Mesopotamia, Babylon - ziggurat as a religious building. Architectural buildings - ziggurats

Ziggurat

There is more truth in myths and legends,

than in modern history.

Ziggurat(from the Babylonian word signuratu - “top”, including “top of the mountain”) - one of the most ancient structures, is a tower of stacked parallelepipeds or truncated pyramids from 3 for the Sumerians to 7 for the Babylonians, which did not have an interior except for the upper volume, in which the premises were located. The terraces of the ziggurat, painted in different colors, were connected by stairs or ramps, the walls were divided into rectangular niches.

There was usually a temple next to the ziggurat. Archaeologists suggest that the Sumerians, and after them the Assyrians with the Babylonians, worshiped their gods on the tops of the mountains and, having preserved this tradition after moving to the low Mesopotamia, erected mountains - mounds that connected heaven and earth. Brick served as the material for the construction of ziggurats – adobe, additionally reinforced with layers of reeds, were lined with burnt bricks on the outside.

The material used contributed to the fact that rains and winds destroyed these structures. I had to constantly update and restore them. Until our time, the ancient ziggurats have been preserved in a very poor condition. Therefore, made reconstructions are not very accurate and are based on modern ideas about the religious purpose of these structures.

Ancient Sumerian texts say that the plan of the ziggurat was given to humans by the gods. So Gudea - the ruler of the Sumerian city of Lagash (2142-2116 BC) - received instructions for the construction of the ziggurat, as the text on the tablet says, directly from the hands of the gods. A "man shining like heaven" appeared to him, standing next to a "divine bird", who "instructed (him) to build a temple." This "man", who "judging by the crown on his head... was a god," was found to be Ningirsu. With him was a goddess who "held a tablet of the beloved star in heaven", and in her other hand was a "sacred style", with which she indicated to Gudea her "patron planet". In the hands of the third god was a tablet of precious stone - "and there was inscribed the appearance of the temple." In accordance with the plan received, Gudea built the first ziggurat temple.

Let's see how it works?

What do ziggurat and megaliths have in common? This is the energy used.As was shown earlier, the creators of megaliths used the resonance of interatomic bonds in the molecules and crystals of matter to obtain energy.

We have already explored a similar structure made of stone. In it, the creators of megaliths used the FCS of silicon Si-O. The masonry under the master generator "dolmen" performs the function of a composite menhir - a power amplifier.

.

In the case of ziggurats, we see technology tied to local conditions. The presence of a large amount of clay and the lack of the required amount of stone dictated the use of available materials. Pthe rock-forming mineral in clay is kaolinite, its composition: 47% (mass) silicon oxide (SiO 2), 39% aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3) and 14% water (H 2 O).

Therefore, the creators of ziggurats in Mesopotamia used FHS O-H of water (H 2 O), Si-O silicon oxide (SiO 2) and FHS Al-O aluminum oxide(Al 2 O 3 ). . At the top of the ziggurat there was a master oscillator based on the Helmholtz resonator, an analogue of a dolmen or a vessel similar to a grain pit, made of baked clay. Accordingly, the mound under the upper volume of the ziggurat performs the function of a bulk menhir - a power amplifier.

Let's pay attention to the fact that the English measure Foot correlates very well with the waves of megalithic energy. A modern foot is equal to 0.3048 m, which corresponds to 24.98 waves 1.22 cm long. That is, it is guaranteed to accommodate 25 waves.

Conclusion.

W igkurats clearly show how the technology for obtaining megalithic energy adapted to local conditions.

Why does the Lenin Mausoleum look like a ziggurat, and why are Shinto shrines taken apart every 20 years to be built in a new place? "Theories and Practices" continues with the "Enlightener" award with an excerpt from the book "Anatomy of Architecture" by Sergei Kavtaradze, in which he talks about the early architecture of Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Japan and Islamic countries.

Mesopotamia

Architectural structures, as we know, were built already in primitive times: simple huts, primitive huts, as well as megaliths - menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs. However, the history of architecture as art, when added to pure utility something else, some additional meaning and desire for beauty, began much later, although also very long ago, several millennia ago. It was then in the fertile valleys of the great rivers - the Nile, Indus, Tigris and Euphrates - that the first state formations were born. On our planet, there are easily longer and wider rivers, but they are unlikely to surpass these four in importance in the development of civilization. Their fertile shores gave abundant harvests, which allowed part of the inhabitants to break away from everyday care for food and become warriors or priests, scientists or poets, skilled artisans or builders, that is, to form a complex social structure, in other words, a state. The earliest of these states appeared on a narrow strip of land between the beds of two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which is called Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia.[…]

Of course, the peoples whose states, replacing each other, dominated Mesopotamia - first the Sumerians, then the Akkadians, then again the Sumerians ("Sumerian Renaissance"), and then the Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians - built many grandiose buildings in their capitals. Not a single large city could do without royal palaces and temples to the ancient gods. The remains of their vast labyrinths are carefully studied by archaeologists. However, it is difficult for architectural historians to work on this material, only the foundations remained of the adobe buildings, and one can speak about their artistic language only based on plans.

The Great Ziggurat at Ur. Iraq. OK. 2047 BC © rasoulali/iStock

A huge stepped structure was erected in the city of Ur by the local kings Ur-Nammu and Shulgi in honor of the moon deity Nanna. The ziggurat was "restored" under Saddam Hussein, with about the same degree of respect for the original as in the case of the Tsaritsyno palace complex in Moscow.

However, one type of structure has survived not so badly and, moreover, still retains its influence on the art of architecture. Of course, this is a ziggurat - a stepped pyramid with a temple on top. In fact, a ziggurat is a pure “mass”, an artificial mountain made of raw brick, lined with baked brick. By appointment, it is also a mountain, only in the sacred plan it is much more significant than its natural relatives. If you live on a flat earth under the dome of the sky, then sooner or later the thought will appear that somewhere there is a vertical linking the earthly world with the heavenly world. The axis of the world, the Tree of Life or the World Mountain.[…] If there is no such vertical - a mountain or a tree - nearby, but there are resources of a powerful state, it can be built. Actually, the biblical story about the Tower of Babel, the construction of which led to the appearance of language barriers, is not at all metaphorical to the extent that it may seem to a modern person. The ziggurat, including the late Babylonian one, really led to heaven, of which there were several at once - three or seven. Each tier of the building was painted in its own color and corresponded to a certain heavenly vault, planet or luminary, as well as metal. At the top, a temple was erected - the house of the god, and at the foot and sometimes on the steps themselves, the dwellings of the priests and warehouses for offerings were built. As you can see, even thousands of years ago, architecture felt like not only applied, but also “fine” art, it was a vertical linking heaven with earth. Questions of "pure beauty", abstracted from semantic content, were also not forgotten by ancient architects. The walls of ziggurats were not only lined with burnt glazed bricks and then painted, but were also divided into volumetric niches and shoulder blades, which made the surfaces clearly rhythmic.

The ziggurat of Etemenanki in Babylon. Iraq. Architect Aradahhesh. Middle of the 7th century BC © Dr. Robert Kolderwey

According to scientists, the Etemenanki ziggurat is the very biblical Tower of Babel, because of the history with which we are forced to learn foreign languages. Reconstruction of the outstanding German archaeologist Robert Calderway, who discovered the location of ancient Babylon.

The compositional solution found in ancient Mesopotamia turned out to be very convincing. Since then, the pathos of the "stairway to heaven" has not ceased to be found in a variety of places of worship around the world, including in cases where atheism becomes a religion.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Tower of Babel. Wood, oil. 1563 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Pieter Brueghel painted the Tower of Babel more than once, and each time he imagined it as a stepped structure.

The concept (of the Palace of Soviets. - S.K.) is very simple. This is a tower - but, of course, not a tower that rises vertically, because such a tower is technically difficult to construct and difficult to dissect. This is a tower, to a certain extent, of the type of the Babylonian towers, as we are told about them: a stepped tower with several tiers ... This is a bold and strong stepped aspiration, not an elevation to heaven with a prayer, but rather, indeed, an assault on heights from below. (A.V. Lunacharsky. Socialist architectural monument // Lunacharsky A.V. Articles about art. M.; L.: State Publishing House "Art", 1941. P. 629–630.)

Pyramid of Kukulkan. Chichen Itza, Mexico. Presumably the 7th century © tommasolizzul/iStock

The Pyramid of Kukulkan is located among the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza. The structure combines the features of a ziggurat and a pyramid. On the one hand, it is an artificial mountain, connecting earth and sky with nine steps. At the top, like the Mesopotamian ziggurats, there is a temple. On the other hand, this structure has internal secret rooms, which makes it similar to its Egyptian counterparts. The pyramid of Kukulkan quite accurately played the role of a huge stone calendar. For example, each of the four stairs leading to the temple consists of 91 steps, that is, together with the upper platform, there are 365 of them - according to the number of days in a year. This building can also be considered the first cinema in the world, however, with a monotonous repertoire: on the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes, the stepped faces of the pyramid cast a jagged shadow on the side walls of the stairs, and with the course of the Sun, this shadow crawls along the parapet like a snake.

Mausoleum V.I. Lenin. Moscow, Russia. Architect A.V. Shchusev. 1924–1930 © Maxim Khlopov/Wikimedia Commons/CC 4.0

Form of the Mausoleum V.I. Lenin in Moscow, no doubt, goes back to the ziggurats.

Ancient Egypt

Not so far from Mesopotamia, in North Africa, at about the same time, another great civilization appeared - the ancient Egyptian. It is also marked by the construction of grandiose structures, very similar to ziggurats - pyramids, but, unlike their Mesopotamian counterparts, the material here was more often not mud brick, but stone. The earliest of these buildings were also stepped: Egyptian architects did not immediately find the ideal form with smooth edges, so close to the modernist tastes of the twentieth century. The main thing is that not only the form and material, but also the meaning of these artificial mountains, rising in the sands of Egypt, was completely different from that of the gigantic buildings of Mesopotamia. The pyramid is, first of all, a tombstone. Actually, the idea of ​​a composition tapering upwards was born in Egypt, when several flat stone tombs were placed one on top of the other (the Arabs - now the main population of this country - call them “mastaba”, that is, “bench”). Such tombs, hiding burial chambers underneath, were built in the deserts along the banks of the Nile long before the appearance of huge stone structures, so the pyramid, which Egyptian architects turned out to have, despite its external similarity and impressive size, can hardly be considered a man-made World Mountain, although with she is, of course, bound by heaven. At the very least, its faces, as a rule, are quite accurately oriented to the cardinal points, and one of the inclined internal corridors is parallel to the earth's axis. There is even a bold hypothesis, according to which the pyramids in Giza are mirrored in the same way as the stars of Orion's belt. It turns out that the Egyptians did not have time to build at least four more large pyramids in order to fully reproduce this beautiful constellation.

But still, the main theme of ancient Egyptian architecture is not the sky, but the afterlife. The Egyptians took their fate after death very seriously. At the moment of death, a person, as it were, was disassembled into its constituent parts: into spirit and soul, shadow and physical body, into name and strength ... The Pharaoh and his entourage also relied on a spiritual double - Ka, the rest managed simply with a soul - Ba. In order to reconnect with the rest of the parts, the soul alone had to go through numerous trials on a journey through the afterlife, and then appear before the court of the formidable Osiris and prove that its owner did not commit any of the 42 sinful acts. On special scales, the gods weighed the heart of the deceased. If, burdened with sins, it outweighed the feather from the headdress of the goddess Maat, personifying the truth, then it went into the mouth of a terrible crocodile, which deprived the former owner of a chance for rebirth.

Pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser at Saqqara. Egypt. Architect Imhotep. OK. 2650 BC © quintanilla/iStock

The first ancient Egyptian pyramid had six steps. In fact, these are mastabas tombs stacked on top of each other. Thus was born the idea to use pyramidal forms for burial structures.

The one who was justified by the court reunited in himself all his parts and in full set went to the land of eternal bliss. Do not think that the theme of death made ancient Egyptian art somehow gloomy. Departure from life was perceived simply as a resettlement and continuation of existence in other conditions, and not as a terrible end. […]

Funerary temple of Mentuhotep II in the necropolis of Thebes. 21st century BC Reconstruction by Edward Naville and Clark Somers © Naville - deir el bahari, part II,1910, Naville/Wikipedia

From the architecture of the Middle Kingdom, little has survived to this day.

Another world in the views of the ancient Egyptians was always present next to them, as if right there, only in another dimension. However, there were few points of contact between the two worlds - the earthly and the afterlife. And where such points were found, sacred cities and, consequently, temples were built. Like the pyramids, the temples became the face of Egyptian architecture. True, one should not forget that between the two types of buildings there is a whole time gap - about a thousand years. It is as if we combined in one narrative on the history of Russian architecture the St. Sophia Cathedrals in Kyiv and Novgorod and the skyscrapers of Moscow City.

Temple of Amon Ra. Luxor, Egypt. Construction began in 1400 BC. © Marc Ryckaert (MJJR)/Wikipedia

Thebes (the Egyptians said Waset) - the capital first of Upper, and then of all of Egypt - was located approximately where the city of Luxor is now located. On its territory or near it there are several significant monuments, in particular Luxor and Karnak temples connected with it by a grandiose avenue of sphinxes, as well as the funeral temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

The Egyptian temple is in many ways similar to the European one we are used to. With some degree of conventionality, it can even be called a basilica. Like an ordinary basilica, it is oriented along the main axis, and the most sacred zone is located farthest from the entrance. We often use the expression "the road to the temple." It became especially relevant after the premiere of Tengiz Abuladze's film "Repentance", where the incomparable Veriko Anjaparidze utters the famous phrase: "What is the road if it does not lead to the temple?" The Egyptians also took this issue seriously. They had not just direct solemn paths leading to the sacred buildings, but entire alleys of hundreds of sphinxes - sometimes with ram's heads, and sometimes with human heads - lined up like a guard of honor. Under their gaze, the visitor approached pylons- towers tapering upwards, decorated with sacred inscriptions and reliefs. (The term "pylon" has several meanings: it is both a tower and just a pillar, a support; however, everything that is called a pylon is usually rectangular in plan.) Pylons accurately indicated the boundary beyond which everything earthly and momentary remained. Egyptologists believe that the paired towers symbolize mountains: the sun goes behind them and behind them the earth meets the sky. Behind the columns was peristyle- Temple courtyard surrounded by columns. Isn't it reminiscent of the composition of an early Christian basilica? Followed hypostyle(from the Greek ὑπόστυλος - supported by columns), that is, a huge hall with many closely placed round supports, stone lotuses, papyri and palm trees.

Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. Deir el-Bahri, Egypt. Architect Senmut. First quarter of the 15th century BC © Arsty/iStock

The mortuary temple of Queen Pharaoh Hatshepsut took nine years to build. The construction in general terms imitates the nearby funerary temple of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Mentuhotep II, but surpasses it both in size and perfection of proportions.

The chain of halls strung on the main axis could be very long. In one of them, a ritual boat was kept - a means of transportation through the afterlife, necessary for both the gods and the souls of the deceased people. The columns supported ceilings painted in the color of the night sky and decorated with images of stars, planets and sacred birds. The further the next hall was located from the entrance, the fewer people had access to it. Everything ended in the same way as later among the Jews and Christians - the most sacred room, the Holy of Holies. True, the Egyptians did not think of the idea of ​​a sacred void or the storage of sacred texts. Honors were traditionally paid to the statue of the god to whom the temple was dedicated. Every morning the pharaoh or priest washed and decorated the sculpture, after which the doors to the sanctuary were solemnly closed for a day. To a certain extent, the Egyptian temple was not only a "portal" to the Other World, but also a "guide" through it, telling mortals what awaits them after the inevitable end.

Shintoism

We can say that the Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian architectures speak to us in foreign, but quite understandable languages. Everything is much more complicated if we turn to the closer to us chronologically, but less understandable architecture of the East. Let's start, for contrast, with one of the most distant - both geographically and culturally - phenomena, namely the Japanese architecture of the Shinto religion.[…]

There is something in common that unites most of the architectural monuments of the planet, from the Babylonian ziggurats and Egyptian pyramids to the skyscrapers of modern metropolitan centers - this is the desire to bring order to the world given to us by nature. This approach was developed in ancient times, when it was believed that God or the gods created the world correctly, but then deteriorated. The reasons were called different: the destructive influence of time, the sins of mankind or the machinations of the demons of chaos, but the conclusion was always the same: the Golden Age remained in the past. Any construction was therefore understood as the restoration of the lost order (sometimes, of course, as the construction of an order hitherto unprecedented, as, for example, in the Soviet era). Architecture is designed to bring order to chaos. European architects, of course, do not think about it every second, but this idea has been rooted in the subconscious for thousands of years. He who works differently, striving for agreement with what is already given by nature, perceives himself as a rebel, at least separates himself from his colleagues, claims, for example, that he is not just an architect, like everyone else, but an environmental architect.

Before the arrival of Buddhism on the islands, at least, Japanese architects simply could not think of opposing themselves to nature and putting things in order in it. For them, only harmonious inclusion in the existing system of things is permissible. According to Shinto ideas, the world is one and everything in it, without any breaks, is permeated with divine energy. tama(or, literally, the soul), which is everywhere and in everything. Similar to the electromagnetic field in physics, only it behaves a little differently. Tama is able to thicken by concentrating its power. If such a concentration happens inside some object or living being, then such an object or such a being becomes a god. Such deities are kami- can also appear to us in the usual form of a god-personality, such as, for example, the sun goddess Amaterasu, but they can also become simply a natural object, say, a cliff or a source. And this is not about the European spirits of the place living somewhere nearby (we will talk about them later), but about the fact that the beautiful rock, in which tama has thickened, itself becomes a deity, more precisely, the body of a deity. But how did the inexperienced Japanese peasants distinguish where is just a cliff, and where is a cliff that should be honored as a god? It was here that the sense of beauty peculiar to the nation came to the rescue. Kami can be recognized in an object only by the power of collective elemental intuition. Since the place is beautiful and somehow attracts the inhabitants of the village, it means that tama has definitely thickened in it. It follows from this that it must be fenced (preferably with a straw rope) and made cannabi- a zone of special sacred purity and ritualized behavior. In the vicinity of such an area, communal celebrations will be held in honor of the kami with special dances, sumo wrestling and tug of war. Spirits are called to help not only by prayers. More precisely, there are no prayers as such, instead of them there are magical rituals. So, stomping, “shaking the earth” (it can be seen in dances and tournaments of sumo giants) is an ancient way to stir up tama and wake up kami.

Shinto shrines that appear in sacred areas always seem to grow out of nature itself. Such architecture can in no way be a “crystal” brought in from outside, but only an organic addition to nature itself. Accordingly, the beauty of the building should be special. Of the materials, wood, straw, Japanese cypress bark are welcome. The now fashionable rounding of logs would seem blasphemy. The type of buildings was borrowed from Korea, but there granary barns, protected from moisture and tailed robbers, were built on pillars, but here supports rising from the ground are a symbol of organic origin, not “setting up”, but “growth” of the building.

Ise-jingu is the main Shinto shrine. It is assumed that the imperial regalia - a mirror, a sword and jasper pendants (or at least one of them - a bronze mirror) are stored here. The goddess Amaterasu personally passed them on to her descendants - the founders of the first imperial dynasty. According to the official chronology, the complex has existed since the 4th century BC. In order to maintain ritual purity, wooden structures are dismantled and reproduced on a reserve site every 20 years. And it's been that way for 1300 years. Round piles, on which the building is elevated above the ground, and an open gallery with a circular bypass, indicate borrowing from the humid regions of Korea, where such structures were used as granaries. The area around the buildings is absolutely forbidden for the believers to visit.

That the Shinto shrine is thought of as something alive is confirmed by another custom. The life of such a building has its own rhythm, just as we have the rhythm of steps or breathing. Every 20 years, the building is dismantled and recreated on a reserve site. After another 20 years, it returns to its original place. Without this technique, wooden structures would hardly have come down to us through the centuries. In Europe, by the way, there is a similar practice. half-timbered houses, the very ones that captivate us in the illustrations for Andersen's fairy tales (wooden beams make up a frame filled with light materials), were also disassembled and recreated anew, only much less often - once every few centuries. But Shinto shrines are being rebuilt for more than just physical preservation. An important condition for successful interaction with kami is ritual purity. The body of a kami (and this can be not only a natural object, but also, for example, a round mirror - a symbol of the Sun and xingtai(receptacle of the spirit) of the goddess Amaterasu) must be carefully protected from defilement, therefore, unlike the temples of Abrahamic religions, no one can ever enter the Holy of Holies of Shinto shrines, including a clergyman. Time still has power and even in Japan spoils the creations of human hands. The shrine is polluted by the views of parishioners and especially by death, which is why it was necessary to change the location of the building every 20 years: during such a period, most likely, at least one supreme ruler died, defiling the perfect purity of the territory of the temple with his death.

Islam

[…] Virtually all Muslim architecture, except when it developed under the direct influence of Byzantine prototypes, avoids even a hint of "corporeality", any indication that inert material - stone, brick or concrete - is hidden behind the visible surface of the wall. Islamic buildings, of course, are three-dimensional, but both the external volumes and the boundaries of the internal spaces seem to be formed by flat surfaces that do not have thickness, they look like just a bizarre ornament or sacred writings immaculately applied to the thinnest facets of incorporeal crystals. Most of all, this is similar to ideal constructions in geometry, where a point has no diameter, and a plane has no volume.

At the same time, Islamic architecture feels free from tectonic logic, the laws of which, to one degree or another, obey both Christian architects and Hindus and Buddhist builders. The parts carried here are “weightless”, they do not put pressure on anything, which is why the carriers have no need to demonstrate their power: where there is no mass, there is no weight.

At the end of the 15th century, under the onslaught of Christian troops, the Arabs were forced to leave the territory of Europe. Thus ended the Reconquista - a long process of "conquest" from the Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula. However, remarkable monuments of Islamic culture remained on the lands of Spain, especially in Andalusia. The Alhambra, the residence of the rulers of the Emirate of Granada, is a fortified building with a huge palace and park complex inside. The name comes from the Arabic Qasr al-Hamra (Red Castle). The main structures were erected between 1230 and 1492.

Of course, all this is not accidental. Undoubtedly, the art of Islam would have looked different if God had chosen a prophet who spoke a different language. Historically, the Arabs were nomads. Not only cattle breeding, but also trading in those days meant long journeys: I bought goods on one side of the desert, loaded them on camels and, after weeks of a difficult journey, profitably sold wholesale or retail on the other side of the sandy sea. The inconstancy and mobility of the nomadic way of life left a special imprint on the worldview and, as a result, on the language of the Arabs. If sedentary peoples think primarily with objects, then the ethnos in question has actions in the first place, so most of the words of the Arabic language do not come from nouns, but from verbal roots, while the sound image of the word dominates over the visual. A kind of “lexical constructor” was formed from consonants, most often three, the use of which in different combinations can form both related and opposite words in meaning. For example, the root RHM (we can easily hear it in the famous prayer formula "bi-smi-Llbyakhi-rrahmbani-r-rahbim"- “In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful”) means “to be merciful”, “to take pity on someone”. At the same time, the root HRM has the opposite meaning: “prohibit”, “make inaccessible”. By the way, the “primordially Russian” word “terem” comes from the same “haram” (“ban”) and implies a harem, the forbidden female half of the house.

It goes without saying that these features of the language were reflected in writing. For most peoples, not only hieroglyphs, but also letters of the phonetic alphabet come from schematized images of objects or actions. Among the Arabs, letters from the very beginning meant only sounds, the image of the material world did not stand behind them. This is noticeable if you just look at the samples of Arabic calligraphy. […]

A page from the Qur'an with verses 27–28 of Sura 48 - "Al Fatah" ("Victory"). Parchment, ink, pigment. North Africa or the Middle East. VIII-IX centuries. Frier and Sackler galleries. Museums of the Smithsonian Institution. Asian art collection. Washington, USA

An example of an early, Kufic script from the Abbasid dynasty. The letters, elongated from right to left, seem to be trying to convey the melodiousness of Arabic speech.

In addition to the books of the Koran, the only man-made object that is obligatory for worship by Muslims is the temple of the Kaaba. All other structures, like other works of art, only help prayer by organizing a special space and creating an appropriate mood. However, they are not sacred in the usual sense. Muslims have neither idols, nor icons, nor miraculous relics (sometimes, however, the tombs of saints are revered, but this is more a manifestation of respect for the memory of the righteous than an expectation of heavenly intercession).

The absence of the idea of ​​a “special” holiness of a particular building, at least to the extent that is customary among Christians, also frees from special stylistic differences between residential buildings and places of prayer - it is permissible to use similar decor in a mosque, and, say, in harem. In some countries, for example, in Egypt, this made it possible to form a special type of urban planning complex - couliye, unified ensembles, simultaneously including a mosque, a school, a hospital, and a hostel for dervishes.

However, how to convey the idea of ​​the unity of the Universe, that is, evidence that the world was created by one Creator, if this world is forbidden to depict? In this case, the cultural heritage of ancestors, nomads and pastoralists came to the aid of Islamic, primarily Arab, creators. Two handicraft skills, familiar primarily to nomadic peoples, formed (consciously or subconsciously) the basis of one of the main distinguishing features of Islamic art - the desire to decorate surfaces with bizarre ornaments.

First, it is carpet weaving. The decoration of the carpet, especially the simple nomadic carpet used as the floor, walls and ceiling of easily erected tents and tents, is planar and symmetrical in nature. The product, the surface of which "falls" into the perspective of a realistic image, is a perversion, only to a small extent forgivable in late European tapestries. The carpet used for its intended purpose is the border between the inner protected space of the dwelling and the elements of the outside world, between comfort (albeit temporary, but shelter) and bare steppe land. Therefore, the carpet should be flat not only physically, but also ornamentally.

Secondly, this is the art of weaving leather: straps and lashes, belts and horse harness ... For thousands of years pastoralists have been practicing the skill of knitting knots, braids and flat decorative overlays from leather ribbons.

It was these skills that helped to create the delightfully complex ornaments, completely, almost without gaps, covering the walls of Islamic buildings. In fact, we, Europeans, usually look at such decor incorrectly when, admiring it, we try to capture the whole composition with our eyes and fit into our consciousness at once, to get a holistic impression. In fact, you need to slowly and tastefully follow the endless journey of each ribbon or each sprout decorated with leaves. Thus, without taking our eyes off the series of interlacings that cover the entire decorated surface and “stitch together” the entire work, even a grandiose building, into a single whole, we, in essence, see an ideal illustration of Plato’s theory of the One, of the universe, permeated with inseparable threads of the Creator’s intention.

It must be said that with all the infinite diversity, the world of Islamic ornamentation can be divided into two main groups. The first will include purely geometric motifs, in the creation of which, no matter how complex they may seem, the simplest tools familiar to every schoolchild take part - a compass and a ruler. In the second - those that are called vegetable, that is, endless weaves of liana-like branches with leaves and flowers of any shape, size and biological species. This second type, often found in European art, is called an arabesque, which directly indicates its historical roots.[…]

The Wazir Khan Mosque was built during the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, on whose orders the famous Taj Mahal was created. The niche is covered with a keeled arch characteristic of Islamic architecture. The font of the inscription shows a departure from the Arabic canons under Persian and Turkic influence.

It is well known that Islamic architecture created a great variety of vaulted forms which no doubt already existed in Umayyad architecture, and two of which are most typical. This is the horseshoe arch, most fully expressed in the art of the Maghreb, and the "keeled" arch is a typical example of Persian art. Both of them combine two qualities: static rest and ascending lightness. The Persian arch is both noble and light; it grows almost effortlessly, like a quiet, wind-sheltered flame of a lamp. And, on the contrary, the Maghreb arch impresses with its breadth of scope: it is often restrained by a rectangular frame in order to create a synthesis of stability and abundant fullness.

Titus Burkhardt. The art of Islam. Language and meaning.
Taganrog: Irbi, 2009, p. 41.

Of course, the traditions of Muslim art come not only from the Arab heritage. Each of the peoples who adopted Islam wove their own threads into the common basis of this motley "carpet". For example, the Persians superimposed on the rigorism of Muhammad's compatriots oriental bliss and refined notions of supreme bliss. In the East, they say that Arabic is the language of God, and Farsi (Persian) is the language of paradise. It is in Persian miniatures and in sacred texts executed by Iranian calligraphers that floral ornaments finally leave dry geometrism and, it seems, are ready to compete with celestial prototypes with their sophisticated perfection. It is worth noting the specific contribution of the Persians to the history of architecture. Since in the Middle Ages Iranian architects used only brick and, consequently, they did not use post-and-beam structures, skill in the construction of arches, vaults, domes and their intricate combinations received at that time a tremendous impetus for development.

Peoples with Turkic and Mongolian blood and their combinations also participated in the multiplication of Islamic art forms. For example, if we turn to calligraphy, which is also present on the walls of architectural structures, one can notice not only patterns lined up along a virtual horizontal line. Often the sacred texts are inscribed in medallions of intricate shapes resembling round flames. This is the influence of another ornamental culture that came from Central Asia, from India and from the Tibetan mountains.

The Turkic tribes, having finally conquered Byzantium and turned Constantinople into Istanbul, began, as soon as they settled down in a new place, to build mosques in formerly Christian territories. However, instead of following the traditional Arab patterns, mostly “creeping” along the ground and not striving for the sky, they created a new type of “place of prostration”, imitating the already well-known Hagia Sophia, but adapted to the needs of the Muslim cult.

The architect Mimar Sinan (probably he is depicted on the left) supervises the construction of the tomb of Suleiman I the Great. Illustration by Seyid Lokman for the "Chronicles of Sultan Suleiman" ("Zafernama"). 1579 Wikipedia

Recall that from the time when the Prophet Muhammad, while in “emigration” in Medina, used the courtyard where his family’s dwellings went out for collective prayer, any mosque should include several mandatory elements. This is, first of all, a covered, shaded space (originally, in the Prophet's mosque, a simple shed), one of the walls of which (the Qibla wall) faces Mecca. In the center of such a wall there is a sacred niche - a mihrab (once there could have been just a door in this place). Symbolically, it denotes both the “cave of the world” and the niche for the lamp, which carries light, but not simple, but Divine revelation. In the cathedral mosques next to the mihrab is located minbar- something between a throne (sometimes under a canopy) and a staircase of several steps. Once upon a time the Prophet himself introduced the custom of preaching while sitting on the steps of a small staircase, as if today one of us sat down on a stepladder during a conversation. By the way, a touching story is connected with this event, concerning one architectural detail. Before starting to use the ladder, the Prophet, according to the custom of the shepherds, herdsmen, spoke, leaning on a staff made of palm wood. Later, which turned out to be unnecessary for the owner, the staff became homesick and, as a consolation, was walled up in one of the columns of the Medina mosque, where, as they say, it is still located, revered by pious pilgrims. This is how the well-known expression “the palm tree longing for the Prophet” was born.

We remember how, entering the newly built majestic temple, Emperor Justinian exclaimed: “Solomon, I have surpassed you!” Now, after the fall of Christian Constantinople, the time has come for Turkish architects to compete with the builders of Hagia Sophia.

At the same time, they made attempts to add elements that are obligatory for a mosque to the ensemble. The main building obviously took on the role Zulli- a shaded space, so it remained to attach to it galleries of the courtyard with wells for ritual ablutions and surround minarets. In ancient times, when there were no minarets, their functions were performed by ordinary elevations: nearby rocks or the roofs of high houses, from where the muezzin could call parishioners to prayer. Later, towers of various shapes and proportions appeared. Turkish minarets - slender and pointed like well-sharpened pencils - added a new meaning to the Byzantine domes of Istanbul's mosques. The passion of prayer turned to heaven is harmoniously combined with worthy obedience to God's will, expressed by the perfect volumes of huge domes.[…]

Ziggurat (from the Babylonian word sigguratu - "top", including "top of the mountain") is a multi-stage religious building in the ancient Mesopotamia, typical of Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Elamite architecture.

Story

A ziggurat is a tower of stacked parallelepipeds or truncated pyramids from 3 for the Sumerians to 7 for the Babylonians, which had no interior (the exception is the upper volume, in which the sanctuary was located). The terraces of the ziggurat, painted in different colors, were connected by stairs or ramps, the walls were divided into rectangular niches. Inside the walls supporting the platforms (parallelepipeds) there were many rooms where priests and temple workers lived.

Next to the stepped ziggurat there was usually a temple, which was not a prayer building as such, but the dwelling of a god. The Sumerians, and after them the Assyrians with the Babylonians, worshiped their gods on the tops of the mountains and, having preserved this tradition after moving to the low two rivers, erected mounds that connected heaven and earth. Raw brick, additionally reinforced with layers of reed, served as the material for the construction of ziggurats; the outside was lined with burnt bricks. Rains and winds destroyed these structures, they were periodically renovated and restored, so they eventually became taller and larger in size, and their design changed. The Sumerians built them three-tiered in honor of the supreme trinity of their pantheon - the air god Enlil, the water god Enki and the sky god Anu. The Babylonian ziggurats were already seven-tiered and painted in the symbolic colors of the planets (five planets were known in ancient Babylon), black (Saturn, Ninurta), white (Mercury, Nabu), purple (Venus, Ishtar), blue (Jupiter, Marduk), bright - red (Mars, Nergal), silver (Moon, Sin) and gold (Sun, Shamash) [source not specified 840 days].

Dur-Untash or Chogha-Zanbil, built in the 13th century BC. e. Untash Napirisha and located near Susa, one of the best preserved ziggurats

In the later period, the ziggurat was not so much a temple building as an administrative center, where the administration and archives were located.

The step temples were the prototype of the ziggurat. The first such towers in the form of primitive stepped terraces appeared in the alluvial valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. The last noticeable burst of activity in the construction of Mesopotamian ziggurats is attested as early as the 6th century BC. e., at the end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Throughout ancient history, ziggurats have been renovated and rebuilt, making the pride of the kings.

The oldest post-Flood civilization was Mesopotamia. It is interesting that the Bible, which contains the richest information about many kingdoms, first tells about Babylon, giving it a great place both in the historical and in the prophetic aspect. As is clear from the Holy Scriptures and ancient chronicles, the very first steps in the formation of Mesopotamian statehood were inextricably linked with religion, which was based on an open challenge to the true God, which was most clearly manifested in the construction of the famous Tower of Babel. Today, no one doubts its existence, which has been proven by historians and archaeologists. But before we turn to history, architecture in the religious sense of its construction, let's pay attention to the creation of special temples-ziggurats, to which the famous tower belonged. So, the ziggurat was a huge building, consisting of several towers (as a rule, from 4 to 7), located one on one, proportionally decreasing upwards. Terraces with beautiful gardens were laid out between the top of the lower tower and the base of the one above. At the top of the whole structure rose a sanctuary, to which a huge staircase led, starting at the bottom and having several side branches. This upper temple was dedicated to some deity, which was considered the patron of the city. The towers themselves were painted in different colors: the lower one, as a rule, was black, the second one was red, the higher one was white, even higher it was blue, etc. The upper tower was often crowned with a golden dome, which was visible for many kilometers from the city . From afar, this sight was truly fabulous. However, the ziggurat was something more than just a temple, it was a link between heaven and earth, as well as a place where God himself supposedly appeared, declaring his will to people through the priests. But if during the day the ziggurat was a temple, then at night it was a place for astrological activities, as well as a place for performing black satanic rites. We will never fully know all the details of the departure of these services, but even the information that the clay tablets tell us is horrifying. It was in the upper temples that astrology was created, connecting people with the abyss. During the excavations, it was found that the name of its founder is Saaben-ben-Aares, however, the true creator of this pseudoscience was, of course, the prince of darkness. Such ziggurats were built in Nippur (about 2100 BC by King Ur-Nammu), now located 40 miles west of the Euphrates; in Uruk, 12 miles from the Euphrates, with an area of ​​988 acres; in Eridu, erected almost immediately after the flood and updated many times throughout history, forming 12 temples located one above the other; Ure - also built by King Ur-Nammu in honor of the moon god Nanna, and very well preserved to our time, etc. e. But the ziggurat built in Babylon at the dawn of post-Flood history, described in the Bible, gained the greatest fame. “The whole earth had one language and one dialect. Moving from the east, people found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to each other: Let us make bricks and burn them with fire. And they became bricks instead of stones, and earthen tar instead of lime. And they said, Let us build ourselves a city, and a tower as high as the heavens; and let us make a name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth” (Gen. 11:1-4). The terrible punishment that befell mankind, which decided to go its own way, independent of God and against His will (the flood), was forgotten. People again chose to live and act without God for the sake of satisfying their vanity and pride. God could not approve of their proud and insane plan, and, by mixing languages, prevented the fulfillment of human plans. However, not wanting to humble themselves before the Creator, people soon again began to build a ziggurat in the same place where it had been stopped by God Himself. Jesus Christ never does violence to human free will, and therefore He did not interfere with this crazy plan of people, wishing that they themselves and their descendants would see what their open and stubborn disobedience to the Heavenly Father would lead to. With pain, Christ watched how people stubbornly built a tower, which was to become the center of worship of false gods, in other words, they built themselves a scaffold. For that religion, which they so defended and planted, should have led them to degradation and death. But the arrogant builders, drugged by the prince of darkness, did not think about it, and, finally, they built a majestic building that amazed people with its beauty and scope for 1500 years. The Babylonian ziggurat, rebuilt dozens of times over the indicated time, was called Etemenanka, that is, the Temple of the cornerstone of Heaven and Earth, being the center of the colossal temple city of Esagila (House of raising the head), surrounded by fortress walls and towers, including many temples and palaces. Esagila was the seat of the chief Babylonian priest, who was also the high priest of the entire world priesthood (this will be discussed below). The descriptions of this tower by the famous Greek historian Herodotus and the personal physician of the Medo-Persian king Artaxerxes II - Ctesias, have come down to our time. The tower described by them was restored under Nabopolassar (625-605 BC) and Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC). Chr.) after a period of decline. Restoring the tower, Nebuchadnezzar said: "I had a hand in building the top of the Etemenanki so that it could argue with the sky." So, the tower they built consisted of seven steps - floors. The first floor, 33 meters high, was black and was called the lower temple of Marduk (the supreme god of Babylon), in the center of it stood a statue of the god, completely cast in pure gold and weighing 23,700 kilograms! In addition, there was a golden table 16 meters long and 5 meters wide, a golden bench and a throne in the temple. In front of the statue of Marduk, daily sacrifices were made. The red second floor was 18 meters high; the third, fourth, fifth and sixth were 6 meters high and were painted in various bright colors. The last seventh floor was called the upper temple of Marduk, was 15 meters high and was lined with turquoise glazed tiles decorated with golden horns. The upper temple was visible for many kilometers from the city and in the light of the sun it was an extraordinary spectacle of beauty. In this temple there was a bed, an armchair and a table, supposedly intended for the god himself, when he came here to rest. The “sacred” marriage of the king and priestess took place there, all this was accompanied by an orgy enclosed in a “sublime” philosophy. Today, ziggurats lie in ruins, and many have not survived at all, but the ideas of their builders continue to live today. So, firstly, the construction of the ziggurat was, as we have already said, the nature of an open challenge to divine authority. Even the name Etemenanka defies Christ by assuming His title, for the Scripture says: "... behold, I am laying in Zion a cornerstone, chosen, precious: and he who believes in Him will not be put to shame" (1 Peter 2:6). This example was followed by many peoples of the earth, building pagan temples and temple complexes going into the clouds. Of recent times, it is worth noting the construction of the 30s, begun under Stalin (but not completed!), - the Palace of Congresses, which was to be crowned with a figure of Lenin of such a size that, according to the plan of the architects, two libraries and a cinema would be placed in one finger . This palace was supposed to become a symbol of militant atheism, which allegedly defeated the "obsolete" Christianity, but the leader, of course, was supposed to appear before the world as the "victorious" Christ! The fate of this plan and the construction begun are known. But even unrealized, this project is on a par with the Tower of Babel, the temple of Artemis of Ephesus and other "witnesses" who warn us, the people of the late 20th century, about the danger of a path apart from God. Secondly, the construction of ziggurats was a symbol of human power, a glorification of the human mind. And again, reading the pages of history, we see attempts to glorify and exalt our name at different times and by different rulers - kings, emperors, prime ministers, presidents, general secretaries, philosophers, scientists and artists, etc. An endless list of names that can be go on and on - Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar, Macedon, Octavian-August, Nero, Trajan, Charles V of Germany, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin; the philosophers Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, who idolized the human mind and prepared the Great French Revolution with their ideas; Darwin with his theory of evolution, the ideologists of fascism and communism, who also tried to build heaven on earth without God at the cost of millions of victims. Here, dear reader, we can be with you if in our life we ​​rely on our Self, exalt ourselves, and not Jesus Christ. Thirdly, the construction of ziggurats showed that man himself can reach heaven, become like God, for the tower connected heaven and earth in the minds of people. This idea is extremely tenacious, because even today many confessions claim that a person by his deeds and the performance of certain rituals can achieve salvation and eternal life on his own, on his own. Fourthly, the service of the priests in the ziggurat showed that a mediator was needed between heaven and earth, capable of appeasing the formidable god. It is from here that the teachings about holy mediators between God and people, about clergymen as intercessors before God, originate. However, all of these statements contradict the Bible, which states, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men… Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Fifthly, the ziggurat was the center of astrology, magic, occultism, which have found huge, ever-growing popularity in our time. We will talk about them in detail in another part of this book, and now we will only note the main thing: the very idea underlying astrology, namely the prediction of fate and ways to influence it, nullify faith in God. Sixthly, the magnificent architecture of the tower and the majestic, mysterious, incomprehensible to ordinary people, the services that took place in the temple were intended to bewitch and subjugate the feelings and mind of a person, paralyze his will, deprive him of the freedom of a reasonable choice. The same technique was used later by almost all world religions in the construction of huge cathedrals with the richest frescoes, statues, paintings, many hours of tedious services, often in languages ​​incomprehensible to most people. How different this is from the ministry that Jesus Christ gave during His earthly life, spent in the bosom of nature, in humble homes! So, as we can see, the ideas of the ancient ziggurats continue to live today. It is not for nothing that in the Bible, one of the prophecies of which we have partially quoted in the epigraph to this chapter, the apostate forces are called Babylon.

Hypothetical reconstruction of the ziggurat at Ur

Ziggurat(from the Babylonian word signuratu- "top", including "top of the mountain") - a multi-stage religious building in Ancient Mesopotamia and Elam, typical of Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Elamite architecture.

Architecture and purpose[ | ]

A ziggurat is a tower of stacked parallelepipeds or truncated pyramids from 3 for the Sumerians to 7 for the Babylonians, who had no interior (the exception is the upper volume in which the sanctuary was located). The terraces of the ziggurat, painted in different colors, were connected by stairs or ramps, the walls were divided into rectangular niches.

It is not fully understood for what purpose the ziggurats were built. The etymology does not help solve this problem, since the word "ziggurat" comes from the verb zakaru, which translates only as "to build high." The pioneers of Mesopotamian archeology naively believed that the ziggurats served for the "Chaldean" astrologers as observatories or towers, "in which the priests of the god Bel could hide at night from the heat and mosquitoes." However, all these hypotheses are obviously not true. Almost immediately, the thought of the Egyptian pyramids comes to the mind of any person who sees a ziggurat. Of course, the Egyptian influence on the Sumerian architects cannot be completely ruled out, but it should be noted that, unlike the pyramids, there were never tombs or any other premises inside the ziggurats. As a rule, they were erected over older and much more modest structures built during the early dynastic period. In turn, these low one-story ancient ziggurats, as is now commonly believed, originated from the platforms on which the temples of the Ubeid, Uruk and proto-literate periods stood.

Some researchers believe that the Sumerians originally lived in the mountains, on the tops of which they worshiped their gods. Thus, the towers they erected were to become a kind of artificial mountains rising above the Mesopotamian lowland. Other scholars, denying this simplified and in many ways rather controversial explanation, believe that the temple platform (and hence the ziggurat) was intended to elevate the main city god above other deities and alienate him from the "laity". Researchers belonging to the third group see in the ziggurat a huge staircase, a bridge connecting the temples located below, where daily rituals were held, and a sanctuary located at the top, located halfway between earth and sky, where in certain cases people could meet with the gods.

Perhaps the best definition of a ziggurat is found in the Bible, which says that the Tower of Babel was built to be "as high as the heavens." In the deeply religious consciousness of the Sumerians, these huge, but at the same time surprisingly airy structures were "prayers made of bricks." They served as a constant invitation to the gods to descend to earth and at the same time an expression of one of the most important aspirations of man - to rise above his weakness and enter into a closer relationship with the deity.

Raw brick, additionally reinforced with layers of reed, served as the material for the construction of ziggurats; the outside was lined with burnt bricks. Rains and winds destroyed these structures, they were periodically renovated and restored, so they eventually became taller and larger in size, and their design changed. The Sumerians built them in three stages in honor of the supreme trinity of their pantheon - the air god Enlil, the water god Enki and the sky god Anu. The Babylonian ziggurats were already seven-tiered and painted in the symbolic colors of the planets.

The last noticeable burst of activity in the construction of Mesopotamian ziggurats is attested as early as the 6th century BC. e., at the end of the Neo-Babylonian period. Throughout ancient history, ziggurats have been renovated and rebuilt, making the pride of the kings.

A number of biblical scholars trace the connection of the legend of the Tower of Babel with the construction of high temple towers called ziggurats in Mesopotamia.

Ziggurats have been preserved in Iraq (in the ancient cities of Borsippe, Babylon, Dur-Sharrukin, all - 1st millennium BC) and Iran (in the ancient city of Chogha-Zanbil, 2nd millennium BC).

In other regions[ | ]

Ziggurats in the strict sense were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites and Assyrians. However, in essence, the ziggurat is a religious building in the form of a step pyramid. Similar places of worship were built according to a similar and somewhat different technology by many peoples in different parts of the world - in