confronting the king in his role as builder – of temples, palaces and other monumental
structures, such as city walls, streets and gates and (usually outside of the city) canals.
These activities are very well attested in the corpus of royal inscriptions for all periods
of Mesopotamian history. The execution of large-scale building projects implies the
mobilisation of large numbers of workers and the procuring of huge quantities of the
necessary materials, not to mention the administration and supervision of both men
and supplies by a host of trained officials.
But the king himself was, of course, subject to social and religious convention. A
major influence on the shape of the cities was the pervasive, long-term conservatism
and the high degree of resistance to change, especially with respect to the layout
of religious buildings. Kings actively sought to follow earlier plans when engaged
in the rebuilding of temples. The lengths to which the Neo-Babylonian rulers were
prepared to go – even to the extent of conducting programmes of ‘archaeological
excavation’ – have been nicely documented by Winter ( 2000 ). This conservatism also
applied with regard to the course of ceremonial streets: there is textual evidence which
indicates that diverting such a street was considered to be a sin. The positioning of
palaces was not affected by such considerations.
Display and prestige are further factors to be taken into account as influences on
the shape of the city. We should be mindful of the visual effect of the temples, palaces
and other monumental structures, which would have towered over the areas of (generally
single-storey) housing. As we have seen, monumental buildings were not necessarily
confined to the city centre; temples at Babylon, for example, were distributed around
the city, in the heart of residential quarters. Other features intended to impress may
have included royal gardens (see above).
Finally, we have to take into account the effects of existing property boundaries
on city layout. This factor was especially critical in the residential districts. Streets,
as we have seen, were often very long lived, and the boundaries of the built-up insulae
which they separated would therefore tend to be stable over considerable periods.
However, within the insulae it was a different matter. A private alley leading to the
heart of a residential block could be remodelled or even moved as individual houses,
or parts of houses, changed hands, according to the requirements of the inhabitants.
Property boundaries were fluid and, facilitated by the use of mudbrick, which lent
itself to relatively easy modifications, houses could change shape as the household
expanded or contracted and parts were sold off or neighbouring rooms acquired. At
the level of the residential neighbourhood there was probably little, if any, official
involvement in planning, and private residents would determine for themselves, by
mutual if not by written agreement, the shape of their own immediate environ-
ment. These transformations are evident both in the archaeological record and in
the legal contracts, which shed a great deal of light on the social background to them
in terms of the contemporary patterns of property ownership, transmission and
inheritance.
CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN URBAN
LAYOUTWhen dealing with cities that were occupied over many hundreds of years, it can be
difficult to distinguish truly innovative elements in urban planning from those which
— Heather D. Baker —