Both Mesopotamian and Egyptian Art Use Register Lines to Separate Scenes

The Mesopotamian Cultures

Sumer was an aboriginal Chalcolithic civilisation that saw its artistic styles change throughout different periods in its history.

Learning Objectives

Discuss the historical importance of the various civilizations that existed in Mesopotamia

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• The Eridu economic system produced abundant food, which allowed its inhabitants to settle in one location and form a labor force specializing in various arts and crafts.
• Writing produced during the early Sumerian period propose the abundance of pottery and other artistic traditions.
• Elements of the early Sumerian culture spread through a large area of the Near and Middle Eastward.
• The Sumerian city states rose to ability during the prehistorical Ubaid and Uruk periods.

Central Terms

• theocratic:A course of government in which a deity is officially recognized as the civil ruler. Official policy is governed by officials regarded as divinely guided, or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious grouping.
• casting:A sculptural process in which molten material (commonly metal) is poured into a mold, allowed to absurd and harden, and become a solid object.
• Cuneiform:Ane of the earliest known forms of written expression that began as a system of pictographs. Information technology emerged in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the belatedly fourth millennium (the Uruk IV menses).
• Chalcolithic:Also known every bit the Copper Age, a stage of the Bronze Historic period in which the add-on of tin to copper to form bronze during smelting remained however unknown. The Copper Age was originally defined as a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

Sumer was an ancient civilisation in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages. Although the historical records in the region exercise not go back much farther than ca. 2900 BCE, modern historians believe that Sumer was commencement settled between ca. 4500 and 4000 BCE by people who may or may not have spoken the Sumerian linguistic communication. These people, now called the "Ubaidians," were the commencement to drain the marshes for agriculture; develop trade; and establish industries including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork , masonry, and pottery.

The Sumerian urban center of Eridu, which at that fourth dimension bordered the Persian Gulf, is believed to exist the world's offset city. Hither, iii split cultures fused—the peasant Ubaidian farmers, the nomadic Semitic-speaking pastoralists (farmers who enhance livestock), and fisher folk. The surplus of storable food created past this economy allowed the region's population to settle in one place, instead of migrating as hunter-gatherers. It also allowed for a much greater population density, which required an extensive labor force and a division of labor with many specialized arts and crafts.

An early form of wedge-shaped writing chosen cuneiform developed in the early Sumerian period. During this time, cuneiform and pictograms suggest the abundance of pottery and other creative traditions. In add-on to the production of vessels , clay was also used to brand tablets for inscribing written documents. Metal too served various purposes during the early Sumerian period. Smiths used a form of casting to create the blades for daggers. On the other manus, softer metals like copper and aureate could exist hammered into the forms of plates, necklaces, and collars.

Stele of the Vultures: Battle formations on a fragment of the Stele of the Vultures. Example of Sumerian pictorial cuneiform writing.

By the late fourth millennium BCE, Sumer was divided into about a dozen independent metropolis-states delineated by canals and other boundary makers. At each urban center centre stood a temple dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city. Priestly governors ruled over these temples and were intimately tied to the city's religious rites.

Sumer: Map of the Cities of Sumer.

The Ubaid Period

The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of painted pottery, as seen in the example below, produced domestically on a slow cycle. This style eventually spread throughout the region. During this time, the first settlement in southern Mesopotamia was established at Eridu by farmers who kickoff pioneered irrigation agriculture. Eridu remained an important religious center even after nearby Ur surpassed it in size.

Ubaid pottery

The Uruk Period

The transition from the Ubaid flow to the Uruk catamenia is marked past a gradual shift to a great variety of unpainted pottery mass-produced past specialists on fast wheels. The trough below is an example of pottery from this period.

Uruk trough: The unpainted surface of this trough marks information technology as a production of the Uruk menses.

Past the time of the Uruk period (ca. 4100–2900 BCE), the volume of merchandise goods transported forth the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified , temple-centered cities where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. Artifacts of the Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as Central Iran. The Uruk civilization, exported by Sumerian traders and colonists, had an event on all surrounding peoples, who gradually adult their own comparable, competing economies and cultures.

Sumerian cities during the Uruk period were probably theocratic and likely headed by priest-kings (ensis), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women. The later Sumerian pantheon (gods and goddesses) was likely modeled upon this political construction. There is picayune testify of institutionalized violence or professional soldiers during the Uruk menstruum. Towns generally lacked fortified walls, suggesting little, if any, need for defense. During this period, Uruk became the most urbanized city in the earth, surpassing for the first fourth dimension l,000 inhabitants.

Gilgamesh

The earliest king authenticated through archaeological testify is Enmebaragesi of Kish, whose proper name is also mentioned in the Gilgamesh epic (ca. 2100 BCE)—leading to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might take been a historical male monarch of Uruk. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, the 2nd millennium BCE was associated with increased violence. Cities became walled and increased in size as undefended villages in southern Mesopotamia disappeared.

Ceramics in Mesopotamia

The invention of the potter's wheel in the quaternary millennium BCE led to several stylistic shifts and varieties in course of Mesopotamian ceramics.

Learning Objectives

Differentiate Ubaid pottery from subsequently styles in Mesopotamian ceramics

Cardinal Takeaways

Key Points

• The invention and evolution of the potter'due south cycle allowed individuals to produce vessels at increasing speeds and in increasing numbers.
• Ubaid pottery was more than decorative and unique than Uruk pottery.
• As ceramics evolved, shapes and sizes of clay objects became more than varied.
• Clay could too be used for writing tablets that could be fired, if the owner believed the text was important.

Primal Terms

• ceramics:The craft of making objects from clay.
• throwing:Shaping clay on a potter's bike.
• stylus:A writing implement that incises lines into surfaces, such every bit dirt.
• kiln:A special kind of oven used for firing ceramic objects at high temperatures.

Although ceramics developed in Eastward Asia c. xx,000-10,000 BCE, the practice of throwing arose with the invention of the potter's wheel in Mesopotamia effectually the fourth millennium BCE. The earliest clay vessels date to the Chalcolithic Era, which is divided into the Ubaid (5000-4000 BCE) and Uruk (4000-3100 BCE) periods.

The Chalcolithic Era

The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style  of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia. Ceramists produced vases, bowls, and small jars domestically on irksome wheels, painting unique abstract  designs on the fired clay.

Vase from the Late Ubaid Period, 4500-4000 BCE: A pottery jar from the Belatedly Ubaid Flow on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Experts differentiate the Ubaid menstruum from the Uruk period by the style of pottery produced in each era. During the Uruk period, the potter'south bike avant-garde to permit for faster speeds. As such, ceramists could produce pottery more apace, leading to the mass production of standardized, unpainted styles of vessels.

The Akkiadian Empire

As the Akkadian Empire overtook the Sumerian metropolis-states , ceramists connected to produce bowls, vases, jars, and other objects in a variety of shapes and sizes. Like Uruk pottery, the surfaces of these objects were left unpainted, although some vessels appear to have a form of abstract reliefs on the surface. This photograph displays the various forms (including a form that resembles a present-twenty-four hours block stand) that pottery took during the Akkadian Empire.

Akkadian pottery: A drove of Akkadian pottery on display at the Oriental Constitute Museum, University of Chicago.

Ur 3

The Third Ur Dynasty , better known as Ur III, witnessed the continuation of unpainted ceramic vessels that took a multifariousness of forms. This photograph depicts an urn that resembles today's bloom vases, too as bowls, cups, and a smaller vase.

Pottery from the Ur III flow: A collection of pottery from the Ur III period on brandish at the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago.

As in previous eras, clay was also used to produce writing tablets that were incised with styluses fashioned from blunted reeds. Frequently, tablets were used for record-keeping (the ancient version of an office memo). Like other ceramic objects, tablets could exist fired in a kiln to produce a permanent form if the text was believed pregnant enough to preserve. The tablets in the photograph below contain information virtually farm animals and workers.

Authoritative texts in cuneiform writing: A collection of administrative texts in cuneiform writing on display at the Oriental Institute Museum, Academy of Chicago.

Babylonian Ceramics

Pottery produced during the "Old" Babylonian period shows a render to painted abstruse designs and increased variety in forms. In this photograph, a bowl, a jar, and a goblet testify remnants of paint on their exteriors.

Old Babylonian pottery: A collection of old Babylonian pottery on display at the Oriental Plant Museum, Academy of Chicago.

Sculpture in Mesopotamia

While the purposes that Mesopotamian sculpture served remained relatively unchanged for 2000 years, the methods of conveying those purposes varied profoundly over time.

Learning Objectives

Identify the purposes of the sculptures featured in this concept

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Mesopotamian sculptures were predominantly created for religious and political purposes.
• Common materials included clay, metal, and stone fashioned into reliefs and sculptures in the circular .
• The Uruk menses marked a development of rich narrative imagery and increasing lifelikeness of human figures.
• Hieratic scale was ofttimes used in Mesopotamian sculpture to convey the significance of gods and royalty.
• Later the end of the Uruk period, subject thing began to depict scenes of warfare and became increasingly violent and intimidating.

Cardinal Terms

• annals:A usually horizontal division of divide scenes in two- or three-dimensional art.
• hieratic scale:A visual method of marker the significance of a figure through its size. The more important a effigy is, the larger it appears.
• terra cotta:Clay that has been fired in a kiln.
• high relief:A sculpture that projects significantly from its groundwork, providing deep shadows.
• votive:An object left in temples or other religious locations for a diverseness of spiritual purposes.
• jumbo:Extremely tall.
• lyre:A mitt-held stringed instrument resembling a small harp.
• cylinder seal:A small object adorned with carved images of animals, writing, or both, used to sign official documents.
• in the round:Sculpture that stands freely, split from a groundwork.
• relief:A sculpture that projects from a background.
• mixed-media:Artwork consisting of two or more unlike materials.
• nomadic:Mobile; moving from ane place to some other, never settling in i location for too long.

The electric current archaeological record dates sculpture in Mesopotamia the tenth millennium BCE, earlier the dawn of civilization . Sculptural forms include humans, animals, and cylinder seals with cuneiform writing and imagery in the round or as reliefs. Materials range from terracotta , stones like alabaster and gypsum, and metals like copper and bronze .

Hunter-Gatherers and Samarra

Considering the artists of the hunter-gatherer era were nomadic , the sculptures they produced were small and lightweight. Fifty-fifty after cultures discovered agronomical methods, such every bit irrigation and fauna domestication, artists continued to produce pocket-sized sculptures. The seated female figure below (c. 6000 BCE), likely carved from a unmarried stone,  hails from the prehistoric Samarra culture (5500-4800 BCE). Like many prehistoric female figures, the features of this sculpture suggest that it was used in fertility rituals . Its breasts are accentuated, and its legs are spread in a position that might resemble a woman in labor. While the artist emphasized areas of the body related to reproduction, he or she did non add together facial features or feet to the figure.

Female statuette from Samarra (c. 6000 BCE): A female person statuette from Samarra on display at the Louvre Museum.

Uruk Period

Spirituality and communication are reflected in sculptures dating the Uruk period (4000-3100 BCE) of the late prehistoric era. Scholars believe that the gypsum Uruk trough was used equally part of an offering to Inanna, the goddess of fertility, beloved, state of war, and wisdom. In addition to reliefs of animals, reliefs of reed bundles, sacred objects associated with Inanna, beautify the exterior of the trough. For these reasons, scholars do non believe the trough was used for agricultural purposes.

Uruk trough (3300-3000 BCE): An Uruk trough on display at the British Museum.

Animals, along with forms of writing, also appear on early cylinder seals, which were carved from stones and used to notarize documents. Officials or their scribes rolled the seals on moisture dirt tablets as a course of signature. Cylinder seals were also worn as jewelry and accept been found along with precious metals and stones in the tombs of the elite members of society. The trough, cylinder seals, and diverse other sculptures of the Uruk menses serve equally examples of the rich narrative imagery that arose during this time.

Uruk-menstruation cylinder seal with stamped clay tablet (4100-3000 BCE): An Uruk-catamenia cylinder seal and stamped clay tablet featuring monstrous lions and lion-headed eagles, on display at the Louvre Museum.

The Uruk menses besides marked an evolution in the delineation of the human trunk, as seen in the Mask of Warka (c. 3000 BCE), named for the present-day Iraqi city in which it was discovered. This marble "mask" is all that remains of a mixed- media sculpture that also consisted of a wooden body, gold leaf "pilus," inlaid "eyes" and "eyebrows," and jewelry. Like virtually sculptures produced during the fourth dimension, the sculpture was originally painted in an try to make it expect lifelike.

Uruk Head, also known as the Mask of Warka (c. 3000 BCE): The eyes and eyebrows on this Uruk marble head are hollow to suit the original inlay.

Early Dynastic Menstruum

Sculpture built on older traditions and grew more complex during the Early on Dynastic Catamenia (2900-2350 BCE). Although artists nonetheless used dirt and stone, copper became the ascendant medium. Bailiwick matter focused on spiritual matters, war, and social scenes.

A cylinder seal discovered in the royal tomb of Queen Puabi depicts two registers of a palace banquet scene punctuated by cuneiform script, mark a growing complexity in the imagery of this form of notarization. Each annals features hieratic scale, in which the queen (upper register) and the male monarch (lower register) are larger than their subjects.

Cylinder seal and stamped clay fragment from the tomb of Queen Puabi (c. 2600 BCE): The queen sits on the top register, while the king sits on the bottom. Each figure is set apart from his or her subjects through hieratic scale.

Another sculpture of note is a mixed-media bull's caput that once adorned a ceremonial lyre institute in Puabi's tomb in Ur. The caput consists of a gold "face," lapis lazuli (a bluish precious stone) "fur," and shell "horns." Although much of the lyre, whose dominant material was woods, disintegrated over time, contemporaneous imagery depicts lyres with similar decoration. Scholars believe that lyres were used in burying ceremonies and that the music that was played held religious significance.

Bull'south head from formalism lyre (c. 2600 BCE): This lyre was found in the tomb of queen Pu-Abi. The lapis lazuli, shell, red limestone decoration, and the head of the bull are original. The bull's head is covered with gold. The eyes are lapis lazuli and shell. The beard and pilus are lapis lazuli. A lyre of the same type is shown on the Standard of Ur.

Sculptures in human form were also used as votive offerings in temples. Among the best known are the Tell Asmar Hoard, a group of 12 sculptures in the round depicting worshipers, priests, and gods. Like the cylinder seal found in Queen Puabi'due south tomb, the figures in the Tell Asmar Hoard show hieratic scale. Worshipers, equally in the paradigm below, stand up with their artillery in front of their chests and their hands in the position of holding offerings. Materials range from alabaster to limestone to gypsum, depending on each effigy'due south significance. 1 common feature is the large hollowed out centre sockets, which were once inlaid with stone to make them appear lifelike. The optics held spiritual significance, particularly that of the gods, which represented awesome otherworldly power.

Votive effigy of a male person worshiper from Tell Asmar (2750-2600 BCE): The votive figure—made from alabaster, shell, black limestone, and bitumen—depicts a male person worshiper of Enil, a powerful Mesopotamian god.

Akkadian Empire

During the period of the Akkadian Empire (2271-2154 BCE), sculpture of the homo form grew increasingly naturalistic, and its subject affair increasingly about politics and warfare.

A cast bronze portrait head believed to be that of Rex Sargon combines a naturalistic nose and mouth with stylized eyes, eyebrows, hair, and beard. Although the stylized features boss the sculpture, the level of naturalism was unprecedented.

Caput of an Akkadian ruler, probably Sargon (2270-2215 BCE): This portrait combines naturalistic and stylized facial features and was bandage using the lost-wax method. The eye sockets were one time inlaid.

The Victory Stele of Naram Sin provides an example of the increasingly violent subject matter in Akkadian fine art, a result of the violent and oppressive climate of the empire. Hither, the king is depicted as a divine effigy, as signified by his horned helmet. In typical hieratic fashion, Naram Sin appears larger than his soldiers and his enemies. The male monarch stands among dead or dying enemy soldiers equally his own troops look on from a lower vantage indicate. The figures are depicted in loftier relief to amplify the dramatic significance of the scene. On the correct hand side of the stele, cuneiform script provides narration.

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin (12th century BCE): The king stands in the center of the stele wearing a horned headpiece. His dead and dying enemies surroundings him while his own soldiers passively observe.

Babylon and Assyria

The second millennium BCE marks the transition from the Centre Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age . The most prominent cultures in the aboriginal Near East during this catamenia were Babylonia and Assyria. Clay was the dominant medium during this time, but stone was also used. The about common surviving forms of second millennium BCE Mesopotamian art are cylinder seals, relatively minor free-standing figures, and reliefs of various sizes. These included inexpensive plaques, both religious and otherwise, of molded pottery for private homes.

Babylonian culture somewhat preferred sculpture in the round to reliefs. Depictions of homo figures were naturalistic. The Assyrians, on the other hand, developed a style of big and exquisitely detailed narrative reliefs in painted stone or alabaster. Intended for palaces, these reliefs describe majestic activities such as battles or hunting. Predominance is given to animal forms, peculiarly horses and lions, which are represented in corking item. Man figures are static and rigid by comparison, but also minutely detailed. The Assyrians produced very fiddling sculpture in the round with the exception of jumbo guardian figures, usually lions and winged beasts, that flanked fortified royal gateways. While Assyrian artists were profoundly influenced by the Babylonian fashion, a distinctly Assyrian artistic manner began to emerge in Mesopotamia around 1500 BCE.

Burney Relief (c. 1800-1750 BCE): The Burney Relief is a Mesopotamian terra cotta plaque in high relief of the Old-Babylonian menstruation, depicting a winged, nude, goddess-like figure with bird's talons, flanked by owls, and perched upon supine lions. Apart from its distinctive iconography, the sculpture is noted for its high relief and relatively large size, which suggests that is was used as a cult relief, which makes it a very rare survival from the period.

Architecture in Mesopotamia

Domestic and public architecture in Mesopotamian cultures differed in relative simplicity and complexity. As time passed, public architecture grew to monumental heights.

Learning Objectives

Differentiate how Mesopotamian cultures approached domestic and public architecture

Fundamental Takeaways

Cardinal Points

• Mesopotamian cultures used a diverseness of building materials. While mud brick is the most mutual, stone also features as a structural and decorate element.
• The ziggurat marked a major architectural accomplishment for the Sumerians , as well equally subsequent Mesopotamian cultures.
• Palaces and other public structures were often decorated with glaze or paint, stones, or reliefs .
• Animals and human-beast hybrids feature in the religions of Mesopotamian cultures and were often used as architectural decoration.

Primal Terms

• alto relief:A sculpture with significant project from its background.
• bas reliefs:Sculptures that minimally project from their backgrounds.
• public sphere:The world exterior the home.
• ziggurat:A towering temple, similar to a stepped pyramid, that sat in the middle of Mesopotamian urban center-states in honor to the local pantheon.
• private sphere:The abode, or the domestic realm.
• load-bearing:A course of compages in which the walls are the structure's primary source of back up.
• stacking and piling:A course of load-bearing architecture in which the walls are thickest at the base and grow gradually thinner toward the peak.
• pilaster:
  A rectangular column that projects partially from the wall to which information technology is attached; it gives the appearance of a support, but is only for decoration.

The Mesopotamians regarded "the craft of edifice" as a divine souvenir taught to men by the gods, and compages flourished in the region. A paucity of rock in the region made sun baked bricks and clay the building material of choice. Babylonian compages featured pilasters and columns , as well equally frescoes and enameled tiles. Assyrian architects were strongly influenced by the Babylonian mode , but used stone every bit well as brick in their palaces, which were lined with sculptured and colored slabs of rock instead of existence painted. Existing ruins indicate to load-bearing architecture as the dominant course of building. However, the invention of the round arch in the full general area of Mesopotamia influenced the construction of structures similar the Ishtar Gate in the 6th century BCE.

Domestic Compages

Mesopotamian families were responsible for the construction of their own houses. While mud bricks and wooden doors comprised the dominant building materials, reeds were likewise used in construction. Considering houses were load-bearing, doorways were often the but openings. Sumerian culture observed a rigid partition between the public sphere and the individual sphere , a norm that resulted in a lack of straight view from the street into the home. The sizes of individual houses varied, just the general pattern consisted of smaller rooms organized around a large central room. To provide a natural cooling effect, courtyards became a mutual feature in the Ubaid catamenia and persist into the domestic architecture of present-day Republic of iraq.

Ziggurats

1 of the most remarkable achievements of Mesopotamian architecture was the evolution of the ziggurat, a massive structure taking the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels, with a shrine or temple at the summit. Similar pyramids, ziggurats were built by stacking and piling . Ziggurats were non places of worship for the general public. Rather, merely priests or other authorized religious officials were allowed within to tend to cult statues and make offerings . The first surviving ziggurats engagement to the Sumerian civilization in the 4th millennium BCE, only they continued to be a pop architectural form in the late third and early second millennium BCE as well .

Chogha Zanbil ziggurat: The Chogha Zanbil ziggurat was congenital in 1250 BC by Untash-Napirisha, the male monarch of Elam, to honour the Elamite god Inshushinak.

The image beneath is an creative person's reconstruction of how ziggurats might take looked in their heyday. Human figures announced to illustrate the massive scale of these structures. This impressive peak and width would non have been possible without the apply of ramps and pulleys.

An creative person's reconstruction of a ziggurat: Like most Mesopotamian architecture, ziggurats were composed of sun-baked bricks, which were less durable than their oven-broiled counterparts. Thus, buildings had to be reconstructed on a regular basis, often on the foundations of recently deteriorated structures, which caused cities to get increasingly elevated. Dominicus-baked bricks remained the dominant edifice cloth through the Babylonian and early Assyrian empires.

Political Architecture

The exteriors of public structures like temples and palaces featured decorative elements such every bit vivid paint, aureate, leaf, and enameling. Some elements, such every bit colored stones and terra cotta panels, served a twofold purpose of ornamentation and structural support, which strengthened the buildings and delayed their deterioration.

Between the thirteenth and 10th centuries BCE, the Assyrians replaced sun-broiled bricks with more durable rock and masonry. Colored stone and bas reliefs replaced paint every bit ornament. Art produced under the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE), Sargon Ii (722-705 BCE), and Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE) inform us that reliefs evolved from unproblematic and vibrant to naturalistic and restrained over this fourth dimension span.

From the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2350 BCE) to the Assyrian Empire (25th century-612 BCE), palaces grew in size and complexity. However, even early palaces were very large and ornately decorated to distinguish themselves from domestic compages. Because palaces housed the purple family and everyone who attended to them, palaces were often arranged like small cities, with temples and sanctuaries , as well as locations to inter the dead. As with private homes, courtyards were important features of palaces for both utilitarian and ceremonial purposes.

Past the time of the Assyrian empire, palaces were busy with narrative reliefs on the walls and outfitted with their own gates. The gates of the Palace of Dur-Sharrukin, occupied past Sargon II, featured awe-inspiring alto reliefs of a mythological guardian effigy called a lamassu (too known equally a shedu), which had the head of a homo, the trunk of a bull or lion, and enormous wings. Lamassu effigy in the visual art and literature from most of the ancient Mesopotamian world, going as far dorsum equally ancient Sumer (settled c. 5500 BCE) and continuing guard at the palace of Persepolis (550-330 BCE).

Lamassu: This is just one example of how a lamassu would appear in Mesopotamian art. Other sculptures wear conical caps, face the front, or have the bodies of lions. In literature, some lamassu assumed female form.

Although the Romans often receive credit for the round arch, this structural organisation actually originated during ancient Mesopotamian times. Where typical load-bearing walls are non strong plenty to take many windows or doorways, round arches absorb more pressure, allowing for larger openings and improved airflow. The reconstruction of Dur-Sharrukin shows that the round arch was being used equally entryways by the eighth century BCE.

Palace of Dur-Sharrukin: Circular arches can be plant in the central portal, every bit well equally in each window on the right and left.

Perhaps the best known surviving example of a round arch is in the Ishtar Gate, which was function of the Processional Mode in the city of Babylon. The gate, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, was lavishly busy with lapis lazuli complemented by blueish glazed brick. Elsewhere on the gate and its connecting walls were painted floral motifs and bas reliefs of animals that were sacred to Ishtar, the goddess of fertility and war.

Ishtar Gate (c. 575 BCE): The reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

The photograph to a higher place shows the immense scale of the gate. The photograph below shows the detail of a relief of a bull from the gate's wall.

Particular of bull relief on Ishtar Gate: An aurochs, or bull, above a blossom ribbon.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/mesopotamia/

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