Architecture 200 :: History of Ideas in Architecture I

Study Guide :: Unit 1

Shaping Environments and Monuments, Early Antiquity to 1500 BCE

The first appearance of purposeful building seems to have been mainly a matter of shapes, like sculpture. Surviving monuments, many on a large scale, evince a surprising commonality of reference: European burial mounds for instance (the sky the ancestral round huts); Mesopotamian tumula (the form of the primeval hill appearing after the great flood, a signal of rebirth and new life); Egyptian pyramids (the ancient ben-ben, shaped to reflect and mark the rays of the sun as it passed through the sky).

This type of referencing assumes the emergence of a new kind of thinking, particularly the recognition of patterns and cycles in events, and the need for the collective sharing and remembering of belief and ritual. It’s not surprising that this period coincides with the appearance of calendars, arithmetic, mechanical devices, and improved plant yields obtained through organized agricultural practices, such as irrigation and plant propagation.

Mimesis, the principle of reproducing, in permanent materials, shapes and patterns that acquired social or revered associations in more perishable ones, becomes evident in this period: stone walls made to look like hung mats, or pillars abstracted from the forms of tree trunks or bundles of reeds. Illustration and writing also appear about 4000 BCE.

Base lines appear on both Egyptian wall reliefs and Greek vases, not as the ground particularly, but as a means of organizing images into a narrative or chronological sequence. Images relate to one another, like words in a sentence. In buildings parts relate to one another through some sense of order (grid plan) or proportion (temple facades). Builders seek permanence, either by building in stone (Egypt) or by devising a prototype or plan with which to repeat construction when needed (China). These principles inform the huge mounds of the Kurghans, piled up by nomadic chieftains on the Crimean plains; the burial mound of the first emperor of China, with his entire court replicated life-size, in clay; the stupas of India; the dagobas in Sri Lanka and Burma; and the ziggurat-like platforms in Meso-America.

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you should be able to

• demonstrate a basic understanding of the purpose of the course, its scope and content, its evaluation techniques, and the resources and materials to be studied.
• describe the form, function, and ideological context of early human activities, from ca. 3500 BCE to ca. 1500 BCE in Europe, the Mediterranean (particularly Egypt), China, and the Americas.
• Distinguish early construction technologies, and how they were influenced by location, climate, and available materials.

Learning Activities

• Recommended time to complete this unit: 3 weeks.
• Access the course home page for news and updates.
• Watch the Course Author Introduction on the top left of the course home page if you haven’t already done so.
• Access and review the course-support websites.
• Contact your Academic Expert.
• Read the Study Guide case studies for this unit; check the recommended online links.
• Begin Assignment 1.
• Read your textbook and related sources:
  • A Global History of Architecture, “Preface,” “3500 BCE,” “2500 BCE” and as directed in the case studies.
  • Oxford Companion to Architecture, search the term theories of architecture

  • Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms, search the term architecture

    Completing these readings in a focused way will help you to develop your understanding of the concepts and context, and will prepare you for the assignments. As you read, keep in mind the study questions and the unit learning objectives, and make note of any questions that arise as a result of your reading. The study questions will form the basis of the assignments.

• Answer five of the study questions at the end of this unit. These questions have been designed to encourage you to explore issues raised in the readings and visual presentations. Answers to these questions and others that may occur to you on the basis of your investigations of the case studies should be the first entries in your Journal.
• Review the course assignments.
• Complete and submit Assignment 1: Preparation for the Course Work Journal.

Case Study 1

Pyramids at Giza, Nile Delta, Egypt

(in particular, the Great Pyramid, also called the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops)

The three main pyramids at Giza were built by and for three pharaohs:

• Khufu (Greek Cheops): his pyramid is the first and biggest, ca. 2600–ca. 2520 BCE
• Khafre: the tip of his pyramid’s casing, the irregular causeway connecting to his valley temple, and the famous image of him as Sphinx (disputed) have been preserved
• Menkaure (Greek Mykerinos, the smallest)

At one time, all three pyramids would have looked identical from a distance, their shapes clear and sharp, the angle of their sides at 52 degrees. Close up they were distinguished by the distinctive gilding or painting of their tips, and by complexes of funerary temples, smaller pyramids (perhaps for lesser royalty), and nobles’ mastaba (Arabic, bench) tombs around them.

Case Study 2

Ziggurat of Ur, Mesopotamia

The Ziggurat of Ur (also called the Great Ziggurat of Ur) is some 300km southeast of Baghdad. It was popularized when Sir Leonard Woolley (1880–1960) published a reconstruction of it in 1939as it might have looked ca. 2150 BCE, contemporaneous with the Great Pyramids. It was constructed of mud bricks, with an exterior shell of burned bricks set in bitumen. On the summit of this massive truncated pyramid was a temple to the city’s patron, the moon god, Nanna. At its eastern front was Nanna’s ritual courtyard; to the south was a complex including other temples and chapels, residences, and tombs for Nanna’s high priestesses. The temple complex served as the administrative centre of the Sumerian city, falling into decay and undergoing reconstruction at various times. Woolley conducted his pioneering archaeological work in the 1920s. Most recently, under Saddam Hussein, a partial reconstruction was carried out.

Case Study 3

Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England

The present arrangement of stones, known as Stonehenge IIIc, seems to date from around 1550–1100 BCE, the result of a dismantling and rearrangement of Stonehenge II, 2000–1550 BCE, which in turn was a rearrangement and expansion of the original Stonehenge, from ca. 2800–2100 BCE. It consisted of a complex of huge stones composing circles, gates and avenues, a deep moat or ditch, and postholes—all apparently associated with nearby burial barrows, chambers lined with stone uprights and covered by mounds of earth. Most of the big stones have now fallen, but Stonehenge remains the most famous of a great number of apparently similar monuments (there might have been 4,000 or so) to be found all around the Mediterranean and the coastlands of northwestern Europe—from Syria to Greece and Malta, from Spain to Brittany, from Ireland to Denmark. Contemporary scholarship now seems to agree that these megalithic sites played various roles such as astronomical observatory, ritual calendar, and burial site.

Case Study 4

Poverty Point, Mississippi Valley, Louisiana, USA

Constructed in 1800 BCE, this site is made up of the large Bird Mound and related earthworks near the confluence of six major rivers. Six concentric semi-elliptical rings face a plaza, and eight earth mounds, possibly oriented to the sun’s solstices, cover about 14 hectares. The area may have functioned as a cosmic instrument and as a ceremonial centre.

Case Study 5

Mohenjo-Daro (Mound of the Dead), Southern Indus, Pakistan

Early neolithic cities were either fortifications against invaders or were designed to deal with flooding and other natural disasters. Mohenjo-Daro, occupied ca. 2600–1900 BCE, is an example of the latter and exhibits the characteristics of many concentrations of early populations. Important buildings were raised on brick platforms, culverts diverted flood waters, and main streets drained into settling tanks. Streets were lined with blank walls as living structures, some with two storeys—a wooden second above a brick first—faced onto open interior courtyards. Urban amenities included a great bath, an assembly hall, a temple complex, a great warehouse, and a “college.” Major throughways accessed minor streets. But, like so many similar urban “monuments” of this period, the city was ultimately abandoned. Archaeological evidence suggests this was due to the gradual drying up of the rivers, and regional (if not worldwide) climate change.

Case Study 6

Megalithic Temples, Malta

Maltese sites such as those at Ggantija and Tarxien show evidence of large stone and earthen-mound temple complexes dated 3500–2500 BCE. As with Stonehenge, it is not clear how the massive stones that supported the mounds and probably a corbel-vaulted interior were transported to the sites. The tombs are organized in a cloverleaf formation, the later ones exhibiting an interior sanctuary and exterior courtyard equipped with benches. Many contained free-standing altars and libation stones. It is believed the temples mark a shift toward a new cosmology centred on a mother-goddess cult. The forms certainly echo the primeval ancestral hut in more permanent form; the domical form may reference a sky or calendrical cosmology.

Case Study 7

Caral-Supe, Peru

Archaeological evidence suggests southern South America was populated by 10,000 BCE. By 2500 BCE there were villages; by 2500 pottery appeared along with irrigation and cotton production. The ceremonial site of Caral-Supe (or Caral) was in use ca. 2627–2000 BCE. Components of the site, which showed evidence of residential use, include ritual buildings raised on earth platforms, terraced pyramids, plazas, an amphitheatre, and assembly structures. Although the religious practices are unknown, the axial arrangement of the major monuments is oriented to such celestial events as the movement of the sun, planets, and stars. In any event, here we have the basic formula for much city and temple building over the next 4,000 years.

Case Study 8

Shang Tombs, near Yin, Anyang, China

The Shang Dynasty royal tombs at Yin in Henan Province were in use ca. 1275 BCE. The tomb complex consisted of an open platform approached by a ramp, a palace, and a courtyard for animal sacrifice. Simultaneously, porcelain was developed along with jade carving, silk weaving, and currency. It was during the Shang Dynasty that the royalty became identified with cosmic powers, and a theocratic order ensued that would influence Chinese civilization for the next 3,000 years. Adjacent tombs that were laid out as mini cosmic diagrams suggested the future of funerary-monument construction.

Case Study 9

Tomb of Ch’in Shih-Huang Ti, Mount Li near Xian in Shaanxi Province, China

Tomb of Chin Shih-Huang Ti (Qin Shih-Huang Di or Qin Shi Huangdi), who was the first emperor of a unified China. The tomb was begun ca. 246 BCE and completed in ca. 210 BCE. However, it was attacked and its ground-level halls destroyed in 206 BCE, when the dynasty was overthrown. But many of the contents survived. According to legend, the mound was originally more than 120 metres high and 2,167 metres across at its double-walled base. Though the mound was once planted with trees to hold the soil, erosion has reduced it to less than half that height today.

Case Study 10

Barrow Tombs, Sweden

Humanity’s first architectural expressions are found across Europe from ca. 3500 BCE, mainly created to preserve clan memories and to establish gathering places for trade and ritual. For example Viking “Tombs” at Old Uppsala (Gamla Uppsala), Sweden, are locally known as Odin’s, Thor’s, and Frey’s howes. According to legend, it was an ancient cult centre. Extensive tunneling has discovered no more than the remains of huge log funeral pyres on stone foundations. Burial mounds like this were common all over Scandinavia and around the North Sea in the centuries before ca. 800 CE and were often in continuous use for hundreds of years. The built form is simple but can be monumental, with stone lintel passageways and sometimes corbelled vaults covered by mounds of earth.

Case Study 11

Emperor Nintoku’s Burial Mound (Nintoku-tennō) Sakai City, Osaka, Japan

The burial mound was built ca. 400 CE for the Yamato clan emperor who established Japan’s first royal family. The largest tumulus of thousands erected during the Old Tomb period, Ninktoku’s (ca. 400 CE) occupies about 32 hectares. It was planned in the shape of a keyhole, and was constructed by reshaping a hill. Burial was within the apex of the truncated conical hill, and the dead would have been accompanied by clay funerary statuary (known as haniwa) such as soldiers and horses. This burial mound shows the power and importance of simple but monumental shapes that has resulted in the type and form persisting over thousands of years and across most known cultures. These grand royal tombs gave this period in Japanese history its name: the Kofun ( = tumuli = sepulchral mound) Era.

Study Questions

Choose five of the study questions to answer.

1. Using the Preface to A Global History of Architecture, explain how the author’s decision to avoid “our post-19th century penchant to see history through the lens of the nation-state” and the “tendency of historians . . . to nationalize, localize, regionalize, and even microregionalize history” influences the organization of the text.
2. How do the “time cuts” referred to in A Global History of Architecture (p. xii) work as organizational tools within the context of the geographical organization of the case-study entries?
3. Choose two case studies from the Study Guide for this unit. Find their sections in A Global History of Architecture, and then examine two online resources covering each of these cases. What is the difference in the organization of information, point of view, analysis, emphasis, visualization, and use of sources between your print textbook and the online media?
4. From this unit’s case studies as covered in the text, what is the significance of settlement farming in the early development of “monumental” global construction activities?
5. From the early evidence of human activity (40,000 BCE to 2000 BCE) we often witness significant instances of sudden regional or global climate change. What archaeological and architectural evidence is there for these events?
6. What climatic and environmental phenomena prompted the construction of rammed earth structures?
7. Forms and shapes obtain social meaning over time. Explain how this “meaning” is carried forward from its roots in vernacular structures built in non-permanent materials to larger more complex monuments constructed in permanent materials.
8. Compare and contrast the belief systems and ritual practices of the “civilizations” or “cultures” that produced the stone circles of Europe with those that produced the pyramidal complexes of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
9. Explain the role of domesticated crop irrigation in the shaping of cities and ritual sites and complexes in the Americas, Africa, and East and Southeast Asia during the period 3500 BCE to 500 CE.
10. What is the fundamental difference in social function between tomb and temple monuments? How is this expressed in structural form?

Assignment for Credit

Complete Assignment 1 before proceeding to Unit 2.