PEDDE SPACES Imagining Second Storeys in Late Assyrian Palaces: The architectural reconstructions of James Fergusson and JeanClaude Margueron ......................................................................... 49 DAVID KERTAI Re-Envisioning Information: The Maps We Make of Ancient Assyrian Palaces ............................................................................. 77 ANN SHAFER The (Dis)Embodiment of Architecture: Reflections on the Mirroring Effects of Virtual Reality ........................................... 89 DAVIDE NADALI Imagining Architectural Space: Methodological Approaches for Assyrian Palaces ...........................................................................107 SARAH JARMER SCOTT MODELS The Present and Future of Virtual Heritage ....................................141 DONALD H. SANDERS What Might a Field Archaeologist Want from an Architectural 3D Model? ....................................................................................157 FEDERICO BUCCELLATI

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INTRODUCTION The present book contains papers presented in the session “How Do We Want the Past to Be? On Methods and Instruments of Visualizing the Ancient Reality” as part of the TAG—Theoretical Archaeological Group—held in Buffalo in May 2012 and other invited contributions on the same subject. Contributions focus on ancient Near Eastern architecture and its representation with a dual perspective: the papers aim at analysing how ancient architectures and urban space have been recovered and excavated and how the results of those excavations have been presented according to solutions that often disregard archaeological reality; in fact, reconstructions of the ancient shape of the architecture of the newly revealed buildings went well beyond the archaeological datum of the preservation of the ancient structures with visual solutions that (re)integrated parts and features that were not preserved—such as the existence of windows, the reconstructions of the supposed original height of the buildings and the shape of roofs. Those integrations were only partially based on a properly scientific consideration of the archaeological deposits and remains of the ancient buildings: in reality, the shape of the ancient cities as well as the reconstructions of their buildings were strongly imbued with the contemporary imaginative idea of the ancient Orient, borrowing architectural features from different periods and cultures. In this respect, the ancient representations of architectures as carved onto the cylinder seals or, more extensively, the Assyrian bas-reliefs have also been largely exploited for the reconstructions of palaces and temples that were only preserved at foundation level. The images of architecture created by the Assyrian sculptors (9th–7th century BCE), for example, would become one of the main sources for the representations of the details of roofing, gates, and windows. 1

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Taking into consideration the way the past and ancient architecture has been presented and represented through old and new media—thus starting from the most ancient examples of drawings up to the most recent computer-based graphics and creations—it is now reasonable to ask how we want to represent the past and, as a consequence, how we want it—why we want it one way or another. It is not only a matter of debating the formal content of graphic solutions, but rather debate and confrontation should move to the real efficacy of reconstructing the past that cannot be reduced to a filling motif of exhibitions and museums; on the contrary, new methods of reconstructing and simulating the past through devices that give the possibility of really interacting with the reconstructed space can in fact result in a tool of knowledge for both didactic and research purposes. The session on methods and instruments of visualizing the ancient reality at the TAG in Buffalo was also an opportunity to remember Samuel M. Paley, professor of Classics at the University of Buffalo, who passed away in 2010. His seminal studies on Assyrian wall reliefs, in particular for what concerns the figurative programme of King Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, inspired further researches on the topic of relationship between texts and images, on one hand, and images and architectural context, on the other: his attention for the details and the importance of considering artefacts in their original context led Paley to start a pioneering research on the virtual reconstruction of the North-West Palace of King Ashurnasirpal II and the citadel of Nimrud (http://www.learningsites.com). His researches and insightful observations did not point at the simple reconstruction of the ancient space—thus providing another virtual realization of the past according to how he wanted the Assyrian city of Nimrud to be—but rather at the creation of dynamic didactic and research tool that gives the more concrete and useful opportunity to debate and confront the results. Paley did not want to simply represent the past as a matter of fact, but he had in mind to show the past—with a philological attention for archaeological details and contexts— through a system that was able to engage the viewers into virtual reality, keeping the attention on the past as the only subject of the research—in Paley’s view methods and techniques of visualizing the past were only tools and not the aim of his research.

INTRODUCTION

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The present book also collects papers of pupils and friends who had the opportunity to work with him: reflections and discussions on the necessity of representing the past, starting from archaeology and the most ancient solutions to arrive to the new frontiers of visualization, are dedicated to his beloved memory. The papers here collected face the matter of representing the past according to the traditional systems of drawings and reconstructions of the shape of buildings and ancient oriental cities and the new techniques of rendering through computer images and virtual reality: indeed, the question is not the change of methods, at least not only; the focus is on the results of the different methods and the potentiality of new virtual reality and 3D images to investigate the architectural and urban space in a dynamic and interrelated perspective. Styles and techniques of drawing of course changed through time: in fact, changes go even faster in contemporary time. However, the collection of papers dealing with traditional and new methods and techniques shows that old problems in representing the past and using those representations as a tool of research still persist: it is time to ask how we want the past to be and how our own desires can match the necessary accuracy in studying the past. Focusing on two examples of old famous German excavations (Ashur and Uruk), Friedhelm Pedde presents the case-studies of the publication of old excavations and the re-organisation of their original documentation. Based on “recomposition” of the original and often fragmentary graphic documentation, sketches, traditional drawings and volumetric reconstructions have a primary role in the modern interpretation of the original archaeological data and lead to a more appropriate understanding of ancient architecture. The same German excavations and their famous drawings are at the base of the study proposed by Brigitte Pedde who, from the perspective of the history of modern art and architecture, analyses the influence of these drawings upon the design of the modern “towers” in the American urban landscape at the beginning of the 20th century. David Kertai analyses the architecture of the Assyrian palaces, debating the old question whether the royal residences of the Assyrian kings had a second storey or not: based on detailed considerations of the shape of architecture and analyses of architectural structures of the lower floor (the absence of enough

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staircases to access the second storey is just one of many important considerations), Kertai concludes that Assyrian palaces did not have an upper floor and that both representational wings and residential sectors were located at the same level. Based on the Edward Tufte’s book Envisioning Information (1990), Ann Shafer introduces the issue of the interpretation of space and volumes of the Assyrian palace in the light of Tufte’s approach to information and images. Proposing seven examples, she argues that the current means to render the Assyrian palace architecture is linked to paradigms mostly determined by the history of the first discoveries in the 19th century. Despite the current use of informative instruments, plans and linear drawings are still principal ways to reconstruct and investigate the spatial relationships between the building and, for example, the reliefs on the walls. Shafer assumes that this condition of “scholarly purview” determines a lack of development of any “alternative frameworks for the exploration of Assyrian visual and spatial culture” and proposes a wider consideration of all the opportunities of the contemporary information design for re-envisioning ancient Assyria. Davide Nadali debates the way ancient Assyrian sculptors represented the architecture of cities and buildings on the basreliefs through a process of decomposition and disembodiment of architectural features: the process of disembodiment indeed becomes the key to understand how the space was represented and perceived by the ancient sculptors and viewers. At the same time, (dis)embodiment might describe the value and cognitive contribution of virtual reality if it is thought as a dynamic tool for research and knowledge rather than a mere exercise of new stylistic and technical tendencies that have an end with themselves. Sarah J. Scott focuses her analyses on Sennacherib’s SouthWest Palace at Nineveh and the importance of considering the basreliefs in their original contexts—sculptures were thought to be seen inside the palace along the walls of the rooms. The new architectural shape and solutions of Sennacherib’s palace, as projected and conceived by his architects, points out the necessary requirement of analysing the sculptures within the palace, in particular if we take into consideration the often symmetrical and perspective use of the gates giving access to the rooms by

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embodying ourselves in the space of the palace as the new audience of Sennacherib’s bas-reliefs. The production of virtual images as an instrument for the interpretation and the study of ancient architecture is the topic of Donald H. Sanders, who focuses on the contemporary needs for 3D images of ancient building as well as items to present archaeology to a wider public. Important examples of Assyrian architecture are analysed as case-studies together with others. In contrast, Federico Buccellati focuses on VR and 3D images from the point of view of the archaeologist. As a worker in the field and one in charge of the proceeds of both excavation and reconstruction, the archaeologist looks for an instrument which reflects the appearance of the archaeological data and the temporal dimension of a building’s life. Buccellati argues that the contemporary trend towards 3D models reflects the contemporary need for “accuracy in terms of verisimilitude”, as the main concern of model builders were the outlook of the model itself. Referring to some successful experiences of 3D models, he also proposes some considerations in order to focus—from the perspective of archaeology and stratigraphy—on priorities toward what a useful model should provide. Maria Gabriella Micale Davide Nadali

WORKING ON OLD NEAR EASTERN EXCAVATIONS FRIEDHELM PEDDE BERLIN

This contribution discusses the old German excavations in Ashur and Uruk and the questions that surround what should be done with the old archaeological collections in the museums—in this case in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. Ashur was settled at least since the late Early Dynastic Period. 1 In the second millennium it was the capital of the Assyrian Empire and remained the religious centre of the national god Ashur in the first millennium. In 614 BCE the town was destroyed by a coalition of Medes and Babylonians. It was apparently not abandoned completely, but remained an insignificant village. Only in the Parthian period would it become a town of some importance again. The excavation in Ashur (Fig. 1) started in 1903 in the name of the German Oriental Society, the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG), under Walter Andrae, a young colleague of Robert Koldewey, who excavated Babylon at the same time. Andrae and his team worked in Ashur from 1903 to 1914, twelve months of the year, without interruption. The finds were divided between the museums in Berlin and Istanbul. In these years the German teams were able to open large areas, but from our modern perspective some aspects trouble us today. Koldewey, Andrae and their For a brief description see Pedde, ‘The Assyrian Heartland’, pp. 853–856. 1

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colleagues were not archaeologists in the modern understanding of the term, but architects. And moreover, archaeology was not an academic field as it is today. Their main priorities were to excavate buildings on a large scale, and large areas were always excavated.

Fig. 1. Ashur. Plan.

Uruk (Fig. 2) was settled for more than 5000 years without interruption: from the Ubaid until the Sasanian Period. The Uruk excavation was also started by the German Oriental Society in 1912 (Fig. 3), and was continued from 1928 to the 1980s under the leadership of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), and only interrupted by the Second World War. The finds were divided between the museums in Berlin and Baghdad; moreover there is a small collection of objects in Heidelberg. Typical for these years, only a few scientists were present at the site, but between 180 and 200 workmen (Fig. 4), and excavations took place month by month, and in the case of Ashur year by year. The result was that they excavated many thousands of objects, but the documentation of the findings and finds is not as detailed as we today would like to have it.

WORKING ON OLD NEAR EASTERN EXCAVATIONS

Fig. 2. Uruk. Plan.

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In all these years of digging the excavators of Uruk wrote preliminary reports of each season, the Uruk Vorberichte (UVB), whereas the excavators of Babylon and Ashur wrote several letters a year, published in the early volumes of the Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft (MDOG). In the middle of the 1980s Rainer M. Boehmer and his team started a project in the DAI to publish all findings and finds of Uruk in a series of final

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reports Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka Endberichte (AUWE): volumes about stratigraphy, 2 architecture, 3 burials, 4 small finds, 5 terracottas, 6 sealings, 7 and cuneiform tablets, 8 as well as many articles in the series Baghdader Mitteilungen (BaM). In 1997 the Assur Project under the leadership of Johannes Renger was started with the same intention. The already-published findings and finds were re-investigated, but the majority of the objects had never been investigated before. The results are published in the series Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft (WVDOG), Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft (ADOG), Studien zu den AssurTexten (StAT) and as articles in MDOG. Under what sort of conditions did these excavations take place, and what kind of documentation do we have for them? 9 Small notebooks were used in the field for observations, impressions and results taken during the excavation. In most of these books the architecture is described, but there are also some books for different kinds of small finds with very short descriptions. Eichmann, Uruk. Die Stratigraphie. Kose, Uruk. Architektur IV; van Ess, Uruk. Architektur II; Eichmann, Uruk. Architektur I. 4 Boehmer, Salje and Pedde, Uruk. Die Gräber. 5 Limper, Uruk. Perlen – Ketten – Anhänger; van Ess and Pedde, Uruk. Kleinfunde II; Becker, Uruk. Kleinfunde I; Lindemeyer and Martin, Uruk. Kleinfunde III; Pedde, Heinz and Müller-Neuhof, Uruk. Kleinfunde IV. 6 Wrede, Uruk. Terrakotten I. 7 Wallenfels, Uruk. Hellenistic Seal Impressions; Boehmer, Uruk. Früheste Siegelabrollungen; Ehrenberg, Uruk. Late Babylonian Seal Impressions; Lindström, Uruk. Siegelabdrücke. 8 Gehlken, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Wirtschaftstexte 1; Gehlken, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Wirtschaftstexte 2; Kessler, Uruk. Urkunden aus Privathäusern I; von Weiher, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Texte; von Weiher, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Texte; Cavigneaux, Uruk. Altbabylonische Texte; Ehrenberg, Uruk. Late Babylonian Seal Impressions. 9 For details see Lundström, ‘From six to seven Royal Tombs’. 2 3

WORKING ON OLD NEAR EASTERN EXCAVATIONS

Fig. 3. Uruk. Slag heaps.

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In some cases Andrae wrote in a shorthand—unfortunately in an old kind of stenography which is completely out of use and is not taught anymore, which makes things a bit difficult to decipher. But at least they made first rough sketches of the architecture.

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Fig. 4. Uruk. Men at work.

The architecture was properly drawn on paperboard, which is in a quite good condition even today after one hundred years. In the case of the Old Palace we can distinguish between the different layers of the palace. We are able to put two following layers one upon the other to demonstrate the differences. 10 The excavators also took photographs, but unfortunately only very few in the early days of the excavation, and the Old Palace was the first building to be excavated. So, there is only one single picture of the Old Palace as a whole, taken after the excavation. Moreover, only some rough drawings of a trench exist, showing the walls, but there is no documentation of the stratigraphy inside the rooms. What we could do—in partial compensation for the lack of photographs—was a three-dimensional reconstruction of the excavated walls of the Neo-Assyrian Palace. 11 The Old Palace was not the only building complex to be newly investigated—a volume about the later Ishtar Temples was 10 11

Pedde and Lundström, Der Alte Palast, pls 2–8. Pedde and Lundström, Der Alte Palast, pls 10–11.

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also published. 12 Both books include a CD with plans, photos, photo-plans, measurements and a databank of the objects found there. Moreover there are new volumes about the Sin-ShamashTemple 13 and the early Ishtar Temples. 14 A manuscript on the Anu-Adad-Temple is almost ready. 15

Fig. 5. Ashur. Neo-Assyrian coffins in situ, photo 5267.

The findings and finds from burials were documented in the so called ‘grave books’. These are small books with a short description, measurements, photo numbers and pencil drawings of the graves and grave goods. Some of them are of a good quality, others are just rough sketches. This is the next problem: we often have a lack of exact information. The sketches can be very ‘basic’. The next sources of documentation are the photos, taken in the Schmitt, Die Jüngeren Ischtar-Tempel. Werner, Der Sin-Šamaš-Tempel. 14 Bär, Die älteren Ischtar-Tempel in Assur. 15 Werner, Der Anu-Adad-Tempel. 12 13

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field, (although photos were not always made)—including excavated rooms with several burials (Figs 5 and 6). For the first publication of the burials, published in 1954, 16 a sheet of paperboard for each grave was prepared, where the author Arndt Haller collected a lot of information, but by no means everything. The photos were stuck on the paperboard, the drawings were copied from the grave books, and mostly drawn directly on the paperboard with ink. This collection work was a great help, but nevertheless here we have the next problem: these drawings are not always exact copies of the original drawings in the grave books, but interpretations, and sometimes incorrect. Because of that we went back to the original sources, and drew new plans with all the available information. The publication of the Ashur burials will fill five volumes: Daniel Hockmann has already published the early periods. 17 I am writing the second and third volume about the Middle- and NeoAssyrian graves and tombs, 18 and Heike Richter works on the Parthian graves. 19 Stefan Hauser investigated the connection between social status and burial customs in the Neo-Assyrian period. 20 Moreover one volume was published by Steven Lundström, dealing with the royal tombs from the Old Palace. 21 This palace was not only the king’s palace in the Middle-Assyrian period, but remained a royal palace, when the Assyrian kings moved to their new residences in Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh. And it remained the palace of the forefathers, to which some of the kings returned after their death. The tombs of the kings Ashur-bel-kala, Ashurnasirpal II and Shamshi-Adad V have been previously Haller, Die Gräber und Grüfte von Assur. Hockmann, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur I. 18 Pedde, ‘The Assur-Project: A New Analysis’; Pedde, ‘The Assur Project: The Middle and Neo-Assyrian Graves and Tombs’; Pedde, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur II; Pedde, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur III. 19 Richter, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur IV. 20 Hauser, Status, Tod und Ritual. 21 Lundström, Die Königsgrüfte im Alten Palast. 16 17

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identified, and now Lundström has discussed the possibility that tomb no. 4 could be the tomb of Esarhaddon. After describing the documentation, the next question to confront us is what was done with the find objects (Figs 7–8). The basis of our work was the ‘find diaries’ (Figs 9–10), where first information was given, like a short description of the object and the find spot, the photo number, and sometimes a sketch of the object.

Fig. 6. Uruk. Parthian slipper coffins in situ.

The Ashur databank includes more than 44,000 objects. This seems to be a large number. But here is the first problem: did each object really find its way into the diary? I once determined that in Ashur in average only 13 objects were documented every day, and this with 200 workmen daily! So, we have to assume that pottery in particular was thrown away for the most part, without any documentation of it. Metal objects in particular present a number of problems. Sometimes they had received a find number or a museum number, but the number was no longer readable after the passage of time, or it was removed in the restoration process. The numbers on objects are always a source of error. When writing down a number there can occasionally be a reversal of two neighbouring digits. The same mistake happened when objects

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were photographed: and because of that sometimes the number on the photo is incorrect. Sometimes objects received a number, but in the course of time the object—especially pottery vessels—might break, and the number be left on one sherd, but not on all the others. A special problem with metal finds is corrosion—iron and lead are particularly sensitive to this. The successful solution for the lead objects in Berlin was a glass container, filled with argon gas, which is chemically neutral. 22

Fig. 7. Ashur. Small finds, photo 2801.

In other cases, it is sometimes possible to find joins, which requires a lot of energy. In the case of Ashur, Dirk Wicke was able to puzzle out hundreds of ivory fragments with great success. 23 Hans-Ulrich Onasch investigated the fragments of alabaster vessels. 24 Hundreds of them were found in the Old Palace of the 22 23

Jendritzki und Marzahn, Für Forschung und Besucher, p. 83, fig. 5. Wicke, Kleinfunde aus Elfenbein.

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Middle-Assyrian period, and all belonged to precious vessels from the royal court in Egypt. Some of them bear inscriptions, telling us that they are booty from Taidu, the capital of the state of Mittani. So it seems that the Egyptians gave these vessels to Taidu as a gift, from whence they were taken by the Assyrian army under the Middle-Assyrian king Adad-nerari around 1300 BCE. Some alabaster vessels were found in the same palace, but of the later Neo-Assyrian period. One shows the picture of a scorpion and an inscription, telling us that it belonged to Tashmetum-sharrat, the wife of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib. Another bears a hieroglyphic inscription of the 22nd Egyptian dynasty and a later cuneiform inscription of the Neo-Assyrian king Esarhaddon, where he says that he took these vessels from the palace of Abdilmikuti, king of Sidon in Lebanon.

Fig. 8. Uruk. Small finds.

In other cases, joins can fit virtually. This was the case with an Akkadian statue. The statue without head was found by the Germans one hundred years ago and came to the Vorderasiatisches 24

Onasch, Ägyptische und assyrische Alabastergefäße.

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Museum. Some years ago, an Iraqi team found the head of the statue, which is now in Baghdad. 25 Glazed knob tiles were used in the Middle- and Neo-Assyrian period. Altogether there are more than 1600 pieces, published by Astrid Nunn. 26 They are not only decorated with plants or with geometrical patterns, but many of them have an inscription, telling us the name of the respective king. The knob tiles were fixed at the walls in the palaces. 27

Fig. 9. Ashur. Find diary.

Lamassus, the winged gate keeper figures of the Neo-Assyrian Palaces with a lion’s or bull’s body and a human face, are very well known from Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh. But they also Klengel-Brandt, Assur-Funde, p. 100, fig. 6. Nunn, Knaufplatten und Knäufe aus Assur. 27 Pedde and Lundström, Der Alte Palast, pls 23–24 with figs 51-53. 25 26

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existed in Ashur: in the wall foundations of the Old Palace hundreds of fragments of those lamassus were found. They were destroyed by the Assyrians and reused in their renewed walls and foundations as fill. 28 Moreover, in the fill of the walls in the Old Palace, parts of a very small lamassu bull were excavated, not much more than two feet high. 29 Some years ago an Iraqi team found a pair of the same size and the same style in Nimrud in situ. Moreover there are fragments of orthostats of TiglathPilesar I and Ashurnasirpal II, altogether 878 pieces. They have inscriptions, but show no pictures. These orthostats also were demolished and reused as fill in the Old Palace and in the fortification walls north of the palace. A book about these orthostats was published by Steven Lundström and Julia Orlamünde†. 30 From Nimrud and Nineveh obelisks or fragments of obelisks are well known, like the White Obelisk or the famous Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. It was almost unknown that in Ashur also fragments of three or more obelisks were found. 31 These obelisks were completely destroyed, smashed into pieces. The reliefs show tributaries, and the iconography is very similar to the Black Obelisk, the bronze bands from Balawat and the other reliefs from Shalmaneser III and his father Ashurnasirpal II. About 300 pieces were found. Some fragments of them could be joined in Berlin. But in several cases these joining fragments are in Istanbul. So, they were drawn there and are joined only in the drawings (Fig. 11). The obelisks are a good example of cooperation: the museums in Berlin and Istanbul made gypsum copies of their own joining pieces and exchanged them.

Pedde and Lundström, Der Alte Palast, pl. 27, figs 62–64 and pl. 28, fig. 67. 29 Pedde and Lundström, Der Alte Palast, pl. 28, figs 66–67. 30 Lundström and Orlamünde, Die Orthostaten Tiglat-Pilesers I. und Assurnasirpals II. 31 Orlamünde, Die Obeliskenfragmente aus Assur. 28

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Fig. 10. Uruk. Find diary.

During the work it was interesting to realize that many of the joining pieces were found very far away from each other. The obelisks were systematically smashed into pieces at its original site. Then some of the pieces were brought to different places where they were used as fill material for building works: obviously only for official buildings (the reason being that an obelisk as an object of royal power could only be destroyed on a king’s order). And it is

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no wonder that almost all fragments are found in official buildings, which were also built or renewed on the king’s order. There are by far more groups of investigated objects, like pottery, 32 terracotta figurines, 33 Parthian lamps, fibulae, 34 seals and sealings, 35 coins, mace heads, and last but not least the texts: inscriptions on stone, metal and clay 36 and 4000 cuneiform tablets. 37 To summarize: one of the typical issues arising from an old excavation is the huge mass of material—material that increases the more it is worked on. We would start to work on a group with hundred or two hundred pieces, and after a while we would find that in fact we had one or two thousand items. Another problem is that information can be lost over the years. We cannot pose questions to the long-dead excavators of these sites, and furthermore in the course of time many people have worked with the objects. And everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes it is difficult to find these mistakes, but it is much more difficult to untangle them. Therefore, we must not only ask what happened to this object in antiquity, but also what has happened to this object from the excavation to the present day? After fourteen years and half of work, 38 the Assur Project has published 34 books about architecture, burials, objects and texts, Hausleiter, Neuassyrische Keramik; Beuger, Die Keramik der älteren Ischtar-Tempel. 33 Klengel-Brandt and Onasch, Die Terrakotten aus Assur. 34 Pedde, Vorderasiatische Fibeln. 35 Feller, ‘Seal Images and Social Status’; Feller, Siegel im Kontext der Gesellschaft; Klengel-Brandt, Die neuassyrische Glyptik aus Assur. 36 Pedersén, Katalog der beschrifteten Objekte. 37 Fifteen volumes, published in the series of WVDOG and StAT, but not discussed in this article. 38 See also the essay volume for the exhibition “Wiedererstehendes Assur” in Berlin 2003: Marzahn and Salje, Wiedererstehendes Assur; a brief ICAANE report of the Assur Project in Madrid 2006: Pedde, ‘The Assur Project: A New Analysis’; and a volume of an international conference on Ashur in Berlin 2004: Renger (ed.), Assur – Gott, Stadt und Land. 32

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and another 18 are in preparation. Moreover, there is a second Assur Project in Heidelberg under direction of Stefan Maul, who plans to publish altogether 20 volumes of cuneiform texts. In the Uruk Project 23 final reports were published, and 7 more are planned. 39

Fig. 11. Ashur. Joining fragments of an obelisk.

The number of the publications shows the potential of the old excavations, even if the documentation is not very good. But the large number of objects: about 24,000 in Uruk and 44,000 in Ashur offer amazing opportunities. But one thing should be clear: such a project costs a lot of time and money. There is a need for space and many staff members—not only scientists, but also staff for drawings, photos, and digital work. The management of such a project is immense, but what it requires most is what archaeology always needs— patience! See also the essay volume for the Uruk exhibition in Berlin 2013: Crüsemann, N, van Ess, M, Hilgert, M and Salje, B (eds), Uruk: The First City of the Ancient World. 39

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BIBLIOGRAPHY All photos and drawings of Ashur have been used with the kind permission of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft; all photos and drawings of Uruk with the kind permission of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.

Bär, J 2003, Die älteren Ischtar-Tempel in Assur. Stratigraphie, Architektur und Funde eines altorientalischen Heiligtums von der zweiten Hälfte des 3. Jahrtausends bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr. (WVDOG 105), Saarbrücken. Becker, A 1993, Uruk. Kleinfunde I (AUWE 6), Mainz. Beuger, C 2013, Die Keramik der älteren Ischtar-Tempel in Assur (WVDOG 138), Wiesbaden. Boehmer, R 1999, Uruk. Früheste Siegelabrollungen (AUWE 24), Mainz. Boehmer, R, Salje, B and Pedde, F 1995, Uruk. Die Gräber (AUWE 10), Mainz. Cavigneaux, A 1996, Uruk. Altbabylonische Texte aus dem Planquadrat Pe XVI-4/5 (AUWE 23), Mainz. Crüsemann, N, van Ess, M, Hilgert, M and Salje, B (eds) 2013, Uruk: The First City of the Ancient World, Mannheim. Ehrenberg, E 1999, Uruk. Late Babylonian Seal Impressions on Eanna tablets (AUWE 18), Mainz. Eichmann, R 1989, Uruk. Die Stratigraphie (AUWE 3), Mainz. ——— 2007, Uruk. Architektur I (AUWE 14), Rahden. Feller, B 2010, ‘Seal Images and Social Status: Sealings on Middle Assyrian Tablets from Ashur’, in P Matthiae, F Pinnock, L Nigro and N Marchetti (eds), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 5 May – 10 May 2008, “Sapienza”, Università di Roma, Vol. 1, Wiesbaden, pp. 721–29. ——— forthcoming, Siegel im Kontext der Gesellschaft. Die Siegelabrollungen auf den mittelassyrischen Tontafeln aus dem Vorderasiatischen Museum Berlin (WVDOG). Gehlken, E 1990, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Wirtschaftstexte aus dem Eanna-Archiv. 1 (AUWE 5), Mainz. ——— 1996, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Wirtschaftstexte aus dem EannaArchiv. 2 (AUWE 11), Mainz. Haller, A 1954, Die Gräber und Grüfte von Assur (WVDOG 65), Berlin.

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Hauser, S 2012, Status, Tod und Ritual. Stadt und Sozialstruktur Assurs in neuassyrischer Zeit (ADOG 26), Wiesbaden. Hausleiter, A 2010, Neuassyrische Keramik im Kerngebiet Assyriens. Chronologie und Formen (ADOG 27), Wiesbaden. Hockmann, D 2010, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur I. Von der zweiten Hälfte des 3. bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr. (WVDOG 129), Wiesbaden. Jendritzki G and Marzahn J 2003, Für Forschung und Besucher gerettet, in in J Marzahn and B Salje (eds), Wiedererstehendes Assur. 100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabungen in Assyrien, Mainz, pp. 7989. Kessler, K 1991, Uruk. Urkunden aus Privathäusern I (AUWE 8), Mainz. Klengel-Brandt E 2003, Die Assur-Funde im Vorderasiatischen Museum, in J Marzahn and B Salje (eds), Wiedererstehendes Assur. 100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabungen in Assyrien, Mainz, pp. 93100. ——— 2014, Die neuassyrische Glyptik aus Assur. Mit Beiträgen von Sabine Böhme und Othmar Keel (WVDOG 140), Wiesbaden. Klengel-Brandt, E and Onasch, H-U forthcoming, Die Terrakotten aus Assur im Vorderasiatischen Museum Berlin (WVDOG). Kose, A 1998, Uruk. Architektur IV (AUWE 17), Mainz. Limper, K 1988, Uruk. Perlen – Ketten – Anhänger (AUWE 2), Mainz. Lindemeyer, E and Martin, L 1993, Uruk. Kleinfunde III (AUWE 9), Mainz. Lindström, G 2003, Uruk. Siegelabdrücke auf hellenistischen Tonbullen und Tontafeln (AUWE 20), Mainz. Lundström, S 2008, ‘From six to seven Royal Tombs. The documentation of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft excavation at Assur (1903-1914) – Possibilities and limits of its reexamination’, in J M Cordoba, M Molist, M Carmen Perez, I Rubio and S Martinez (eds), Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Madrid, April 3-8 2006), Vol. II, Madrid, pp. 445–63. ——— 2009, Die Königsgrüfte im Alten Palast von Assur (WVDOG 123), Wiesbaden. Lundström, S and Orlamünde, J 2011, Die Orthostaten Tiglat-Pilesers I. und Assurnasirpals II. aus dem Alten Palast in Assur (WVDOG 136), Wiesbaden.

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Marzahn, J and Salje, B (eds) 2003, Wiedererstehendes Assur. 100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabungen in Assyrien, Mainz. Nunn, A 2006, Knaufplatten und Knäufe aus Assur (WVDOG 112), Saarwellingen. Onasch, H-U 2010, Ägyptische und assyrische Alabastergefäße aus Assur (WVDOG 128), Wiesbaden. Orlamünde, J 2011, Die Obeliskenfragmente aus Assur (WVDOG 135), Wiesbaden. Pedde, F 2000, Vorderasiatische Fibeln. Von der Levante bis Iran (ADOG 24), Saarbrücken. ——— 2008, ‘The Assur Project. An old excavation newly analysed’, in J M Cordoba, M Molist, M Carmen Perez, I Rubio and S Martinez (eds), Proceedings of the 5th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Madrid, April 3-8 2006), Vol. II. Madrid, pp. 743–52. ——— 2010, ‘The Assur-Project: A New Analysis of the Middle and Neo-Assyrian Graves and Tombs’, in P Matthiae, F Pinnock, L Nigro and N Marchetti (eds), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 5 May – 10 May 2008, “Sapienza”, Università di Roma, Vol. 1. Wiesbaden, pp. 913–23. ——— 2012a, ‘The Assyrian Heartland’, in D T Potts (ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Vol. II. Chichester, pp. 851–66. ——— 2012b, ‘The Assur Project: The Middle and Neo-Assyrian Graves and Tombs’, in R Matthews and J Curtis (eds), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, London 2010, Vol. 1, Wiesbaden, pp. 93–9. ——— 2015, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur II. Die mittelassyrische Zeit (WVDOG 144), Wiesbaden. ——— forthcoming, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur III. Die neuassyrische Zeit (WVDOG). Pedde, F, Heinz, M and Müller-Neuhof, B 2000, Uruk. Kleinfunde IV (AUWE 21), Mainz. Pedde, F and Lundström, S 2008, Der Alte Palast. Architektur und Baugeschichte (WVDOG 120), Wiesbaden. Pedersén, O 1997, Katalog der beschrifteten Objekte aus Assur (ADOG 23), Saarbrücken.

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Renger, J (ed.) 2011, Assur – Gott, Stadt und Land. 5. Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 18.-21. Februar in Berlin (CDOG 5), Wiesbaden. Richter, H forthcoming, Gräber und Grüfte in Assur IV. Die parthische Zeit (WVDOG). Schmitt, A 2012, Die Jüngeren Ischtar-Tempel und der Nabû-Tempel in Assur. Architektur, Stratigraphie und Funde (WVDOG 137), Wiesbaden. van Ess, M 2001, Uruk. Architektur II (AUWE 15,1), Mainz. van Ess, M and Pedde, F 1992, Uruk. Kleinfunde II (AUWE 7), Mainz. Wallenfels, R 1994, Uruk. Hellenistic Seal Impressions in the Yale Babylonian Collection (AUWE 19), Mainz. Weiher, E von 1993, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Texte aus dem Planquadrat U 18, 4 (AUWE 12), Mainz. ——— 1998, Uruk. Spätbabylonische Texte aus dem Planquadrat U 18, 5 (AUWE 13), Mainz. Werner, P 2009, Der Sin-Šamaš-Tempel in Assur (WVDOG 122), Wiesbaden. ——— forthcoming, Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur (WVDOG). Wicke, D 2010, Kleinfunde aus Elfenbein und Knochen aus Assur (WVDOG 131), Wiesbaden. Wrede, N 2003, Uruk. Terrakotten I (AUWE 25), Mainz.

MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR ARCHITECTURE IN THE 20TH CENTURY BRIGITTE PEDDE

FREIE UNIVERSITÄT, BERLIN In the 19th century, during the period of Historicism, ancient European styles had served as prototypes for new architecture. Towards the end of the century, there was a great need to find other ways for modern building. Avant-garde architects were looking for inspiration from the archaeologists’ reconstructions beyond classical antiquity and European tradition. Since the middle of the 19th century, French and English explorers excavated in Mesopotamia on a large scale, followed by German excavations at the end of the century. In that way many magnificent objects were collected by the museums of those countries and a number of books and journals with imaginative and grandiose architectural reconstructions were published. Robert Koldewey, the excavator of Babylon, published a three dimensional drawing (Fig. 1) and vertical plans of his reconstruction of the Babylonian Tower in 1918. 1 He was of the opinion that the platforms of the tower did not differ very much in size and so he designed it as a massive block with narrow steps. Koldewey’s drawing and the ziggurat reconstructions made by other archaeologists had a significant impact on future architecture in North America and Europe. 1

Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, figs 3–4, 7–8.

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Fig. 1

R. Koldewey, Babylonian Tower (Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, fig. 8).

The American career of the Finish architect Eliel Saarinen began with his design for “The Chicago Tribune Competition” in 1922 (Fig. 2). At that time the newspaper “The Chicago Tribune” with a large and increasing circulation celebrated its 75th anniversary. Therefore a new high-rise office building of 400 feet (ca. 145 m) was planned. 2 Although the design was awarded only second prize, it became a model for many buildings constructed later on. 3 Saarinen designed a stepped building with a vertical wall structure produced by buttresses ending in merlons. A comparison of Saarinen’s building with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the Babylonian Tower (Fig. 1) shows many analogies although Saarinen’s building is higher and narrower in proportion: both are block shaped buildings with narrow steps. There are the same kind of vertical ribs and niches, moreover the patterns of the different blocks one upon the other have some similarities. The top of the building reflects the upper part of Koldewey’s reconstruction, and 2 3

Sarnitz, Adolf Loos, 1870-1933, p. 57. Lampugnani, Lexikon der Architektur, pp. 321–2.

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the round arched windows correspond with the round arched door of the upper part of Koldewey’s ziggurat. 4 Saarinen’s knowledge of Ancient Near Eastern architecture is obvious by his design and construction of the railway station in Helsinki, built between 1910 and 1919. Here he had already used a few Assyrian patterns.

Fig. 2 E. Saarinen, “The Chicago Tribune Competition” (Lampugnani, Lexikon der Architektur, figure at page 323).

4

Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, figs 3–4, 7–8.

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Fig. 3

A. Loos, “The Chicago Tribune Competition” (Sarnitz, 1870-1933, figure at page 59).

MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

Fig. 4

31

J. Fergusson, Ziggurat of Nimrud (Gill, Gateway of the Gods, p. 74, detail).

Another contribution to “The Chicago Tribune Competition” was the sketch of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos (Fig. 3). His drawing shows a massive square block covered by a threefold stepped terrace. A huge Doric column with a square abacus rises up above its flat roof. The windows on its shaft show that the column was also supposed to accommodate offices in twenty-one floors. At the main entrance of the building there are two Doric columns, and the roof terrace of the annex building is bounded by a row of Doric columns likewise. Loos’ block-shaped, stepped building is reminiscent of the reconstruction of the ziggurat of Nimrud by James Fergusson published in 1853 in one of Austen Henry Layard’s books (Fig. 4). 5 Fergusson’s representation of the Nimrud ziggurat is composed of a massive square block with narrowing low blocks on it. On its top there is a column shaped superstructure as well, although proportionally much smaller in size James Fergusson, The Palaces of Nimrud Restored. Lithograph printed in colours, in Layard, A Second Series of The Monuments of Nineveh, pl. 1. 5

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than Loos’ column. The entrances to the lower part of the ziggurat is marked by columns, too. Even the annex building of the ziggurat has colonnades. As a result of these striking similarities there is no doubt that Loos was inspired for his design by Fergusson’s graphic representation.

Fig. 5

E. Kettelhut, “Metropolis” (Neumann, ‘Der Turmbau zu Babel’, fig. 55).

A combination of the drawings of Fergusson and of Loos is shown in the second version of the setting for the movie “Metropolis” (Fig. 5) directed by Fritz Lang, who had come up with the idea to make this film when he visited New York in 1924. 6 The set designer Erich Kettelhut was obviously inspired for his “Tower of Babel” in the centre of “Metropolis” by the drawing of Adolf Loos: his tower consists of a stepped base on which a column-like shaft is erected with a huge capital and a square platform like an abacus. On the left, Kettelhut’s setting shows a high-rise building with a 6

Neumann, ‘Der Turmbau zu Babel’, p. 81.

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stepped top and a small column-shaped form on it. Here Kettelhut was evidently inspired by Fergusson’s ziggurat of Nimrud (Fig. 4). Later in the movie, the huge column was replaced by a massive building, more in the shape of Pieter Bruegel’s Babylonian Tower, 7 and the small column on top of the high-rise building by a small dome.

Fig. 6

A. Loos, “Grand Hotel Babylone” (Minkowski, Turm zu Babel, fig. 574).

In 1923 Adolf Loos made a drawing for a hotel which was supposed to be situated at the “Promenade des Anglais” in Nice at the French Mediterranean coast. 8 The drawing was published in the journal “Das Kunstblatt”. 9 Loos designated it “Grand Hotel Babylone” (Fig. 6). The sketch shows a building of two similar ziggurat-shaped parts connected by a base floor. The building is similar to the reconstruction of the double ziggurat of Anu-Adad in Ashur made by the excavator Walter Andrae and published in 1909 (Fig. 7). 10 Moreover the two single component parts show the proportions of the reconstruction of the ziggurat in Birs Nimrud Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babylon, oil on wood, 114 x 155 cm, 1563, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. No. 1026–1563. 8 Sarnitz, Adolf Loos, 1870–1933, p. 59. 9 Westheim (ed), Das Kunstblatt. 10 Andrae, Der Anu-Adad-Tempel, pls 8–9. 7

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by Henry C. Rawlinson. 11 In the middle of the 19th century Birs Nimrud was regarded as the Babylonian Tower.

Fig. 7 W. Andrae, Double Ziggurat in Ashur, version 1909 (Heinrich, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer, fig. 360).

When in 1915 the Equitable Building in New York, a huge building with thirty-six floors, was completed, it was evident that a building of that height and size took daylight and fresh air from its neighbourhood. 12 As a result, the demand for greater regulation of skyscraper constructions arose in New York. Finally, in 1916 the Zoning Law came into force. The law stated that large and high buildings should be stepped upward from a certain height onwards. “The Commission on Building Restrictions” itself gave some simple proposal sketches with zoning diagrams each consisting of a large block with a small one on top of it. 13 This law had a great impact on skyscraper architecture in general. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, fig. 118. Nash, Manhattan Skyscrapers, p. 25. 13 Willis, ‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, p. 157, fig. 11. 11 12

MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

Fig. 8

H. Ferriss, King Salomon’s Temple (Willis, ‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, fig. 43).

35

From 1922 on, the American architectural delineator Hugh Ferriss and the architect Harvey Wiley Corbett worked together to design skyscrapers according to the conditions provided by the zoning law. At the same time they also worked for a project of reconstructing King Salomon’s temple and its citadel. For that purpose Corbett and Ferriss cooperated with archaeologists from the Columbia University, New York, researching Ancient Near Eastern architecture. 14 Ferriss’ drawing of the temple (Fig. 8) shows that he was influenced by ziggurat reconstructions. Moreover the 14

Willis, ‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, pp. 160–1.

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Mesopotamian influence is evident by Assyrian lamassu sculptures, some in the foreground, some flanking the temple’s entrance.

Fig. 9

New York, Barclay-Vesey Building (Bayer, Art Deco Architecture, figure at page 105).

The experience of working with archaeologists had probably inspired Ferriss and Corbett to create visions of skyscrapers following shapes of reconstructions of Babylonian and Assyrian ziggurats. They developed drawings with four different stages of the evolution of setback buildings. The drawing “The Four Stages” of 1923 represents a summing-up of the four designs from the year

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before. These drawings served as models for many architects from then on. 15

Fig. 10

H. Ferriss, “Modern Ziggurats” (Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, fig. 99).

The Barclay-Vesey Building in New York (Fig. 9) was the first skyscraper built according to the Zoning Law. It was constructed 15

Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, pp. 72–81.

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by the architect Ralph Walker between 1923 and 1926. The front part of Ferriss’ design of “Stage IV” from the drawing “The Four Stages” 16 shows similarities with the Barclay-Vesey Building: the narrow steps and the two wings in the middle part. Moreover the Barclay-Vesey Building has some analogies with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the Babylonian Tower (Fig. 1): the vertical niched facade, the narrow steps in the middle part and the niched top decoration with merlons. The huge windows on the top of the Barclay-Vesey Building show the same round bows as the entrances in Koldewey’s elevation of the west side. 17

Fig. 11

Berlin, department store Karstadt (Boberg, Fichter and Gillen, Die Metropole, fig. 251).

Another drawing of Hugh Ferriss from 1924 published in 1929 in his book The Metropolis of Tomorrow with the title “Modern ziggurats” (Fig. 10) is further evidence for the relationship between reconstruction drawings of ancient ziggurats by archaeologists and 16 17

Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, p. 81. Koldewey, ‘Der babylonische Turm’, fig. 7.

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modern setback skyscrapers. Ferriss’ comment about this drawing is as follows: “The ancient Assyrian ziggurat, as a matter of fact, is an excellent embodiment of the modern New York legal restriction; may we not for a moment imagine an array of modern ziggurats, providing restaurants and theatres on their ascending levels?” 18

The word “ziggurat” became a synonym for skyscraper, as “The New Babylon” at that time had already been a synonym for the multilingual and multicultural city of New York.

Fig. 12 W. Andrae, Double Ziggurat in Ashur, version 1924 (Heinrich, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer, fig. 327).

A significant example for a ziggurat-shaped building in Berlin was the department store Karstadt at Hermannplatz, constructed by the architect Philipp Schäfer (Fig. 11). For more than thirty years, Philipp Schäfer was the leading architect for the enterprise of 18

Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, p. 98.

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Karstadt. In the 1920s and 1930s he had great influence on the architecture of department stores in Germany. His buildings mostly have a strict structure with vertical ribs and niches. His best known building was the department store of Karstadt in Berlin, erected in 1927; at that time considered to be the most modern department store in Europe. Here Schäfer obviously followed the reconstruction of the temple of Anu-Adad with two ziggurats in Ashur by Walter Andrae designed in 1924 (Fig. 12). This reconstruction drawing and the building of Karstadt consist of a straight, rectangular base with two towers. Both, Andrae’s drawing and the facade of the department store have a vertical structure with ribs and niches and are also equipped with a horizontal tie in the lower part. Furthermore, the two towers of Karstadt have three steps like the double-ziggurat by Andrae. An aerial photograph of Karstadt shows another correspondence to the reconstruction of Andrae: both have a centric inner court behind the two towers. In April 1945, at the very end of World War II, the department store was destroyed.

Fig. 13

Lower Manhattan across the East River (Stern, New York 1930, p. 600 bottom, detail).

A photograph of lower Manhattan from across the East River made in the 1930s (Fig. 13) shows ziggurat-shaped buildings. On the left side there is the building 120 Wall Street, built by the

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architect Ely Jacques Kahn in 1930, in the middle with the high tower 70 Pine Street (today the AIG Building), built by Clinton & Russell and Holton & George, completed in 1932, and on the right side of the photograph 116 John Street constructed by Charles Glaser and Louis Allen Abramson in 1931. All of these buildings and some similar shaped skyscrapers still exist today in the Wall Street District.

Fig. 14

A. Moberg, Tower of Babylon (Schmid, Der Tempelturm Etemenanki, fig. 19).

There is a remarkable resemblance of Robert Koldewey’s reconstruction (Fig. 1) with the building 120 Wall Street. Moreover the building 116 John Street shows analogies with Axel Moberg’s reconstruction of the Tower of Babylon from 1918 19 (Fig. 14). The small “temples” on the top look particularly similar: at 120 Wall Street the uppermost floor has similar niches as in Koldewey’s design and at 116 John Street the small “temple” on the building looks like the one in Moberg’s drawing.

19

Schmid, Der Tempelturm Etemenanki, fig. 19.

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Fig. 15

Large scale model of 70 Pine Street, New York (Brigitte Pedde)

MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

Fig. 16

New York, 250 Broadway (Brigitte Pedde)

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Fig. 17

London, 200 Aldersgate Street (Brigitte Pedde)

The AIG Building, 70 Pine Street, and its adjacent building, 1 Cedar Street, completed three years earlier by Clinton & Russell, represent two types of setback skyscrapers. They are of the same shape, one with and the other without a tower. A large-scale model of the building 70 Pine Street is carved into stone on both central pillars at its north and its south entrance (Fig. 15). The model represents the skyscraper tower standing on a ziggurat. The lower part shows some similarities with Koldewey’s reconstruction of the Babylonian tower (Fig. 1): the vertical niches, the different heights of the platforms and their narrow steps: so the tower of the skyscraper stands on a ziggurat base. Furthermore, the uppermost part of the AIG Building has vertical niched structures. The similarities are obvious to the ziggurat facades. Even inside the AIG Building the door of the elevator 20 shows similarities with the merlons of the Khorsabad ziggurat, reconstructed by Felix Thomas in 1867. 21 The rosettes of his drawing are replaced by the emblem of the building’s company.

20 21

Abramson, Skyscraper Rival, fig. 137. Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, fig. 102.

MESOPOTAMIA: A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

Fig. 18

New York, New Museum, 235 Bowery (Brigitte Pedde)

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In the 1930s the construction of ziggurat-shaped skyscrapers came to an end. The new high-rise buildings, some with a glazed curtain wall facade, mostly have a rectangular shape. But since the 1960s there have been a few examples of new ziggurat-shaped architecture. One of them is an office building in New York, 250 Broadway, built by the architects Emery Roth & Sons (Fig. 16). It was completed in 1963 and has five steps with a dark green glass facade. In London in 1997, 200 Aldersgate Street, an office building, was constructed by the architect Morey Smith (Fig. 17). The entrance also has a glazed ziggurat-shaped form. In December 2007, the New Museum of New York City opened the doors to its new location in the Bowery at Prince Street (Fig. 18). The new facility was designed by the Tokyo-based company Sej-ima and Nishi-zawa and the New York-based company Gensler. The building has been described as “a sculptural stack of rectilinear boxes dynamically shifted off-axis around a central steel core”. 22 In fact, here also narrowing blocks are put one upon the other like in ziggurat architecture. But in contrast to the ancient ones, here the common centre axis is lost. The last three examples show that even in the recent past, elements from the Ancient Near East are still used in architecture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abramson, D M 2001, Skyscraper Rival. The AIG Building and the Architecture of Wall Street, New York. Andrae, W 1909, Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur (WVDOG, vol. 10), Leipzig. Bayer, P 1992, Art Deco Architecture, New York. Boberg, J, Fichter, T and Gillen, E (eds) 1986, Die Metropole. Industriekultur in Berlin im 20. Jahrhundert, München. Ferriss, H 1929, Metropolis of Tomorrow, New York. Gill, A 2008, Gateway of the Gods. The Rise and Fall of Babylon, London. 22

www.offsoho.com/New-Museum.html (accessed 3/13/2013).

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Heinrich, E 1982, Die Tempel und Heiligtümer im Alten Mesopotamien (Denkmäler antiker Architektur, vol. 14), Berlin. Hilprecht, H V 1903, Explorations in Bible Lands, Philadelphia. Koldewey, R 1918, ‘Der babylonische Turm nach der Tontafel des Anubelschunu”, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, vol. 59, pp. 1-38. Lampugnani, V M (ed) 1998, Lexikon der Architektur des 20. Jahrhunderts, Ostfildern-Ruit. Layard, A H 1853, A Second Series of The Monuments of Nineveh, London. Minkowski, H 1991, Turm zu Babel, Freren. Nash, E P 1999, Manhattan Skyscrapers, New York. Neumann, D 1997, ‘Der Turmbau zu Babel und das Hochhaus im 20. Jahrhundert’, in J Ganzert (ed.), Der Turm zu Babel. Maßstab oder Anmaßung, Biberach, pp. 70–89. Perrot, G and Chipiez, Ch 1884, Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, Chaldée et Assyrie, vol. 2, Paris. Sarnitz, A 2010, Adolf Loos, 1870-1933, Architekt, Kulturkritiker, Dandy, Köln. Schmid, H 1995, Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon, Mainz. Stern, R A M 1997, New York 1930, New York. Westheim, P (ed.) 1924, Das Kunstblatt, no. 4, Berlin and Vienna. Willis, C 1986, ‘Drawing towards Metropolis’, in H Ferriss, Metropolis of Tomorrow, reprint New York, pp. 148–199.

IMAGINING SECOND STOREYS IN LATE ASSYRIAN PALACES: THE ARCHITECTURAL RECONSTRUCTIONS OF JAMES FERGUSSON AND JEAN-CLAUDE MARGUERON DAVID KERTAI

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON, LONDON The archaeology of buildings is, by definition, an art of reconstruction, involving the archaeologist’s interpretation of generally fragmentary architectural remains. Such reconstructions rarely go beyond what was deemed to have been unearthed. Most archaeologists and related specialists have avoided making explicit how they envisioned ancient buildings to have looked or functioned. This article discusses the work of arguably the two most influential scholars in shaping our view of the original appearance of Late Assyrian palaces. James Fergusson was an architectural historian whose work on the Assyrian palaces had a large influence on the perception of these palaces in the 19th century, not least Layard, who used Fergusson’s ideas in his own writings. The architecture envisioned by Fergusson is, however, quite different from what most people will assume when looking at his reconstructions. The second scholar, Jean-Claude Margueron, is one of the most influential experts on Mesopotamian architecture of the past decades. His work has consistently argued for the presence of second storeys. This article will use both authors to analyse the arguments for and against the presence of second storeys within the known Late Assyrian palaces. 49

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KNOWN STAIRCASES WITHIN THE ROYAL PALACES The earliest excavations of the royal palaces from the Late Assyrian Empire started at a time when Near Eastern archaeology was still a pastime of European diplomats and adventurers. 1 The workmen employed to do the actual excavations were not yet able to trace mud-brick walls and were depended on finding the stone reliefs that covered the walls of the most monumental rooms. This seriously curtailed the amount of recoverable architecture. Many of the earlier archaeologists concluded that no second storeys had existed in these palaces. Layard, the first excavator of the Kalhu and Nineveh palaces, argued that “it does not appear probable that the great buildings just described, had more than a ground floor. If there had been upper rooms, […] some remains of them would have been left in the lower rooms”. 2 However, as we shall see, Layard changed his mind later on. The excavators of the palace at Khorsabad, which later came to be identified as the Assyrian city of Dur-Sharruken, came to a similar conclusion. Both Place 3 and Loud 4 believed the palace to have consisted of a ground floor only. Any second storey needs means to reach it, but in most palaces only a few staircases have been preserved. After more than 150 years of excavations, it is clear that most palaces only possessed a very limited number of staircases. In fact, the monumental parts of most palaces only had one vertical connection, which was, technically speaking, a ramp rather than a staircase. It formed an inherent part of the typical Assyrian Throneroom Suite 5 and was only accessible from the throneroom. Other staircases or ramps were generally absent from the main parts of the palace. A few exceptions can, however, be mentioned. Larsen, The conquest of Assyria. This article was written and researched in the framework of a Rubicon fellowship of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). 2 Layard, Nineveh and its remains, p. 270. 3 Place, Ninive et l’Assyrie I, p. 76. 4 Loud and Altman, Khorsabad, Part II, p. 27. 5 Turner, ‘The State Apartments’, pp. 189–90. 1

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The Northwest Palace in Kalhu included a small secondary staircase, which was located in the southern courtyard 80. 6 It is not connected to any room and is more likely to have connected to the external wall of the palace. More staircases were found in Fort Shalmaneser at Kalhu. 7 Their number is, however, misleading as most were located in the forecourts of the palace and could only have been associated with limited second storeys. Most of the staircases were internal features of the external gates. 8 Two further staircases (in rooms NE 53 and SE 12) could have been associated with small second storeys. 9 The palace proper (areas S and T) only possessed one known staircase, except for the throneroom ramp. This staircase (room S 39) was, however, likely a later, probably post-Assyrian, structure. No staircases were found in the royal palace in Dur-Sharruken (Khorsabad), though a throneroom ramp can be reconstructed in rooms 22–24. 10 The Southwest Palace in Nineveh was the only palace known to have possessed a second ramp within the monumental part of the palace (room 61). 11 In fact, it was the only ramp that was recognised by Layard himself. The throneroom ramps had not been recognised during these early excavations. Layard saw the presence of this single ramp as sufficient proof for the existence of a second storey, though he did envisage the existence of winding staircases and additional ramps. 12

FERGUSSON’S RECONSTRUCTIONS James Fergusson (1808–1886) was a widely read historian of architecture who made his name writing on Indian architecture, but whose oeuvre was wide ranging. Fergusson became one of the main interpreters of Assyrian architecture in England. His first book to discuss Assyrian architecture was the 1849 book An Curtis et al., New Light on Nimrud, pl. 4. Mallowan, Nimrud and its remains, Plan 8. 8 Oates, ‘The Excavations at Nimrud’, pp. 6–7. 9 Oates and Oates, Nimrud, an Assyrian imperial, pp. 144–53. 10 Loud and Altman, Khorsabad, Part II, p. 55. 11 Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 460–2. 12 Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 650–1. 6 7

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Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art. It was written before Layard and Botta had published their first books. Information about the recent Assyrian excavations had nonetheless reached Europe, mainly through letters sent by Botta and Layard. Botta’s letters were published by Mohl in his Journal asiatique in 1843 and 1844. 13 These articles included sketchy floor plans and drawings of reliefs. Layard’s letters were read aloud at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in late 1846 and in 1847. 14 This information was further disseminated through magazines such as Athenaeum and Illustrated London News. 15 Fergusson had also received information from Layard personally. 16 The Assyrian finds came to be embedded into an art historical discourse that was progressive in nature and generally Hellenocentric when it concerned ancient civilisations. How to value the ancient cultures that were being (re-)discovered during this period formed an important part of this discourse. Fergusson’s title, An Historical Inquiry Into the True Principles of Beauty in Art, is a typical example of the concerns of this type of research. It was among the more wide-ranging works of its kind. Most histories had centred on Egyptian art, which had been known for far longer, as the main precursor of Greek art. The material remains of the newly discovered Assyria needed to be integrated into these progressive art historical narratives. This foremost required it to be valued in relation to Greek art. Layard’s writings frequently refer to these debates. 17 As one of the main discoverers of Assyria, it is not surprising that he acted as its propagator. His valuations were, however, restrained by the art historical discourse of its time. Layard acknowledged in a letter written in 1846 that Assyrian sculpture was “undoubtedly inferior Botta, ‘Lettres de M. Botta I’; Id., ‘Lettres de M. Botta II’; Id., ‘Lettres de M. Botta II’. 14 Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 207–8. 15 Bohrer, ‘Inventing Assyria’, pp. 343–6; Id., Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 99–102, 132–42; Larsen, The conquest of Assyria, pp. 112–3. 16 Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, p. 267. 17 Larsen, The conquest of Assyria, pp. 102–5. 13

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to the most secondary works of Greece and Rome”. 18 In his first article in 1845, however, he praised his finds for their originality, ancientness and superiority in comparison to Egyptian art. 19 Layard continued discussing the correlations between Assyrian art and its Egyptian and Greek counterparts in his first book. 20 He argued that the “Assyrians possessed a highly refined taste”, which was especially pronounced in the Assyrian use of ornaments and the depiction of small objects. 21 The British Museum could not avoid addressing these issues as it was the owner of the both the Elgin Marbles (the pinnacle of Greek art, and therefore of art in general) and most of Layard’s Assyrian finds. Within the British Museum, which was being built at the time, discussions centred on whether the objects needed to be presented according to their aesthetic qualities or according to their historic developments. 22 The Trustees of the British Museum had been reluctant to provide the Assyrian objects with a prominent place within the museum. 23 This reluctance was related to the question of whether the Assyrian reliefs could be classified as art. 24 Layard argued for a sequential presentation of cultures in the British Museum in his 1849 book, 25 framing it in a typical progressive mode. Such presentation would show the “gradual progress of art, from its primitive rudeness to the most classic conceptions of the Greek sculptor”. While conceding that Assyrian art was inferior to Greek examples, he defended its status as art. He had clearly been upset by Rawlinson, one of the main decipherers of the cuneiform scripts, who described the reliefs as objects whose main quality was their curiousness. Rawlinson responded by Jenkins, Archaeologists and Aesthetes, p. 157. Larsen, The conquest of Assyria, pp. 175–6. 20 Layard, Nineveh and its remains, pp. 285–318. 21 Layard, Nineveh and its remains, p. 295. 22 Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 111–3; Jenkins, Archaeologists and Aesthetes, pp. 56–70. 23 Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 113–22. 24 Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 124–5, 154–67. 25 Layard, Nineveh and its remains, p. 288. 18 19

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explaining that while they were not art they were nonetheless of great historic relevance. 26 Rawlinson’s opinions were widely shared. He attached importance to the Assyrian reliefs’ value for providing a pictorial record of the Bible, but denied them an aesthetic quality in their own right. Rawlinson compared the Assyrian reliefs with the Elgin Marbles in a letter to Layard and concluded that “the Nineveh marbles are not valuable as works of art”. 27 He nonetheless defended their procurement: “It would be absurd to me, to quarrel with the Assyrians merely because they had not reached in the eight century BC, as high a degree of art and civilization as the Greeks in the time of Perikles […] The marbles of Nimrud will be, in my opinion, an honour to England, not in the exclusive department of art, but in that more worthy field, a general knowledge of the early world; and I should indeed be disappointed to find after your Excellency’s zealous exertions in the cause that a mere inferiority in their design and execution had led to an abandonment of such extraordinary relics […].” 28

The first objects from Layard’s excavations to arrive at the British Museum had been relegated to a corridor with “miscellaneous” objects before being moved to a basement room. 29 The large colossi and other finds that arrived later were placed in the main entrance vestibule of the museum. 30 Discussions meanwhile ensued about the final location of the Assyrian objects. 31 When the main galleries received their “final” shape in 1852–1854, with the Assyrian Basement being added in 1857–1859, Assyria was placed between the Egyptian and Greek galleries. 32 Assyria was thus, almost literally, squeezed into the progressive sequence from Larsen, The conquest of Assyria, p. 102. Larsen, The conquest of Assyria, p. 102. 28 Rawlinson as quoted in Jenkins, Archaeologists and Aesthetes, p. 156. 29 Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 114–9. 30 Malley, From archaeology to spectacle, pp. 66–7. 31 Jenkins, Archaeologists and Aesthetes, pp. 158–67. 32 Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 120–2; Malley, From archaeology to spectacle, pp. 72–6. 26 27

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Egyptian to Greek art. 33 This sequence, and the narrowness of the Assyrian galleries, have been retained to the present day, though arguably without the associated qualitative judgment. Fergusson’s work addressed similar questions of progression in art and Assyria’s place within such narrative: “[…] the Assyrian sculpture marks a lower grade of civilisation and of mind than the Egyptian: there is a taint of vulgarity and childishness which seems to run through the whole, from which the other is quite free. To me Assyria seems like an unformed child, but in a right path of art; Egypt like a fullgrown and fully-developed man, but in a wrong path. The one died shortly afterwards, and left no inheritance; while out of the other grew the arts of Greece”. 34

These valuations of Assyrian art were probably intended positively. Ancient art could not be expected to have reached the levels of Greek art, but to be its forebear was no small compliment. One of Fergusson’s main contributions to this debate was to define a new way to trace the affinity between Assyrian and Greek architecture. Rediscovering this affinity was complicated, according to Fergusson, by the disappearance of columns in Assyrian architecture. An additional problem was formed by the underrepresented role of decorative paintings in discussions of Greek art. According to Fergusson, “ornamental architecture may be colour as well as carving, and was, in ancient days [Assyrian times], more frequently executed with the brush than with the chisel [Greek architecture]”. 35 The presence of columns within Assyrian architecture was already assumed in Fergusson’s 1849 book, 36 before any of the finds had been properly published. He expanded upon their existence in his later books, which became more based on actual finds. Fergusson continued his discussion of Assyrian art and architecture in his book titled, The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, p. 121. Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, p. 274. 35 Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, p. 279. 36 Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, p. 277. 33 34

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Restored. Published in 1851, his work used the first archaeological publications of Botta and Layard. The more extensive excavations of Place at Khorsabad and Layard’s second campaign were still to commence. The limitations are most evident in Fergusson’s discussions of the Khorsabad palace, which formed the main focus of his reconstructions. His discussions were based solely on the work of Botta, whose excavations had only unearthed a limited area of the palace. Nonetheless, Fergusson described Khorsabad as “the only one of the Assyrian palaces which has been thoroughly explored and excavated”, 37 which led him to argue that “I do not know of any building of nearly its age which I conceive can be restored more completely than this one”. 38 Fergusson believed the Northwest Palace to be too fragmentarily known for a proper reconstruction. 39 At Khorsabad, Fergusson reconstructed a palace of limited size (Fig. 1), a reconstruction that was clearly based on the platform and palaces of Persepolis. It was also founded on the notion that the palace terrace was divided into two levels. 40 The later discoveries and publications were incorporated in the second edition (1874) of Fergusson’s standard work, A History of Architecture in all Countries, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 41 but the additional information had little impact on Fergusson’s Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 234. Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 305. 39 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, pp. 315–7. 40 Fergusson assumed a height difference of ten or fifteen feet. This was based on the shading on Botta’s plan (Botta, Monument de Ninive. Tome I, pl. 4) and analogies with Persepolis (Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 248). While there is indeed a height difference, of a more modest three meters, between the main entrance onto the platform and the throneroom, this was bridged by a gentle slope instead. 41 This article is based on the third edition of this work (Fergusson, History of Architecture in all Countries), whose Assyrian chapters were left unchanged from the second addition as “absolutely nothing new has appeared on Assyrian Architecture, and, therefore, Mr. Fergusson’s theories respecting the restoration of the Assyrian palaces have been retained” (editor’s preface: vi). 37 38

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reconstructions of the part excavated by Botta, which still formed the core of his analyses.

Fig. 1 Citadel plan of Khorsabad as reconstructed by Fergusson (after Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, opposite page 238).

Notwithstanding the limited amount of excavated material at the time of writing, Fergusson’s discussions and resulting reconstructions became very influential. This was due to a large degree on Layard’s enthusiasm for Fergusson’s work. 42 Nonetheless, not everybody was convinced by Fergusson’s reconstructions, and discussions and critiques continued in the following decades. 43 Layard, however, became a proponent of

42 43

Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 642–53. Piggott, Palace of the People, pp. 109–12.

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Fergusson’s ideas. 44 He incorporated them in his 1853 publications and supported Fergusson’s reconstruction for the Assyrian pavilion at the Crystal Palace exhibition at Sydenham in 1854 (Assyria had not been part of the original Crystal Palace). 45 Fergusson’s reconstructions are now mostly known through two images that were incorporated in Layard’s publications of 1853. The first image, showing the citadel of Nimrud, was printed in colour as plate 1 of A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh and has been reproduced frequently (Fig. 5). It combines Fergusson’s architectural reconstructions with the different palaces discovered by Layard along the edge of the citadel. 46 Layard’s citadel plan shows reconstructed staircases in all the gullies (Fig. 6). It is these staircases that appear on Fergusson’s reconstruction. The drawing shows from left to right: the ziggurrat, the Ninurta Temple, the Northwest Palace, the Upper Chambers and Esarhaddon’s Southwest Palace. The second image was used as frontispiece in Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (Fig. 4). It shows Fergusson’s reconstruction of the throneroom façade of the Southwest Palace in Nineveh. Both show only the exteriors of the palaces. Fergusson’s reconstructions appear to show multi-storey buildings, but this is misleading. Fergusson did not envision the palaces to have consisted of multiple floors on top of each other. His second storey only occupied the walls between the rooms, 47 resulting in a rather oddly shaped space that was, moreover, interspersed by rows of columns (Figs 2–3). These columns were placed on the walls, making the second storey space even more fragmentary. The envisaged height of the more monumental doors, however, obstructed circulation on the second storey. Fergusson’s upper storeys are best understood as loggias rather than actual floors. They do not appear to have possessed their own walls. Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, pp. 210–16; Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 642–53. 45 Layard, The Nineveh Court, pp. 47–50, 57. 46 Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 653–6. 47 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 276. 44

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Fergusson was silent on how life would have unfolded in such open and fragmented space.

Fig. 2 Section through rooms 2, 5 and 8 of the Khorsabad palace as reconstructed by Fergusson (after Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, opposite page 271).

Fergusson’s second storey can be understood as a by-product of his presupposition that the ground floor rooms needed large openings in their upper parts to let light and air in. This was achieved by assuming that the walls did not continue above the highest colossi flanking its doors. 48 Fergusson saw no proof for the existence of walls above the level they had been recovered. 49 He did not believe solid mud-brick walls with a wooden roof would have provided material for the burning of the palaces and presumed the presence of wooden pillars to be a prerequisite. 50 Layard argued that “without there had been an upper structure, it would be impossible to account for the enormous accumulation of rubbish, consisting chiefly of remains of buildings, over the ruins of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad”. 51 Rassam, excavating in the Southwest Palace in Nineveh, came to a similar conclusion: “[…] judging from the quantity of rubbish we had to remove before we Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 271. Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, pp. 268, 308–9. 50 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 307. 51 Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 650–1. 48 49

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could uncover the top of the remaining walls, must have been two or three stories”. 52 King concurred that “in the earth removed from the courts and chambers just enumerated we have found huge stones fallen from the paving of the upper story”. 53 Rassam’s “rubbish” and King’s stones more likely represent the remains of later periods covering the palace, which were dug through to reach the Late Assyrian levels. 54 These remains are more likely to represent layers of later occupation and most of the fill must represent the walls of the ground floor rooms. Even though Fergusson’s assumption about the presence of columns was informed by Greek architecture, his reconstructions were primarily based on Persian architecture. This correlation was evident from the title of his book, The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored. Fergusson used the columns as known from Persepolis to reconstruct the Assyrian palaces, but assumed they had been made of wood. “My view of the matter is this, that at Persepolis we have the bones of a palace without the flesh, at Nineveh—the flesh without the bones—in the one case pillars without walls and in the other the walls without the pillars—because the latter were of wood”. 55

This neatly explained the absence of columns in Assyria and was based on the assumption that the stone architecture of Persepolis was likely to have had a wooden predecessor. 56 The notion of architecture’s wooden origin formed a common part of the progressive history of architecture as envisaged in Europe at this time. 57 The presence of openings under the roof was supported by reliefs found in the palaces, which seemed to show such structures Rassam, Asshur and the land, p. 35. D’Andrea, Letters of Leonard William King, p. 99. 54 The later layers contained numerous monumental architectural fragments (Madhloom, ‘Nineveh’, p. 50, pl. 14). 55 Fergusson as quoted in Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, p. 210. 56 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 278. 57 Vidler, The writing of the walls, pp. 147–64. 52 53

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existing in places outside the Assyrian heartland. 58 Evidence for the use of columns in Assyria was found on a relief from the Khorsabad palace. 59 The columns on this relief were shown “clumsily indeed, but not the less faithfully”. 60 In fact, Fergusson saw the Assyrian use of columns, as imagined by him, to be an improvement on the Persian examples, which “appears to be a very clumsy and anomalous feature as used there”. 61

Fig. 3 View of room 8 of the Khorsabad palace as reconstructed by Fergusson (after Fergusson, An Historical Inquiry, frontispiece).

Fergusson not only placed columns on the walls, but also within the rooms (Fig. 2). The only rooms without columns were the small rooms paved with stone slabs, but these were too small to need columns. 62 The central room of the Khorsabad palace (room 5) received an especially high roof (Figs 1–3). This reconstruction Layard, A second series of the monuments, pl. 40. Botta, Monument de Ninive. Tome II, pl. 114. 60 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 278. 61 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 278. 62 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 321. 58 59

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was based on Fergusson’s assumption that room 5 functioned as the throneroom of the palace. 63 It is the increased height of the central rooms that provide Fergusson’s reconstructions with the incorrect impression that they represent multi-storeyed buildings (Figs 3–5).

Fig. 4 View of the throneroom of the Southwest Palace at Nineveh (after Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, frontispiece).

Fergusson’s reconstructions were not only based on Persepolis. The structure of the roof, the most striking aspect of his reconstruction, was based on Indian architecture, one of Fergusson’s main areas of expertise. 64 Comparisons were also made with Egypt. 65 The association between the two countries was enhanced by an old translation of the palace inscriptions, which has the Assyrian king state that his palace was built “after the manner of Egypt”. 66 This translation fitted nicely into the progression of art from Egypt to Greece. The proper translation of the sentence Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 279. Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, pp. 279, 289–90. 65 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, pp. 281–7. 66 Rawlinson, ‘Art. X.—On the Inscriptions’, pp. 458–9. 63 64

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describes the bēt hilāni, which was built in the likeness of the palaces of Hatti, northeastern Mediterranean.

Fig. 5

View of the Nimrud citadel (after Layard, A second series of the monuments, pl. 1).

Layard originally believed that upper stories were unlikely (see above), but changed his mind stating “that the Ninevite palaces had more than one story, at least in some parts if not in all, can now no longer be doubted”. 67 Layard’s acceptance of Fergusson’s ideas, while not made explicit, would suggest that Layard’s upper stories only covered the walls of the ground floor and perhaps some of the smaller rooms. Layard also retracted on his proposed roof lighting: 68 “in my former work I expressed a belief that the chambers received light through an opening in the roof. Although this may have been the case in some instances, yet recent discoveries now prove that the Assyrian palaces had more than one story”. 69 It is unclear what these “recent discoveries” entailed, but Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, p. 647. Layard, The monuments of Nineveh, pl. 2. 69 Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, p. 647. 67 68

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they seem mostly to have referred to Fergusson’s publication rather than new excavations. Fergusson had been very critical of roof openings, rightly pointing out that they would have let both rain and the sun come into the rooms, 70 though similar critiques were made against Fergusson’s own reconstruction for the Crystal Palace exhibition. 71 Fergusson’s critique was not so much about openings per se. Fergusson’s reconstructions had similar openings in the roof but these were internal features with the real roof being located higher. Fergusson assumed that the original staircases would have been made of wood, which explained their absence from the excavated palace, and believed that one such staircase could be reconstructed in room 1 of the Khorsabad palace. 72 The two slabs found on the floor in this room were deemed to be associated with the staircase, though it is unclear what purpose they would have had. Nowadays, these slabs are generally associated with bathrooms. A more technical problem that consumed the earliest discussion was whether the main rooms of the palace were too wide to have been covered by wooden beams. This doubt is, for instance, visible in Place’s plan of the Khorsabad palace, which describes the throneroom as a courtyard. Fergusson argued that beams of such length were unlikely to have existed. 73 Moreover, he presupposed that the roofs would have been covered with three to four feet of mud, 74 which increased to five or six feet in A History of Architecture of all Countries. 75 This would have made the roofs rather heavy, making it less likely that wooden beams would have sufficed.

Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 270. Bohrer, Orientalism and visual culture, p. 216. 72 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 263. 73 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 276. 74 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 277. 75 Fergusson, History of Architecture, p. 187. 70 71

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Fig. 6 Citadel plan of Nimrud as reconstructed by Layard (after Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, plan 3 opposite page 653).

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Whether the roof could indeed have been supported by wooden beams will not be discussed here. Too little is known about the way roofs were constructed to provide a simple answer. Fergusson and Layard were correct in pointing out the lack of appropriate trees in the Assyrian heartland, but such trees were present in the mountains of Lebanon, Turkey and Iran. Getting such trees to Assyria formed a much discussed topic in royal and administrative texts. 76 Fergusson’s reconstructions were also supported by ideas about Oriental kingship, which led to the assumption that “an Eastern monarch cannot walk on the same floor with his subjects, and the floors of the apartments themselves being all on one level would be an anomaly by no means to be got over except by providing an upper story of some sort”. 77 The find of the throne dais in the throneroom of the Northwest Palace was met with scepticism by Fergusson, who did not think it likely that the throne would be placed on the ground floor, let alone inside a room so close to a door. 78

MARGUERON’S RECONSTRUCTIONS Jean-Claude Margueron, one of the most preeminent experts on Mesopotamian architecture, is arguably the most important proponent for the existence of second storeys within Mesopotamian architecture. He has reconstructed second storeys for most palaces he has discussed throughout his career, 79 including the three primary palaces of the Late Assyrian period. 80 Margueron’s views on second storeys are linked to his work on the Old Babylonian city of Mari. The assumed presence of a second storey at Mari is generally used as anchor for his other reconstructions. It is probably impossible to disprove that the Parpola, ‘The Construction of Dur-Šarrukin’, pp. 59–61. Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 276. 78 Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, pp. 318–9. 79 Margueron, Recherches sur les palais, pp. 288–308; Margueron, Pierre-Muller and Renisio, ‘Les appartements royaux’. 80 Margueron, ‘Le palais de Sargon’; Id., ‘Notes d’archéologie’. 76 77

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palace at Mari possessed a second storey, but its existence does not seem proven either. The main issues concerning Margueron’s reconstructions are general in nature and will recur in the discussion on the Late Assyrian palaces. Only a few staircases have been archaeologically attested in the Mari palace. Most staircases bridge the numerous height differences in the palace, but do not continue upwards to a possible second storey. Room 23 does contain a staircase that could have continued upwards. 81 It is, however, poorly preserved. The architecture of rooms 90 82 and 140–141 83 is typical for staircases. Both are square spaces with smaller dividing walls close to its entrance. Such spaces are, however, otherwise absent from the palace. Room 23 represents the only staircase actually located within the palace proper. The other staircases were reconstructed by Margueron. His reconstruction of a second storey above the throneroom area was mostly based on the numerous holes found in the walls of the throneroom (65) and the rooms behind it (79–82). 84 Margueron interpreted these holes as the remnants of the second storey floor and the staircases leading up to it. 85 This interpretation, however, poses numerous problems. The holes were generally located at a height of only two meters. This would have resulted in rather low ground floor rooms. These holes were found regularly, often with multiple rows above each other at relatively small distances. This seems to make little sense for the construction of a floor. The holes are moreover rather small, generally less than 10 cm in diameter. It is unlikely that a floor could have been constructed with such thin beams. These holes seem only suitable for decorative fittings. Room 81 did contain a staircase, 86 but instead of leading to a second storey, it seems to have led to a platform, not unlike the Margueron, Recherches sur les palais, pp. 303–4; Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pp. 187–8, figs 216–7. 82 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, p. 299. 83 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, p. 276. 84 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pp. 111–5, 119–22, 144–50. 85 Margueron, Recherches sur les palais, pp. 293–6. 86 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pp. 150–1, fig. 169. 81

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nearby staircase in front of room 66. There is no indication that it led further upwards. Other holes were found in room 72. 87 These are again located quite low at ca. 175 cm. The staircase, as reconstructed by Margueron, 88 appears to have had no landing as the entire floor is made of baked bricks without any imprints of the staircase’s landing. The existence of other staircases in rooms 56 89 and 26, 90 as reconstructed by Margueron, cannot be excluded, but evidence for their existence is lacking. While room 126 slopes upwards 91 a real staircase is lacking and its angle seems to have been modest. 92 Fragments of wall paintings where found within the debris of room 220. 93 This prompted Margueron to reconstruct a large room on top of rooms 216 and 220. 94 This reconstruction is not without its problems. The preserved walls in this area are especially low, 95 which would suggest that the original architecture was not especially extensive. Why wall painting fragments were present within the debris remains unclear, but it could have already been debris when it made its way into this area, perhaps placed on or incorporated into the roof. A review of the royal palace at Mari indicates that the evidence for staircases is mostly circumstantial. This discussion is not intended to refute the possibility of a second storey in this palace, but to highlight the argumentative nature of such reconstruction.

Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pp. 236–8, figs 274 and 277. Margueron, Recherches sur les palais, p. 300, fig. 222. 89 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pp. 159–60. 90 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, p. 164. 91 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, p. 285. 92 The slope is not visible on the aerial photos (Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pl. VII.2), suggesting that it did not reach very high. 93 Parrot, Peintures murales, II-2, pp. 83–106, pls. XXII-XXIV, D. 94 Margueron, Recherches sur les palais, pp. 291–2; Margueron, PierreMuller and Renisio, ‘Les appartements royaux’, pp. 433–52. 95 Parrot, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, pp. 286–96, pl. III. 87 88

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Margueron starts his 2005 article on Late Assyrian palaces with two hypotheses. First, he presupposes that the inner rooms on the ground floor would have been uninhabitable due to a lack of light. 96 Second, he questions what purpose the throneroom ramp could have had other than to give access to a second storey. 97 In order to circumvent the problems of lighting Margueron argued that the second storey should have consisted of a different type of architecture, leading him to propose the presence of large pillared halls. 98 The use of columns makes his reconstruction similar to those of Fergusson, but the resulting architecture is quite different. Margueron’s second storeys are proper floors covering those of the ground floor. They are, moreover, not open to the outside as Fergusson’s floors were, but surrounded by walls with windows mostly being located high up along the walls. Margueron’s pillared halls would have provided the palaces with a monumental residential area. 99 He did not view this type of architecture as specifically Assyrian, but saw it as part of Near Eastern architectural traditions. 100 Margueron’s reconstructions can be questioned both on the specific architectural solution of pillared halls as well as on his rationale for the existence of second storeys. The known Assyrian columns, admittedly a small group, were placed on stone bases. 101 It would be expected that the hundreds of stone column bases associated with Margueron’s reconstructions would have left behind traces in the archaeological record. This is not the case and only very rarely have column bases been found within the debris. The known column bases have, moreover, mostly been found in situ on the ground floor. The absence of column bases had already been noted by Layard, but in his eyes the necessity of a second storey outweighed the absence of the associated column bases. 102 Margueron, ‘Notes d’archéologie’, p. 106. Margueron, ‘Notes d’archéologie’, p. 102. 98 Margueron, ‘Notes d’archéologie’, p. 111. 99 Margueron, ‘Notes d’archéologie’, p. 113. 100 Margueron, ‘Notes d’archéologie’, p. 125. 101 Miglus, ‘Die Säule in Assyrien’. 102 Layard, Discoveries in the ruins, pp. 649–50. 96 97

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In addition, it would be incorrect to call pillared halls typically Mesopotamian. While the use of columns is not unknown in the Near East, and became more common in the Iranian highlands during the Iron Age; the tradition Margueron seems to refer to is mostly the one envisaged by himself in his numerous articles. Margueron has consistently reconstructed pillared halls in all palaces discussed by him, but his consistency does not necessarily make them more likely to have existed. Margueron’s reconstructions are presented as improvements from the known ground floor architecture. They introduce an architecture fundamentally different from the one currently known. Rather than the inward orientation of the ground floor spaces with their lack of light, air and connectivity, Margueron’s second storeys introduce large well lit and aired spaces, which are integrated into continuous sequences. While these do solve the problems envisaged by Margueron, there is no reason to presuppose that the Assyrians shared Margueron’s conclusion that the ground floor was deficient. There is certainly no indication that they acted on such concerns. Assyrian palaces primarily consist of suites. 103 These were generally not connected to each other and were only accessible from a courtyard. The lack of direct connections between suites represents one of the most consistent features of Late Assyrian palace architecture and can only be interpreted as intentional. Generally, Assyrian palaces were rather conservative, making the introduction of spatial concepts that are not substantiated by the known architecture suspect. Margueron’s creative solutions are in danger of turning architecture into a set of random choices. Like most reconstructions, 104 Margueron’s second storeys are designed with residential purposes in mind. The resulting architecture seems, however, rather ill-suited for such use. It is hard to envisage how the large connected halls would have functioned as residential spaces unless one presupposes that people were Kertai, ‘The Art of Building’; Turner, ‘The State Apartments’. Barnett, Sculptures from the North Palace, pp. 5–6; Dalley, ‘More About the Hanging Gardens’, p. 70. 103 104

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sleeping in large dormitories. Bathrooms, omnipresent on the ground floor, are totally lacking from his reconstructions. Margueron reconstructed second storeys solely on the basis of the preserved staircases, which are generally limited to the throneroom ramp. The lack of vertical connections creates additional problems for a residential second storey. Margueron generally accepts that the second storeys would have been accessible from the throneroom only. The inaccessibility of the throneroom ramp does not, however, correspond with a general purpose use. Its location seems especially inappropriate as the main place to reach an upper floor. It is unlikely that the only way to reach a second storey would have necessitated people to move through the throneroom, which would thereby act as a vestibule. The throneroom ramp was almost certainly not intended for general use, but closely connected to the functioning of the throneroom itself. Accepting that these provided the only access to the second storey means accepting that the second storey was hardly accessible. An alternative solution would be to reconstruct additional staircases. This was argued for by Margueron in relation to the Khorsabad palace. 105 This palace provides a more complicated case due to the uncertainties inherent in Place’s floor plan of the palace, 106 which includes several oddly shaped spaces. Margueron suggested that some of these spaces could have originally been filled with staircases. Their oddness is, however, much more likely to be related to Place’s problems in tracing the original architecture. The selected spaces are much smaller than the throneroom ramp and none seem to provide enough space to accommodate a staircase that could have reached a second storey. Perished staircases or ladders could have been made of wood, which could explain their absence from the archaeological record. Such staircases should, nonetheless, have left behind remains, for instance, in the shape of landings or their attachment to the walls. Evidence for such staircases has only been found in one of the side 105 106

Margueron, ‘Le palais de Sargon’, pp. 199–200, fig. 10. Place, Ninive et l’Assyrie III, pl. 3.

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chambers of the external entrance into Fort Shalmaneser. 107 To assume their presence in the monumental parts of the palaces seems problematic as such staircases would have concealed the stone reliefs that blanket all rooms in those parts of the palace (including the storerooms and bathrooms). Traces of the holes needed for their construction have not been found outside Fort Shalmaneser. Simpler staircases would moreover lack the monumentality typical of these palaces. It is difficult to image the king or queen climbing a ladder to reach a second storey.

CONCLUSION Both Fergusson and Margueron based the architecture of their second storeys on the use of columns. Fergusson’s second storeys are an outgrowth of his ground floor and thus create a single coherent space, albeit one that seems very un-Assyrian. Arguably, Margueron’s reconstructions are more Mesopotamian in nature, though they can hardly be described as typically Late Assyrian. The resulting division in architectural idiom between the ground floor and the upper storey is problematic. Some similarity between their architecture would be expected as they would both originate from a single architectural tradition. It is, moreover, unlikely that the architectural features of the second storey would have been completely absent from the ground floor. Nothing in the ground floor architecture, however, supports the presence of large pillared spaces. A critique of these reconstructions does not, however, refute the possibility of a second storey. Unfortunately, competing reconstructions seem to be absent. In 150 years nobody seems to have come up with a more plausible reconstruction. This article has argued that this is probably due to the unlikeness that second storeys existed. It is difficult to reconstruct something which did not exist. Its absence is mostly based on the lack of means to reach upper stories. Neither Fergusson’s nor Margueron’s reconstructions were able to solve this problem. 107

Oates, ‘The Excavations at Nimrud’, pp. 6–7.

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A second storey would also have caused serious problems in getting light and air into the spaces of the ground floor. Late Assyrian palaces, and most Mesopotamian buildings, were relatively closed towards the outside. A second storey would have limited the means to get light into rooms, especially the internal ones, and would have complicated their ventilation. Even with openings in the higher parts of the walls or roofs, Late Assyrian spaces will probably have been quite dark for our modern senses. A second storey is unlikely to have been located below a height of eight meters and must have been considerably higher above the State Apartments. This would have required a considerable number of stairs to be climbed before a second storey would have been reached. The height of the main ground floor rooms and the number of stairs will certainly have diminished the enthusiasm for their construction. The available space on the ground floor appears to have sufficed to accommodate all relevant functions without the need to extend the palace vertically. The assumption that the residential spaces would have needed to be located on a second storey seems unfounded and problematic. The monumental areas of the palace, which form the focus of Margueron’s analyses, indeed contain few residential spaces, but they do include the King’s residential suite. 108 Residential spaces were, however, part of the less monumental parts of the palace. Whether these spaces sufficed to accommodate the entire court is dependent on their number and residential requirements, neither of which is known. Both Margueron and Fergusson have stressed that their reconstructions were open to doubt; Fergusson even stated that “no one will be more rejoiced than myself, if future explorations should bring to light something bearing more directly on the subject, even if that should prove this theory to be wrong”. 109 This article has argued that the additional information found so far does indeed argue against his reconstructions as well as those of Margueron, but there is still hope that someone will prove otherwise by suggesting a new reconstruction. 108 109

Kertai, ‘The Art of Building’. Fergusson, The Palaces of Nineveh, p. 271.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnett, R D 1976, Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 BC), London. Bohrer, F N 1998, ‘Inventing Assyria: Exoticism and Reception in Nineteenth-Century England and France 80: 336–356’, The Art Bulletin 80, pp. 336–56. ——— 2003, Orientalism and visual culture: imagining Mesopotamia in nineteenth-century Europe, Cambridge. Botta, P E 1843a, ‘Lettres de M. Botta sur ses découverst à Ninive.—Première letter’, Journal asiatique 2, pp. 61–73. ——— 1843b, ‘Lettres de M. Botta sur ses découverst à Ninive.— Seconde letter’, Journal asiatique 2, pp. 201–15. ——— 1844, ‘Lettres de M. Botta sur ses découverst à Ninive.— Seconde letter’, Journal asiatique 1, pp. 91–103. ——— 1849a, Monument de Ninive. Tome I: Architecture et sculpture, Paris. ——— 1849b, Monument de Ninive. Tome II: Architecture et sculpture, Paris. Curtis, J, McCall, H, Collon, D and al-Gailani Werr, L 2008, New Light on Nimrud, proceedings of the Nimrud Conference 11th-13th March 2002, British Institute for the Study of Iraq in association with the British Museum, London. D’Andrea, M M 1981, Letters of Leonard William King, 1902–1904: introduced, edited and annotated with special reference to the excavations of Nineveh, University of Wisconsin, River Falls. Dalley, S 2002, ‘More About the Hanging Gardens’, in L. al-Gailani Werr et al. (eds), Of pots and plans: papers on the archaeology and history of Mesopotamia and Syria presented to David Oates in honour of his 75th birthday, London, pp. 67–73. Fergusson, J 1849, An Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art, more especially with reference to Architecture, London. ——— 1851, The Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored: an Essay on Ancient Assyrian and Persian Architecture, London. ——— 1893, History of Architecture in all Countries, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, London. Jenkins, I 1992, Archaeologists and Aesthetes: in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum 1800–1939, London.

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Kertai, D 2013, ‘The Art of Building a Late Assyrian Royal Palace’, in B Brown and M H Feldman (eds), Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art, Berlin, pp. 689–712. Larsen, M T 1996, The conquest of Assyria: excavations in an antique land, 1840–1860, London. Layard, A H 1849a, The monuments of Nineveh, from drawings made on the spot, London. ——— 1849b, Nineveh and its remains: with an account of a visit to the Chaldæan Christians of Kurdistan, and the Yezidis, or devilworshippers; and an inquiry into the manners and arts of the ancient Assyrians, Vol. 2, London. ——— 1853a, Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, London. ——— 1853b, A second series of the monuments of Nineveh, including basreliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib and bronzes from the ruins of Nimroud ; from drawings made on the spot, during a second expedition to Assyria, London. ——— 1854, The Nineveh Court in the Crystal Palace Erected by James Fergusson, London. Loud, G and Altman, C B 1938, Khorsabad, Part II, the Citadel and the Town, Chicago. Madhloom, T A 1968, ‘Nineveh—The 1967–1968 Campaign’, Sumer 24, pp. 45–52. Malley, S 2012, From archaeology to spectacle in Victorian Britain: the case of Assyria, 1845–1854, Farnham. Mallowan, M E L 1966, Nimrud and its remains, London. Margueron, J-C 1982, Recherches sur les palais mésopotamiens de l’Age du bronze, Paris. ——— 1995, ‘Le palais de Sargon réflexions préliminaires à une étude architectural’, in A. Caubet (ed.), Khorsabad, le palais de Sargon II, roi d’Assyrie: actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Services culturel les 21 et 22 janvier 1994, Louvre conférences et colloquies, Paris, pp. 181–212. ——— 2005, ‘Notes d’archéologie et d’architecture orientale: 12.—Du bitanu, de l’étage et des salles hypostyles dans les palais néo-assyriens’, Syria 82: 93–138. Margueron, J-C, Pierre-Muller, B and Renisio, M 1990, ‘Les appartements royaux du premier étage dans le palais de ZimriLim’, M.A.R.I. 6, pp. 433–52.

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Miglus, P A 2004, ‘Die Säule in Assyrien’, in J G Dercksen (ed.), Assyria and Beyond, studies presented to Mogens Trolle Larsen, Leiden, pp. 421–34. Oates, D 1962, ‘The Excavations at Nimrud (Kalkhu), 1961’, Iraq 24, pp. 1–25. Oates, J and Oates, D 2001, Nimrud, an Assyrian imperial city revealed, London. Parpola, S 1995, ‘The Construction of Dur-Šarrukin in the Assyrian Royal Correspondence’ in A. Caubet (ed.), Khorsabad, le palais de Sargon II, roi d’Assyrie : actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Services culturel les 21 et 22 janvier 1994, Louvre conférences et colloquies, Paris, pp. 47–77. Parrot, A 1958a, Le Palais – Architecture, II-1, Mission archéologique de Mari, Paris. ——— 1958b, Peintures murales, II-2, Mission archéologique de Mari, Paris. Piggott, J R 2004, Palace of the People. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham 1854–1936, London. Place, V 1867a, Ninive et l’Assyrie, tome premier, Paris. ——— 1867b, Ninive et l’Assyrie, tome troisième, planches, Paris. Rassam, H 1897, Asshur and the land of Nimrod, Cincinnati. Rawlinson, H C 1850, ‘Art. X.—On the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 12, pp. 401–83. Turner, G 1970, ‘The State Apartments of Late Assyrian Palaces’, Iraq 32, pp. 177–213. Vidler, A 1987, The writing of the walls: architectural theory in the late Enlightenment, Princeton.

RE-ENVISIONING INFORMATION: THE MAPS WE MAKE OF ANCIENT ASSYRIAN PALACES ANN SHAFER

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK — FIT, NEW YORK At first glance, Assyrian archaeology and the fast-paced field of information design might seem strange bedfellows, but the goal of this paper is to suggest how the two might be more compatible— and in dialogue, more productive—than we think. As a case in point, the present study re-introduces Edward Tufte’s groundbreaking book Envisioning Information (Fig. 1). 1 Published over two decades ago, it remains a cult classic among practitioners of architecture and design, modelling bold and innovative information design solutions. In essence, the book celebrates our ability to escape from the limitations of “flatland”, or two-dimensional representation, and contains fascinating displays of highdimensional complex data. The various maps, charts, scientific diagrams, statistical graphs and tables, guidebooks, courtroom exhibits, and timetables continue to inspire good design solutions, not only within the field of information design, but also in architecture and other related fields. Despite the continued wideranging influence of this book over time, however, the past-looking discipline of archaeology, including the conservative field of ancient Near Eastern studies, seems untouched by the book’s legacy of alternative thinking. As a means to engage this volume’s provocative question “How do we want the past to be?” this paper 1

Tufte, Envisioning Information.

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will attempt to nudge our anachronistic ways of documenting ancient Assyrian palace culture into alternative, Tufte-inspired realms of visualization.

Fig. 1 Cover illustration for Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte (Reprinted by permission Tufte, Envisioning Information).

Certainly, the way we approach Assyrian palaces today is in large measure determined by the modern history of Assyria’s discovery, and especially by its early phase in the late nineteenth century. At that time, archaeological expeditions such as those led by Sir Austen Henry Layard, for example, were motivated largely by statesponsored interests in collection and display of an exotic, pagan, other. 2 While in the ensuing century and a half our attitudes toward Assyria have evolved, in many ways early thought paradigms still dominate the way we document, analyse, and intellectually master Assyrian palaces. The architectural plan is still the primary means of representing palace “space”, and the line drawing is still the preferred method of capturing relief imagery. Sometimes the two 2

Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh.

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methods of rendering overlap, as can be seen in John Russell’s 1998 reconstruction of a room in Ashurnasirpal II’s palace (Fig. 2), but alternative frameworks for the exploration of Assyrian visual and spatial culture remain largely undeveloped. As a result, we are most certainly missing important opportunities to see the ancient Near East through a wider and more comprehensive lens. Certainly, one might argue that it is the virtual realm of digital reconstruction that opens up the next new horizon for the simulation of Assyrian experience. 3 While this may be true in part, it is also the case that what Tufte calls “graphic information displays” contain multiple, untapped opportunities for data visualization. As Tufte himself notes, “Even though we navigate daily through a perceptual world of three spatial dimensions… all [visual] communication… must now take place on a twodimensional surface,” whether it be paper or a computer screen. 4 And it is the desire to escape from that surface that can provide— depending upon the breadth of your imagination—a multitude of alternative and previously unimaginable ways of envisioning and communicating the ancient past. In the following paragraphs, this paper will present seven examples of such information displays in Tufte’s book. These examples, having nothing to do with ancient Assyria, will be re-envisioned for ancient data, and in the process, will provoke challenges to the limits of the scholarly purview. In brief, through opening archaeology up to the wider world of information design, the possibilities for articulate and imaginative communication and exploration of ancient data become endless.

3 4

Paley and Sanders, ‘The Citadel of Nimrud’. Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 12.

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Fig. 2 Composite plan-elevation drawing of Room I, Northwest Palace, Nimrud (by permission Russell, ‘The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II’, p. 680, fig. 17).

In our first example, not shown here, a court document from the 1987 case against mafia boss John Gotti is a simple chart, easily read both horizontally and vertically. 5 Although the subject matter has little to do with ancient palaces, the graphic spread sheet form is useful: merging a list of crimes in the left column with the list of criminals’ names across the top, the eye detects curious patterns and unbroken runs of large X’s, and thus encompasses the enormity of the mafia’s nefarious activities. The chart format provides a convincing summary of data and might be used in any number of applications with ancient material, but right away, we can imagine one agenda: a display of changing royal epithets in inscriptions over the course of Assyrian history. By simply replacing the names here with those of the Assyrian kings, and the crimes with their epithets, certain temporal densities of ideal royal qualities would certainly appear. Thus, “marvellous shepherd,” “fearless in battle,” and “mighty flood-tide” might be graphically 5

Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 31.

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shown to shift to other titles, such as “endowed with clear understanding,” or, “whom from his childhood the gods named for kingship”, reflecting changes in political climate and attitudes toward kingship. In addition, other structural issues might be effectively addressed through this exercise, including the nature of scribal recension and text/image relationships over time.

Fig. 3 Dance notation, reproduced from The Art of Dancing, Explained by Reading and Figures , Kellom Tomlinson (London, 1735, book I, Pl. XII; Reprinted by permission Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information , Graphics Press LLC, Cheshire, CT, 1990, 27).

Another well-known Envisioning Information favourite is this eighteenth-century graphic representation of formalized dance steps (Fig. 3). As a forerunner to modern dance and movement

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notation, this image in a series partakes of a “subtle, graceful, profoundly simple design,” linking actions and space. 6 As scholars fascinated by Assyrian relief imagery, we might also attempt to translate the profile-view figures into a similar frontal rendering, hovering above a perspective plan notation of their possible movements. The best candidates for this kind of graphic experiment would be the scenes of choreographed activity in royal hunt and ritual—for example, the scenes of sacrifice and libation at the conclusion of a campaign (Fig. 4). Here, rendering the scene Tufte-style would provoke questions about Assyrian spatial perceptions and their resulting representational conventions. Such exercises would expose the limitations of our data and could never be more than speculative, of course, but the very act of reenvisioning the figures in three-dimensional space could serve as an important catalyst to other visual and conceptual imaginings.

Fig. 4 Scene of royal ritual at the Nairi Sea, Upper Band I, Balawat Gates of Shalmaneser III (by permission Andreas Schachner, Bilder eines Weltreichs: Kunst- und

kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Verzierungen eines Tores aus Balawat (Imgur-Enlil) aus der Zeit von Salmanassar III, König von Assyrien . Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, pl. 1).

Moving on to other fertile ground in Tufte’s book, a mesh map of census data from greater Tokyo renders 379,000 grid-square 6

Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 27.

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neighbourhoods individually, yet allows them to blend together visually in areas of greater population density. 7 For the Assyrians, we might imagine using this technique on our maps of the outlying empire, to mark densities of royal military activity resulting from a build-up of campaigns, conquests, and settlements over time. Although the raw textual data has already been collated in our history books, only a visual rendering of individual accumulated actions as densities (like the Tokyo map) could capture the importance of time-space resonance in the consolidation of the imperial state.

Fig. 5 T-shirt diagram, reproduced from Color Coordination , Yumi Takahashi and Ikuyo Shibukawa (Tokyo, 1985, 114–115; Reprinted by permission Tufte, Envisioning Information , p. 33).

Likewise, this diagram of children’s shirts is a good example of what Tufte would call a “design so good that [it is] invisible” (Fig. 5). 8 By focusing on the data rather than “data-containers,” this pictorial table “moves to the heart of visual reasoning—to see, distinguish, [and] choose…” In this case the multiplied smallness encourages local comparisons within our eye span, relying on an active eye to select and make contrasts. Although we may not be consumers of Assyrian visual culture in a commercial sense, the typological approach is often useful, not only for the purposes of 7 8

Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 40. Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 33.

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archaeological documentation, but also to marshal evidence for more theoretical arguments. For example, a chart of glyptic occurrences of “sacred trees” collated by Simo Parpola in order to show the symbol’s widespread iconicity in Assyrian culture shows that used properly, such visual displays facilitate immediate processing of contrasts, thus enhancing the breadth and accuracy of our analyses of the data. 9

Fig. 6 A New Plan of the Road from London to Dover, and from Calais to Paris, Charles Smith, mapseller, No. 172 (London, 1801; Reprinted by permission Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information , Graphics Press LLC, Cheshire, CT, 1990, 112–113).

In yet another rich elaboration of visual data, a 1801 guidebook maps the road from London to Dover, converting 3D space into a line path on paper, with each strip of the journey isolated in its own column and oriented spatially for the viewer by a rotating compass pointer (Fig. 6). 10 In addition to topographic features, various inns and rest stops are indicated along the muddy journey taken by horse and coach. To visualize the Assyrian campaign accounts in this manner would be to enter the very heart of what has long been 9

Parpola, ‘The Assyrian Tree of Life’, p. 200. Tufte, Envisioning Information, pp. 112–113.

10

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a bias in ancient Near Eastern studies favouring the annals texts as the most comprehensive documentation of Assyrian history. If we were to challenge ourselves to render each leg of the Assyrian campaigns in the manner shown in this itinerary, we would come face-to-face with the paucity of information in these royal textual sources—thus challenging our established views about their function—and at the same time, might come to realize more fully the imaginative graphic possibilities inherent in the other types of texts, images, and archaeological finds that do shed light on issues of topographic landscape. 11 In such a process of translating data into form we would gain a greater knowledge of, and appreciation for, both the mundane details as well as the practical and ideological enormity of the Assyrian military machine. One of the most beloved maps of all time is the 1748 Nolli map of Rome, which, in delightfully unexpected fashion, activates the empty spaces of the city through reverse-ground treatment. 12 Areas that should be visually tranquil—such as the river and empty ground—are registered by Nolli either as a vibrating moiré or as black density. As a result, the leftover areas appear clearly and precisely as buildings or streets. As Tufte notes, for maximum dimensionality, such a rich image may be enhanced by muting certain features to produce a layering effect. 13 In the end, it is the visual hierarchy that allows for a satisfying read. More to the point, there are lessons to be learned from such time-honoured graphic examples, especially when it comes to renderings of Assyrian relief images. The fact remains that almost always, we analyse the reliefs not from the originals, but from line drawings, and usually, our drawings contain more distracting visual density than focus. Tufte reminds us of one basic principle of design: that when we draw two black lines, a third visual activity results—a bright white path between them. Thus, every line we draw has the potential to become either essential or surplus visual activity. Archaeologists, too, can be more conscious of the visual weight in our drawings, Shafer, ‘The Assyrian Landscape as Ritual’. Nolli and Aronson, Rome 1748. 13 Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 60. 11 12

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and can learn to manipulate visual layers in order to regain qualities lost in translation from the originals in stone.

Fig. 7 Visitors to the Assyrian rooms in the British Museum (photo: author).

Finally, the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. might be said to provide—in the purity of its inquiry—the consummate set of provocations for our study of the Assyrian palace. 14 As a monument to the fallen heroes of a tragic war-event in American history, the polished black granite wall contains a blur of 58,000 names that become clearer as one moves closer. Considered a brilliant example of information architecture, the monument’s visual and experiential strength is achieved by means of “micro/macro design”. 15 Some of the living look for the name of one particular soldier (a personal micro-reading), while others see Maya Lin – A Strong Clear Vision. Freida Lee (Director). New Video Group, 1995, DVD. 15 Tufte, Envisioning Information, p. 43. 14

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reflections of their own faces, the trees, and other nearby monuments (a communal macro-reading). Whatever one’s relationship to the data, the experience is an emotional one, binding the visitor to the crowds of the living and the dead. As for the ancient Assyrians, whose imagery, in contrast, memorializes the victor’s point of view, the original emotional content of the reliefs is something we may never know or understand, but now—as a result of this comparison—cannot dismiss. We tend to think that a floor plan captures the entirety of ancient architectural space, but clearly it cannot. Rather, such a strategy assumes a certain definition of “space” as passive void, to be traversed and thus visually conquered. 16 In contrast, the Washington parallel forces us to consider the overall spatial experience including its emotional charge, from the design phase to its inhabitation. It is our present mandate to devise more articulate models for re-presenting the phenomena of ancient Assyrian architecture and its decoration. Even the contemporary museum goer (Fig. 7) will tell you that the spatial experience is a complex one, involving attachments by means of the senses (visual, aural, olfactory, and haptic) as well through data-processing cultural narratives of history and time. In conclusion, these seven examples of re-envisioning ancient Assyria are only a sampling of the various ways in which the past can come alive in our popular and scholarly imaginations. Much more needs to be done in the realm of testing these examples and developing new ones. Keeping one foot firmly planted in the weightiness of our scholarly tradition, yet the other foot moving alongside contemporary design, however, leads us into new realms of questions—and often—answers. It is thus with this contemporary scene of British Museum visitors, deeply involved in the reading of Ashurbanipal’s reliefs, that I conclude here today. That is, to ask whether we should be looking at ancient Assyria through the vision of contemporary information design is futile—it is already happening, whether we agree with its solutions or not. Rather, in asking “How do we want the past to be?” we find an opportunity to embrace a deliberate shift—to be conscious in a 16

Shafer, ‘Storied Walls: Assyrian Palaces’.

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new way: of our scholarly and cultural roots, our present interpretive biases, and the uncertainties of our past-looking future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Layard, A H 1853, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, London. Nolli, G and Aronson, J H 1997, Rome 1748: Being a One-half Scale Reduction of Giambattista Nolli’s Pianta Grande di Roma, Highmount, NY. Paley, S M. and Sanders, D H. 2004, ‘The Citadel of Nimrud, Iraq: A Virtual Reality Interactive Model as a Resource for World Heritage Preservation’, in Enter the Past: The E-way into the Four Dimensions of Cultural Heritage: CAA 2003, Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology: Proceedings of the 31st Conference, Vienna, Austria, April 2003, Oxford, pp. 541–3. Parpola, S 1993, ‘The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy’, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, vol. 52 no. 3, pp. 161–208. Russell, J M 1998, ‘The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 102, pp. 655– 715. Schachner, A 2007, Bilder eines Weltreichs: Kunst- und kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Verzierungen eines Tores aus Balawat (ImgurEnlil) aus der Zeit von Salmanassar III, König von Assyrien (Subartu 20), Turnhout. Shafer, A 2013, ‘The Assyrian Landscape as Ritual’, in B Brown and M H Feldman (eds), Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art, Berlin, pp. 713–740. ——— forthcoming, ‘Storied Walls: Assyrian Palaces and the Liminal Spaces of Empire’, in C Becker and Ö Harmansah (eds), Place and Performance: Theorizing Architectural Spaces in Ancient World(s). Tufte, E 1990, Envisioning Information, Cheshire, CT.

THE (DIS)EMBODIMENT OF ARCHITECTURE: REFLECTIONS ON THE MIRRORING EFFECTS OF VIRTUAL REALITY DAVIDE NADALI

SAPIENZA UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA Research and studies into virtual and/or small scale reconstructions of monuments, buildings, cities, single artefacts and museums have increased dramatically in recent years, with design, resolution and results for the best and most realistic representations of the past through new media taking on a competitive edge. With this in mind, and after several virtual reality experiences, I would like to debate the value of virtual reality and the possibilities it affords by analysing the impact on our minds and, as a consequence, the effective results it can have upon our dynamic comprehension of the past. If we look back through the history of ancient Near Eastern archaeology, reconstructions of the shapes and spaces of ancient architecture have always been fundamental. Indeed, as far as the civilisations of the ancient Orient are concerned, we may even state that they underwent speculative and imaginative architectural reconstructions even before the ruins of ancient Near Eastern cities were actually discovered. 1 From the first archaeological discoveries made in the Assyrian region in Northern Mesopotamia, See Micale, ‘Immagini d’architettura’; Micale, ‘European Images’; Micale, L’immagine dell’architettura. 1

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reconstructions and refilling of the empty spaces, destroyed by the action of time and human activity, were seen to be necessary, on one hand, for the better understanding of the past life of the ancient oriental city, and on the other to present the results of the archaeological excavations in contemporary books, exhibitions and newspapers. This impetus is still felt today, although much has changed. Reconstructions are based on different assumptions and seek other results. The research of giving the ruins their original form is a meticulous process where the final appearance is, probably, the easiest phase. Preliminary research is required, and since assumptions in archaeological research have changed, virtual reality can only achieve its proper significance and importance if it presents realistic shapes and contexts of ancient buildings and cities. More fruitfully, it can also function as a point of departure for new reasoning and considerations on the meaning of the ancient space, not only in its physical and external peculiarities, but more significantly, in its role and presence as a living space where other living bodies move and exist. Experiencing the ancient past and, more precisely, ancient buildings through virtual reality must rely on the idea of a body to be consistent and thus signify functions, shapes and nature of the space. For that reason I refer to the concept of embodiment: architecture is a physical and volumetric body that incorporates other bodies. Moreover, architecture is thus represented and treated as far as the present analysis is specifically concerned. Assyrian bas-reliefs, with their examples of complex and complete architecture (usually buildings and cities attacked and conquered by the Assyrian army in military narratives), will be accordingly quoted: from the 9th to the 7th century BCE, we can follow the development of the way of representing buildings and cities as seen by the eyes of the Assyrian sculptors who transform and adapt architectural shapes and features to narrative purposes. Indeed, architectural features have largely been used to identify the geographical location where the Assyrian army was fighting (thus principally using the images of cities and buildings as a catalogue of

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references). 2 However, in this context, instead of speaking of the image of architecture I prefer to focus on the architecture of image as a preliminary and necessary condition to debate the employment and value of 3D and virtual reality of ancient architectures. The definition of the architecture of image reminds us we are dealing with images that are the result of a mental process by the sculptors who sought to represent the complexity and articulation of different architectural features and volumes on a slab. Once the visual language is decoded and translated, the image of architecture can thus be suitably understood and appreciated in all its components, transformations and organisation. Assyrian sculptors represent buildings and cities according to a principle of disconnection and, if we choose to see it so, disembodiment of individual architectural elements. Indeed, they follow the same principle used to represent the human body which is in fact shown disconnected, with the head and legs in profile and the torso depicted frontally. Assyrian sculptors thus rotate, overlap and deform the components of buildings and human figures so that they can be suitably represented and adapted to the twodimensional nature of the medium. For that reason, when studying Assyrian representations, we are forcedly obliged to take into consideration the figurative and formal principle of the representation to re-compose and re-shape the represented body in its original form. Images must be decoded and interpreted if their real value is to be obtained, too often and generically labelled as symbolic without a precise connotation, giving no explanation of the symbolic nature (if it is really symbolic, what do the images represent?). Sculptors represent what it would indeed be impossible to see in reality; they display human and architectural bodies so that viewers can understand the basic details, giving an idea of entire buildings and people in one glance. Assyrian sculptors somehow give us the sense we are moving around the depicted object by representing all its significant and fundamental features on the same frontal plan. Extrapolating this reasoning we can say that On this topic, see the main contributions made by Gunter, ‘Representations of Urartian’; Marcus, ‘Geography as an organization’; Jacoby, ‘The Representation and Identification’. 2

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Assyrian sculptors allow us to move in a virtual space simply by dislocating parts of the bodies, both architectural and human. 3 However, embodiment does not only refer to the nature of architecture as a living body: architecture itself contains other bodies, in particular people who interact, actively and passively, with the built environment. Indeed architecture is the result of both mental and physical human activity; contemporaneously defining the active space and the lives of people within it. A continuous dialogue exists between the exterior and the interior, between up and down, between right and left. This interpretation can, I think, be the key to passing through the parts of architecture both to disconnect and then to recompose the different features and elements. Virtual reality moves in this direction: the remains of ancient buildings are, by their archaeological nature, disembodied. Indeed, in the Ancient Near East, most of the ancient buildings lack their most consistent parts: we can say that sometimes the skeleton of the architectural body remains while the flesh is irremediably lost. In the process of reconstructing a building we add flesh to the preserved structure the excavations reveal. However, in order to proceed with a correct material reshaping of ancient architecture, an additional phase of disconnection is necessary: all the components of a building must be selected and recognised independently if they are then to be suitably recomposed in a unitary architectural image. Indeed, if we return to the process of the Assyrian sculptors, architecture is first disconnected to be then re-built on different plans and levels; the creation of a cyberspace adds new shapes and perspectives which A principle that distinguishes Cubism: the simultaneous representation of different points of view within a single image refers either to the movement of the depicted figure, or to the movement made by the artist (showing his points of view) around the subject he is depicting. At the same time it also expresses the movement the viewer would execute to get the entire shape of the figure that the artist summarises in one picture according to the principle of the so-called multiple perspective (Barasch, ‘Time in Visual Art’’, p. 138; Nadali, Percezione dello spazio, p. 233). 3

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give the concrete possibility of rendering the architecture as a volume through movements both within and without, making the spaces permeable and accessible. 4 For too long, and even at present, architecture has been studied through two dimensional plans: Assyrian bas-reliefs show however that ancient sculptors and, perhaps, ancient viewers were inclined to look at the represented architecture (the image of architecture) in its three-dimensional form since they were aware of the architecture of the image: they knew the exact process of making architecture representable by the selection and adaptation of its meaningful features. To a certain extent, images of architecture on the Assyrian bas-reliefs reproduce 3D buildings through the superimposition and movement of architectural plans where high, low and side views are the translation of the depth of the space. 5 Virtual reality has the great merit of changing the perspective of the viewer in the study of ancient architecture. No longer is it considered to be an empty plan, but rather is perceived as a living volume; a body and not simply a skeleton. Nevertheless, enthusiastic statements regarding the importance of virtual reality must not diminish the attention necessary in the process of recreating the lost volume of ancient buildings. A really detailed and careful analysis of materials and construction techniques must in fact precede any phase of reconstructing the original height of walls, the systems of covering rooms, and finally open spaces and courtyards, and the necessary sources for light. These are a fundamental part of the journey if we are to arrive at a plausible volumetric image of the ancient architecture without visible mistakes and incongruities. There are evident mistakes; for example, the use of materials not available to the ancient architects, and there are collateral “mistakes”. The latter are, to a certain extent, necessary if we are to realise the idea of a complete On the definition and creation of cyberspaces, see Forte, ‘Introduction of Cyber-Archaeology’’; Kurillo, Forte and Bajcsy, ‘Cyberarchaeology and Virtual’. 5 Maybe because the palace itself “was not intended as a static visual statement but rather was meant to be experienced through movement”, as recently pointed out by McMahon, ‘Space, Sound, and Light’, p. 169. 4

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architecture, in all its dimensions (height, length and depth), such as attempts to reconstruct roofing and lighting, and must, in any case, respect the architectural tradition and techniques used by the ancient architects. The reconstruction must be the result of thoughtful hypotheses which leave room for modification and rethinking as further study brings new data and ideas. 6 As far as Near Eastern archaeology in particular is concerned, information on the original heights of walls, the presence of windows, roofing, and lighting is scarce. In fact, in most cases we have no information at all. However, ever since the earliest discoveries of the ruins of the ancient Assyrian palaces and cities in the 19th century, archaeologists felt the need to rebuild the shape of ancient buildings with anachronistic and mostly invented solutions. Nowadays, the fake aspect of 3D models can easily be overcome (and, for that reason, harsh criticism is both necessary and totally justifiable when old models are still presented): the passage to 3D and virtual reality models shows ancient buildings in their entirety transforming the space of a plan into a dynamic volume, giving perspective and depth. Taking Assyrian materials into consideration, the process of getting 3D images of ancient Assyrian palaces and developing virtual reality visits has an interesting impact on the images of architecture as depicted on the bas-reliefs: the reconstruction of the architecture of an Assyrian palace, as the container of sculptures themselves depicting architecture, can foster considerations on the relationships between the represented space and the physical place of the room where the bas-reliefs are put, on the degree of visibility, fruition and affordance of sculptures that are not merely decorating the rooms, but rather are somehow shaping them. Leaving the discussions regarding the accuracy of the processes in refilling the missing parts of ancient architecture behind (an argument that will always be subject to criticism, debate and continual transformation), 7 I prefer instead to focus on the Reilly, ‘Three-dimensional modelling’; Margueron, ‘Du plan au volume’. 7 These technical aspects are not secondary, but rather they are of primary importance. They constitute the base and starting point for the 6

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important contribution of virtual reality in the evaluation of ancient spaces. It offers significant possibilities to arrive at the perception of both the architectural space and the presence of objects and items within that space. Indeed, contemporary models of a cyberspace operate on two fronts. On the one hand, they disembody the ancient architecture by disconnecting all elements which are then re-shaped into a volume. On the other, they embody architecture, giving it a volumetric body in which other living bodies exist, move and are moved, perceive and are perceived. To summarise, virtual reality, in particular, enables the observer to perceive and attend the affordance of an object which is the whole set of actions that an object invites us to make upon, around and with it. 8 Virtual reality offers researchers, scholars and observers to understand properly the agentive property of architecture: 9 indeed, the essential nature of virtual reality is the ability to move through spaces, from one room to another, and thus experience the life of the space. This aspect is particularly evident and meaningful when virtual reality involves the creation of an avatar: this avatar represents ourselves, our body moving and crossing the virtual space, according to a system of simulation of the action and coherent evaluation of the possibilities provided by 3D and virtual reality in archaeological research. Reconstructions and virtual reality must not produce a new building totally unrelated to the reality of the archaeological evidence and the knowledge of architectural rules and techniques of ancient builders and occupants. The risk that reconstruction becomes a completely new (fake) construction, reflecting more how we wish the ancient building looked than how it really did, must be avoided. The topic requires an appropriate space to be suitably treated in detail and specific competence: for main references to previous bibliography on the process of 3D, virtual reality and realised projects, see Weferling, Heine and Wulf, Von Handaufmaß bis High Tech; Riedel, Heine and Henze, Von Handaufmass bis High Tech II; Heine et al., Erfassen, Modellieren, Visualisieren; Wittur, Computer-Generated 3D-Visualisations. 8 Gibson, The Ecological Approach, pp. 127–43; Forte, ‘Virtual Archaeology’, pp. 28–9. 9 Molyneaux, ‘From virtuality to actuality’, pp. 196–7.

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perception as if we were inside the depicted volume and we were really moving, grasping objects and touching things. The user is physically inside the virtual space and, if all technical aspects and requirements are properly respected, the experience of living the space is much more intriguing and fruitful. It is no longer simply a virtual anonymous space, but the virtual rendering of a specific place, with precise connotations and coordinates where items and objects can suitably and correctly be afforded. Results are influenced by the personal skills of the user, whether a common observer (for example a viewer accessing a virtual reality presented in a museum) or an archaeologist who visits the virtual place equipped with background knowledge and, thus, the intention to exploit it differently (more accurately, critically, or sceptically). Moreover, more stimulating results might derive from the combined visit of a common viewer and a specialist; the latter might calibrate the outcome of the virtual reality and all affordances by the observation of the interactivity of an observer who enters the place for the first time without having a prior knowledge of what he will see and experience. 10 Finally, future research should take into consideration whether the experience of the observer through another character (an avatar) or through his own body have different outcomes in the cognitive process of being embodied in the space and embodying the place he is visiting. The cyberspace can, indeed, host a moving virtual body of a character (the observer looks and moves through this human model—in what we can call a mediated first person process and approach); 11 other examples are based on the direct involvement of the viewer entering the space without the mediation of the body of an avatar, being himself the avatar (thus a proper first person participation). Recently, the field of semiotic studies and cognitive film theory, the relationship between the body and the body as This aspect might in fact imply the progress of using virtual reality in archaeology as a learning and didactic tool, as scenarios for cognitive experiments. 11 As, for example, in videogames where the player acts and moves through the represented protagonist of the challenge. 10

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represented in media (experiential turn) has been emphasised. 12 Furthermore, and following the embodied simulation theory, 13 the connections between the camera, the characters, the objects on the screen and the viewers have been analysed from a motor perspective, according to the different gazes of the camera (pointof-view shot and false-point-of-view shot). In the first case, the use of the camera suggests an overlapping of the glance of the character in the film and the viewer; in the second case, the camera aims at breaking a direct relationship between the character and the viewer, introducing an external gaze. 14 I wonder whether this use of the camera might be exploited in the construction of a virtual reality to point out specific details of the ancient space, emphasising the affordance of objects and thus play with viewers’ embodiment and simulation within the represented place. It should not only be an entertainment and an end in itself: 15 the different points of view in projecting a virtual reality in the archaeological field must be the learning tools of the cognitive process according to a dynamic knowledge. On the perspective of contemporary semiotics in film studies, see Ruggero Eugeni, “A Semiotic Theory of Media Experience” (http://ruggeroeugeni.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/asca_a_theory_of_s emiotic_experience.pdf). 13 See Gallese, ‘The Manifold Nature’; Gallese, ‘Embodied Simulation’; Gallese, ‘Neuroscience and Phenomenology’’; Gallese and Sinigaglia, ‘What Is So Special’. 14 See Gallese and Guerra, ‘Embodied Simulation and Film Studies’’, pp. 199–201, 203, 206. 15 In fact the use of an avatar that can cross walls and fly through spaces is unrealistic (although fascinating), adding a skill that did not belong to the ancient viewers and dwellers; so, this new vision might cause the alteration of the shape of an ancient city and building distorting the real perception the ancient people had: the introduction of a moving avatar in the 3D images and virtual reality should foster new possibilities of analysing the verisimilar perception and affordance of space and objects the ancient people had; if, on the contrary, it averts this possibility, the entire system acts as a self-referential game (Gianolio, ‘Modellazione tridimensionale’, p. 181). 12

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The virtual visit of ancient structures is properly interactive: the body of the observer acts and moves, crosses rooms, perceives the affordance of the object he meets with and interacts with the bodies he finds inside. In this cyclic and self-referential virtual mechanism, interactivity and interexchange occur: observers are interiorised within the space, the space embodies their person and they embody the situation they are facing and experiencing. 16 This process of interiorising and embodiment allows the user to get a direct experience and feeling of the place he is visiting, sharing emotions, perceptions and skills with other virtual viewers and the surrounding architectural or urban context. By observing an avatar moving in the space, or moving himself within the rooms of the virtual reality, the user simulates and replicates the action he is looking at. In this case, the simulation process is really and properly embodied since the observer does not only look at someone else carrying out an action, but he himself acts and moves in a kind of self-referential and doubled embodied simulation (he looks at himself moving and acting in the virtual reality). 17 What is the result of this reciprocal effect? Is there any implication in our comprehension of the ancient space we visualise and experience via simulation? I think simulation is the foundation of this mechanical and reciprocal effect of being embodied and embodying at the same time, since our body interacts as both agent and patient among other agents/patients and objects within the virtual space. Even if completely virtual, the system of 3D architectural images and movement can really work in the process of representing the space as it was perceived and lived by the ancients. 18 Perception and movement are the two key categories in the cognitive process of feeling, experiencing and understanding the ancient lived space: perception is a component of movement, and it depends on the capacity of human body to move within the space. In a process shifting from embodiment to the act of embodying (Malafouris, ‘Between brains, bodies’, p. 96). 17 Coward and Gamble, ‘Big brains, small worlds’, p. 53. 18 Forte, ‘Mindscape: ecological thinking’, p. 106. 16

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It is interesting to notice that this virtual scheme of a user moving in the space and simulating life within the ancient building can be analysed through the perceptive mechanism of the human brain, as has been recently discovered and deeply investigated in the field of neuroscience and cognitive theory. In the domain of neurological studies, movement is in fact an essential quality in the process of human interaction. Kinaesthetic properties (the awareness of the position and movement of the parts of the body by means of sensory organs—proprioceptors—in the muscles and joints) found a sensorimotor knowledge. 19 By means of movement human beings interact with people and objects: as previously stated with regard to the images of architectures on Assyrian bas-reliefs, the sculptors represent buildings and cities through the movement of the architectural parts by rotating, overlapping and stretching façades, gates and other architectural features. Thus viewers perceive the goal directed actions of the sculptors to make the space understandable as if they were also moving around and behind the represented architectural building. This knowledge and cognitive process based on movement has been recognised in the neurological human system with the discovery of a class of neurons, the so-called mirror neurons. 20 It has been proved that mirror neurons fire when we both move and accomplish goal directed actions, and even when we only see someone else accomplishing similar actions. This inner neurological mechanism implies that action simulation and the observation of actions performed by others makes our motor system as active as if we were executing the same activity we are observing. Simulation is the principle by which human beings interact with others and it must be intended as the unconscious and automatic process that aims at replicating the observed action from within. The definition of “embodied simulation” refers specifically See also the definition of enactive knowledge, a dynamic knowledge because it is defined by simulation and based on motor skills (Forte and Pietroni, ‘3D Collaborative Environments’, p. 61; Forte, ‘Introduction of Cyber-Archaeology’’, p. 9). 20 Rizzolatti et al., ‘Premotor Cortex’. 19

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to this relationship. The mirror effect points to this mechanism of reflecting observed goal directed actions and movements from within, as a founding principle of the intersubjectivity and reciprocity of gestures, actions and behaviours. According to the knowledge provided by the functioning of mirror neurons, and the theory of the embodied simulation, how can the use of virtual reality be (re)interpreted, actualised and expanded? As far as virtual reality is concerned, I think we can speak of a double mirroring effect: the user reflects in the avatar moving in the virtual space; that avatar is his own body moving through the recreated space. So, what the user looks at is not the performance of an action made by someone else, but his own virtual performance, simulated in his mind and thus embodied. How does this theoretical framework add value to virtual reality? I think that the embodied simulation theory increases the real potential of the use of virtual reality in archaeology since it goes beyond the mere speculation of the efficacy of the visual rendering and formal aspects: scholars and specialists often debate the final result of the visualisation of the past approving or rejecting the proposed interpretation. On the contrary, the use of virtual reality should be a medium from which to start an interpretation process of the shape of ancient space, on the one hand, and the experience of that space through movement, on the other: 21 in fact, instead of simply speaking of the reconstruction of the past, it would be much more preferable to speak of simulation of the past to reach the possible and dynamic knowledge of the life of ancient spaces. 22 In conclusion, what can we say about the understanding of ancient architecture through virtual reality? Beyond the aforementioned problems concerning the primary difficulties in starting a project to reconstruct the architecture of ancient buildings (avoiding the non-rigorous and too fanciful models), I am mostly convinced that virtual reality, by causing the simulation process, can reveal interesting aspects and relevant details of the Pietroni, Rufa and Forte, ‘Embodied Virtual Communities’; Paley, ‘The Northwest Palace’, p. 217. 22 Forte, ‘Introduction of Cyber-Archaeology’, p. 10. 21

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conception and cognition of the volumetric space of a building in all its components. Virtual reality is the space for experiencing and communicating: scholars and users can simulate and replicate what ancient peoples perceived and lived in the reality of that space. This result is, of course, hypothetical and can be attacked since it relies on a mostly objective impossibility of knowing the perception of ancient peoples, visitors and dwellers: however, this approach gives the possibility of recreating the conditions of the past via a simulation process (and not simply via a given reconstruction as a matter of fact) that fosters analyses on the sociological and psychological dimension of a lived space, and for that reason the exactness of the virtually reproduced space is a necessary condition. It might be argued that this mechanical and, to a certain extent, self-referential process does not reveal anything essential and important on the use, function and life of the ancient space. If, however, all premises concerning the elaboration of the images are respected, and fundamental elements of the culture under examination are suitably taken into consideration, I am convinced that the use of virtual reality can raise many interesting, albeit unanswerable, questions. But in this sense, this is also an answer, although negative. In particular, the immersion in the space gives the possibility of seeing from within and not from a bird’s eye perspective, from above and detached from the sensory aspects and physical features of architecture. 23 The use of virtual reality per se, as another way—more spectacular and innovative—to present and represent the past, might be purely speculative: but its potentiality might be accordingly exploited as an occasion to experience the knowledge, where the virtual world is the foundation of a simulative process. Marc Augé in his Le temps en ruines (2003) suggestively argues that ruins fleetingly make us aware of the existence of a time, a sheer time “absent from our world of images, simulacra and reconstructions, from our violent world whose debris have no longer time to become ruins”. Virtual reality does not have the power to restore the ‘sheer time’ of Marc Augé, nor does it attempt to (it is not the objective): 23

McMahon, ‘Space, Sound, and Light’.

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but it restores a virtual relative time that allows the experience of the space in different periods of the life of the building and the city; indeed, exactly because of the simulation process (and not through simulacra as in Augé’s statement), virtual reality can be the circumstance for archaeologists, architects, art historians and other specialists to face the issue of spatiality and the relation between the body of the occupants and the space by creating a learning and research model for cognition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barasch, M 1997, ‘Time in Visual Art’, KODIKAS/CODE Ars Semiotica, vol. 20 nos 1–2: 135–52. Coward, F and Gamble, C 2009, ‘Big brains, small worlds: material culture and the evolution of the mind’, in C Renfrew, C Frith and L. Malafouris (eds), The Sapient Mind: Archaeology meets neuroscience, Oxford, pp. 51–69. Forte, M 2003, ‘Mindscape: ecological thinking, cyberanthropology and virtual archaeological landscapes’, in M Forte and R Williams (eds), The Reconstruction of Archaeological Landscapes through Digital Technologies (BAR–IS 1151), Oxford, pp. 95–108. ——— 2008, ‘Virtual Archaeology: Communication in 3D and Ecological Thinking’, in B Frischer and A Dakouri-Hild (eds), Beyond Illustration: 2D and 3D Digital Technologies as Tools for Discovery in Archaeology (BAR–IS 1805), Oxford, pp. 20–34. ——— 2010, ‘Introduction of Cyber-Archaeology’, in M Forte (ed.), Cyber-Archaeology (BAR–IS 2177), Oxford, pp. 9–13. Forte, M and Pietroni, E 2009, ‘3D Collaborative Environments in Archaeology: Experiencing the Reconstruction of the Past’, International Journal of Architectural Computing, vol. 07 no. 1, pp. 57–76. Gallese, V 2003, ‘The Manifold Nature of Interpersonal Relations: The Quest for a Common Mechanism’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, vol. 358, pp. 517–28. ——— 2005, ‘Embodied Simulation: From Neurons to Phenomenal Experience’, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, vol. 4, pp. 23–48. ——— 2011, ‘Neuroscience and Phenomenology’, Phenomenology and Mind, vol. 1, pp. 33–48.

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Gallese, V and Guerra, M 2012, ‘Embodied Simulation and Film Studies’, Cinema: Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image, vol. 3, pp. 183–210. Gallese, V and Sinigaglia, C 2011, ‘What Is So Special with Embodied Simulation?’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 15 no. 11, pp. 512–9. Gianolio, S 2012, ‘Modellazione tridimensionale e modelli digitali 3D in archeologia’, in S Gianolio (ed.), Archeologia Virtuale. La metodologia prima del software. Atti del II Seminario, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (Roma, 5–6 aprile 2011), Roma, pp. 178–89. Gibson, J J 1986, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, New York. Gunter, A 1982, ‘Representations of Urartian and Western Iranian Fortress Architecture in the Assyrian Reliefs’, Iran, vol. 20, pp. 103–12. Heine, K et al. (eds) 2011, Erfassen, Modellieren, Visualisieren. Von Handaufmass bis High Tech III. 3D in der historischen Bauforschung, Mainz am Rhein. Jacoby, R 1991, ‘The Representation and Identification of Cities on Assyrian Reliefs’, Israel Exploration Journal, vol. 41, pp. 112–31. Kurillo, G, Forte, M and Bajcsy, R 2010, ‘Cyber-archaeology and Virtual Collaborative Environments’, in M Forte (ed.), CyberArchaeology (BAR–IS 2177), Oxford, pp. 109–17. Malafouris, L 2009, ‘Between brains, bodies and things: tectonoetic awareness and the extended self’, in C Renfrew, C Frith and L Malafouris (eds), The Sapient Mind: Archaeology meets neuroscience, Oxford, pp. 89–104. Marcus, M I 1987, ‘Geography as an organization Principle in the Imperial Art of Shalmaneser III’, Iraq, vol. 49, pp. 77–90. Margueron, J-Cl 1999, ‘Du plan au volume: les bases méthodologiques de la restitution architecturale’, in H Kühne, R Bernbeck and K Bartl (eds), Fluchpunkt Uruk, Archäologische Einheit aus Methodischer Vielfalt, Schriften für H. J. Nissen, Rahden, pp. 191–200. McMahon, A 2013, ‘Space, Sound, and Light: Toward a Sensory Experience of Ancient Monumental Architecture’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 117, 163–79. Micale, M G 2005, ‘Immagini d’architettura. Struttura e forma dell’architettura mesopotamica attraverso le ricostruzioni moderne’, in A Di Ludovico and D Nadali (eds), Studi in onore

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di Paolo Matthiae presentati in occasione del suo sessantacinquesimo compleanno (CMAO X), Roma, pp. 121–66. ——— 2006, ‘European Images of the Ancient Near East at the Beginnings of the 20th Century’, in J Nordbladh and N Schlanger (eds), Archives, Ancestors, Practices. Archaeology in the Light of its History, Oxford and New York, pp. 191–203. ——— 2011, L’immagine dell’architettura nel rilievo storico neoassiro. La forma, i componenti e la funzione della rappresentazione architettonica tra percezione e riproduzione dello spazio (CMAO XIV), Roma. Molyneaux, B 1992, ‘From virtuality to actuality: the archaeological site simulation environment’, in P Reilly and S Rahtz (eds), Archaeology and the Information Age. A global perspective, London and New York, pp. 192–8. Nadali, D 2006, Percezione dello spazio e scansione del tempo. Studio della composizione narrative del rilievo di VII secolo a.C. (CMAO 12), Roma. Paley, S M 2010, ‘The Northwest Palace in Digital Age’, in A Cohen and S E Kangas (eds), Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II. A Cultural Bibliography, Hanover and London, pp. 215–26. Pietroni, E, Rufa, C and Forte, M 2009, ‘Embodied Virtual Communities: A New Opportunity for the Research in the Field of Cultural Heritage’, in F Remondino, S El-Hakim and L Gonzo (eds), Proceedings 3D-ARCH 2009: 3D Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures, 25–28 February 2009 Trento, Italy (http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/ XXXVIII/5-W1/). Reilly, P 1992, ‘Three-dimensional modelling and primary archaeological data’, in P Reilly and S Rahtz (eds), Archaeology and the Information Age. A global perspective, London and New York, pp. 92–106. Riedel, A, Heine, K and Henze, F (eds) 2007, Von Handaufmass bis High Tech II mit CD: Informationssysteme in der historischen Bauforschung, Mainz am Rhein. Rizzolatti, G et al. 1996, ‘Premotor Cortex and the Recognition of Motor Actions’, Cognitive Brain Research, vol. 3, pp. 131–41. Weferling, U, Heine, K and Wulf, U (eds) 2002, Von Handaufmaß bis High Tech. Aufnahmeverfahren in der historischen Bauforschung, Mainz am Rhein.

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Wittur, J 2013, Computer-Generated 3D-Visualisations in Archaeology between added value and deception (BAR–IS 2463), Oxford.

IMAGINING ARCHITECTURAL SPACE: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES FOR ASSYRIAN PALACES SARAH JARMER SCOTT

WAGNER COLLEGE, STATEN ISLAND, NY How do we want the past to be? As scholars, we seek to know how things truly were. Whatever past we can reconstruct, is, literally, a construct. We piece it together from objects and texts, using theoretical structure, which is informed by our own bias. The past was experienced by an earlier audience, while the past we imagine is experienced by our living selves. Audience is therefore key to understanding our recreations of the past. The research presented here aims to re-visualize Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh, ultimately asking us to think about past and current audiences. Charting this research through three tacks, first I present a literature review of current scholarship on the meaning and symbolic import of Assyrian palaces, their “spaces” and reliefs. Second I offer a look through the doorways of Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh as a new body of evidence for consideration. Finally, I re-examine this body of evidence through the lens of four non-Assyrian examples of scholarship using semiotics, architectural space, and audience.

ASSYRIAN PALACE SCHOLARSHIP TRADITIONS Beginning with the notion of Victorian reception, it is understood that the acquisition of Assyria was not necessarily about Assyria itself. Although the concept of Assyria, indeed all of greater Mesopotamia, was present in European discourse prior to the 19th century through Graeco-Roman accounts and biblical sources, it was only after the disinterring of palaces that Assyrio-mania struck. 107

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Paintings such as John Martin’s The Fall of Nineveh, and Eugene Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus contain references to the dominance of the West over the East, as well as opposing views on gender relations, specifically constructed for the Victorian audience. 1 Mesopotamia was taken as a cautionary tale, a site of sloth, sin, violence, and transgression: the West’s first great “Other”. This perception, common in the West during the 19th century, took Assyria to be many things. For example, in art, it was a place some have termed ‘the apocalyptic sublime.’ 2 At the same time, the French and British competed with one another for the acquisition of Assyria as a captive contemporary audience watched. 3 So, then, these recreations of Assyria are inspired equally by Assyria itself—manifest in texts and the discovery of archaeological objects—as well as the Victorian context of the 19th century. It is imperative we acknowledge even today that our interpretations are heavily informed by this not-so-distant past. 4 In the later 20th and early 21st centuries, scholars of Assyriology, archaeology, and art history contributed to our knowledge of Assyria. For example, textual analysis of Assyrian annals, inscriptions, and hymns of Luckenbill, Grayson, and Lambert provided fuel for Liverani, Tadmor, Reade, Russell, and Postgate’s contributions to our knowledge on topics such as “propaganda” and “ideology” as analyzed from artifacts of Assyrian textual witness. 5 Art Historical research builds upon these con-“texts”. Methodologies have focused on the establishment of architectural structure, 6 palatial “program”, 7 narrative and textual analysis, 8 the Bohrer, ‘Inventing Assyria’, p. 336. Paley, The Apocalyptic Sublime. 3 Layard, Discoveries; Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains. 4 Bahrani, ‘History in Reverse’, p. 15. 5 Liverani, ‘The Ideology of the Assyrian Empire’; Postgate, ‘The Land of Assur’; Tadmor, ‘History and Ideology’; Reade, ‘Neo-Assyrian monuments’; Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival: A Programmatical Study; Russell, The Writing on the Wall. 6 Turner, ‘The State Apartments’. 1 2

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role of geography 9 and luxury goods in the relief and textual message, 10 status and gender of the audience 11 and their position within the hierarchical structure of Assyrian society, 12 and the ideologies of power encoded within the reliefs. Reade has attempted to look at the objects through the eyes of the Assyrians themselves. 13 He identified particular narrative themes relative to architectural context (such as the common use of ritual subjects in throne rooms). 14 Consequently, we can begin to ask questions of how and why each successive Assyrian king used images differently from his predecessor. 15 Sam Paley’s work on Ashurnasirpal II sought to reconstruct the reign of an individual king. 16 He asserts that Ashurnasirpal’s palatial program, through text and image, emphasizes specific duties of kingship. In this work we find a new trend to fully reconstruct the physicality of an Assyrian palace. 17 He strove to uncover objects and evidence with great diligence, while also imagining what a place—real or computer generated—might have looked like. 18 He then was able to imagine what it was like to move For further architectural source material, see Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace; Paley, King of the World; Albenda, Ornamental Wall Painting; Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival. 8 Paley, ‘The Texts, the Palace, and the Reliefs’. 9 Reade, ‘Studies in Assyrian Geography’; Marcus, ‘Geography as visual ideology’; Thomason, ‘Representations of the North Syrian Landscape’. 10 Thomason, Luxury and Legitimation; Thomason, ‘Sennacherib’s Bronzes’. 11 Melville, ‘Neo-Assyrian Royal Women’. 12 Postgate, ‘The Land of Assur’. 13 Reade, ‘Ideology and Propoganda’; Reade, ‘The Historical Status of the Assur Stelas’; Reade, ‘Space, Scale, and Significance.’ 14 Reade, ‘The Architectural Context’. 15 Reade, ‘Narrative Composition’. 16 Paley, King of the World. 17 Paley and Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief II; Paley and Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief III. 18 Paley and Sobolewski, ‘The Outer Façade’. 7

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through the space, both for us as inhabitants of the 21st century, and as the audience of the 9th century BCE. Central to his work were the concepts of audience and education. Irene Winter has identified specific Assyrian audiences demographically as originating from the empire’s center and/or periphery and following, distinguishes programmatic concepts based on those audiences’ readings of text and image. 19 The king is found in various roles as maintainer of divine principles through libation, the hunt, and military action scenes; the king is also the sole figure through which divine sanctions and military victory can be achieved. 20 Additionally, Winter has drawn our attention to just how “constructed” the concept and reality of the palace was in the eyes of the Assyrians. 21 Building upon and in conversation with Winter’s work, John Russell combines programmatic analysis with a spatial analysis to explain audience experience through their movement within Sennacherib’s throne room. 22 More recently he has approached the throne room of the palace as a locale for the program of inclusive geographic military victory: a visitor, regardless of where they stood, would have the opportunity to view the military conquest from each of the king’s campaigns to the west, north, east, and south. It was in fact not one specific campaign that was highlighted in the program, but all of them. 23 Russell highlights Sennacherib’s program as a message of duality— that of creator of imperial territory and maintainer of imperial center. 24 Winter, ‘Perspective on the ‘Local Style’ of Hasanlu’; Winter, ‘Royal Rhetoric and the Development’; Winter, ‘Art as Evidence for Interaction’. 20 Winter, ‘The Program of the Throne room’. 21 Winter, ‘Seat of Kingship/A Wonder to Behold’. 22 Russell, ‘Bulls for the palace and order in the empire’. 23 His comprehensive analysis of the palace is inconclusive, however. It was not possible to identify a cohesive program in specific suites, nor throughout the palace as a whole, at least based on geography. Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival. 24 Russell, The Final Sack of Nineveh. 19

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Further work on architectural space in Assyrian architecture has investigated conjectural traffic patterns. Paley’s reconstruction established footpaths of pedestrian traffic using architectural features and relief imagery as clues. 25 Russell has done similar work using imagery in Ashurnasirpal’s palace, suggesting, albeit questionably, that room function is determinable even through the limited evidence we possess. 26 Irene Winter has recently presented a similar line of argument, by analyzing the banquet procession reliefs in corridor LI of Sennacherib’s palace. 27 “Space syntax” uses formulaic analysis of walking distances to determine how likely control of access to space within a palace might have been and suggests that over time Assyrian palaces, temples, and houses were under ever-increasing security. 28 Occupants’ movements through the palaces and specific doorway have been further understood through glyptic and socio-textual analyses. Though there was a bureaucratic structure through which storerooms were administrated, 29 such locales were nonetheless a place of lively activity and social exchange. 30 Visual elements such as composition, style, rhythm, and aesthetics have been analyzed by art historians, to draw our awareness to issues of how the Assyrians might have read their own reliefs. Albenda’s compositional analysis suggests movement within the imagery is the key to finding calm in the storm of battle between Ashurbanipal and Teumman. 31 Additionally her work suggests that decorative motifs in Assyrian wall painting were either repeated or re-invented through the years due to either Assyrian aesthetic desires and/or symbolic significance. 32 Bahrani’s semiotic approach identifies the recurring image of Teumman’s head in 25

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Paley and Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief III, p. 12. Russell, ‘The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II’, pp. 655–

Winter, ‘Commensality as an Artifact of Ideology’. Deblauwe, ‘A Test Study of Circulation’. 29 Radner, ‘Gatekeepers and Lock Masters’. 30 Herbordt, ‘Neo-Assyrian Royal and Administrative Seals’. 31 Albenda, ‘Assyrian Wall Reliefs’. 32 Albenda, Ornamental Wall Painting. 27 28

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Ashurbanipal’s reliefs as a repeated code readable as a “messagesign” of just war and Assyrian victory, as well as substitute for the physical presence of the dead king. 33 Nakamura, following Heidegger, uses semiotics and performativity to explain the use of mimesis and secrecy in association with Assyrian magical apotropaic images. 34 Shafer’s work astutely combines the use of semiotic and spatial analysis to further our understanding and enable the deconstruction of images of ritual on palace walls through the eyes of the Assyrians themselves. 35 Micale and Nadali’s approach to the understanding of Assyrian concepts of space through relief imagery indicate that icons within compositional space aid in understanding the king’s identity. 36 Scholars are increasingly moving away from a constructivist approach to architectural analysis and relying more on sociological and anthropological theories. Fundamental work on the built environment and cultural and social anthropology focuses on a wealth of topics, from ethnoarchaeology and structural semiotics, to modern architectural practices. While introductory surveys abound, 37 work by Lévi-Strauss is iconic. 38 More recently Bourdieu and Giddens ask us to relate social experiences to architectural space. One’s social actions are a result of habitus (their cultural instinct of behavior) within any given field (activity). The capacity of social actors to actively impose and engage their cultural productions and symbolic systems plays an essential role in the reproduction of social structures of domination. 39 Drawing upon Bahrani, Rituals of War, pp. 51–5. Bahrani has applied semiotic and philosophical analyses to many works of Mesopotamian art; her work has been seminal in expanding our understanding of the meaning and status of the image in Mesopotamian society (Bahrani, Women of Babylon; Bahrani, The Graven Image). 34 Nakamura, ‘Dedicating magic’. 35 Shafer, ‘Storied Walls’. 36 Micale and Nadali, ‘The Shape of Sennacherib’s Camps’. 37 Lawrence and Low, ‘The Built Environment’. 38 Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology. 39 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice; Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice; Giddens, The Constitution of Society. 33

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this concept, Summers contextualizes the built environment as a space defined by the interactions of humans and the way in which they negotiate their differences. He proposes multiple cases in Mesopotamia where such contexts are created (the function of sculptures at Tell Asmar, for example). 40 Harmanşah pushes the relationship of the body to the world even further in Assyrian contexts. 41 Bachelard and Seamon address the performative and sensory experience of architecture through their phenomenological approaches, 42 while Thomason’s approach to luxury goods could be extended to touch upon phenomenological theory. 43 We as humans naturally act and react based upon our culturally produced physical surroundings in order to define ourselves. Space is created not only by architecture, but by the human body; so too were Assyrian constructs of space in part defined by human bodies. Porter’s work on ritual and politics in Assyrian tradition establishes the success and failure of basketbearing rituals as enacted and visually created in the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. 44 Space and being are established by the physical body, which in the case of these stelae is captured in visual documentation. Recent publications and conference sessions rely more heavily on monumental (ceremonial, ritual, public) human movement, and micro-movement through the space as the means through which space is constructed. 45 Lumsden’s work on Sennacherib’s palace uses Lefebvre’s unitary theory of space (which argues the physical, mental, and social aspects of space must all be considered at the same time) to explain the creation of space at Nineveh and link it with the representation of space on the reliefs. He uses the example of multiple viewing sites (an external terrace or the internal room Summers, Real Spaces: World Art. Harmanşah, ‘Source of the Tigris’; Harmansah, ‘Upright Stones’. 42 Bachelard, The Poetics of Space; Buttimer and Seamon, The Human Experience. 43 Thomason, ‘Sennacherib’s Bronzes’; Thomason, Luxury and Legitimation. 44 Porter, ‘Ritual and Politics in Assyria’. 45 One example: Inomata and Cohen (eds), Archaeology of Performance. 40 41

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of the palace), available for different audiences, which should be analyzed in conjunction with the innovative spatial representation within the relief compositions. 46

SENNACHERIB’S PALACE DOORWAYS Scholars have used texts, architecture, imagery, space, and most recently the human body and experience to construct the Assyrian past. 47 What did the Assyrian audience experience visually while walking through doorways in Sennacherib’s palace at Nineveh (Fig. 1)? 48 By experiencing doorway views in Sennacherib’s palace today’s audience can distill the visual program, while at the same time gaining a more authentic spatial experience akin to that of the Assyrian audience. Sennacherib as the author of his visual message, appears to have felt the need to “prove” himself as a real king. 49 Therefore his use of imagery and texts throughout the palace was

Lumsden, ‘The Production of Space’. The technological capability now exists to engage in more advanced methods of looking at the relief images within the architectural space. Understanding the imagery within architectural space is a challenge. Scholars have developed online CAD-based fly-throughs, 3D animated sequences, and virtual reality experiences, all of which attempt to place the modern viewer in a closer relationship with the architecture and images. Examples include the flythrough of Ashurnasirpal II’s palace, by Francine Jaskiewicz: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/arth/asrnsrpl.html, Learning Site’s animated sequences of the Nimrud palace: http://www.learning sites.com/NWPalace/Biblio.html, and Samuel Paley’s interactive 3D model of Ashurnasirpal II’s palace. In this study an interactive floor plan of Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace at Nineveh, developed by the author was used as a research aid. 48 Note that doorways and thresholds held important symbolic connotations in the Assyrian tradition, particularly as places where the transition from chaos to order was controlled by the king himself. Rivaroli, ‘Nineveh: From Ideology’. 49 Sennacherib likely had multiple advisors, designers, architects, and various advisors working with him to plan architectural complexes. 46 47

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highly planned and controlled. 50 Doorway views in the throne room and Court VI suites focus on the king and his role in military conquest, while the views in the Court XIX section emphasize the results and benefits of those conquests. In fact, this program works in conjunction with that identified by Russell in the throne room, as it distills from the throne room program two specific components of Assyrian military might and kingly persona. In addition, it shows that campaign geography is not the only theme we can look to for an understanding of the program’s logic. The use of doorways as framing devices is in part inspired by the work of Usshishkin, whose imagery is quoted to illustrate how the battle of Lachish is emphasized when viewing room XXXVI through multiple doorways. The reliefs in this small room depict the sack of Lachish, a moment likely considered the highlight of Sennacherib’s campaign in Judah. 51 The capturing of Lachish was important, as it represents a victory that occurred during the third campaign, likely just having taken place when the palace was being built. But the campaign to the west was barely mentioned in the annals, since they were not successful in capturing the capital, Jerusalem. 52

It has been established that he was uniquely innovative through representation in his reliefs and manipulation of traditional texts. His regime instituted a more chronologically correct and geographically detailed annalistic topos (Tadmor, ‘History and Ideology’, pp. 19–21; Liverani, ‘Critique of Variants’) paralleled in the visual content of the reliefs. 51 Na’aman, ‘Sennacherib’s Campaign to Judah’. 52 Russell, ‘Sennacherib’s Lachish’, p. 55. 50

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Fig. 1 Plan of Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace at Nineveh (within Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 15).

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Fig. 2 View into room XXXVI through three doorways (Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60. Original drawing by J. Dekel).

The palace audience may have viewed the actual moment of attack by the Assyrian army on the city walls of Lachish (Fig. 2) 53 as framed through three successive doorways. 54 The term used by Usshishkin, the “quickened” view, alludes to visual acceleration experienced through the collossi. I have chosen to use “focused” view, as it more aptly describes the emphasis placed on particular scenes within a narrative sequence as they are framed by the doorways. The planning of these visual experiences must have been deliberate on part of the designers. The architectural emphasis The figures in this paper were created by the author using J. Dekel’s drawings from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish, combined in Photoshop with Layard’s original drawings and Learning Sites imagery. This author is grateful to Ussishkin, Learning Sites, and the British Museum for publication permission of these images. 54 Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish, p. 68. 53

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placed on the Lachish event through the use of multiple doorways in undeniable. The successive framing of the imagery, even if the scene on the back wall was too small or dark to see, would have added intensity and anticipation. As discussed by Shapiro—the anticipatory attention focused on the image is comparable to the moment the curtain rises in old-time movie theatres. Doorways act as highlighting devices for particular components of Sennacherib’s message; some afford a view directly to images of the king himself, as he and the Assyrian army attack a city, while other doorways afford a view onto less climactic moments in the narrative.

Fig. 3 Doorway view through ‘Grand Entrance’ (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Learning Sites imagery http://www.learningsites.com/NWPalace/NWP_ThRm_ren ders.html)

In the throne room suite, the visitor approaching the king through doorway Ie (Fig. 3), was afforded a view of the enthroned ruler

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framed by both the doorway and the backdrop reliefs depicting apotropaic figures and genies. Above were two registers of troops, animals, and booty moving to the right, possibly a snapshot of the campaign to Babylon. 55 Once standing in the throne room, the audience was surrounded with scenes of the king and his military campaign in the Levant. 56 Through doorway Id (Fig. 4) in room III was a view of military siege in the mountains highlighting the king in battle in Dilbat. 57 Here the audience might focus on the city walls at eye level, while above, in two distinct registers, the destruction of fruit-laden palm trees are punctuated with an inscription. While inside room III, the audience would see Assyrian soldiers process out of the city with spoils to the left. Upon looking from the throne room through the doorway into room V (Fig. 5), the view depicted the army besieging a city. Inscriptions along with architectural detail and enemy clothing suggest these scenes depict Sennacherib’s second campaign to the east. 58 The inscriptions particularly highlight the rank and status of the king, while the images place the king at the head of the cavalry, amidst the battle, and commanding the siege and capture of a city. 59 There is no doubt that the focus in the throne room was on the king, divine protection, and the military power he possessed. Perhaps this message was constructed for a “public” audience: On the floor, in the right (north) side of the room, are the remains of a ‘tramline,’ indicating the possible placement of the throne along this section of the floor. The tramline terminated in front of the niche on slab 5, suggesting the king sometimes sat in this location (Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival, p. 48). 56 Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival, pp. 160–64. 57 Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace, p. 54. 58 Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival, pp.151-160. Two locations are mentioned in the inscriptions: Aranziash/Erinziash, a site mentioned in another room in association with Harhar and Ellipi in the east, and Kasusi (Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival, pp. 272-73). 59 From slab 11, “Sennacherib, King of [the world], king of Assyria, [the booty] of Kasu[si(?)] [passed in review] before him,” (Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival, pp. 272–73). 55

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diplomats, emissaries, lower ranking Assyrians, and non-elites might have travelled this route through the palace to attain an audience with Sennacherib.

Fig. 4 Doorway view through doorway d into room III (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 49).

In Court VI, two themes dominate: quarrying at Balatai and carving of colossi on the north walls, and military campaigns on the east and south walls. In Court VI the focus is not only the king as military commander but as a powerful maintainer of his empire. It is possible to reconstruct some doorways views at points VIe, and XIIIe. Upon looking into room VII from Courtyard VI, one sees the Assyrian army moving out of their camp (Fig. 6). Through the doorway into room VIII there is a depiction of troop movement through the Phoenician landscape. Imagery within this room illustrated the Assyrian army at camp, sailing on the sea, and fighting in mountainous and seaside terrain.

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Fig. 5 Doorway view through doorway a into room V (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 66).

Moving into the reception room XIII, it is possible to reconstruct the view into a subsidiary room XIV (Fig. 7). These rooms likely depicted Sennacherib’s second campaign to the east. An inscription names the siege of Alammu, and imagery depicts men dressed like Medes living in a fertile region with vines and pomegranate trees. 60 The image highlights the direct assault on a city, where Assyrian archers discharge arrows beside houses on the outskirts. The doorway views in the throne room and Court VI emphasize the king’s role as ritual and military leader, the Assyrian army, and moments of attack. Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace, pp. 26–7, 76. 60

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Fig. 6 Doorway view through doorway e into room VII (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 129).

It might also be possible to reconstruct the doorway view from Court VI looking west toward room XI. In room XI, the focused view through multiple doorways depicts deportees paraded through mountainous country, likely coming from a defeated city in SyriaPalestine. There is only one doorway view (into room XI) that does not depict this military component. Rather, it depicts the accumulation of war booty (deportees); it may be significant that this focused view, through multiple doorways, is similar to that through to Room XXXVI in the Court XIX wing. A visitor’s experience in the Court XIX wing of the palace, as experienced through doorways, was different. While standing in Court XIX, a monumental view through three colossal doorways highlighted the moment of attack on Lachish’s city walls depicted on the back wall of room XXXVI (Fig. 2); this view likely linked the military scenes in the throne room/Court VI sector to those in the court XIX sector.

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Fig. 7 Doorway view through doorway a into room XIV (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pls 166 and 168).

While in room XXXIV, 61 the audience might have looked into room XXXVIII and seen rows of captives and deportees along with Assyrian soldiers stacking enemies’ heads before scribes (Fig. 8). The central view into this suite through doorways XIXd, and XLIIIa into room XLVI provided a glimpse at rows of deportees paraded along by Assyrian soldiers (Fig. 9). The landscape and costume details depicted in these reliefs suggest the theme is Sennacherib’s second campaign to the east in Media and Elam. Some of the deportees move along in an orderly fashion, others resist and are consequently quelled by their Assyrian captors. These rooms, based on their plan, might have originally functioned as a reception hall, or retiring hall (XXXVIII), and possibly bathrooms (XXXIX, XL, XLI) (Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace, pp. 105–9). 61

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From room XLIII, the visitor could also have entered one of the two flanking rooms: XLIV or XLV. Room XLIV only had two fragmentary slabs, depicting deportees and booty presented to the king. In at least four other instances from this suite the parading of deportees and booty appear to be the focus. For example, looking from doorway XLIIIb into room XLV (Fig. 10), the viewer was treated to a procession of deportees including women, children, goats and cattle, and Assyrian soldiers displaying the heads of the defeated enemy.

Fig. 8 Doorway view through doorway d into room XXXVIII (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 363).

The Lachish room might have been used for the display of booty from the western campaign. 62 The focus of the themes in rooms XLIII–XLVIII would certainly support this claim. Thomason has shown how important luxury objects were in the minds of the 62

Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish, pp. 69–71.

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Assyrian elite, and how they form a major component of Assyrian royal identity. Additionally, images of decadence and exotica on the walls would have mirrored elaborate objects and banquets, and other pleasurable sensory experiences throughout the palace. 63 Overall, the imagery in this wing provided a narrative focus on the rich rewards of Sennacherib’s victories.

Fig. 9 Doorway view through doorways d and a into room XLVI (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 388).

Reliefs in Court VI clearly depict both the military might (battle scenes) of the king and his ability to administer to a prosperous realm (quarrying). However, when looking through each of the grand series of doorways in Court VI visitors are blatantly 63

Thomason, Luxury and Legitimation.

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reminded of the king’s military abilities. These scenes were complementary to the subject of the elaborate focused view (room XXXVI) in the Court XIX wing. In the latter, focused views more frequently depicted the aftermath of military attack, namely the booty, deportees, and the administration of such goods. Not only are the themes noticeably distinct, but one could have been construed as a consequence of another; the attacks depicted in doorway views in the throne room and Court VI suites resulted in the accumulation of booty in the Court XIX wing.

Fig. 10 Doorway view through doorway b into room XLV (author’s manipulation of images from Ussishkin, The Conquest of Lachish , pl. 60 and Barnett, Bleibtreu and Turner, Sculptures from the Southwest Palace , pl. 380).

The Lachish victory marked the highlight of the western campaign for Sennacherib. Although he was not wholly victorious in that campaign, the sack of Lachish was the jewel in that crown. It is likely that the Assyrian elite would have been highly aware of these details. If so, then the Court XIX wing would have been a powerful site where the Assyrian elite witnessed this performative event. This would follow the model established by Ashurnasirpal II as articulated by Russell, as well as the display and performative

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functions of tribute and war booty in palaces as discussed by Bahrani and Thomason. 64 The rearrangement and re-creation of space, the perpetual existence of tribute and the display of objects in this suite would surely have been contributing factors to the existence of a magical space for the Assyrian elite. Views through the doorways would have distilled all these experiences for the occupants. Previous work in Assyrian studies has informed this analysis of Senncherib’s message and artifacts of textual witness have been considered against the visual evidence. The concept of narrative program has been utilized. Looking at the iconology of the images through the lens of Assyrian eyes is a goal; how was booty relevant to Assyrian audiences from both within and outside the capital of Nineveh? Re-imagining the space as physically constructed through the doorways is a new methodology. What was the status of “signs” (king, colossus, booty, prisoner) in Sennacherib’s palace? How were semiotic signs encoded throughout the palace images to imbue the audience with ideas? How were these signs part of ritual procession and movement through the architectural space? Bahrani’s identification of Teumman’s head not only as a trophy of war but as a magical image, itself capable of creation through the act of representing, has strong repercussions for the repetition of particular themes as identified through doorways in Sennacherib’s palace. By looking through the doorways visitors would have been repeatedly reminded of particular themes. For example, the parading of deportees: this status of this image as an actor, capable of embodying actual deportees, suggests these moments of glimpsing the deportees would have transformed the visitors visual perception into a performative experience. The power of the doorways views would be enhanced in this way, by the very nature of representation in Mesopotamian tradition. The Assyrian palaces were likely not solely created for coercion or fear, but for the representation of the magical performance of power intended for Russell, ‘The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II’; Bahrani, Rituals of War, pp. 175–8; Thomason, ‘Sennacherib’s Bronzes’. 64

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the Assyrian elite themselves. 65 A quick reminder through doorway views of the perpetual performance of tribute, or conversely, of the king’s ability to control his army would certainly have a concentrated effect on the Assyrian elite in Sennacherib’s palace. By looking through the doorways in Sennacherib’s palace we can identify certain messages and understand how the Assyrian audience experienced visual messages within the architectural space. Which particular individuals would have had access to certain views based on rank or gender? Can these distinct messages through doorways be applied to social contexts created by inhabitants as they negotiate varying identities and roles? Evidence suggests one palatial function was sensory thrill. Looking at the imagery was likely a visual pleasure as well as a pastime of enjoyable intellectual engagement around which human activity occurred. It is clear that posture, costume, and dress were visual tools identifiable and coded with meaning for the Assyrian elite; this would have mirrored actions and dress present in the palace. 66 Social behaviors were performative actions that the elite may have mimicked from palace walls, and vice versa. Repetition of indexical imagery and interstitial sensuality, such as linear patterns in Assurbanipal’s lion hunt reliefs, further suggest the imagery in the palaces was intended as a visual game for the elite to play. 67 Looking through the doorways too would likely have been part of the mental exercise intended for the elite.

NON-ASSYRIAN METHODOLOGIES

Beatrice Kitzinger’s work examines the multivalent identity of the cross in Late-Carolingian Church tradition. Manuscripts (Cambridge, Troyes, Oxford, Angers) and architectural spaces within which the crosses “acted” are used to reconstruct the semiotic value of the cross. 68 For example, ninth-century Bahrani, Rituals of War, p. 242, n. 17. Cifarelli, ‘Gesture and Alterity’. 67 Bersani and Dutoit, ‘Forms of Violence’. 68 Kitzinger’s work looks not just at the iconography of the cross, but identifies how that iconography is generated in three media: three65 66

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Carolingian manuscripts often depict a cross, draped with cloth and set under an arch supported by capitals. Handwritten notes around the cross express praise for the cross corresponding to phrases of various antiphons used for feasts of the Cross, as well as prayer tropes. These manuscripts are introduced not by a purely conceptual cross (signum crucis), but by a network of cross-signs and texts that refer to the role of the cross within the Church. The reading, writing, and gesticulation involved in the liturgy was an inherent part of the experience of the manuscript. In fact, the book itself, and other liturgical objects, can become a substitute for architectural church space. 69 Memory and cognition on the part of both the liturgical performer and the audience give agency to the image of the book-cross. 70 Returning to Sennacherib’s palace, and looking at the doorway views through the eyes of Kitzinger, we can unlock the relationship of the booty/luxury items within the context of two-dimensional representation on the walls. It is likely we are seeing on the walls re-presentations of actual objects that were present physically and cognitively for the audience. Booty becomes a sign for Assyrian power, and the linking of those images within the mind and memory of the Assyrians, as an embedded sign, would always be linked with the architectural experience through its relationship with military might as its co-sign. Wall inscription and text of course also would be considered in such an analysis. dimensional sculptural crosses, two-dimensional and relief architectural examples, and two-dimensional manuscript representations. In relation to the two-dimensional representations of crosses in manuscripts, their meaning can be found in examining how the liturgy is spoken within the space—the spoken word is therefore an integral part of experiencing the image. All examples of visual use of the cross identify the use of a particular iconography within a narrative program; not only is the cross integral to a coherent program, but it is capable of expressing, absorbing, and then re-defining notions of time and space—and much if this has to do with how the image is experienced within a particular architectural setting (Kitzinger, Cross and Book). 69 Kitzinger, Cross and Book, p. 263. 70 Kitzinger, Cross and Book, p. 265.

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Jeffrey Quilter’s work on Moche public art incorporates semiotic analysis with phenomenology of architecture in relation to patronage and intended audience. 71 Pre-Moche wall decoration features incised monster heads that subsequently develop into abstracted images. Abstracted versions such as those from Chavin de Huantar are composed of complicated yet legible symbolic images, frequently utilizing bilateral symmetry and anatropism (180 degree rotation), representative of the supernatural. 72 Stele like these existed in labyrinthine temple interiors capable of emitting rumblings and otherworldly noises as occupants moved through, contributing to a sense of disorientation. Art from Chavin was some of the most elaborate art ever produced in the Americas, and was likely made not for an internal audience, but to impress outsiders. 73 Later Moche art, due to its positioning within architectural public space, and its compositional characteristics within the picture plane, appear to have been designed in a more straightforward style. Art from the Moche period was in the service of a religion and political system that was tied to it, unlike that from earlier traditions. Presentation scenes from Mural E Panamarca are believed to have been imitations of actual ceremonies that took place—the pictures represent in perpetuity ritual dramas that were played out in real time. Other Moche images, such as the friezes from Huaca de la Luna, did not replicate human action but served as a backdrop for ritual activity. 74 In the case of Andean art, there was a change in monumental public art upon the emergence of a more hierarchical Moche society. In Assyrian tradition there is a drive to make the visual narrative distinctly legible over time as audience context changes; subject matter and compositional style in relief changes from one king to another. In Sennacherib’s case, a more detailed, yet distinctly styled landscape helped to produce a more legible style like parallel to the Moche. We can also understand Sennacherib’s Quilter, ‘Moche Mimesis’, p. 21. Quilter, ‘Moche Mimesis’. 73 Quilter, ‘Moche Mimesis’, p. 30. 74 Quilter, ‘Moche Mimesis’, p. 41. 71 72

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reliefs as a stageset, like the Moche temple walls. The two categories of Moche wall art, narrative and confrontational, mirror those in Sennacherib’s tradition. In both times and places there is a need for distinctive visual settings for distinctive types of audience participation. Ethnographist Setha Low has sought to physically and conceptually locate social relations and social practice within community space, prioritizing the body’s actions in space over the force or power the architecture superimposes over the body. 75 Much of her work builds on Foucault, studying what happens to the body when it is in enclosed space. 76 However she also follows Bourdieu in her identification of the habitus, and the connection between the body of the structure and ritual practices that occur around it. She has examined how two public plazas in Costa Rica (Plaza de la Cultura and the Parque Central) have become defined and claimed by different groups and sociopolitical forces who equally furnish the space with differing symbolic meaning. Through ethnographic research, observations in the plaza, interviews, and archival research she is able to demonstrate: there is a relationship between the production of public space and peoples’ experience of them; the relationship is dialogic (not dialectic); and act as containers permitting resistance, counterresistance, and change to occur publicly and relatively safely. Low also suggests that this process is part of a process of conflict resolution between people/groups interacting through an ever-more globalized setting, while still identifying that site as maintaining a distinct cultural identity. 77 What would it look like if we were to apply this methodology to Sennacherib’s palace? Of course again we need more research on the occupants of the palace. Many scholars of Assyrian art have approached such an examination of audience. One example would be Bersani who suggests that the Assyrian elite might have looked at the reliefs as a visual pastime—that the reliefs were a jumpingLow, ‘Spatializing Culture’. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 198. 77 Low, ‘Spatializing Culture’, p. 865. 75 76

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off point for leisurely social interaction and recreation. 78 In the case of Sennacherib’s program, if the king were entertaining members of his court, we could imagine, based on Low’s conclusion around globalization, that the visual program would be read as one that identifies the Assyrian audience as playing various roles within a globalized world, perhaps as “victor,” or “vanquished.” If the king were interacting with his consorts in the vicinity of doorways that exhibited military themes, perhaps the elite would connote the “other” as the vanquished. However, if interacting around areas with images of the results of that victory, the vanquished would become identified as productive contributors. The question also arises of whether conversational debates among the occupants of the palace might come to resolution in differing ways if they took place in these distinctly themed sectors. Additionally, through Low’s lens, we can begin to understand the continual flux in the symbolic meaning of space as the world changes. A built environment is one that is never fixed due to the changing experiences of its occupants, who return to it time and time again. Therefore, as Sennacherib and his company succeeded in conquering more and more territory, or accumulating more and more assets, they would come back and view the reliefs differently each time. The audience for Assyrian palaces has changed over time, particularly in our time, hence impacting considerations of how the past might be. It has been suggested that Assyrians conceptualized gods and future rulers as audiences for the reliefs. Now we are the audience for the Assyrian palaces. Did the Assyrians count on us? Today’s audience, if they are lucky, might experience the walls of Sennacherib’s palace in the context of Nineveh, Iraq. However, most would experience the wall reliefs in a museum, or perhaps digitally or virtually. What would the Assyrians think of our experiences of these structures? Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach have identified the museum as an ideological ceremonial monument: a setting for a ritual script written by occupants, architecture, art, and installations. 79 Visitors 78 79

Bersani and Dutoit, ‘Forms of Violence’. Duncan and Wallach, ‘The Universal Survey Museum’.

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experience an iconographic program through the museum as a monument. Their case study of the Louvre postulates that floorplan, gallery themes, and particular works of art were originally part of an iconographic program dramatizing the triumph of French civilization in the context of the First Republic. Hence, as we occupy space in museums today, and as museums seek specifically to display Assyrian art for us to experience, we need to be conscious how we come to understand that art in our own time. We as scholars of antiquity are striving to understand how the people of antiquity understood their art, but that art has very different—and very relevant—meaning for today’s audience.

CONCLUSION

The opening plenary at the TAG 2012 asked participants to engage in discussion of a few “big ideas.” One such idea is the drive in human nature to want to explain things that are not visible. As investigators into the past, scholars seek explanations for things that just aren’t possible to know. This big idea boils down to the fact that the collection of objects and the reconstitution of them into an imagined construct is problematic. To refine attempts at answering the big question, scholars must turn to theory to structure the data. The use of phenomenology and social theory in material analysis is making imagined spaces less problematic. However, until time travel is possible, scholars are still left without primary source experience. An alternative to such a first-person experience, offered in memory of Sam Paley, might prove useful. Looking at our own experiences and those of the world population within these structures can give us some sense of the diversity of experiences that might have occurred during the structures’ initial lives. As we work as educators, it is imperative that we consider the experiences of diverse audiences in respect to ancient art. For example, a group of third graders in New York City took part in a ‘learning to look’ exercise at the Brooklyn Museum. When asked who the Assyrian images remind them of, an overwhelmingly common response is some type of superhero. Such responses can help us to metaphorically understand the reaction the images might have elicited from Assyrian audiences. Who were the Assyrian superheroes? And why does humankind need superheroes? What is it about our nature that makes us inclined to believe in something

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we cannot see or understand? Vast data sets can be collected around today’s audience experiences, generating opportunities for new research. If we are ever to get at the diversity of audience the Assyrians intended for their palaces, perhaps we can consider today’s audience diversity in our modern equivalent of Assyrian palaces—museums, churches, and other built spaces.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Hauptmann (eds), Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten. XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.-10. Juli 1992, Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient, 6, Heidelberg, pp. 239–246. Duncan, C and Wallach, A 1980, ‘The Universal Survey Museum’, Art History, vol. 3, pp. 448–69. Foucault, M 1975, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York. Giddens, A 1984, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Berkeley. Harmanşah, Ö 2007a, ‘‘Source of the Tigris’. Event, Place, and Performance in the Assyrian Landscapes of the Early Iron Age’, Archaeological Dialogues, vo. 14, pp. 179–204. ——— 2007b, ‘Upright Stones and Building Narratives’, in J Cheng and M H Feldman (eds), Ancient Near Eatern Art in Context, Leiden, pp. 68–99. Herbordt, S 1997, ‘Neo-Assyrian Royal and Administrative Seals and Their Use’, in H Waetzoldt and H Hauptmann (eds), Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten. XXXIXe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Heidelberg 6.-10. Juli 1992, Heidelberger Studien zum Alten Orient, 6, Heidelberg, pp. 279–84. Inomata, T and Cohen, L S (eds) 2006, Archaeology of Performance: Theatres of Power, Community and Politics, Lanham, MD. Kitzinger, B 2012, Cross and Book: Late-Carolingian Breton Gospel Illumination and the Instrumental Cross, Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University. Lawrence, D L and Low S M Low 1990, ‘The Built Environment and Spatial Form’, Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 19, pp. 453–505. Layard, A H 1849, Nineveh and Its Remains, London. ——— 1853, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, London. Lévi-Strauss, C 1963, Structural Anthropology, Garden City, NJ. Liverani, M 1979, ‘The Ideology of the Assyrian Empire’, in M Larsen (ed.), Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires, Copenhagen, pp. 297–318. ——— 1981, ‘Critique of Variants and the Titulary of Sennacherib’, in F M Fales (ed.), Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological, and Historical Analysis, Rome, pp. 225–57.

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Postgate, J N 1992, ‘The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur’, in J F Cherry (ed.), Archaeology of Empires, Routledge, pp. 247–63. Quilter, J 2001, ‘Moche Mimesis: Continuity and Change in Public Art in Early Peru’, in J Pillsbury (ed.), Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru, Washington, pp. 21–44. Radner, K 2010, ‘Gatekeepers and Lock Masters: The Control of Access in Assyrian Palaces’, in H D Baker, E Robson and G Zolyomi (eds), Your Praise is Sweet: A Memorial Volume for Jeremy Black from Students Colleagues, and Friends, London, pp. 269–80. Reade, J E 1978, ‘Studies in Assyrian Geography Part I: Sennacherib and the Waters of Nineveh’, Revue d’Assyriologie, vol. 68, pp. 47–72. ——— 1979a, ‘Ideology and Propoganda in Assyrian Art’, in M T Larsen (ed.), Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires, Copenhagen, pp. 329–43. ——— 1979b, ‘Narrative Composition in Assyrian Sculpture’, Baghdader Mitteilungen, vol. 10, pp. 52–110. ——— 1980a, ‘Space, Scale, and Significance in Assyrian Art’, Baghdader Mitteilungen, vol. 11, pp. 45–70. ——— 1980b, ‘The Architectural Context of Assyrian Sculpture’, Baghdader Mitteilungen, vol. 11, pp. 75–87. ——— 1981, ‘Neo-Assyrian monuments in their historical context’, in F M Fales (ed.), Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New horizons in literary, ideological and historical analysis, Rome, pp. 143–67. ——— 2004, ‘The Historical Status of the Assur Stelas’, in J G Derksen (ed.), Assyria and Beyond, Studies Presented to Mogens Trolle Larsen, Leiden, pp. 455–71. Rivaroli, M 2004, ‘Nineveh: From Ideology to Topography’, Iraq, vol. 66, pp. 199–205. Russell, J M 1985, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival: A Programmatical Study of Texts and Images in a Late Assyrian Palace, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. ——— 1987, ‘Bulls for the palace and order in the empire: The sculptural program of Sennacherib’s Court VI at Nineveh’, Art Bulletin, vol. 69, pp. 520–39. ——— 1991, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival at Nineveh, Chicago. ——— 1993, ‘Sennacherib’s Lachish Narratives’, in P J Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, Cambridge, pp. 55–73.

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——— 1998a, The Final Sack of Nineveh: The Discovery, Documentation, and Destruction of King Sennacherib’s Throne Room at Nineveh, Iraq, New Haven. ——— 1998b, ‘The Program of the Palace of Assurnasirpal II at Nimrud: Issues in the Research and Presentation of Assyrian Art’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 102, pp. 655–715. ——— 1999, The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions, Winona Lake. Schafer, A 2011, ‘Storied Walls: Assyrian Palaces and the Performed spaces of Empire’, Unpublished paper presented at the 2011 College Art Association annual conference, New York. Summers, D 2003, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism, London. Tadmor, H 1981, ‘History and Ideology in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions, in F M Fales (ed.), Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological, and Historical Analysis, Rome, pp 13-33. Thomason, A K 2001, ‘Representations of the North Syrian Landscape in Neo-Assyrian Art’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, vol. 323, pp. 63–96. ——— 2004, ‘Sennacherib’s Bronzes to Taharqa’s Feet: Conceptions of the Material World at Nineveh’, Iraq, vol. 66, pp. 151–62. ——— 2005, Luxury and Legitimation: Royal Collecting in Ancient Mesopotamia, Aldershot. Turner, G 1970, ‘The State Apartments of Late Assyrian Palaces’, Iraq, vol. 32, pp. 177–213. Ussishkin, D 1982, The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib, Tel Aviv. Winter, I J 1977, ‘Perspective on the ‘Local Style’ of Hasanlu IVB: A Study in Receptivity’, in L D Levine and T C Young Jr (eds), Mountains and Lowlands: Essays in the Archaeology of Greater Mesopotamia, Malibu, pp. 371–86. ——— 1981, ‘Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in the Neo-Assyrian Reliefs’, Studies in Visual Communication, vol. 7, pp. 2–38. ——— 1982, ‘Art as Evidence for Interaction: Relations between the Assyrian Empire and North Syria’, in H-J Nissen and J Renger (eds), Mesopotamien und seine Nachbarn: politische und

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kulturelle Wechsel-beziehungen im Alten Voderasien, Berlin, pp. 355–82. ——— 1983, ‘The Program of the Throne room of Assurnasirpal II’, in P O Harper and H Pittman (eds), Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in honor of Charles Kyle Wilkinson, New York, pp. 15–31. ——— 1993, ‘‘Seat of Kingship’/‘A Wonder to Behold’: The Palace as Construct in the Ancient Near East’, Ars Orientalis, vol. 23, pp. 28–55. ——— 2009, ‘Commensality as an Artifact of Ideology: the View from Neo-Assyrian Palace Reliefs’. Unpublished Conference paper from The Ancient Near East: not-only-history. International Conference in Honour of Mario Liverani, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome.

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF VIRTUAL HERITAGE DONALD H. SANDERS

LEARNING SITES, INC. & THE INSTITUTE FOR THE VISUALIZATION OF HISTORY, INC., MASSACHUSETTS, USA INTRODUCTION Understanding the distant past is not easy; we weren’t there. The discipline of Virtual Heritage emerged in the 1990s to remedy that situation. Archaeologists (those researchers who study the material culture of the past) typically work with lots of jumbled and missing clues, and there is no instruction manual. The goal is to interpret the evidence as best we can to take into account both what was found and what might be missing. The discipline of archaeology arose during the age of fine draftsmanship, meticulously refined color renderings crafted slowly by hand, and equally elaborate prose (Sanders 1988). But that was centuries ago, and not many people these days ride in horse-drawn carriages, write their dissertations with quill pens, or find their way by candlelight. Why then is the study of the past, for the most part, still typified by 18thcentury conventions—hand-drawn plans, static images, and long descriptive text? Those qualities are not bad, but the world (and publication options) has moved on. Past lives, events, and settlement changes did not happen in two dimensions; they did not happen in black and white; and they cannot be adequately portrayed as static segmented slices of time. Practitioners of virtual heritage need to convince the broader historical community, and especially the archaeologists, whose use of images to supplement their written 141

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descriptions is taken for granted, that interactive three-dimensional environments are instructive, not eye candy. Beyond publication, the same necessity to demonstrate the advantages of virtual heritage is needed in the classroom and at the excavation site. Often, when learning about archaeology from slides, students have a tough time deciphering ancient sites from just plans and photographs. Even archaeologists have difficulty interpreting a scatter of rocks, let alone envisioning how ancient people lived and used ancient sites that are now no more than foundation rubble or ruins. Artists’ sketches offer some additional information, but there has to be a better way to teach history.

Fig. 1 – Renderings from the Learning Sites virtual reality model of the Vari House (Attica, Greece; late 4th-early 3rd century BCE); top left=aerial view; top right=andron; bottom left=work space; bottom right=central courtyard); © 2010 Learning Sites, Inc.

It took a while for software to allow us to seek alternatives (Fig. 1), but now with sophisticated 3D modeling packages, physics engines, and game environments, we can begin to appreciate ancient places in ways that approximate the viewpoints of the original inhabitants (either via extracted renderings from the 3D model or by using virtual reality or game engine software to explore the site in real

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time simulating a first-hand experience of the spaces, artifact scatters, sight lines, lighting, and watch virtual characters in their own milieu)—this is one future of virtual heritage. Since the past happened in 3D, that is the way it should be visualized and studied. It is the only way to be sure that our interpretations and hypotheses are as accurate as the evidence permits. The remainder of this essay will cover the fundamentals of virtual heritage and some virtual heritage projects that have been created over the past 20 years by Learning Sites in response to specific archaeological problems, and will conclude with a glimpse at a paradigm shift about to hit excavation fieldwork and visualization.

A (VERY) BRIEF HISTORY OF VIRTUAL HERITAGE (WITH SAMPLE PROJECTS) Already during the late 1980s and early 1990s, sites, buildings, and artifacts were being digitally reconstructed with the output renderings enhanced using image editing tools. 1 In the mid-1990s, a leap in capability occurred when virtual reality (self-directed, realtime navigation through a computer-generated 3D space displaying a synthetic scene) left the lab and hit main street. When a few innovators embraced this technology, digital archaeology spawned virtual heritage (the use of virtual reality technologies for the study and visualization of the past). Virtual ancient worlds created during the 1990s needed huge million-dollar computer graphics workstations to display the 3D spaces and undertake the massive calculations that allowed users to simulate walking through the environments, and usually incorporated head-mounted displays for an immersive virtual experience. Early adopters of virtual reality for visualizing ancient sites (most of whom attended the first international conference on virtual heritage at Bath, England, in November 1995) 2 included: Ben Britton’s re-creation of the caves at Lascaux; Carnegie Mellon’s Temple of Horus and virtual Pompeii; English Heritage 1 2

Forte, Virtual Archaeology; Reilly, ‘Three-Dimensional Modeling’. www.crg.cs.nott.ac.uk/resources/conf/vr/vir-her95.txt

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and Intel Corporation’s Stonehenge; the Italian Power and Light company in conjunction with Infobyte and the Getty Conservation Institute’s Tomb of Nefertari; and the Fortress of Buhen (guarding the Nile River at the ancient Egypt-Nubian border) virtual world created by a group that included the author, an architect, and curators at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Buhen was the first virtual heritage project to link the interactive 3D model with a database that provided virtual visitors with access to drawings, photographs, and descriptive text while still immersed in the world and being led to key locations around the fortress by a virtual tour guide. 3 By the turn of this third millennium, virtual heritage was a globally recognized discipline, with its own professional conferences, 4 hundreds of projects under development, and new tools (especially the widespread use of VRML—virtual reality modeling language, faster graphics cards and processors, and pervasive 3D modeling software) that permitted highly textured worlds to be enjoyed on normal desktop or laptop computers. One Learning Sites project from that era was based on the provincial Assyrian settlement at Til Barsib, Syria, which is comprised of a palace, lower town, and fortification walls mostly dating to the 9th century BCE. The site was excavated by the French between 1929 and 1931. 5 Today, the palace is completely gone with a new village built over its foundations. The palace had the best preserved and most extensive set of Assyrian wall paintings that had survived from Antiquity. The excavation team’s artist (Lucien Cavro) made watercolor copies of them, and then the French team detached the paintings from the wall surfaces and shipped them to the museum in Aleppo, where the ancient work was coated with shellac to protect them. A description and screen shots of the early Buhen models can be found at: www.learningsites.com/EarlyWork/buhen-2.htm 4 Virtual Systems and Multimedia (www.vsmmsociety.org/site/), Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (caaconference.org/), and the International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (www.vast-conference.eu/). 5 Thureau-Dangin et al., Til Barsib. 3

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Old shellac, however, eventually turns opaque and chemically bonds itself to the surface beneath it. Thus, the unique originals can no longer be seen, and the shellac is now fused to the Assyrian paint, making removal impossible. All that leaves for anyone to study are the watercolor copies, but they are in the Musée du Louvre archives. As we built our 3D model, we applied new digital images of the archived drawings as texture maps in our reconstructions. Our visualizations became the first time anyone had seen the surviving decoration back on the walls in simulations their original architectural contexts. Now, the Assyrian rooms and their amazing stories can be fully appreciated as never before in color and in 3D. 6 In another example, Learning Sites was asked to focus on the major problem facing both statesmen and planners in Greece during the 5th century BCE: what to do about the temple of Athena Polias atop the Acropolis burned during the Persian sack of the city. The traditional theory assumed that the rubble was merely cleared away to make space for the Periclean triad—the Erechtheum, Parthenon, and Propylaea (standard reconstructions of the Acropolis show a completely empty space where the old temple once stood). 7 We were to use virtual reality to test a bold new hypothesis: could a damaged Old Athena Temple have remained standing? We sifted through two centuries of excavation data, ancient inscriptions, ancient writers’ descriptions, and 16th–19th centuries travelers’ paintings, engravings, and sketches of the Acropolis. It quickly became clear that, no matter how many times such famous monuments had been measured, none of the sets of dimensions or elevations matched, leaving the buildings floating in 3D space in relation to each other. However, with the help of old photographs in Harvard University’s archives, we were able to definitively fix that relationship by finding foundation blocks in the photos for www.learningsites.com/Barsib/Til-Barsib_home.html Connolly and Dodge, The Ancient City, p. 63; Economakis, Acropolis Restoration, pp. 42–43; Boardman (ed.), The Oxford History of Classical Art, p. 112. 6 7

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which we had good measurements and could thus connect adjacent buildings accurately. Once our virtual reality model had all the major structures correctly placed we could begin to see how the Classical buildings were carefully arranged to take the ruins of the Athena Temple into account (for example, how the crepidoma of the Erechtheum was constructed to mesh and merge perfectly with the steps of the Old Athena Temple or how the new Propylaea was positioned on axis with the Old Athena Temple). We could argue that the Old Athena Temple did remain standing in ruins as a war memorial, that the Erechtheum caryatids should be reinterpreted as mourners (their position and pose overlook precisely where the burned-out cella and thus cult statue location of the Old Athena Temple would have stood), and that, surprisingly, parts of the most important building in all of ancient Athens stood until the early 19th century when they were unceremoniously swept away during the Acropolis clearing that followed the Greek war of independence (as indicated by ashlar walls at the location of the temple still visible in travelers’ depictions of the Acropolis during the 18th century). Thus, seeing the past in 3D forced a correction in the interpretation of basic bits of evidence and generated new, unexpected, insight into monuments that scholars thought they knew well. 8 Recent advances in digital technologies have allowed virtual heritage to inch toward another cusp of innovations. The latest buzz concerns projection holography, laser-plasma virtual displays, autostereo screens, and artificial intelligence-based interactive avatars. Today, databases linked to virtual worlds are common; more complex virtual environments are now easier to build and navigate; and an emphasis on lighting, vegetation, and character development make worlds more engaging. Exploring the past as interactive 3D environments from a point of the original inhabitants allows researchers to ask new questions. For example, how can we study delicate objects, objects discovered in multiple fragments, or objects stored away at distant museums? In 1920, Sir Flinders Petrie’s excavation at Gurob, Egypt, revealed a small disassembled and broken wooden ship 8

Ferrari, ‘The Ancient Temple’.

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model in an unmarked New Kingdom tomb. 9 The pieces are now housed in a drawer at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London. Recent research shows that the model represents a vessel type used by both the Mycenaeans and the Sea Peoples. 10 This model is the most detailed representation presently known and is unique among all known examples in its polychrome painted decoration. With such broken and fragile objects, museums are not about to allow anyone to handle and “experiment” with its many pieces and possible configurations while trying to figure out its original form. Our tasks were not only to use photographs and drawings to recreate various versions of the ship (as-found and as-built) but also to devise new tools for manipulating our virtual reconstruction so researchers could compare various iterations with known representations of similar ships. The as-built virtual reality model includes a switch that turns on and off a series of controls that, in turn, allow online users to change the size and/or direction or position of various parts of the ship model (such as, the quarter rudder, the beak-head, the stanchions, and wheels). Users can then reconfigure the ship model as they wish or as they feel it better corresponds to their interpretation of the evidence. Thus, interactive 3D models can provide global access to delicate and distant objects, enabling new and more efficient and effective analyses. New types of hybrid publications can also result, allowing the pairing of paper and digital modes to take advantage of what each does best. 11 One Learning Sites project, that has evolved from the earliest days of virtual heritage until today, is the virtual re-creation of the Northwest Palace (so-called because it is located at the North-West corner of the citadel mound), built by King Ashur-nasir-pal II in the 9th century BCE at Nimrud, in northern Iraq. This best preserved of the ancient Assyrian palaces was excavated first by Brunton and Englebach, Gurob. Wachsmann, The Gurob Ship-Cart Model. 11 Wachsmann, The Gurob Ship-Cart Model and: www.vizin.org/Gurob/Gurob.html 9

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Austen Henry Layard from 1845–1851. 12 Drawings from his publications show how Layard and his team removed from the ruins the collapsed brick decoration and stone bas-reliefs that ornamented the palace’s walls. Visitors came to Nimrud both during and after Layard’s excavations and received permission, literally, to mine the site of what were deemed duplicate images, some of them among the finest examples of 9th century sculpture (best testified in letters sent from Nimrud back home and now found in college archives across New England). We now document the whereabouts of well over three hundred complete or fragmentary sculptures from the palace out of context in at least seventy-five museums and private collections around the world, and the numbers keep rising. 13 Because of the sculpture’s global distribution and their vast numbers, neither scholars nor the general public can fully comprehend the palace or its sculptural and architectural splendor as King Ashur-nasir-pal intended or as the ancient Assyrians once used the complex. Thus, our understanding of the monument is severely limited and interpretations of it based on a set of badly disjointed and scattered evidence. In 1992, a restoration on paper of the evidence about the palace was completed by Samuel M. Paley (Assyriologist) and Richard Sobolewski (the architect from the Polish team who worked at the site during the 1970s). Their investigative process proceeded generally as follows: 1) describe the condition and whereabouts of each known relief and fragment of relief; 2) devise a scheme that took into account the direction in which each figure stood for those reliefs still in situ; 3) assemble photos of the pieces known and thought to belong to each room according to the new Layard, Nineveh and its Remains; Layard, Monuments of Nineveh. That phrasing was accurate as of the writing of this article, but since then, in the spring of 2015, the Northwest Palace at Nimrud was (presumably) purposely dynamited and totally destroyed by the group calling itself the Islamic State (see, for example, http://www.independent.co.uk/ news/world/middle-east/isis-video-shows-complete-destruction-ofancient-city-of-nimrud-in-iraq-10170469.html). 13 Reade, ‘New Lives for Old Stones’. 12

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schematic; 4) paste up the photos at scale and try to determine joins, narrative program details, and patterns; and 5) provide the finished results to an artist who produced publication drawings. The reliefs in each room could then be visualized as whole compositions; but the process took years. 14

Fig. 2 – Renderings from the Learning Sites virtual reality model of the Northwest Palace of King Ashur-nasir-pal II at Nimrud (ancient Assyria; modern Iraq; 9th century BCE); left=view from the king’s point of view looking down the throne room; upper right=view toward the throne showing the king and his attendant leaving the room; lower right=one corner of the Great Northern Courtyard); © 2011 Learning Sites, Inc.

Many virtual heritage issues came together in this one project: the limitations of 2D media, site deterioration, loss of object context, and the advantages of 3D modeling. These factors made the building and its history an ideal candidate for the application of Paley and Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations II; Paley and Sobolewski, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations III. 14

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virtual reality technology, with the prospects of rethinking all of our knowledge and assumptions about the palace. When beginning to create texture maps for our computer model, we discovered that the published drawings were not very accurate, not in detail or the shape of figures, nor often in transcription of the inscriptions, which have been relied upon for decades as the basis for cultural extrapolations. This offers a cautionary tale for those relying on period source material—always go back to the originals. To deal with the global dispersal issue, we began contacting those individuals and collections holding reliefs from the palace and negotiating for new digital photographs of the sculpture so that our model could be as precise and detailed as possible. To fill in gaps in the evidence, we have colleagues combing the field notes of the people who have excavated the site over nearly two centuries. Work is progressing (Fig. 2). Work progressed so well, that important new discoveries were being made as a result of visualizing the spaces as 3D models. For example, an important throne room relief (B-13, depicting the king flanked and a human-headed genius standing on either side of the Assyrian “sacred tree” with a winged disc representing the god, Ashur, crowns the tree ) has been recently vandalized (2003, probably during or soon after the first Gulf War). A fully intact and complete duplicate (B-23) of that very iconographically significant relief used to sit behind the throne before Layard shipped it off to the British Museum. Now divorced from its original context, the relief is only an isolated work of art, not a useful piece of history that informs us about Assyrian ritual, the sculptural program of the Throne Room, or about how carefully planned that story was for ancient visitors to the Northwest Palace. Upon looking at the relief behind the throne from inside our virtual reality model, a surprising and previously undiscovered juxtaposition came to light. When looking at the relief with the king on the throne (as opposed to when he was not sitting in front of the relief), it became apparent that the king would have obscured and, thus, visually substituted for the central tree when the scene would have been seen by visitors. The focus of the scene would then become the king, rather than the tree, an iconographical nuance heretofore unrecognized until our models demonstrated this relationship—the tree substitutes for the king in his absence or in special spatial

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alignments (such as in relief B-13, which was placed so that it can be seen on center through the large middle doorway leading from the Great Northern Courtyard into the Throne Room, most likely a purely ceremonial entry). Therefore, through the use of interactive 3D graphics, we can replicate the look and feel of the palace’s rooms, experience the whole from the ancient Assyrian’s point of view, and see complex spatial relationships in ways impossible with traditional 2D media. This exercise immediately provided new insight into Assyrian architecture, use of lighting, the carefully planned locational relationship between the wall reliefs and interior circulation and sightlines, and thus about the iconographic and propagandistic purposes of reliefs and the functions of spaces. In the process, Assyriologists came to realize how much data are missing despite 160 years of research; and how wrong the long-accepted illustrations and interpretations of the building have been.

CONCLUSION AND ONE FUTURE OF ARCHAEOLOGY Nearly two decades of virtual heritage have proven that there is: • no better way to test the validity of archaeological assumptions; • no better way to test spatial, behavioral, and temporal hypotheses; • no better way to test the accuracy of past interpretations and evidence; • no better way to assemble globally dispersed artifacts back into a simulation of their original contexts; • no better way to visualize intrasite change and development; and • no better way to absorb complex datasets about the past than visually, interactively, and in 3D—just as we do in real life.

What is really important is that we need virtual heritage in order to do our best work; and anything less than our best work would be unfair to our colleagues and the public. In any case, the benefits and advantages of virtual heritage can be enhanced dramatically by envisioning a not-so-distant future for archaeology that embraces computer vision, social media, and cloud-sourcing.

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Imagine that we visit the fictional site of Trogitz, where the fieldteam arrives with their usual equipment, that is, nothing but a few hand-held devices (smartphones or touchpad/tablets). As the dig proceeds, progress photographs are taken with the hand-held devices, showing all changes in depth, all soil changes, all in situ finds, and some skirting shots of the surrounding landscape. While the fieldteam works, entering observations and object descriptions onto Web-based forms via the hand-held devices, photographs are automatically linked to finds and geo-referenced from trench to trench. Simultaneously, data extracted from the images are automatically converted into virtual reality models, each fully textured, dimensionable, and linked to appropriate database notes, daily finds, plans, and photographs (Fig. 3). Every time an artifact is uncovered, it, too, is fully photographed during its excavation and after its removal and cleaning. These photos also are used to automatically create and geo-reference into their appropriate contexts virtual reality object models. This process continues as the season unfolds—no laser scanners, no survey equipment, no architects, no waiting until the end of the season for analysis—and publication-ready results. Uploading excavation information, taking field notes, doing hypothesis testing, preparing 3D models of architecture, querying the evidence so that dig strategies can be readily adjusted, and preparing publishable output ALL happen in real time, as the excavation unfolds. This is a totally new, more efficient and effective way of working. This is REVEAL (Reconstruction and Exploratory Visualization: Engineering meets ArchaeoLogy), a revolutionary, unique, and free software package, and the only one excavations may ever need for fieldwork. 15 REVEAL is the product of a four-year US National Science Foundation-funded project and was created through a collaboration among the Institute for the Visualization of History, Brown University’s REVEAL: www.vizin.org/projects/reveal/project.html (for project descriptions; last accessed 2/28/13) or: sourceforge.net/projects/revealanalyze/ (for software download and documentation; last accessed 2/28/13; if you decide to try REVEAL, please let us know at [email protected]). 15

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Division of Engineering, Laboratory for Man/Machine Systems, and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 16

Fig. 3 – Screen grab from REVEAL with a typical layout of displays (left=index pane; center=photograph and 3D model browsers; right=virtual reality browser showing the 3D model created automatically from the photographs taken during excavation and displayed in the central browser display); © 2012 Institute for the Visualization of History, Inc.

There is more to the Trogitz story. While all the data about the excavation and its artifacts are being digitally recorded and documented, 3D models are being built, and new questions about the excavation are formulated, the continually updated database and the linked virtual reality models are uploaded to the Trogitz online collaborative network, where “friends” of Trogitz can Grant #0808718: www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0808718 entitled “III-CXT-Core Computer Vision Research: Promoting Paradigm Shifts in Archaeology”. 16

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explore the excavation models in real-time, search the database in real-time, and comment on the results by posting e-notes inside the virtual worlds of each trench. These digital markers can be instantly read by other “friends” or by the fieldteam, allowing for global collaborations in real-time while the excavation progresses. Experts can advise the fieldteam in ways that would normally take years; publication-ready analyses, visualizations, and reports can be created and disseminated on demand rather than waiting years; and classroom-ready materials await the next semester’s classes so that teachers and students always use the most recent, most accurate, and most comprehensive data possible. This wild-and-crazy Trogitz scenario is becoming a reality right now, as REVEAL programmers expand the functionality of the software, and the package is used at excavations around the world. Soon, all of us will have location-aware smart eyeglasses with embedded computers and high-resolution cameras; link them to a 3D-based semantic Internet with the capability of projecting holographic images of REVEAL-created virtual reality models and you have a personal virtual time machine. Please use it wisely. How much we can learn from archaeological investigations depends not only on the questions we ask about the past, but equally on the visualizations, virtual or otherwise, chosen to illuminate the answers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Boardman, J (ed.) 1993, The Oxford History of Classical Art, Oxford. Brunton, G. and R. Engelbach, 1927, Gurob, London. Connolly, P and Dodge, H 1998, The Ancient City: life in Classical Athens & Rome, Oxford. Economakis, R 1994, Acropolis Restoration: the CCAM intervention, London. Ferrari, G 2002, ‘The Ancient Temple on the Acropolis at Athens’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 106, no. 1, pp. 11–35. Forte, M 1997, Virtual Archaeology: re-creating ancient worlds, New York. Layard, A H 1848–49, Nineveh and its Remains, 2 vols, London. ——— 1849–53, Monuments of Nineveh, 2 vols, London. Paley, S M and Sobolewski R P 1987, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest-Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) II (BaF 10), Mainz am Rhein.

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——— 1992, The Reconstruction of the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest-Palace at Kalhu (Nimrud) III (BaF 14), Mainz am Rhein. Reade, J E 2010, ‘New Lives for Old Stones’, Iraq, vol. 72, pp. 163– 74. Reilly, P 1992, ‘Three-Dimensional Modeling and Primary Archaeological Data’, in P Reilly and S Rahtz (eds), Archaeology and the Information Age: a global perspective, London and New York, pp. 147–73. Sanders, D 1988, ‘Architecture: The Neglected Artifact’, in E B French and K A Wardle (eds), Problems in Prehistory, Bristol, pp. 489–98. Thureau-Dangin, F, Dunand, M, Cavro L and Dossin, G 1936, Til Barsib, Paris. Wachsmann, S 2013, The Gurob Ship-Cart Model and Its Mediterranean Context, College Station, TX (with an accompanying online virtual reality supplement at: www.vizin.org/Gurob/Gurob.html; last accessed Feb. 4, 2013).

WHAT MIGHT A FIELD ARCHAEOLOGIST WANT FROM AN ARCHITECTURAL 3D MODEL? FEDERICO BUCCELLATI

GOETHE UNIVERSITÄT – FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY 3D modeling of architecture has become more and more sophisticated over the last three decades. The aim of this development has been primarily to increase the visual quality of the final model, both in terms of the number of polygons which define a surface as well as the resolution and quality of the textures applied to these surfaces; additionally, the space in which the model is placed also becomes more complex, including such elements as atmospheric condition modeling. This sophistication has resulted, as a necessary and understandable consequence, in the fact that the creation of 3D models has become a more complicated process, and requires special training—universities today offer both undergraduate and graduate-level degrees in 3D modeling. Thus the common practice in archaeology is for a field archaeologist to get a professional company or a team from a university technology department to come to the excavation and produce a model. Normally they come to the excavation for a few days or a week, collecting data; then they produce a very detailed model, using the latest software and/or hardware. The end-result of such a model, for the archaeologists, is often a collection of 2D JPEG images, and perhaps a film clip showing a walk-through. 1 I am not laying blame here at the feet of the IT departments—the application of 3D programs to archaeological projects has been very 1

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What value does this have for the archaeological project? The primary value of this result is in communication, where the still images can be used as slides, printed out and shown at the site or used in publications. The walk-through in particular can also be quite useful in a didactic setting, giving the possibility to demonstrate the impact of the architecture on a visitor or spectator. 2 This is certainly a laudable goal, and some wonderful projects have been published and made available to a wider audience; furthermore, some very interesting work has been done on thematic and visual relationships vis-à-vis architecture and decoration. However, there is a growing problem regarding the relationship between the field archaeologist and these 3D models: that of interactivity. It is quite difficult for the archaeologist to interact with the 3D model itself: first, the hardware required to run the necessary software can be quite expensive, and difficult to set up. While the 3D modeling team gives a copy of the model itself to the archaeologists, the software used to view the model is often quite expensive and runs only on high-end computer systems. The second hurdle for an archaeologist is that the software used is quite complex, and therefore opening, manipulating and exporting portions or new images of the model requires a big investment in time to learn to use the software. Thus a metaphor I like to use for this situation is that of a UFO visit: a team whose skills are nearly incomprehensible to the locals arrives, collects a lot of data and asks a lot of questions, then after few days departs, never to be heard from again, leaving a nearly magical final product behind. How this product came to be limited, both within the classroom environment as well as in the field (Forte, ‘Virtual Archaeology’). The fact that the programs used were originally designed for illustration tends to influence the product of such work as well (Frischer, ‘Introduction: From Digital Illustration’), while the choice behind the types of illustration should instead be guided by the purpose of the illustration itself (Frankland, ‘A CG Artist’s Impression’). 2 For more see Lock, Using Computers in Archaeology, pp. 152–4 and Micale, “From Drawing to Vision”.

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is unclear to the ‘locals’, and its use is very limited vis-à-vis the functionality it would have in the hands of one of the ‘aliens’. This is of course an oversimplified ‘tongue-in-cheek’ analogy for what goes on, but it serves to highlight the problems: the lack of long-term interaction between the modeling team and the archaeologists, and the lack of understanding as to how to manipulate the final product and use all of its potential within the archaeological process.

THE PROBLEM OF INTERACTION: ARCHAEOLOGY AND 3D TECHNOLOGY This want of long-term interaction between the archaeologists and the modelers is worth exploring more in depth: three main points of difference are responsible for this lack of interaction: accuracy, didactics and stratigraphy. Accuracy Computer scientists and model builders look primarily for accuracy in terms of verisimilitude in the model. This often leads to a great deal of energy invested in applying textures which most resemble the material present in the excavation. Accuracy for the archaeologist does not mean visible verisimilitude, but rather measurable precision. This means that the corners of walls, rabbeting and floors must be represented as less than 90 degrees, jagged or uneven, if that is what is present in the archaeological record. All too often these uneven lines present in the excavation are often ‘corrected’ in a 3D model—the tops of walls in the archaeological record, for example, which are almost always jagged, curved or sloping, are represented as flat level surfaces, if not directly reconstructed to a ‘standard’ height. Concisely, the 3D modeler aims at ‘visual’ accuracy, while the archaeologist wants ‘measurable’ accuracy.

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Use of the Model The second difference in perspective between the 3D modeler and the archaeologist is the question of the use of the model. 3 The 3D modeler often aims to represent the building as a reconstruction of what it probably looked like. The archaeologist, on the other hand, wants a model to show both the building as it was found and the specific context, either with other buildings, or with the material found within the building, or to compare the perception of volumes between this and another building’s 3D model. Thus, what the 3D modeler sees as a finished, architectural product as a ‘singular perfection’, the archaeologist sees as the central and original building block to which other data must be added. 3D qua reconstruction is a case in point: the 3D modeler wants to know from the archaeologist ‘how things were’ to create a single final model, while the archaeologist is interested in using the model as a tool to see and compare different reconstruction possibilities, all of which are possible. Such different possibilities lead to scholarly discussions which improve not only the model but our understanding of the past as well. 4 Stratigraphy: The Fourth Dimension Finally, the 3D modeler sees a building with the eyes of an architect, looking at a frozen three dimensional object, executed as For an interesting overview of the various uses of a 3D model, see the discussion in Wittur, Computer-Generated 3D-Visualisations, pp. 15–9). Some of the most transformed models (in meaning and in architecture) can be found in computer games (Gardner, ‘The Past as Playground’). Micale also makes the case for 3D models as a means of ‘experiencing’ architecture, but warns also of the danger of using reconstructions in the stead of archaeological data (Micale, ‘‘From Drawing to Vision’). 4 One of many examples of this scholarly dimension is Johanson and Frischer’s work with the Sanctuary of the Sun in modern Bolivia (Frischer and Johanson, ‘A Digital Model of the Inca Sanctuary’). One of the earliest books made for a wider audience which included explanations of the scholarly value of 3D models was published in 1997 (Forte and Siliotti, Virtual Archaeology). 3

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planned. 5 The archaeologist, however, looks at a building and sees a process of use over time, the buildup of stratigraphic evidence in the building showing the changing functions of rooms and installations. The element of time can be very difficult to introduce into a model, in part because the programs used are not designed to include time as a dimension: the very definition of a CAD program is that it produces a single frozen model. One particularly successful attempt was the 3D model of ancient Troy produced for the exhibit “TROIA—Traum und Wirklichkeit” which included a slider designed to allow the user to change the model based on the chosen time period (“TROIA Traum und Wirklichkeit” 2013; “Troia VR” 2013). The project was, however, only possible through the intense collaboration throughout the modeling process between the archaeologists and the modelers. Another example is the work of U. Lieberwirth with data from the Akroterion excavations which uses the GRASS software to analyze stratigraphic volumes. 6 Desiderata 7 With the problem now defined, the question remains: what elements might be changed in order to better serve the needs of a field project? The following seven desiderata cover, on a general

Even Zevi’s insistence on the four-dimensions of architecture does not really encompass what the archaeologist sees; Zevi’s four-dimensions are limited to the experience of a visitor moving through a building over minutes or hours, and not the changes a building goes through over years (Zevi, Architettura in nuce, pp. 47–51). 6 Lieberwirth, ‘Voxel-Based 3D GIS’. 7 I use the term ‘desiderata’ here, hopefully correctly, in the sense of ‘a collection of those points which I have found lacking in some applications of 3D models’. See Fowler’s amusing entry regarding ‘desiderate’— “desiderate (feel the want of, ‘think long for’) is a useful word in its place, but is so often misplaced that we might be better without it…” (Fowler and Gowers, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, p. 126). 5

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level, what an active field project 8 needs from a 3D model. The aim of this portion of this paper is to discuss the reasons behind the needs for these desiderata, so that a field project with limited experience in dealing with 3D models can approach the technology, and those who are experts in using it, with a real aim of integrating the results into their research project. Precision in reflecting the actual archaeological record The 3D model must reflect the actual archaeological record—the structure as found. Ideally, this means that the model would be constructed of 3D solid shapes, so that the volumes of the archaeological record are present as volumes in the model. The ‘inconsistencies’ of the archaeological record should be present in the model as well, both in terms of ‘inconsistencies’ in the ancient architecture as well as the damage that the building has suffered over time. Ancient buildings often seem to follow an ‘ideal’ architectural layout (square corners, even rabbeting, etc.), but the reality of the architectural record sometimes is at variance with what one would expect from such an ideal plan. This variance is of great interest to the study of the archaeological record, and in fact 3D models can be of great use in identifying these differences which might otherwise escape a mere visual inspection. What is being modeled is not a building, but is a ruin. Thus the architectural plan has been affected by later incursions such as pits or foundation cuts. These man-made elements alter, sometimes drastically, the architecture ‘as found’ as opposed to the footprint one can extrapolate from the building’s architectural lines. In addition, buildings near the surface of archaeological sites are often damaged by natural causes, such as seasonal streams (wadis) or the undercutting of rivers which change their course over time. These natural phenomena also change the building, leaving an Were the model being built for a project which was no longer being excavated some of these ‘desiderata’ might be different, but in general the points would still hold. 8

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archaeological record which reflects only in part the structure to be understood as a complete architectural complex. Use, as much as possible, data already collected in the field It can be useful to use data already being collected during the normal course of excavations. Time in the field is always at a premium, and if a system can employ the data already collected in the normal course of archaeological documentation of a site, then it is more likely that this data will be collected on a regular basis. There is a further advantage in using data that is already being collected: the integration into current excavation strategies and the applicability to older datasets. If the data is collected on a regular basis because it is part of the archaeological documentation, then it is more likely that the 3D model will also be generated on a regular basis and integrated into the decision-making process which guides excavation strategy. 9 Furthermore, the use of data normally collected (in as far as possible) means that older datasets from excavations which did not explicitly document for a 3D model can still be used to create 3D visualizations. Often there are newer technologies which allow for a more rapid collection of measurements, but one needs to take into consideration the fact that such systems may have ‘hidden’ disadvantages: some are not necessarily available for the duration of the whole excavation period, while others may not be easy enough for several staff members to learn to use effectively. Also, the data from specialized equipment may need long postprocessing times, so that the actual collection of data is very fast and extremely accurate, but the time it takes to extrapolate absolute (or site-relative) coordinates from the initial data takes considerably longer. Thus an excavation that measures the wall corners in a unified local grid system and measures the elevations of wall-tops and floor levels, already has almost all of the data needed to create a model.

100.

9

See also Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati, Mozan 1: The Soundings, p.

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Have the results available in a lasting format To insure the durability of the data, it is important that what is collected in the field be conserved in a format that will be legible and useful to archaeologists and modelers long after the programs we use today have gone out of use. Too often wonderful projects are lost to posterity because the program used to create them no longer exists, or have changed to the extent that they no longer open older files adequately. 10 Just to name a few examples: Access 98 files which can be opened only partially with later versions of the program, or older DOS programs like Reflex or Lotus 1-2-3 (precursors of spreadsheet programs), Fontasy (a precursor of layout programs like InDesign) or QuickBasic (one of the first nested programming languages). In a field where one of the most important sources are the texts discovered through archaeology, it seems incongruous that some of the tools we use to document that record have such short lifespans. 11 Allow for the integration of stratigraphy as well as architecture Ideally, the models produced in and for an archaeological project should not be limited to the reconstruction of architecture, but should also allow for the possibility that the user would want to reflect stratigraphic relationships. The ability to integrate diverse construction phases, different types of accumulations and the findspots of objects are all fundamental elements in the archaeologist’s understanding of the archaeological record, and as such should be planned for in the building of models which reflect that record. Seldom are the buildings found in an archaeological excavation built in a single moment and used uniformly over time As opposed to physical 3D models, which are preserved as documents of their time and the buildings that they represent; see for example Oechslin’s article on 3D models from the Renaissance (Oechslin, ‘Architekturmodell: ‘Idea materialis’’). 11 For a discussion of archaeological publishing in general vis-à-vis open standards and data perseverance, see Kansa, Whitcher Kansa and Watrall, Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches. 10

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for a single set of functions—it is rather the case that the structures found in an excavation were built over a period of time, showing differences in construction techniques. Later activity in the building might have different architectural needs, so a doorway might be modified or light sources added or blocked. A model which is designed to reflect a building discovered in an archaeological context should reflect those differences. Within the structures uncovered (as well as in the open spaces within the urban texture, for that matter) a series of accumulations reflect the use over time of a structure, including layers of abandonment and structural collapse. Here too, the model should be designed to reflect not only the constructed elements, but also the accumulations which reflect their use over time. The model would then contain volumes which define architectural elements but also define stratigraphic volumes just as well. By integrating both in a single model over several layers, it is possible to visualize not only the constructed space with all of its modifications, but also these patterns of use as present in the accumulations found within. Allow for the inclusion of objects In addition to the stratigraphic elements, the model should also allow for the inclusion of objects, so that studies such as distribution analyses can be carried out hand-in-hand with a model which reflects the architectural/stratigraphic situation. The moveable and immovable finds in an excavation are, obviously, inexorably linked—and this connection should also be planned for in a model. Precisely the connection between architecture, stratigraphic elements and the distribution of objects and pottery within them is the foundation for all archaeological interpretation; thus the models built should reflect those relationships in order to aid in archaeological research and communicate the results of said research. Thus the model becomes not only a way of visualizing an ancient structure, but a way of exploring the multiplicity of

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relationships present in an excavation, 12 with the aim of providing a supporting argument for a proposed line of interpretation. Allow for change and expansion of the data The model should be easily manipulated, allowing for incremental change in the model as the understanding of the archaeological record grows or is added to through further excavations. A model such as the one I am proposing should not be ‘planned for’ when the excavation of a structure is ‘finished’. First of all, an archaeological model is nearly never ‘finished’, as it is seldom that a structure is completely excavated, and even if all the walls have been uncovered, a model could always add something more, including more of the ancient urban texture or through the definition of earlier, underlying layers. Furthermore, the idea that the model is to be generated after the archaeological excavation— and concomitant development of interpretations—runs contrary to the ideas proposed in this paper. Thus the model should be designed from the beginning to be incomplete—thereby planning also for the integration of data to be added at a later date, as uncovered through further excavations. 13 This has the fortuitous byproduct of producing a model which can be modified to reflect several different possible reconstructions. If the base model can be easily modified with further excavations, then several different versions of the model could be generated in order to compare diverse reconstructions. Allow for the inclusion of the model in other programs Finally, the model should be in a data format which can be imported into other programs. While the model can be The most recent monograph to highlight the importance of such relationships in an archaeological context is Hodder, Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships. 13 This emphasis on adaptability is also highlighted in M. Shanks article on digital media, in which he refers to the Agile Manifesto for software (see www.agilealliance.org), which holds as one of its tenets the flexibility of the software product (Shanks, ‘Digital Media, Agile Design’). 12

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manipulated within AutoCAD itself, many functions one might need for visualization or analysis are not available. GIS, animation and interaction are three areas where the use of the generated 3D model could be used to understand and communicate the archaeological record, and are little developed in AutoCAD, which is designed primarily for the architectural design. GIS programs allow for the integration of several different datasets such as satellite imagery or GPS terrain models, and can be of great use in sitewide analysis as well as on the macro- and microregional levels. 14 QGIS, Grass and SIG are open-source GIS variants which have been used in the field alongside the market leader, ArcGIS. Animation can be of great use when the model is meant to communicate architectural volumes; the movement of the model mimics how one perceives a structure by walking near and in it. 15 Blender is the most common open source program used for animation, while Maya and Studio Max are two commercial programs for Windows which are both owned by Autodesk, the same company which makes AutoCAD—thus they have a vested interest in ensuring cross-program compatibility. Interactive programs allow users to explore the architectural space as an experienced environment. The programs available for such a deployment of the model vary widely; two particularly interesting examples are SecondLife and CaveUT.

CONCLUSION The aim of this paper has been to point out some of the lessons learned by an archaeologist in dealing with a 3D model—not that these points should be seen as necessary for every project, but in the hope that by discussing some of the points of divergence between the approaches of 3D modelers and the needs of A great deal has been written about the integration of GIS in archaeology, for two discussions of vertical integration, see Piro, ‘Archaeologia e formazione’ and Forte, I sistemi informativi geografici. 15 For more on perception see Buccellati, ‘3-D Rendering and Animation’ and Buccellati, ‘The Monumental Temple Terrace at Urkesh’. 14

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archaeologists, a clearer definition of goals from the beginning of such a working relationship can be achieved.

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