Electronic Tutorials were created by Jack Sullivan, Assistant Professor, for the History of Landscap

1
Egypt and Mesopotamia

• Electronic Tutorials were created by Jack
  Sullivan, Assistant Professor, for the History of
  Landscape Architecture (LARC 263), a survey
  course in the Department of Natural Resource
  Sciences and Landscape Architecture, College of
  Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of
  Maryland.
• This presentation was made possible with
  Instructional Improvement Grants in 1995 and 1996
  from the Center for Teaching Excellence. The
  following knowledgeable, patient and generous
  team of players were invaluable to the making of
  these digital compilations. Thank you all for the
  hard work and technical lessons.
• Tamela D. Michaels, Graduate Student, Technical
  Support, Colleague
• Fernando Urrea, Technical Support
• David Jones, Technical Support
• The images used in these tutorials are from
  personal collections and from the collections of
  the School of Architecture at the University of
  Maryland. The numbers on each image correspond
  with those in the database housed at the
  Architecture Slide Library.

2
Tombs at Thebes, XVIIIth Dynasty
(1503-1482 BC)

• Tombs of the nobility often depicted in wall
  paintings the gardens that the owner had enjoyed
  in life and would continue to take pleasure in
  the afterlife. One tomb inscription read
• May I wander round my pool each day for
  evermore may my soul sit on the branches of the
  grave garden I have prepared for myself may I
  refresh myself each day under my sycomore.
• (from Jellicoe, Geoffrey and Susan. The
  Landscape of Man Shaping the Environment from
  Prehistory to the Present Day. The Viking Press
  New York, 1975.

429
3
The Garden
430

• These garden scenes, compositions of both plan
  and elevational views, are contemporary with
  Hatshepsuts tomb. They illustrate the use of
  water tanks for fishstorage and viewing,
  irrigation and cooling effects. Vine trellises,
  pomegranates, and date palms are decorative
  motifs that represent lifes pleasures and
  sustenance within the enclosed space. Images of
  flowers, pools of lotus and wild ducks convey an
  interest in native and imported flora and fauna.

4
Abu Simbel(1304-1237 BC)
Giza
Thebes
Tomb of Hatshepsut
431
Abu Simbel
5
Temples of Ramesses II and Nefertari
432

• The tomb of Ramesses II is fronted with four
  Pharaoh figures, their gaze eternally transfixed
  on the Nile River. The monument is carved in
  situ and impressively superhuman in scale. To the
  north of Ramesses tomb (right in photograph) is
  the Temple of Nefertari. This sacred landscape on
  the west bank of the Nile is far to the south in
  the rugged terrain of Upper Egypt, between the
  first and second cataracts. Its location above
  the first cataract (waterfall) assured that it
  would not be inundated with floodwaters.

6
Temple of Ramesses II
434
433

• These paintings by D. Roberts (1839) show that,
  although the floodwaters had not destroyed the
  temples, the blowing sand managed to almost
  completely bury the colossal sculptures and fill
  the inner sanctum. They were discovered and
  excavated by British and German archaeologists in
  the mid-19th century.

7
The Temple Plan
435
437

• The sectional drawing on the left reveals the
  transition between the exterior facade with the
  colossal statues and the deepest interior space
  that housed the sepulchre of the Pharaoh. The
  progressively lower ceilings and tightly enclosed
  chambers were determined by engineering
  limitations as well as by religious and security
  measures. The most sacred place was also the
  place most in need of protection from thieves and
  plunderers. The plan drawing to the right helps
  to illustrate with the section the coordination
  between vertical and horizontal change as the
  space reaches deep into the mountain.

8
Scale and Symbolic Representation
436
438

• The painting by D. Roberts (1839) on the left
  shows how the front elevation appeared when it
  was covered in sand at the time of its discovery.
  The photograph on the right was taken prior to
  the construction of the Aswan Dam in the early
  1960s. Both of these images speak of the power
  of the XVIIIth Dynasty ruler, the artful
  representation of the human figure at such a
  grand scale, and a close connection between these
  and the power and beauty of nature.

9
Color and Pageantry
439
440

• In these reconstruction drawings created for an
  article in the National Geographic Magazine, the
  use of colorful pigments over the stone
  structures and sculptures indicates the
  Egyptians desire to depict a realistic human
  figure and yet establish through abstract
  geometry and bold color a strong and symbolic
  gateway to the afterlife.

10
The Aswan Dam
The Aswan Dam
441
442

• Ramesses never imagined the engineering
  capabilities of the future. The natural
  floodwaters of the Nile River flowed passed the
  temple without disruption of the timelessness
  intended by the Pharaoh. The need for
  hydroelectric power and water reserves became the
  mother of invention and the Aswan Dam was
  proposed at the First Cataract. The anticipated
  rise in the water level between the cataracts
  forced the dismantling of the Temple and its
  relocation to higher ground. The dam was
  completed in the late 1950s.

11
Map of the Ancient World
444
12
Ancient Mesopotamia Iran and Iraq
Mesopotamia Iran and Iraq
443

• This map shows the lands of Mesopotamia as we
  know them today. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
  flow parallel to each other out of the northern
  mountains. Hunters migrated out of the Anatolian
  Plateau and the foothills of the Zagros Mountains
  east and north of the Euphrates River toward the
  delta of the two rivers at the Persian Gulf. With
  drainage and irrigation, the alluvial silt became
  profitable agricultural land and the
  civilizations of the region grew.

13
Babylons Zigguat The Hanging Gardens
446
445

• The Sumerian civilization was the first to
  develop as a literate people about 4,000 BC Life
  was focused on the need to mitigate the
  unpredictable climate and regulate the
  ever-changing river course in the flat and marshy
  lands of the delta. Massive irrigation and
  farming projects required organized labor forces
  and urban populations grew proportional to the
  success of the agricultural endeavors. By 2250
  BC., Babylon became the capital of an empire of
  city-states. As the Egyptians did in Giza, the
  Sumerians built a contrasting mark on the low,
  flat landscape

14
Hanging Gardens and Paradise

• The Hanging Gardens were located within the
  fortifications of the ancient city of Babylon.
  This paradise garden was created as an
  interpretation of the natural world set in the
  context of the urban center. It is made in the
  image of the mountains at the source of the
  Euphrates River. The river had been redirected
  for flood control and irrigation purposes and it
  was captured within the confines of the city.
  The reconstruction drawing and the plan of
  Babylon together clearly demonstrate the abstract
  geometric order used to structure buildings and
  city layouts.

447
448
15
Sculpture and Art in Babylon (557 BC)
450
449

• The bas relief sculpture and the mosaic on the
  Ishtar Gate (now in Berlin), once the main entry
  point into the city of Babylon, sensitively
  depict a respect and reverence for the
  surrounding natural environment and the animals
  hunted within it.

16
Garden of Eden Images of Paradise
As translated in this 17th century Dutch
painting, the Biblical Story of Creation
describes a land of plenty, the Garden of Eden,
where humans lived in peace and harmony before
their fall from grace. The mythological place
that is captured so vividly in the Book of
Genesis is based on an understanding of the
Fertile Crescent as the location of the
original Paradise.

• As translated in these 17th century Dutch
  paintings, the Biblical Story of Creation
  describes a land of plenty, the Garden of Eden,
  where humans lived in peace and harmony before
  their fall from grace. The mythological place
  that is captured so vividly in the Book of
  Genesis is based on an understanding of the
  Fertile Crescent as the location of the
  original Paradise.

452
17
Paradise Garden Heaven on Earth
The Paradise Garden Heaven on Earth
451
18
Four Rivers Flow into the Persian Gulf

• Four rivers (Tigris, Euphrates, Wadi Batin and
  Kattin) converge near the delta at the Persian
  Gulf. The quadri-partite garden plan became a
  geometric translation of this geographic form and
  symbolically represented for later Islamic and
  Mediterranean cultures the quest for an ideal
  coexistence with nature--a search for heaven on
  earth.

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Resources

• Jellicoe, Geoffrey and Susan. The Landscape of
  Man Shaping the Environment from Prehistory to
  the Present Day. The Viking Press New York,
  1975.
• Newton, Norman T. Design on the Land The
  Development of Landscape Architecture. Harvard
  University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971.
• Moore, Charles W., William J. Mitchell, and
  William Turnbull, Jr. The Poetics of Gardens. The
  MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988.