Temples of Hard-Sharrukin

Presentation

The city

The king Sargon II of Assyrie, as before him Tukulti-Ninurta Ier and Salmanazar Ier had done it, decided to establish its new residence apart from Assur, the historical capital. It chooses for that a virgin site of any construction, to 16 km in the North-East of Ninive, which it named Hard-Sharrukin. The quadrangular enclosure of its city, of more than one kilometer six hundreds on side, opening of seven doors, was ride by the vast terrace, high of ten meters, which was used as a basis for its palate. With died of Sargon, its hardly completed city was given up by his/her son Sennacherib, who elected Ninive like capital.

Temples

Concurrently to its palate, Sargon made build residences for its gods. The temples of Hard-Sharrukin are mainly localized in a unit distinct built on the terrace from the royal palace, in a closed district being next to the public part of this last. Among those are in particular the temples close to Sîn and Shamash, directed perpendendiculairement one compared to the other, as well as a ziggurat.

Moreover, one great pertaining to worship complex dedicated to Nabû also was built in the Citadelle , raised on its own platform, in the middle of the residences of the dignitaries but in the vicinity immediate of the terrace palatiale.

Lastly, another temple, that of the Sibitti, of the stellar divinities, were partially discovered outside the Citadelle .

History of the discoveries

By excavating the palate, that Paul-Emile Botta for the first time had released since 1842, Victor Place, which took the continuation of research between 1852 and 1854, discovered, on the South-western side of the palate, in the Southern angle of the terrace, a relatively closed and autonomous district, which he interpreted like the “harem royal” . This interpretation was supported, according to him, by the inscriptions of the thresholds found in the gates of the principal rooms. Their translation, which one knows today erroneous, would have evoked the marriage of the king.

The unit was dominated, in the North-West, by an eroded solid mass that Botta named the “Cone”. Place says to have observed there the first degrees of a tower with snail slope, baptized “Observatory”, in accordance with its supposed function. The method that Victor Place had adopted to release the palate and his surroundings, the excavation in tunnel , allowed certainly a considerable time-saver, but doubtless with the detriment of exactitude. Even if it is necessary to admit with this pioneer of the oriental archeology the merit to be itself interested in architecture for itself, it did not raise obviously same the questions which direct current archaeological research. The publication of Place is characterized indeed by the tendency to confuse what concerns the observation with what comes from pure assumptions.

In 1930, the German archeologist Walter Andrae recognized the plan characteristic of the Assyrian temple ( “assyrische Langraumtempel” ) in constructions of alleged “the Harem”. This interpretation was touvait confirmed by the new translations of the inscriptions engraved on the thresholds of the rooms. The excavations that the American archeologists of the Oriental Institute of Chicago began again on the site, in particular in this same sector, proved that the district contained indeed six temples (or rather three large temples and three “vaults”, dedicated to Sîn, Shamash, Ningal, Adad, Ninurta and Éa. The archeologists of Eastern Institute were satisfied with investigations limited in this sector. Their vital objective was to show the pertaining to worship function of the place. The American excavations D-exhumed nevertheless the temple of Sîn. But they also made it possible to put at the day an additional temple: the large sanctuary of Nabû, that they reflect at the day on its own terrace, contiguous to that of the royal palace.

Temples of the terrace palatiale

Composition of the plan

The plan of Victor Places and of its architect Felix Thomas presents to us a composite whole, primarily formed of three large courses (XXX, XXVII and XXXI) and of three bodies of building. Two of them are laid out on the North-western adjacent sides and South-west of court XXVII, of roughly square plan. The wing closing the North-eastern side of this court is divided into three rooms. The third body of building comes to be placed between the side of the South-western block of court XXVII and the North-western side of court XXXI. The court XXX, vastest, is bordered of rooms of less surface on its four sides.

This assembly confers on the district irregular contours, with several setbacks, in particular that formed by the North-western block, including three faces emergent entirely out of the approximate square in which in plan the other parts of the pertaining to worship complex fit. The Assyrian monuments are characterized indeed by such provisions, which generally contrast with the regularity and symmetry observed in the Babylonian construction industries.

The perimeter

Contours of the district of the temples are independent on the major part of the perimeter, except with the Eastern angle, where they merge with those of the royal palace. The square solid mass of the “Observatory”, in which we recognize more probably a “temple-high” (ziggurat), is presented as being autonomous compared to the North-western block of the temples. But in the light of what was observed later with Assur or Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta for example, it is possible that, as opposed to what its plan shows some, Victor Place did not notice the probable junction between the temple of Sîn and the close ziggurat.

The walls of the enclosure are decorated of a combining reason for the groups of a variable number of engaged semi-columns, alternating with niches with projections. This type of mural decoration was frequently met since. It seems from now on so familiar on the walls of the temples that one regards it as one of the distinctive features of the religious architecture mésopotamienne.

Accesses

According to Victor always Places, the district comprised only three openings, protected well. Initially, one could reach it by a discrete door practiced in the Southern angle of court XV of the royal palace (identified from now on like the Bâbanu ). But it gave only indirectly access to court XXX of the complex, via part 195. The latter ordered also the access towards the North-West to a narrow corridor, which would have fit between the enclosure of the temples and the thick wall external of court XV. Lastly, the third entry would have consisted of a door out of baffle (rooms 183-182) which would have given access to court XXX since the terrace bordering the palate. Court XXX seemed to constitute the genuine pivot of circulations. All the passages enumerated emerged not only there higher, but it ordered the accesses towards court XXVII to the North-West and court XXXI in South-east.

Court XXVII

Court XXVII, within Felix Thomas, and a space of almost square form of 29 X 28,60 m ². The American excavations give us on the other hand dimensions of 31,20 X 30,40 m ² (the North-western and South-eastern sides being longest. When, like in fact, the sources are contradicted, the plans of the Institute East of Chicago are regarded as being more credible than those their prédesseurs. The plan of Place and Thomas shows two stone alleys by uniting the angles of the court and crossing in its center. The Americans did not find any trace of these alleged gone on the pavement of the court. It is possible that it is about a confusion of the French discoverers.

The temple of Sîn and the vault of Adad

The temple of Sîn

The North-western frontage of court XXVII opens by a broad gate on vestible a barlong (167), which itself gives access to a room in length (XXVI).

The gate

In frontage of the court, two buttresses frame the entry of hall 167, at the base of which low walls rest whose visible face was covered glaçurées bricks, representing two whole of seven figures, symmetrically laid out compared to the central axis of the entry. These figures are the following ones:

on one of the side faces framing the entry: a man bearded upright and of profile, directed towards the entry of the temple, capped with a tiara, vêtu of a coat with fringes closed by a belt, raising the right hand, palm towards the sky, and holding a sceptre in the other hand;
on the opposite side face: a character upright, of profile, bearded, holding a lance directed towards the ground, equipped with a dress of which the upper part is striped and the squared lower part;
on the faces directed towards the court, while leaving in the center the entry and while going towards the two opposite sides:

a lion,
an eagle,
a bull,
a fig tree,
a plow to be ensemençoir.

(lions, eagles and bulls being represented turned towards the entry).

Above these panels, the wall of the two buttresses was decorated of a reason for semi-columns in beam, framed by two niches with projection, similar to that repeated on the walls of the enclosure of the district.

Two mainmasts of cedar, tops at least ten meters, into the wrapped trunk of ornaments out of bronze and gold, were inserted in each low wall, in the vicinity immediate of the entry. According to their reason with pushed back, Victor Place saw factitious palm trees there.

Two statues were fixed in the ground of the court, a front each mast. Cut in gypseous alabaster, they represented bearded characters, capped of a tiara with two horns, holding on their chest of the vases whose floods spouting out were illustrated by corrugated lines.

Rooms of the temple

The two doors of hall 167 are placed on the same longitudinal axis. At the North-western end of room XXVI, a flanked central staircase of thick silts joined a platform prolonged, behind two pilasters, of a small part barlongue (165). A beam of committed semi-columns is visible on the wall of the bottom of this last part, inside a not very major niche. Room XXVI is connected to the long side room 164. Hall 167 also opens, towards the Northern angle, on a bent corridor (163-161) which passes behind 165 and ends up emerging, on the side opposed to corridor 163, in one second side room (162).

The American archeologists, in the years 1930, gave off this building again. If their statement seems with the first access to confirm the plan of Victor Place, it is however noticed that it diverges on many points. The team of Eastern Institute of Chicago released again in particular rooms 167, XXVI and 164 of the temple of Sîn. Certain modifications are thus made, in particular with regard to the thicknesses of the side walls of the central room XXVI. Whereas those are unequal within Thomas and Place (respectively 3,80 m and 3,00 m), Eastern Institute notices on the contrary that these two longitudinal walls were identical thickness, that is to say 3,60 Mr. This detail has his importance for the comprehension of the structure and the reconstitution of volumes of this type of temple.

The vault of Adad

In the Western angle of the court, a door gives access to the room in length 166, placed in the same body as the temple of Sîn. The bottom of this room opposed to the entry is elevated of a platform accessible by a staircase. A niche is arranged in the center of the small North-western wall. One can see the same reason for semi-columns there as that found at the bottom of appendix 165.

The temple of Shamash and the vault of Ninurta

Rooms of the temple

In South-western frontage of court XXVII is a flanked entry of buttresses similar to that of the temple of Sîn. It leads to a group of parts laid out in a way similar to those of this one: a hall barlong (172), an oblong room (XXVIII), of which extrémitée is equipped, like room XXVI of Sîn, of an elevated appendix (169) preceded by a staircase on the main axis. But, within Thomas and Place (the only one whom we have, Americans not having excavated this zone again), the organization of side spaces differs appreciably from that observed in the body of North-western building: it is composed here of a long side room (168), opened at the same time on the central room XXVIII and the elevated part of the bottom (169). One can see in the corridor bent the 171-170 equivalent of corridor 163-161 of the temple of Sîn.

The vault of Ninurta

A door opens in the Southern angle of the court, beside the gate of Shamash, on a vault dedicated to the god Ninurta (173), identical to that of Adad (166), with a difference near: it has in more one appendix (174).

The North-western wing of court XXVII

So notable fact, the South-western frontage is rythmée niches, separated by pilasters.

The ziggurat

The sanctuary of Nabû

The temple of Sibitti

See too

Random links:

Temples of Hard-Sharrukin

Presentation

The city

Temples

History of the discoveries

Temples of the terrace palatiale

Composition of the plan

The perimeter

Accesses

Court XXVII

The temple of Sîn and the vault of Adad

The temple of Sîn

The gate

Rooms of the temple

The vault of Adad

The temple of Shamash and the vault of Ninurta

Rooms of the temple

The vault of Ninurta

The North-western wing of court XXVII

The vault of Éa

Room 191

Court XXXI and the temple of Ningal

The ziggurat

The sanctuary of Nabû

The temple of Sibitti

See too