تطور الفنون المعمارية في سورية قبل الاسلام ١_a .. كتاب العمارة العربية الاسلامية

The development of architectural arts in Syria before Islam

1 - The emergence of architecture:

The art of building and reconstruction is as old as man, and in its origin it is a response to one of his basic needs, but at the same time it is a product of, like everything that man creates and produces. This is because a person expresses his taste, thought, and spirit in everything he makes.

Just as man has undergone the year of evolution and advancement in his ideas, concepts, and tastes, influenced by the natural environment surrounding him, religious sentiment, traditions, and the social milieu, so too has his artistic production developed, and the manifestations and characteristics of this production differed according to time and place.

But despite this difference, the similarities remain great between one art and another, in one era. This is because artistic innovations leak easily across the borders separating countries and peoples, due to the movement of individuals, or due to conquests, or as a result of constant friction and the exchange of knowledge and experiences.

The major civilizations have been subjected to the phenomena of imitation and adaptation, without erasing their personality or losing the elements of their originality.

The phenomena of imitation, borrowing, and cultural models were intensifying and strengthening, due to the increase in ties between nations and the contraction of the existing among them. Until an artistic unity is about to emerge, or a global art that will imprint the products of nations with its general character. We see this in particular in the architectural arts, and ever since man appeared on Earth and began to interact with it in order to secure his survival, shelter and housing were among the basic issues that occupied his mind, and took a lot of his time and effort.

It was natural, in the beginning, for man to devote his attention to using the caves created by nature, and then to introduce improvements to them or carve them himself, and decorate their walls with the scenes and images that the environment around him suggested to him. Thus began the first artistic expression in the production of architectural man.

Then ancient man evolved a little, and built huts, using easy materials such as tree branches, mud, and straw to build them. Thousands of years have passed since primitive man did not go beyond these means. Time progressed, and construction work became more advanced, and man used dirt, sun-dried bricks, and hardened stone. In erecting buildings, tree trunks are used to prepare or carry roofs.

Since the dawn of history, ancient Eastern man in Syria and Mesopotamia accumulated artistic expertise and architectural principles that paved the way for the emergence of cities and the emergence of major civilizations.

Construction and reconstruction among nations have become one of the most important manifestations of vitality, sophistication, and the distinctive character of their civilizations. Nations’ facilities and urban works vary according to the innovations and technology they have acquired, and their taste and culture. The building materials available in each of them also contribute to giving the nation’s buildings a distinctive character.

Some countries depend in building on mud or brick, some rely on carved stone, some lack wood and resort to using stone even in roofing buildings, and some have wood in abundance and rely on it even to erect walls and roofs. The region also contributes to shaping the general appearance and detailed features of buildings and construction methods. Naturally, buildings built with stone are more durable over the ages and more resistant than wood and mud buildings.

2 - Ancient Eastern Arts:

Archaeological excavations that took place in the last two centuries in the Levant and Mesopotamia have revealed important architectural monuments belonging to the civilizations of the third and second millennia BC, created by peoples that scholars used to call Semites, including Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Amorites, and Arameans. But we prefer to call them the ancient Arabs, or the defunct Arabs, as the ancient Arab historians called them.

This is because of the homeland from which they came, which is the Arabian Peninsula, and because of the great kinship between them and the Arabs of the Peninsula in terms of language, religion and traditions.

Their products and innovations in the architectural and decorative arts had a great impact on pre-Islamic arts.

The Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, and Byzantines, the pioneers of Western civilization, quoted from them. The Parthians and Sassanians also quoted from them in the ancient East. These and those were mediators between the ancient Arabs and the modern Arabs, the builders of the Arab-Islamic civilization. They helped transfer many architectural and decorative elements to them, developed a little or a lot throughout the ages.

It is necessary here to take a quick look at the most important of these elements to make it easier for us to trace their effects in Arab-Islamic art. Sasanian and classical arts. Excavators have uncovered numerous caves and temples in many sites of ancient Syrian cities, such as Mari, Ugarit, Tell Halaf, and Ebla, and in Iraqi cities such as Uruk and Babylon, in which the strength of planning and the elegance of construction were evident, and there appeared a noticeable development in the use of many architectural and decorative elements.

One of the prominent elements in Mesopotamian buildings built of mud and brick is the heavenly courtyard surrounded by roofed wings. The rooms are shallow in order to facilitate roofing. We find the portable portico on a row of those in the third millennium (Mary and Ebla). And the zikkurats that form tiered towers with stairs or inclined slopes surrounding them from the outside to ascend to the top: This is in terms of planning, but in terms of architectural elements, doors with semicircular arches or arches were found.