The modernity of the Atlantean civilization

The modernity of the Atlantean civilization is defined by a dual reality: scientific absolute utility meeting an organic, ethereal aesthetic.  In the deep ocean, modernity of the Atlantean civilization is defined not by conquering the environment, but by achieving absolute bio-technological synthesis with it. Its modernity would be shaped by the weight of the ocean, the absence of sunlight, and the fluid dynamics of a three-dimensional world.

In a high-tech deep-sea environment, advancement is defined by environmental mastery, resource closed-loops, and fluid optimization. Because the deep ocean is a hyper-hostile environment, every piece of technology must be flawless to ensure survival, yet every design choice mimics the beautiful, fluid geometry of marine life.

A future deep-sea civilization like Atlantis would redefine modernity through unique environmental constraints. Its advancement would not look like a surface city, but rather a hyper-specialized adaptation to extreme pressure, darkness, and fluid dynamics.

Atlantean culture is defined by kinetic fluid dynamics, utilizing programmable ferrofluids, interactive light-trails, and sub-bass sonic symphonies that are felt through water conduction.The Defining Perspective: The psychological and visual identity of Atlantis is rooted in contrast—the ultimate juxtaposition of a warm, high-tech, hyper-secure interior framed against the freezing, pristine, pitch-black wilderness of the open ocean void.

A future deep-sea civilization's cultural identity would be anchored in an aesthetic of fluid functionalism. In a world with zero natural sunlight and crushing pressures, design cannot merely be decorative; it must be structural, communicative, and biological.

Culture

Modern aesthetics and fashion would integrate bio-engineered skin or smart fabrics emitting specific frequencies of light, serving as a secondary silent language and status symbol. Humans accustomed to open skies would face severe psychological strain in enclosed, pressurized pods. Modern interior design would utilize advanced volumetric holograms of open skies, artificial circadian lighting, and simulated acoustic winds to maintain mental health.

Governance would be highly localized into autonomous dome networks, connected by a digital senate due to the physical isolation imposed by the deep ocean. Social status would be tied to vital guilds—the Atmospheric Guild (oxygen/gas mix), the Thermal Guild (energy), and the Abyssal Guild (external maintenance and mining). A psychological divide would exist between deep-sea native citizens who fear open skies (agoraphobia) and surface-liaison pilots who manage trade with the dry world.

Without natural day or night, cities would rely on synchronized light shifts, cycling from soft ambient blue-greens (daytime) to absolute blackness with dim crimson pathways (sleep cycles). Commuting between deep-mining sectors and residential sectors would require mandatory, automated stabilization stops spent in sensory-relaxation chambers. A primary form of meditation and physical therapy where citizens spend hours in zero-gravity neutral buoyancy tanks, floating in pitch darkness to relieve joint stress.

Food culture would revolve around highly processed, nutrient-dense pastes and gels derived from sulfur-oxidizing bacteria, flavored with unique mineral salts from deep-sea vents. Clothing would feature integrated micro-vascular tubes filled with genetically modified glowing algae, shifting patterns and colors based on the wearer's heart rate and emotional state. Because sound travels four times faster in water, performance art and storytelling would rely on deep vocal resonance and throat singing, designed to be felt through the body rather than just heard by the ears.

Deep-sea philosophy (Fluctuism) completely rejects the surface world's obsession with permanence and static structures. Truth, art, and life are viewed as ever-shifting, unpredictable currents that humans must continuously adapt to. A major cultural coming-of-age ritual involves leaving the safety of the pressurized habitat for the first time. Young adults dawn high-tech atmospheric diving suits to spend an entire cycle in the silent, open abyss, learning to embrace the weight of the dark ocean. Rather than keeping physical books or electronic text archives, the civilization records its history in hydro-acoustic crystalline pillars. These structures store information as complex vibrational frequencies that are experienced holistically through bone-conduction audio array platforms.

Atlantean acoustics bypass traditional eardrums. High-tech auditory art uses bone-conduction soundscapes that vibrate the skeleton directly, creating immersive, 3D auditory illusions that cannot be replicated in a dry, open-air environment. High fashion utilizes non-Newtonian liquid fabrics. These smart materials remain perfectly fluid and flowing while walking inside a pressurized dome, but instantly harden into dense protective armor if exposed to an abrupt pressure drop or physical impact. Without a rising sun to measure time, culture relies on chromatic temporal markers. Public spaces gracefully shift color frequencies through the spectrum (from deep violet to vibrant cyan) to regulate collective circadian rhythms and establish a highly structured societal pace.

Art would abandon static canvases. Masterpieces would consist of fluid dynamics, utilizing magnetic fields to manipulate colored, glowing bioluminescent fluids within clear current-stabilized fields. Artists would use high-frequency sound waves to collapse bubbles in liquid, creating bursts of light and localized acoustic music designed for enhanced auditory senses. Sculptors would work by sending raw materials down into deep trenches, allowing hydrostatic pressure to compress and shape metals and glass into mathematically perfect, dense configurations.

Because red light is immediately absorbed by water, the civilization's visual landscape relies entirely on cyan, emerald, and violet. True red is an incredibly rare, highly prized luxury color used exclusively to signal utmost importance or wealth. Sculptures and artwork rely heavily on pressure-induced light. Crystals grown in high-pressure abyssal zones naturally store energy, releasing a soft, permanent ambient glow when brought into residential pressure zones. Instead of framing empty space with negative margins, deep-sea art treats absolute pitch blackness as the primary canvas. Light is used sparingly, shaping minimalist halos around central objects.

Fashion is a secondary language. Clothing uses micro-vascular tubing containing genetically engineered, glowing marine algae that pulsate dynamically to match the wearer's breathing, status, or emotional state. For casual or social spaces, citizens wear garments woven from ultra-dense, hydrophobic polymers. These fabrics trap a microscopic, thin layer of gas against the body, making the clothing ripple fluidly like jellyfish tentacles when worn in water. Heavy jewelry is replaced by lightweight, hyper-durable titanium and carbon fiber filigree. These accents are directly inspired by the intricate, geometric silica skeletons of deep-sea glass sponges (Euplectella).

Urban Design

Cities would resemble clusters of organic, multi-layered domes made of self-healing, flexible bio-plastics that flex with pressure changes instead of cracking. Buildings would hang upside down, suspended from the ceilings of massive underwater caverns or anchored directly into trench walls to avoid heavy seismic activity. Traditional doors and hallways would be replaced by water-filled locks and horizontal current tubes, allowing citizens to glide effortlessly between living sectors.

Rather than resisting seismic activity, modern Atlantean infrastructure utilizes piezoelectric foundation piles. These systems convert tectonic micro-tremors and massive ocean currents into a continuous stream of electrical energy. Cities utilize the natural pressure gradient of the ocean. By channeling high-pressure abyssal water through localized nano-vortex turbines, they generate auxiliary power while simultaneously purifying water through mechanical desalination. The outer shells of oceanic habitats are protected by electro-magnetic plasma fields. These fields repel biological fouling (barnacles, destructive algae) and prevent corrosive saltwater oxidation at a molecular level.

Buildings would reject rigid steel and concrete, which corrode or fail under immense hydrostatic pressure. Modernity would look like flexible, self-healing composite materials modeled after deep-sea glass sponges. Structures would be shaped like teardrops or manta rays to minimize drag from shifting ocean currents. Cities would grow vertically along oceanic trenches, anchored securely to tectonic plates. Modern living spaces would utilize advanced gas-mixing automation to prevent oxygen toxicity and nitrogen narcosis, maintaining precise pressures relative to depth.

Buildings mimic the shapes of apex marine predators. Structures feature flexible fluid-filled micro-channels that automatically shift ballast and density to counteract sudden underwater mudslides or violent thermal currents. Because physical light bulbs degrade quickly, ambient illumination is projected via luminescent gas-suspension columns. Laser systems excite microscopic, floating particles trapped within clear architecture, creating solid-looking pillars of adjustable light.

Sharp, geometric corners are architectural liabilities under hydrostatic pressure. Interiors prioritize organic, sweeping curves reminiscent of manta rays or nautilus shells to maximize structural strength. Walls are lined with porous, acoustic-dampening kelp-silk composites. These materials prevent the persistent, echoing groans of the pressurized city dome from causing psychological fatigue. Traditional dry walls are replaced by clear, pressurized barriers containing specialized ferrofluids. These dynamic liquid walls are easily manipulated by magnetic pulses to alter room layouts or lighting schemes.

Modern deep-sea transit would utilize supercavitation technology, creating a gas bubble around submarines to eliminate friction and allow supersonic travel between underwater hubs. A modern communications infrastructure would rely on high-frequency directional sonar arrays and modulated blue-green laser pulses for local data, alongside neutrino-based systems for global communication. Navigation would bypass 2D roads entirely. Autonomous traffic management algorithms would map 3D flight paths through water columns, utilizing currents to save fuel.

Technology

Genomic science would focus on rewriting human cellular structures to withstand higher pressures, eventually aiming to eliminate the need for mechanical pressure suits entirely. Navigation and weather forecasting would rely on AI networks that process acoustic echo-returns, mapping shifting deep-sea currents and tectonic micro-tremors in real time. Laboratories would sit directly over volcanic vents, using the extreme temperature differentials to power particle acceleration experiments and heavy element synthesis.

Instead of solar energy, the civilization would rely entirely on volcanic activity. Massive turbines wrapped around hydrothermal vents (black smokers) would capture constant thermal and kinetic energy. Energy would be generated via pressure-retarded osmosis where fresh subterranean water meets high-salinity seawater. The abundance of seawater provides an infinite supply of deuterium, making clean nuclear fusion the foundational base-load power source.

Modern nutrition would discard sunlight-based farming. Food production would rely on vast bioluminescent chambers farming chemosynthetic bacteria, genetically optimized deep-sea flora, and cellular aquaculture. The core healthcare and pharmaceutical industries would revolve around "extremozymes"—enzymes harvested from deep-sea organisms that thrive in toxic, high-pressure zones. These would drive advancements in anti-aging, cellular repair, and toxin resistance. Economy would be backed by automated robotic fleets harvesting manganese nodules, cobalt crusts, and lithium deposits directly from the abyssal plains.

Atlantean data transmission relies on modulated acoustic quantum entanglement, allowing petabytes of data to travel instantaneously through liquid mediums via hyper-dense vibrational arrays. High-tech medicine focuses on cellular pressure stabilization. Through targeted genetic therapies derived from deep-sea organisms (barophiles), citizens possess reinforced cellular walls that resist decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis. Cybernetic implants are integrated with the human nervous system to control ambient technology. Users alter their skin's bio-electric output, using localized light pulses to command smart-home automation and external vehicle arrays.

Summary

Atlantean urban planning completely discards the rigid, geometric blue-prints of surface cities. Structures mimic apex marine organisms (manta rays, nautilus shells, and glass sponges). Buildings feature flexible, self-healing chitin-silica composite shells that flex with shifting hydrostatic pressure instead of cracking. Cities grow vertically along tectonic trenches. They utilize water-filled pneumatic transit corridors and gravity-assisted ballast lifts, navigating a fully realized 3D spatial grid. Domes are reinforced by molecular plasma fields that actively repel biological fouling (barnacles, destructive boring organisms) and neutralize chemical oxidation from corrosive saltwater.

Without access to solar, wind, or fossil fuel combustion, Atlantis relies on a hyper-efficient, self-sustaining energy grid built on deep-sea planetary mechanics. Supercritical quantum turbines harness the intense heat of volcanic black smokers, converting thermal kinetic energy into the city’s primary power load. Foundation piles anchoring the city to the seabed are built from advanced piezoelectric materials, capturing and storing the constant vibrational energy of seismic rifts and deep ocean currents. Seawater provides an infinite supply of deuterium, fueling compact nuclear fusion reactors that power localized life-support ecosystems.

Traditional electromagnetic waves (radio, Wi-Fi, GPS) cannot penetrate deep water. Atlantis operates on a unique, hyper-advanced communications framework. Data transmission relies on modulated acoustic quantum entanglement. Micro-vibrational frequencies pass massive streams of data instantaneously through liquid mediums. Genetically integrated cellular enhancements—derived from extreme deep-sea barophiles—reinforce the human body at a molecular level, allowing citizens to resist decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis. Cybernetic implants sync with the human nervous system. Citizens interact with their homes and machines via bio-electric skin pulses, controlling technology through personal light emission.

The Atlantean economy is completely decoupled from surface agriculture and mining, drawing infinite wealth from the unexploited abyssal plains. Resource gathering will be automated robotic fleets harvesting manganese nodules and cobalt crusts. Chemosynthetic bacterial farming and high-density cellular aquaculture. In pharmaceuticals, extremozyme isolation from volcanic vent organisms for cellular repair.

Living in perpetual darkness beneath miles of water completely transforms human psychology, sensory perception, and daily routines. In the absence of natural day or night, collective circadian rhythms are regulated by synchronized lighting shifts. Ambient lights transition systematically from soft violet to vibrant cyan. Daily life includes mandatory stops in sensory-relaxation decompression chambers when transitioning between hyper-pressurized industrial mining sectors and residential domes. To counteract deep-sea agoraphobia and confinement stress, interior spaces utilize advanced volumetric holograms of open skies alongside simulated acoustic winds.

Art and self-expression in Atlantis celebrate the concept of constant change, rejecting the surface world's obsession with static, permanent monuments. Visual masterpieces consist of glowing bioluminescent fluids suspended inside electromagnetic containment fields, constantly shifting and morphing in response to localized currents. Musical performance bypasses traditional eardrums entirely, relying on sub-sonic frequencies that vibrate the listener's skeleton to create a holistic, internal auditory experience. Fashion utilizes non-Newtonian fluid materials embedded with micro-vascular tubes of glowing algae. The garments flow like jellyfish tentacles in social spaces, but instantly harden into dense armor if exposed to an abrupt impact or pressure drop.

Art and Culture of Atlantis Deep-Sea Futurism

The deep-sea futurism of Atlantis is defined by a dual reality: scientific absolute utility meeting an organic, ethereal aesthetic. Because the deep ocean is a hyper-hostile environment, every piece of technology must be flawless to ensure survival, yet every design choice mimics the beautiful, fluid geometry of marine life.

Atlantis is a hyper-advanced, post-terrestrial civilization located thousands of meters below the surface in the planet's deepest oceanic trenches. Forced into the abyssal plains by an ancient cataclysm, this society survived by merging hard-core quantum engineering with the biological principles of deep-sea life, creating a unique marine-futuristic technocracy.   

Atlantean culture rejects static, dry-land mediums. Their art is defined by kinetic fluid dynamics, utilizing programmable ferrofluids, interactive light-trails, and sub-bass sonic symphonies that are felt through water conduction.The Defining Perspective: The psychological and visual identity of Atlantis is rooted in contrast—the ultimate juxtaposition of a warm, high-tech, hyper-secure interior framed against the freezing, pristine, pitch-black wilderness of the open ocean void.

Deep-sea futurism

Traditional boxy, flat-walled architecture would instantly collapse under the crushing weight of the deep ocean (exceeding 1,000 atmospheres). Atlantean structures are engineered using hyper-curved parabolas, teardrops, and nautiloid geometries. These shapes distribute hydrostatic pressure evenly across the exterior and allow fierce ocean currents to glide harmlessly around them. This science eliminates traditional grid-like urban planning, resulting in an architecture of "Liquid Sculpting." Spires, towers, and transport tubes sweep upward in elegant, bone-like ribcages. Cities look like hyper-futuristic, shimmering white coral reefs rather than industrial factories, blending seamlessly into the underwater landscape.

Concrete and steel degrade rapidly under the corrosive, high-salinity conditions of the deep sea. Atlantis relies on yttrium-stabilized zirconium hydro-glass and orichalcum superconductors. The hydro-glass possesses a molecular density that easily resists abyssal pressure, while the orichalcum framework generates localized electromagnetic fields that shield the interiors from seismic micro-tremors. The visual results are spectacular panoramic walls of absolute transparency. The aesthetic relies entirely on The Abyssal Contrast: sitting inside a warm, softly lit, hyper-secure room while looking directly out into a freezing, pristine, pitch-black wilderness. The frame of the window becomes a living, shifting art gallery of passing deep-sea fauna.

Devoid of sunlight, Atlantis harvests energy by tapping into the Earth’s mantle via cybernetic geothermal plants built around hydrothermal black smoker vents. This energy is distributed through clothing and architecture via micro-circuits of programmable algae-gels. Furthermore, because humans lack sunlight, these gels must shift in wavelength over a 24-hour cycle to regulate human circadian rhythms and prevent psychological decay. In the eternal darkness of the deep sea, light is the primary artistic medium. The aesthetic is defined by Chromatic Bioluminescence. The foundations of clothing and buildings rely on light-absorbing darks (midnight blues and wet obsidian), which are sharply contrasted by pulsing, neon-cyan, electric violet, and deep-sea emerald light paths. The civilization literally glows from within, echoing the bioluminescent signaling of deep-sea organisms.

Human movement underwater is restricted by extreme drag and the threat of barotrauma. Atlantean fashion centers on carbon-nanotube skinsuits. Micro-sensors in the fabric dynamically tighten or loosen to stabilize internal blood pressure, while the exterior texture utilizes biomimicry—replicating the microscopic dermal denticles (vortex-reducing scales) of sharks to eliminate water resistance. Fashion prioritizes a streamlined, statuesque human form. To break the clinical look of compression gear, elites drape themselves in veils and capes made of semi-translucent, weightless liquid-crystal polymers. When swimming, these accents flow with the weightless, ethereal grace of a manta ray or a betta fish, turning basic human locomotion into a high-tech ballet.

Art

The art and aesthetics of futuristic Atlantis reject the static, rigid mediums of dry land. In a world without wood, paper, or stone quarries, and where gravity is replaced by near-weightless buoyancy, Atlanteans have pioneered a style known as Fluid Luminescence.Their artistic expressions are designed to be dynamic, constantly shifting in response to water currents, magnetic fields, and human emotion.

Atlantean artists do not paint canvas or chisel marble; they manipulate energy and smart fluids. The written language of Atlantis is inherently artistic. Scribes use hand-held electromagnetic styluses to draw sweeping glyphs into tanks of high-viscosity, programmable gel. These light-trails hang suspended in mid-air or mid-water, pulsing and changing color to convey layers of poetic meaning. Interactive art is highly prized. Sculptures are made of liquid metals (ferrofluids) suspended in transparent polymer cases. Controlled by microscopic, localized magnetic grids, these sculptures shift from smooth, mirror-finished orbs into complex, razor-sharp geometric spikes based on the viewer’s brainwaves or physical proximity. Fashion and tapestries are crafted from sea silk (byssus) infused with liquid-crystal polymers. These fabrics catch ambient light and ripple with shifting, oil-slick iridescence, giving the impression that the material is constantly wet and flowing.

Because a massive portion of the city looks out into the wild ocean, the external landscape is treated as a vast, public sculpture park. Positioned outside the pressurized domes, massive, open-frame sculptures are crafted from specialized titanium-obsidian alloys. As fierce deep-sea currents pass through these structures, they vibrate, emitting low-frequency, hauntingly beautiful melodic hums that are piped into the city as ambient music. Sculptors use weak electrical currents to stimulate the growth of synthetic, calcium-printed coral beds. Over decades, these structures are guided to grow into intricate, sweeping arches, statues, and public pavilions, seamlessly blending human creativity with natural marine growth.

In the deep ocean, sound travels four times faster through water than through air. As a result, Atlantean music is a deeply visceral, physical experience. Musical compositions rely heavily on low-frequency infrasound and synthesized whale songs. These frequencies are played through localized, hydro-acoustic transducers that vibrate the floors and seating structures. The audience does not merely listen to a symphony through their ears; they feel the rhythmic pressure waves resonate directly through their chest cavities and muscular skeletal structures, making music an immersive, full-body immersion.

Atlantean aesthetics are heavily influenced by the visual laws of the deep sea. In a pitch-black world, "negative space" is literal darkness. Art installations and architectural spaces often leave massive areas completely unlit. A single, perfectly sculpted, glowing centerpiece is placed in the center of a dark room, forcing the viewer to appreciate the stark isolation of the object. Perfect squares and sharp 90-degree angles are associated with primitive, surface-dweller engineering. Atlantean art embraces the sweeping curves, tapering spirals, and irregular rib-structures found in the shells of cephalopods and the skeletons of deep-sea megafauna.

The human body itself is treated as the ultimate artistic statement. High-status jewelry consists of floating rings of light or metallic orichalcum collars that do not clasp the skin but hover perfectly in place via micro-magnetic levitation, accentuating the natural, statuesque lines of the body.

Architecture

In a science fiction setting, the architecture of futuristic Atlantis moves completely away from classical stone ruins. Instead, it embraces a bioluminescent, cyber-organic style built to withstand the ultimate hostile environment.Atlantean architecture merges hardcore deep-sea engineering with the fluid geometries of marine life, turning cities into living, pressure-resistant ecosystems.

Atlantean structures are engineered using hyper-curved parabolas, teardrops, and nautiloid geometries. These shapes distribute hydrostatic pressure evenly across the exterior and allow fierce ocean currents to glide harmlessly around them.The Aesthetic Perspective: This science eliminates traditional grid-like urban planning, resulting in an architecture of "Liquid Sculpting." Spires, towers, and transport tubes sweep upward in elegant, bone-like ribcages. Cities look like hyper-futuristic, shimmering white coral reefs rather than industrial factories, blending seamlessly into the underwater landscape.

Concrete and steel degrade rapidly under the corrosive, high-salinity conditions of the deep sea. Atlantis relies on yttrium-stabilized zirconium hydro-glass and orichalcum superconductors. The hydro-glass possesses a molecular density that easily resists abyssal pressure, while the orichalcum framework generates localized electromagnetic fields that shield the interiors from seismic micro-tremors.

The visual results are spectacular panoramic walls of absolute transparency. The aesthetic relies entirely on The Abyssal Contrast: sitting inside a warm, softly lit, hyper-secure room while looking directly out into a freezing, pristine, pitch-black wilderness. The frame of the window becomes a living, shifting art gallery of passing deep-sea fauna.

The materials used to build sci-fi Atlantis are grown, synthesized, or magnetized to resist the corrosive, high-salinity conditions of the deep sea. Atlanteans do not quarry stone; they use bio-printed, ultra-dense synthetic coral that grows into predetermined architectural shapes. This material absorbs carbon and minerals directly from the seawater, continuously repairing its own structural cracks. Replacing opaque concrete walls, buildings utilize thick, multi-layered yttrium-stabilized zirconium glass. This material is completely transparent from the inside—offering panoramic views of the ocean—but looks like reflective, metallic obsidian from the outside to ensure privacy. Structural skeletons and reinforcing ribcages are forged from orichalcum, a rose-gold metallic alloy that acts as a quantum superconductor. These metallic ribs pulse with electromagnetic energy, generating localized forcefields that shield the buildings from seismic shifts and deep-sea megafauna.

In the eternal darkness of the abyssal zone, architecture is light. Light is used not just for visibility, but as a primary artistic and communicative medium. Pulsing, liquid-neon energy grids run along the exterior ridges of every building like glowing veins, bathing the city in a soft, ethereal palette of cyan, electric violet, and deep-sea teal. Buildings feature programmable chromatophore surfaces (similar to cuttlefish skin). The exterior walls can ripple with shifting light patterns to mimic the dappled effect of sunlight filtering through the surface, or flash a harsh amber-red to signal a city-wide emergency.

Atlantean cities discard the flat, two-dimensional grid of land-based urban planning for true volumetric freedom. Cities are built in strict vertical strata. The heavy industrial sectors and automated mining rigs sit on the dark seabed. The middle layers house the residential pods. The highest spires reach toward the surface, housing docks for trans-oceanic submersibles. Streets are replaced by pressurized, illuminated thermal current tubes. Citizens wearing hydrodynamic suits or piloting sleek, manta-ray-shaped gliders are propelled through these tubes at high speeds from one district to another. The defining aesthetic of an Atlantean interior is the striking contrast of sitting in a warm, cozy, hyper-secure room while looking out through flawless hydro-glass into a freezing, pristine, pitch-black wilderness, watching glowing deep-sea life glide past.

Culture

The culture and philosophy of a futuristic, deep-sea Atlantis are shaped by one core reality: survival in a beautiful but completely hostile environment. Because an individual’s life depends entirely on the collective maintenance of life-support technology, their civilization rejects the individualistic, consumer-driven philosophies of the surface world.Instead, Atlanteans have developed a deeply spiritual, highly disciplined, and eco-centric way of life known as the Abyssal Mindset.

Living under thousands of atmospheres of ocean water has created a unique psychological and philosophical framework. Atlanteans view physical and societal pressure not as a burden, but as a force that refines and unites.The Refining Force: Just as the crushing weight of the earth turns carbon into diamond, Atlanteans believe that hardships, strict discipline, and intense focus forge a superior human character. Mental weakness or emotional volatility are seen as dangerous vulnerabilities that could threaten the safety of a pressurized dome. Their social etiquette emphasizes extreme emotional control, calm communication, and absolute clarity. 

Collective Survival over the IndividualIn an underwater metropolis, a single structural breach or a failed oxygen valve can kill millions. Therefore, Atlantean morality is strictly collectivist.Absolute Sustainability: Their ethical code treats waste as a crime against the collective. Every molecule of water, breath of air, and scrap of biological matter must be recycled through their closed-loop nanotech systems. Because everyone's life-support skinsuit is networked into a central urban system, Atlanteans possess an intense sense of shared responsibility. Privacy is respected, but true isolation is non-existent; everyone is consciously aware that they are a single cell in a massive, living organism.

While ancient Atlantis worshipped Poseidon as a literal god, futuristic Atlantis has evolved this belief into a highly sophisticated form of techno-spiritual pantheism.The Deep as the Great Mother: The ocean is viewed as a living, conscious entity that must be respected and appeased through scientific stewardship. The deep-sea void is not seen as empty or terrifying, but as a pristine, divine sanctuary that shields them from the chaotic, sun-baked surface world. Geothermal black smoker vents are treated with religious reverence. Because these volcanic vents provide the endless heat and electricity that powers their entire civilization, they are viewed as the ultimate givers of life. The massive cybernetic power stations built over them function simultaneously as industrial factories and grand cathedrals.

A person’s place in Atlantean society is culturally determined by their psychological resilience and their biological compatibility with high-pressure environments. The highest cultural prestige belongs to those who live and work in the deepest, high-pressure trenches. These individuals have undergone advanced cybernetic and genetic enhancements to endure the absolute dark. They are viewed as enlightened philosophers who have fully embraced the quiet majesty of the ocean floor. 

Without a natural sun or moon to mark the passing of days, the Atlantean perception of time is completely artificial and deeply artistic. Time is not viewed as a rigid grid of hours and days, but as a continuous, flowing stream.The Luminescent Chronology: While their programmable, bioluminescent walls simulate a 24-hour cycle to keep their human biologies healthy, Atlanteans culturally celebrate the transitions of light. The moment the city lights fade into "The Deep Midnight" is treated as a sacred period of absolute silence, meditation, and communal rest.

Babylonian culture

Babylonian culture refers to the ancient civilization centered in the city of Babylon, in what is now Iraq, known for its rich traditions in art, architecture, astronomy, medicine, and law, most notably the Code of Hammurabi. Key aspects include massive temples to polytheistic gods like Marduk, development of architectural elements like the pilaster and column from brick use, advanced astronomical observation, and the practice of reading and writing, often from translated Sumerian texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Bronze Age to Early Iron Age Mesopotamian culture is sometimes summarized as "Assyro-Babylonian", because of the close ethnic, linguistic and cultural interdependence of the two political centers. The term "Babylonia", especially in writings from around the early 20th century, was formerly used to also include Southern Mesopotamia's earliest pre-Babylonian history, and not only in reference to the later city-state of Babylon proper. This geographic usage of the name "Babylonia" has generally been replaced by the more accurate term Sumer or Sumero-Akkadian in more recent writing, referring to the pre-Assyro-Babylonian Mesopotamian civilization.

The Babylonians were polytheistic, worshipping a pantheon of gods and goddesses, with Marduk as the chief patron god of Babylon. Temples were elaborate structures housing cult statues that were treated as the gods themselves. The Babylonians created massive temples of brick, developing pilasters, columns, frescoes, and enameled tiles. Gem-cutting was a highly refined art, and they produced three-dimensional statues. 

Babylonians translated and preserved much of ancient Sumerian literature, including epic works like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Both men and women learned to read and write, and there is evidence of a public school system. 

They meticulously recorded astronomical phenomena, compiling extensive catalogues of stars and constellations and developing methods to predict celestial events. Basic medical practices like diagnosis and prognosis were introduced, and various illnesses with their symptoms were catalogued. 

The Code of Hammurabi is a famous example of Babylonian legal tradition, comprising 282 laws focused on contracts and family law. Families were typically monogamous, though polygamy was allowed in certain situations. Marriage agreements and divorce were structured by law. 

Astronomy: 

Babylonian astronomers made extensive records of celestial phenomena and developed a new empirical approach to astronomy during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. They recognized planets as periodic phenomena and used observations for the good of the state.

Tablets dating back to the Old Babylonian period document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year. Centuries of Babylonian observations of celestial phenomena are recorded in the series of cuneiform script tablets known as the 'Enūma Anu Enlil'. The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is Tablet 63 of 'Enūma Anu Enlil', the Venus tablet of Ammi-Saduqa, which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a planet were recognized as periodic. 

The oldest rectangular astrolabe dates back to Babylonia c. 1100 BC. The MUL.APIN, contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting heliacal risings and the settings of the planets, lengths of daylight measured by a water clock, gnomon, shadows, and intercalations. The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time-intervals, and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by given right-ascensional differences.

Among the sciences, astronomy and astrology still occupied a conspicuous place in Babylonian society. Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia. The zodiac was a Babylonian invention of great antiquity; and eclipses of the sun and moon could be foretold. There are dozens of cuneiform records of original Mesopotamian eclipse observations.

Babylonian astronomy was the basis for much of what was done in ancient Greek astronomy, in classical, in Sasanian, Byzantine and Syrian astronomy, astronomy in the medieval Islamic world, and in Central Asian and Western European astronomy. Neo-Babylonian astronomy can thus be considered the direct predecessor of much of ancient Greek mathematics and astronomy, which in turn is the historical predecessor of the European (Western) Scientific Revolution.

During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution. This new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy.

In Seleucid and Parthian times, the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The Babylonian development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major episode in the history of astronomy.

The only Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC). Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch. He supported the heliocentric theory where the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used.

Mathematics:

The Babylonians devised a sexagesimal (base 60) numeral system, which is the basis for modern divisions of time (60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour) and circles (360 degrees). They had knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem long before Pythagoras and estimated the square root of two to seven places.

Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited. In respect of time they fall in two distinct groups: one from the First Babylonian dynasty period (1830–1531 BC), the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries BC. In respect of content there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Thus Babylonian mathematics remained stale in character and content, with very little progress or innovation, for nearly two millennia.

The Babylonian system of mathematics was sexagesimal, or a base 60 numeral system. From this we derive the modern-day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 × 6) degrees in a circle. The Babylonians were able to make great advances in mathematics for two reasons. First, the number 60 has many divisors (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30), making calculations easier. Additionally, unlike the Egyptians and Romans, the Babylonians had a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values (much as in our base-ten system: 734 = 7×100 + 3×10 + 4×1). Among the Babylonians' mathematical accomplishments were the determination of the square root of two correctly to seven places (YBC 7289). They also demonstrated knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem well before Pythagoras.

The ner of 600 and the sar of 3600 were formed from the unit of 60, corresponding with a degree of the equator. Tablets of squares and cubes, calculated from 1 to 60, have been found at Senkera, and a people acquainted with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Austen Henry Layard at Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this could explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens.

The Babylonians might have been familiar with the general rules for measuring area. They are also known for the Babylonian mile, which was a measure of distance equal to about 11 kilometres (7 mi) today. This measurement for distances eventually was converted to a time-mile used for measuring the travel of the Sun, therefore, representing time. (Eves, Chapter 2) The Babylonians used also space time graphs to calculate the velocity of Jupiter. This is an idea that is considered highly modern, traced to the 14th century England and France and anticipating integral calculus.

Medicine: 

Ancient Babylonian medical texts introduced the concepts of diagnosis, prognosis, physical examination, and prescriptions. 

We find [medical semiotics] in a whole constellation of disciplines.... There was a real common ground among these [Babylonian] forms of knowledge... an approach involving analysis of particular cases, constructed only through traces, symptoms, hints.... In short, we can speak about a symptomatic or divinatory [or conjectural] paradigm which could be oriented toward past present or future, depending on the form of knowledge called upon. Toward future... that was the medical science of symptoms, with its double character, diagnostic, explaining past and present, and prognostic, suggesting likely future....

— Carlo Ginzburg

The oldest Babylonian (i.e., Akkadian) texts on medicine date back to the First Babylonian dynasty in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC although the earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur period. The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the ummânū, or chief scholar, Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa, during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069–1046 BC).

Along with contemporary ancient Egyptian medicine, the Babylonians introduced the concepts of diagnosis, prognosis, physical examination, and prescriptions. In addition, the Diagnostic Handbook introduced the methods of therapy and aetiology and the use of empiricism, logic and rationality in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of medical symptoms and often detailed empirical observations along with logical rules used in combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient with its diagnosis and prognosis.

The symptoms and diseases of a patient were treated through therapeutic means such as bandages, creams and pills. If a patient could not be cured physically, the Babylonian physicians often relied on exorcism to cleanse the patient from any curses. Esagil-kin-apli's Diagnostic Handbook was based on a logical set of axioms and assumptions, including the modern view that through the examination and inspection of the symptoms of a patient, it is possible to determine the patient's disease, its aetiology and future development, and the chances of the patient's recovery.

Esagil-kin-apli discovered a variety of illnesses and diseases and described their symptoms in his Diagnostic Handbook. These include the symptoms for many varieties of epilepsy and related ailments along with their diagnosis and prognosis. Later Babylonian medicine resembles early Greek medicine in many ways. In particular, the early treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus show the influence of late Babylonian medicine in terms of both content and form.

Art and architecture

The Neo-Babylonian Empire saw a resurgence of monumental architecture under Nebuchadnezzar II. Constructed around 575 BCE, the magnificent Ishtar Gate is magnificent gate was made of brilliantly colored, glazed bricks decorated with reliefs of bulls, lions, and dragons. Hanging Gardens is a lush series of tiered gardens that may have been created for Nebuchadnezzar's wife, though its existence is a subject of historical debate. Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the Etemenanki towering ziggurat, which is believed to be the inspiration for the biblical Tower of Babel.

In Babylonia, an abundance of clay, and lack of stone, led to greater use of mudbrick; Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian temples were massive structures of crude brick which were supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains. One such drain at Ur was made of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, and of frescoes and enameled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with zinc or gold, as well as with tiles. Painted terracotta cones for torches were also embedded in the plaster. In Babylonia, in place of the relief, there was greater use of three-dimensional figures—the earliest examples being the Statues of Gudea, that are realistic if somewhat clumsy. The paucity of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious, and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting.

Craftsmanship: 

Due to a lack of stone, Babylonian architects primarily used mud bricks for their impressive temples and structures. The Babylonians were skilled artisans, producing pottery, textiles, and intricate gem-cutting due to the scarcity of stone. 

Literature and education

Cuneiform: Babylonian texts, written in cuneiform on clay tablets, were meticulously recorded and preserved. Epic of Gilgamesh: Much of Babylonian literature was adapted from Sumerian texts, with the Epic of Gilgamesh being one of the most famous. Libraries and education: Libraries existed in most towns, and both men and women learned to read and write. The extinct Sumerian language was also a subject of study. 

There were libraries and temples in most towns; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn". Women as well as men learned to read and write, and in Semitic times, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary.

A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be written in the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists of them were drawn up.

There are many Babylonian literary works whose titles have come down to us. One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sin-liqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, and it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.

Philosophy

The origins of Babylonian philosophy can be traced back to early Mesopotamian wisdom literature, which embodied certain philosophies of life, particularly ethics, in the forms of dialectic, dialogs, epic poetry, folklore, hymns, lyrics, prose, and proverbs. Babylonian reasoning and rationality developed beyond empirical observation.

It is possible that Babylonian philosophy had an influence on Greek philosophy, particularly Hellenistic philosophy. The Babylonian text Dialogue of Pessimism contains similarities to the Agnostic thought of the sophists, the Heraclitean doctrine of contrasts, and the dialogs of Plato, as well as a precursor to the maieutic Socratic method of Socrates. The Milesian philosopher Thales is also known to have studied philosophy in Mesopotamia.

According to the assyriologist Marc Van de Mieroop, Babylonian philosophy was a highly developed system of thought with a unique approach to knowledge and a focus on writing, lexicography, divination, and law. It was also a bilingual intellectual culture, based on Sumerian and Akkadian.

Law and governance

The strength of Babylonian society came from a centralized government and a clear legal system. One of the most famous Babylonian contributions is the Code of Hammurabi, written around 1754 BCE. It is one of the oldest deciphered legal texts of its length in the world, consisting of 282 laws that established social order and economic rules.

Religion and mythology

Babylonians were polytheistic, worshipping a large pantheon of gods and goddesses. Marduk is the chief patron god of Babylon and head of the mythological pantheon. The Babylonian creation myth, recorded in the Enûma Eliš, tells of the rise of Marduk to supremacy. It explains that humanity was created from a god's blood to serve the other gods. Elaborate cult statues of deities were housed in towering temples, where they were ritually fed and cared for by priests. The massive, stepped pyramids known as ziggurats served as temples believed to be the dwelling places of the gods.

Legacy

Babylonia, and particularly its capital city Babylon, has long held a place in the Abrahamic religions as a symbol of excess and dissolute power. Many references are made to Babylon in the Bible, both literally (historical) and allegorically. The mentions in the Tanakh tend to be historical or prophetic, while New Testament apocalyptic references to the Whore of Babylon are more likely figurative, or cryptic references possibly to pagan Rome, or some other archetype. The legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Tower of Babel are seen as symbols of luxurious and arrogant power respectively.

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Babylonian landscaping

Babylonian landscaping, specifically referring to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, is characterized by its impressive tiered structure, sophisticated irrigation system, and abundant use of diverse plant life. It represents a fusion of architectural and engineering prowess, creating a lush, green oasis in the arid Mesopotamian landscape. 

The Hanging Gardens were not truly hanging but rather built on a series of tiered, elevated terraces, resembling a large, green mountain. The gardens were supported by massive stone columns and walls, and potentially included features like vaulted terraces and stone balconies, demonstrating advanced engineering techniques. 

An elaborate system lifted water from the Euphrates River to irrigate the gardens, ensuring the survival of a variety of plants. The gardens featured a wide array of trees, shrubs, and flowers, some of which were exotic and not native to the region, showcasing the wealth and power of the Babylonian empire. 

The Hanging Gardens were not just a beautiful landscape but also carried symbolic meaning, representing fertility, abundance, and the triumph of civilization over nature. The concept of the Hanging Gardens has inspired modern landscaping, particularly the use of vertical gardens and sustainable irrigation practices. 

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by Hellenic culture. They were described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines, resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks. It was said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq. The Hanging Gardens' name is derived from the Greek word κρεμαστός (kremastós, lit. 'overhanging'), which has a broader meaning than the modern English word "hanging" and refers to trees being planted on a raised structure such as a terrace.

According to one legend, the Hanging Gardens were built alongside a grand palace known as The Marvel of Mankind, by the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (who ruled between 605 and 562 BC), for his Median wife, Queen Amytis, because she missed the green hills and valleys of her homeland. This was attested to by the Babylonian priest Berossus, writing in about 290 BC, a description that was later quoted by Josephus. The construction of the Hanging Gardens has also been attributed to the legendary queen Semiramis and they have been called the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis as an alternative name.

The Hanging Gardens are the only one of the Seven Wonders whose location has not been definitively established. No extant Babylonian texts mention the gardens and no definitive archaeological evidence has been found in Babylon. Three theories have been suggested to account for this: first, that the gardens were purely mythical, and the descriptions found in ancient Greek and Roman writings (including those of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius Rufus) represented a romantic ideal of an eastern garden; second, that they existed in Babylon but were destroyed sometime around the first century AD; and third, that the legend refers to a well-documented garden that the Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BC) built in his capital city of Nineveh on the River Tigris, near the modern city of Mosul.

Descriptions in classical literature

There are five principal writers whose descriptions of Babylon exist in some form today. These writers concern themselves with the size of the Hanging Gardens, their overall design and means of irrigation, and why they were built.

Josephus (c. 37–100 AD) quotes a description of the gardens by Berossus, a Babylonian priest of Marduk, whose writing c. 290 BC is the earliest known mention of the gardens. Berossus described the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II and is the only source to credit that king with the construction of the Hanging Gardens.

In this palace he erected very high walls, supported by stone pillars; and by planting what was called a pensile paradise, and replenishing it with all sorts of trees, he rendered the prospect an exact resemblance of a mountainous country. This he did to gratify his queen, because she had been brought up in Media, and was fond of a mountainous situation.

Diodorus Siculus (active c. 60–30 BC) seems to have consulted the 4th century BC texts of both Cleitarchus (a historian of Alexander the Great) and Ctesias of Cnidus. Diodorus ascribes the construction to a "Syrian king". He states that the garden was in the shape of a square, with each side approximately four plethra long. The garden was tiered, with the uppermost gallery being 50 cubits high. The walls, 22 feet thick, were made of brick. The bases of the tiered sections were sufficiently deep to provide root growth for the largest trees, and the gardens were irrigated from the nearby Euphrates.

Quintus Curtius Rufus (fl. 1st century AD) probably drew on the same sources as Diodorus. He states that the gardens were located on top of a citadel, which was 20 stadia in circumference. He attributes the building of the gardens to a "Syrian king", again for the reason that his queen missed her homeland.

The account of Strabo (c. 64 BC – 21 AD) possibly based his description on the lost account of Onesicritus from the 4th century BC. He states that the gardens were watered by means of an Archimedes' screw leading to the gardens from the Euphrates river.

The last of the classical sources thought to be independent of the others is A Handbook to the Seven Wonders of the World by the paradoxographer Philo of Byzantium, writing in the 4th to 5th century AD (not to be confused with the earlier engineer of the same name). The method of raising water by screw matches that described by Strabo. Philo praises the engineering and ingenuity of building vast areas of deep soil, which had a tremendous mass, so far above the natural grade of the surrounding land, as well as the irrigation techniques.

Historical existence

It is unclear whether the Hanging Gardens were an actual construction or a poetic creation, owing to the lack of documentation in contemporaneous Babylonian sources. There is also no mention of Nebuchadnezzar's wife Amytis (or any other wives), although a political marriage to a Median or Persian would not have been unusual. Many records exist of Nebuchadnezzar's works, yet his long and complete inscriptions do not mention any garden. However, the gardens were said to still exist at the time that later writers described them, and some of these accounts are regarded as deriving from people who had visited Babylon. Herodotus, who describes Babylon in his Histories, does not mention the Hanging Gardens, although it could be that the gardens were not yet well known to the Greeks at the time of his visit.

To date, no archaeological evidence has been found at Babylon for the Hanging Gardens. It is possible that evidence exists beneath the Euphrates, which cannot be excavated safely at present. The river flowed east of its current position during the time of Nebuchadnezzar II, and little is known about the western portion of Babylon. Rollinger has suggested that Berossus attributed the Gardens to Nebuchadnezzar for political reasons, and that he had adopted the legend from elsewhere.

Identification with Sennacherib's gardens at Nineveh

Oxford scholar Stephanie Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were actually the well-documented gardens constructed by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (reigned 704–681 BC) for his palace at Nineveh; Dalley posits that during the intervening centuries the two sites became confused, and the extensive gardens at Sennacherib's palace were attributed to Nebuchadnezzar II's Babylon. Archaeological excavations have found traces of a vast system of aqueducts attributed to Sennacherib by an inscription on its remains, which Dalley proposes were part of an 80-kilometre (50 mi) series of canals, dams, and aqueducts used to carry water to Nineveh with water-raising screws used to raise it to the upper levels of the gardens.

Dalley bases her arguments on recent developments in the analysis of contemporary Akkadian inscriptions. Her main points are:

The name Babylon, meaning "Gate of the Gods", was the name given to several Mesopotamian cities. Sennacherib renamed the city gates of Nineveh after gods, which suggests that he wished his city to be considered "a Babylon".

Only Josephus names Nebuchadnezzar as the king who built the gardens; although Nebuchadnezzar left many inscriptions, none mentions any garden or engineering works. Diodorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius Rufus specify a "Syrian" king. By contrast, Sennacherib left written descriptions, and there is archaeological evidence of his water engineering. His grandson Assurbanipal pictured the mature garden on a sculptured wall panel in his palace.

Sennacherib called his new palace and garden "a wonder for all peoples". He describes the making and operation of screws to raise water in his garden.

The descriptions of the classical authors fit closely to these contemporary records. Before the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC Alexander the Great camped for four days near the aqueduct at Jerwan. The historians who travelled with him would have had ample time to investigate the enormous works around them, recording them in Greek. These first-hand accounts have not survived into modern times, but were quoted by later Greek writers.

King Sennacherib's garden was well-known not just for its beauty – a year-round oasis of lush green in a dusty summer landscape – but also for the marvelous feats of water engineering that maintained the garden. There was a tradition of Assyrian royal garden building. King Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) had created a canal, which cut through the mountains. Fruit tree orchards were planted. Also mentioned were pines, cypresses and junipers, almond trees, date trees, ebony, rosewood, olive, oak, tamarisk, walnut, terebinth, ash, fir, pomegranate, pear, quince, fig, and grapes. A sculptured wall panel of Assurbanipal shows the garden in its maturity. One original panel and the drawing of another are held by the British Museum, although neither is on public display. Several features mentioned by the classical authors are discernible on these contemporary images.

Of Sennacherib's palace, he mentions the massive limestone blocks that reinforce the flood defences. Parts of the palace were excavated by Austin Henry Layard in the mid-19th century. His citadel plan shows contours which would be consistent with Sennacherib's garden, but its position has not been confirmed. The area has been used as a military base in recent times, making it difficult to investigate further.

The irrigation of such a garden demanded an upgraded water supply to the city of Nineveh. The canals stretched over 50 kilometres (31 mi) into the mountains. Sennacherib was proud of the technologies he had employed and describes them in some detail on his inscriptions. At the headwater of Bavian (Khinnis) his inscription mentions automatic sluice gates. An enormous aqueduct crossing the valley at Jerwan was constructed of over two million dressed stones. It used stone arches and waterproof cement. On it is written:

Sennacherib king of the world king of Assyria. Over a great distance I had a watercourse directed to the environs of Nineveh, joining together the waters.... Over steep-sided valleys I spanned an aqueduct of white limestone blocks, I made those waters flow over it.

Sennacherib claimed that he had built a "Wonder for all Peoples", and said he was the first to deploy a new casting technique in place of the "lost-wax" process for his monumental (30 tonne) bronze castings. He was able to bring the water into his garden at a high level because it was sourced from further up in the mountains, and he then raised the water even higher by deploying his new water screws. This meant he could build a garden that towered above the landscape with large trees on the top of the terraces – a stunning artistic effect that surpassed those of his predecessors.

Plants

The gardens, as depicted in artworks, featured blossoming flowers, ripe fruit, burbling waterfalls and terraces exuberant with rich foliage. Based on Babylonian literature, tradition, and the environmental characteristics of the area, some of the following plants may have been found in the gardens:

Olive (Olea europaea)

Quince (Cydonia oblonga)

Common pear (Pyrus communis)

Fig (Ficus carica)

Almond (Prunus dulcis)

Common grape vine (Vitis vinifera)

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera)

Athel tamarisk (Tamarix aphylla)

Mt. Atlas mastic tree (Pistacia atlantica)

Imported plant varieties that may have been present in the gardens include cedar, cypress, ebony, pomegranate, plum, rosewood, terebinth, juniper, oak, ash tree, fir, myrrh, walnut, and willow. Some of these plants were suspended over the terraces and draped over its walls with arches underneath.

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Assyrian art

Assyrian art is characterized by its large-scale, narrative relief carvings, and sculptures that depict the power, military victories, and religious beliefs of the Assyrian empire. These artworks, often found in palaces and temples, served both decorative and symbolic purposes, showcasing the empire's strength and divine favor. 

Assyrian art is renowned for its detailed relief carvings, often in gypsum alabaster, that adorned palace walls and city gates. These carvings depicted scenes of warfare, hunting, religious deities, and daily life, with a strong emphasis on the king's heroic deeds and victories. Alongside the visual imagery, Assyrian art frequently incorporated written inscriptions, often in cuneiform, that provided context and further emphasized the king's achievements and lineage. 

Individual relief panels were often combined to tell a larger story, allowing viewers to follow the narrative through the sequence of images. Assyrian art was rich in political and religious symbolism. The carvings often depicted the king's divine right to rule and the power of Assyrian gods. 

Figures were sometimes depicted using composite views, where different body parts were shown from different perspectives (e.g., a profile face with a forward-facing eye). Assyrian artists often used hieratic scale, where the size of figures was determined by their importance, with the king typically depicted as the largest figure. Assyrian art also featured intricate patterns on clothing, weapons, and other objects, demonstrating the high level of craftsmanship.

Assyrian art adorned both public spaces like palace walls and private spaces like the king's living quarters, demonstrating the empire's reach and the king's power. Lamassu figures, These large, winged, human-headed bull or lion figures served as protective guardians at entrances to palaces and temples. 

Assyrian sculpture

Assyrian sculpture is the sculpture of the ancient Assyrian states, especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911 to 612 BC, which was centered around the city of Assur in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) which at its height, ruled over all of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia. It forms a phase of the art of Mesopotamia, differing in particular because of its much greater use of stone and gypsum alabaster for large sculpture.

Much the best-known works are the huge lamassu guarding entrance ways, and Assyrian palace reliefs on thin slabs of alabaster, which were originally painted, at least in part, and fixed on the wall all round the main rooms of palaces. Most of these are in museums in Europe or America, following a hectic period of excavations from 1842 to 1855, which took Assyrian art from being almost completely unknown to being the subject of several best-selling books, and imitated in political cartoons.

The palace reliefs contain scenes in low relief which glorify the king, showing him at war, hunting, and fulfilling other kingly roles. Many works left in situ, or in museums local to their findspots, have been deliberately destroyed in the recent occupation of the area by ISIS, the pace of destruction reportedly increasing in late 2016, with the Mosul offensive.

Other surviving types of art include many cylinder seals, a few rock reliefs, reliefs and statues from temples, bronze relief strips used on large doors, and small quantities of metalwork. A group of sixteen bronze weights shaped as lions with bilingual inscriptions in both cuneiform and Phoenician characters, were discovered at Nimrud. The Nimrud ivories, an important group of small plaques which decorated furniture, were found in a palace storeroom near reliefs, but they came from around the Mediterranean, with relatively few made locally in an Assyrian style.

Palace reliefs

The palace reliefs were fixed to the walls of royal palaces forming continuous strips along the walls of large halls. The style apparently began after about 879 BC, when Ashurnasirpal II moved the capital to Nimrud, near modern Mosul in northern Iraq. Thereafter, new royal palaces, of which there was typically one per reign, were extensively decorated in this way for the roughly 250 years until the end of the Assyrian Empire. There was subtle stylistic development, but a very large degree of continuity in subjects and treatment.

Compositions are arranged on slabs, or orthostats, typically about 7 feet high, using between one and three horizontal registers of images, with scenes generally reading from left to right. The sculptures are often accompanied with inscriptions in cuneiform script, explaining the action or giving the name and extravagant titles of the king. Heads and legs are shown in profile, but torsos in a front or three-quarters view, as in earlier Mesopotamian art. Eyes are also largely shown frontally. Some panels show only a few figures at close to life-size, such scenes usually including the king and other courtiers, but depictions of military campaigns include dozens of small figures, as well as many animals and attempts at showing landscape settings.

Campaigns focus on the progress of the army, including the fording of rivers, and usually culminates in the siege of a city, followed by the surrender and paying of tribute, and the return of the army home. A full and characteristic set shows the campaign leading up to the siege of Lachish in 701; it is the "finest" from the reign of Sennacherib, from his palace at Nineveh and now in the British Museum. Ernst Gombrich observed that none of the many casualties ever come from the Assyrian side. Another famous sequence there shows the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal, in fact the staged and ritualized killing by King Ashurbanipal of lions already captured and released into an arena, from the North Palace at Nineveh. The realism of the lions has always been praised, and the scenes are often regarded as "the supreme masterpieces of Assyrian art", although the pathos modern viewers tend to feel was perhaps not part of the Assyrian response.

There are many reliefs of minor supernatural beings, called by such terms as "winged genie", but the major Assyrian deities are only represented by symbols. The "genies" often perform a gesture of purification, fertilization or blessing with a bucket and cone; the meaning of this remains unclear., Especially on larger figures, details and patterns on areas such as costumes, hair and beards, tree trunks and leaves, and the like, are very meticulously carved. More important figures are often shown larger than others, and in landscapes more distant elements are shown higher up, but not smaller than, those in the foreground, though some scenes have been interpreted as using scale to indicate distance. Other scenes seem to repeat a figure in a succession of different moments, performing the same action, most famously a charging lion. But these were apparently experiments that remain unusual.

The king is often shown in narrative scenes, and also as a large standing figure in a few prominent places, generally attended by winged genies. A composition repeated twice in what is traditionally called the "throne-room" (though perhaps it was not) of Ashurbanipal's palace at Nimrud shows a "Sacred Tree" or "Tree of Life" flanked by two figures of the king, with winged genies using the bucket and cone behind him. Above the tree one of the major gods, perhaps Ashur the chief god, leans out of a winged disc, relatively small in scale. Such scenes are shown elsewhere on the robe of the king, no doubt reflecting embroidery on the real costumes, and the major gods are normally shown in discs or purely as symbols hovering in the air. Elsewhere the tree is often attended to by genies.

Women are relatively rarely shown, and then usually as prisoners or refugees; an exception is a "picnic" scene showing Ashurbanipal with his queen. The many beardless royal attendants can probably be assumed to be eunuchs, who ran much of the administration of the empire, unless they also have the shaved heads and very tall hats of priests. Kings are often accompanied by several courtiers, the closest to the king probably often being the appointed heir, who was not necessarily the oldest son.

The enormous scales of the palace schemes allowed narratives to be shown at an unprecedentedly expansive pace, making the sequence of events clear and allowing richly detailed depictions of the activities of large numbers of figures, not to be paralleled until the Roman narrative column reliefs of the Column of Trajan and Column of Marcus Aurelius.

Lamassu

Lamassu were protective minor deities or spirits, the Assyrian version of the "human-headed bull" figure that had long figured in Mesopotamian mythology and art. Lamassu have wings, a male human head with the elaborate headgear of a divinity, and the elaborately braided hair and beards shared with royalty. The body is that of either a bull or a lion, the form of the feet being the main difference. Prominent pairs of lamassu were typically placed at entrances in palaces, facing the street and also internal courtyards. They were "double-aspect" figures on corners, in high relief, a type earlier found in Hittite art. From the front they appear to stand, and from the side, walk, and in earlier versions have five legs, as is apparent when viewed obliquely. Lamassu do not generally appear as large figures in the low-relief schemes running round palace rooms, where winged genie figures are common, but they sometimes appear within narrative reliefs, apparently protecting the Assyrians.

The colossal entrance way figures were often followed by a hero grasping a wriggling lion, also colossal and in high relief; these and some genies beside lamassu are generally the only other types of high relief in Assyrian sculpture. The heroes continue the Master of Animals tradition in Mesopotamian art, and may represent Enkidu, a central figure in the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad, a group of at least seven lamassu and two such heroes with lions surrounded the entrance to the "throne room", "a concentration of figures which produced an overwhelming impression of power". The arrangement was repeated in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, with a total of ten lamassu. Other accompanying figures for colossal lamassu are winged genies with the bucket and cone, thought to be the equipment for a protective or purifying ritual.

Lamassu also appear on cylinder seals. Several examples left in situ in northern Iraq have been destroyed in the 2010s by ISIL when they occupied the area. Colossal lamassu also guarded the start of the large canals built by the Assyrian kings. In the case of temples, pairs of colossal lions guarding the entrances have been found.

Construction

There are outcrops of the "Mosul marble" gypsum rock normally used at several places in the Assyrian realm, though not especially close to the capitals. The rock is very soft and slightly soluble in water, and exposed faces degraded, and needed to be cut into before usable stone was reached. There are reliefs showing quarrying for Sennacherib's new palace at Nineveh, though concentrating on the production of large lamassu. Blocks were extracted, using prisoners of war, and sawed into slabs with long iron saws. This may have happened at the palace site, which is certainly where the carving of orthostats was done, after the slabs had been fixed into place as a facing to a mud-brick wall, using lead dowels and clamps, with the bottoms resting on a bed of bitumen. For some reliefs an "attractive fossiliferous limestone" is used, as in several rooms in the South-West Palace at Nineveh. In contrast to the orthostats, the lamassu were carved, or at least partly so, at the quarry, no doubt to reduce their enormous weight.

The alabaster stone is soft but not brittle, and very suitable for detailed carving with early Iron Age tools. There can be considerable differences in style, and quality, between adjacent panels, suggesting that different master carvers were allocated these. Probably the master drew or incised the design on the slab before a team of carvers laboriously cut away the background areas and finished carving the figures. Scribes then set out any inscriptions for cutters to follow, after which the slab was polished smooth, and any paint added. Scribes are shown directing carvers in another relief (on the Balawat Gates) showing the creation of a rock relief; presumably they ensured that the depiction of royal and religious aspects of the subjects was as it should be.

The reliefs only covered the lower parts of the walls of rooms in the palaces, and higher areas were often painted, at least in patterns, and at least sometimes with other figures. Brightly coloured carpets on the floor completed what was probably a striking decor, largely in primary colours. None of these have survived, but we have some door-sills carved with repeated geometric motifs, presumed to imitate the carpets.

After the palaces were abandoned and lost their wooden roofs, the unbaked mud-brick walls gradually collapsed, covering the space in front of the reliefs, and largely protecting them from further damage from the weather. Relatively few traces of paint remain, and these are often on heads and faces – hair and beards were black, and at least the whites of eyes white. Possibly metal leaf was used on some elements, such as small scenes shown decorating textiles. Julian Reade concludes that "It is nonetheless puzzling that more traces of painting [on sculpture] have not been recorded".

Other narrative reliefs

Apart from the alabaster wall reliefs, all found in palaces, other objects carrying relatively large reliefs are bronze strips used to reinforce and decorate large gates. Parts of three sets have survived, all from the 9th century BC and the relatively minor city of Imgur-Enlil, modern Balawat. The Balawat Gates were all double gates about 20 foot high, with both the front and back sides decorated with eight bronze repoussé strips, each carrying two registers of narrative reliefs some five inches high. There were presumably equivalents at other Assyrian sites, but at the collapse of the empire the buildings at Balawat caught fire "before they had been efficiently looted" by the enemy, and remained hidden in the ashes and rubble; gypsum slabs were not worth the trouble of looting, unlike bronze. The subjects were similar to the wall reliefs, but on a smaller scale; a typical band is 27 centimetres high, 1.8 metres wide, and only a millimetre thick.

In stone there are reliefs of a similar size on some stelae, most notably two in rectangular obelisk form, both with stepped tops like ziggurats. These are the early 11th-century White Obelisk of Ashurnasirpal I and the 9th century Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, both in the British Museum, which also has the fragmentary "Broken Obelisk" and "Rassam Obelisk". Both have reliefs on all four sides in eight and five registers respectively, and long inscriptions describing the events. The Black and Rassam Obelisks were both set up in what seems to have been the central square in the citadel of Nimrud, presumably a very public space, and the White in Nineveh. All record much the same types of scenes as the narrative sections of wall-relief, and the gates. The Black Obelisk concentrates on scenes of the bringing of tribute from conquered kingdoms, including Israel, while the White also has scenes of war, hunting, and religious figures. The White Obelisk, from 1049–1031, and the "Broken Obelisk" from 1074–1056, predate the earliest known wall-reliefs by 160 years or more, but are respectively in worn and fragmentary condition.

The Black Obelisk is of special interest as the lengthy inscriptions, with names of places and rulers that could be related to other sources, were of importance in the decipherment of cuneiform script. The Obelisk contains the earliest writing mentioning both the Persian and Jewish peoples, and confirmed some of the events described in the Bible, which in the 19th century was regarded as timely support for texts whose historical accuracy was under increasing attack. Other, much smaller pieces with helpful inscriptions were a set of sixteen weight measures in the form of lions.

Statues and portrait stelae

There are very few large free-standing Assyrian statues and, with one possible exception (below), none have been found of the major divinities in their temples. Possibly others existed; any in precious metals would have been looted as the empire fell. Two statues of kings are similar to the portraits in palace reliefs, though seen frontally. They came from temples, where they showed the king's devotion to the deity. The Statue of Ashurnasirpal II is in the British Museum, and that of Shalmaneser III in Istanbul.

There is a unique female statue in the British Museum, missing its extremities, which was found in the temple of Ishtar at Nineveh. It carries an inscription on the back that King Ashur-bel-kala erected it for the "titilation" or enjoyment of the people. It might represent Ishtar, goddess of love among other things, in which case it would be the only known Assyrian statue of a major divinity. All these have standing poses, though seated statues were already known in Mesopotamian art, for example about a dozen statues of Gudea, who ruled Lagash c. 2144 – 2124 BC.

Like other Near-Eastern cultures, the Assyrians erected stelae for various purposes, including marking boundaries. Many just carry inscriptions, but there are some with significant relief sculpture, mostly a large standing portrait of the king of the day, pointing at symbols of the gods, similar in pose to those in palace reliefs, surrounded by a round-topped frame.

Similar figures of kings are shown in rock reliefs, mostly around the edges of the empire. Those shown being made on the Balawat Gates are presumably the ones surviving in poor condition near the Tigris Tunnel. The Assyrians probably took the form from the Hittites; the sites chosen for their 49 recorded reliefs often also make little sense if "signalling" to the general population was the intent, being high and remote, but often near water. The Neo-Assyrians recorded in other places, including metal reliefs on the Balawat Gates showing them being made, the carving of rock reliefs, and it has been suggested that the main intended audience was the gods, the reliefs and the inscriptions that often accompany them being almost of the nature of a "business report" submitted by the ruler. A canal system built by the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib (reigned 704–681 BC) to supply water to Nineveh was marked by a number of reliefs showing the king with gods.

Other reliefs at the Tigris tunnel, a cave in modern Turkey believed to be the source of the river Tigris, are "almost inaccessible and invisible for humans". Probably built by Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon, Shikaft-e Gulgul is a late example in modern Iran, apparently related to a military campaign. The Assyrians added to the Commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb in modern Lebanon, where Ramses II, Pharaoh of Egypt, had rather optimistically commemorated the boundary of his empire many centuries earlier; many later rulers added to the collection. The Assyrian examples were perhaps significant in suggesting the style of the much more ambitious Persian tradition, beginning with the Behistun relief and inscription, made around 500 BC for Darius the Great, on a far grander scale, reflecting and proclaiming the power of the Achaemenid empire.

Excavations

Iraq was part of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century, and the government was content to allow foreign excavations and the removal of finds with little hindrance. Even in the 1870s excavators were often only regulated by a regime intended for mining operations, and had to pay a tax based on a proportion of the value of material removed.

The character of the palace reliefs made excavation relatively straightforward, if the right site was chosen. Assyrian palaces were built on high mud-brick platforms. Test trenches were started in various directions, and once one of them had hit sculpture, the trenches had only to follow the lines of the wall, often through a whole suite of rooms. Most trenches could be open to the sky, but at Nimrud, where one palace overlay another, tunnels were necessary in places. Layard estimated "that he had exposed nearly two miles of sculptured walls in Sennacherib's palace alone", not to mention the Library of Ashurbanipal he found there. His excavation practices left a lot to be desired by modern standards; the centres of rooms were not only not excavated, but the material removed from the trench in one room might be deposited in another, compromising later excavations. Typically the slabs were sawn to roughly a third of their original depth, to save weight in carrying them back to Europe, which was typically more complicated and difficult than digging them up.

Botta

The first hint of future discoveries came in 1820 when Claudius Rich, British Resident (a sort of local ambassador or consul) in Baghdad, and an early scholar of the ancient Near East, went to Mosul and the site of ancient Nineveh, where he was told of a large relief panel that had been found and soon broken up. His account was published in 1836; he also brought back two small fragments. In 1842 the French consul in Mosul, Paul-Émile Botta, hired men to dig at Kuyunjik, the largest mound at Nineveh. Little was found until a local farmer suggested they try Khorsabad (ancient Dur-Sharrukin) nearby, where "a short trial was dramatically successful", as a palace of Sargon II was found a few feet below the surface, with plentiful reliefs, although they had been burned and disintegrated easily.

Press reports of Botta's finds, from May 1843, interested the French government, who sent him funds and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres sent him Eugène Flandin (1809–1889), an artist who had already made careful archaeological drawings of Persian antiquities in a long trip beginning in 1839. Botta decided there was no more to find at the site in October 1844, and concentrated on the difficult task of getting his finds back to Paris, where the first large consignments did not arrive until December 1846. Botta left the two huge lamassu now in the British Museum as too large to transport; Henry Rawlinson, by now British Resident in Baghdhad, sawed them into several pieces for transport in 1849. In 1849 Monument de Ninive was published, a sumptuously illustrated and exemplary monograph in 4 volumes by Botta and Flandin.

Layard and Rassam

Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894) was in the early 1840s "a roving agent attached to the embassy at Constantinople", who had already visited Nimrud in 1840. In 1845 he persuaded Sir Stratford Canning, the ambassador in Constantinople, to personally fund an expedition to excavate there. On his first day digging at Nimrud, with only six workers in November 1845, slabs were found, initially only with inscriptions, but soon with reliefs. He continued to dig until June 1847, with the British government, through the British Museum, taking over the funding from Canning in late 1846, repaying his expenditure. The volume of finds was such that getting them back to Britain was a major task, and many pieces either were reburied, or reached other countries. Layard had recruited the 20-year old Hormuzd Rassam in Mosul, where his brother was British Vice-consul, to handle the pay and supervision of the diggers, and encouraged the development of his career as a diplomat and archaeologist.

Layard returned to England in June 1847, also taking Rassam, who he had arranged to study at Cambridge. He left a few workers, mainly to keep other diggers off the sites, as the French were digging again. His finds were arriving in London, to great public interest, which he greatly increased by publishing a string of books, especially Nineveh and its Remains in 1849. The mistaken title arose because Henry Rawlinson had at that point become convinced that the Nimrud site was actually the ancient Nineveh, though he changed his mind soon after. By October 1849 Layard was back in Mosul, accompanied by the artist Frederick Cooper, and continued to dig until April 1851, after which Rassam took charge of the excavations. By this stage, thanks to Rawlinson and other linguists working on the tablets and inscriptions brought back and other material, the Assyrian cuneiform was at the least becoming partly understood, a task that progressed well over the next decade.

Initially Rassam's finds dwindled, in terms of large objects, and the British even agreed to cede the rights to half the Kuyunjik mound to the French, whose new consul, Victor Place, had resumed digging at Khorsabad. The British funds were running out by December 1853, when Rassam hit upon the palace of Ashurbanipal, which was "in some respects the finest sculptured palace of all", in the new French area of Kuyunjik. Fortunately, Place had not started digging there, and according to Rassam "it was an established rule that whenever one discovered a new palace, no one else could meddle with it, and thus,... I had secured it for England". The new palace took until 1855 to clear, being finished by the Assyrian Exploration Fund, established in 1853 to dig for the benefit of British collections.

Although it was not yet realized, by "the close of excavations in 1855, the hectic Heroic Age of Assyrian archaeology ended", with the great majority of surviving Assyrian sculpture found. Work has continued up to the present day, but no new palaces have been found at the capitals, and finds have mostly been isolated pieces, such as Rassam's discovery in 1878 of two of the Balawat Gates. Many of the pieces reburied have been re-excavated, some very quickly by art dealers, and others by the Iraqi government in the 1960s, leaving them on display in situ for visitors, after the sites were configured as museums. These were already damaged in wars in the 1990s, and have probably been systematically destroyed by Daesh in the 2010s.

Collections

Examples of Assyrian art: The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, a limestone monument showcasing conquered kings paying tribute to the Assyrian empire. Relief carvings from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, depicting a variety of scenes including battles, hunting, and religious rituals. Lamassu figures from the Khorsabad palace, illustrating the protective nature of these mythical beings. Reliefs depicting Ashurbanipal hunting lions, showcasing the king's strength and bravery. 

As a result of the history of excavations, much the best single collection is in the British Museum, followed by the site museums and other collections in Iraq, which in the 20th century were the largest holdings when taken together, though after the wars of the 21st century their current holdings are uncertain. The fate of the considerable number of pieces that have been found and then reburied is also uncertain. At the peak of excavations, the volume found was too large for the British and French to manage, and many pieces either were diverted at some point on their journey to Europe, or were given away by the museums. Other pieces were excavated by diggers working for dealers. As a result, there are significant groups of large lamassu corner figures and palace relief panels in Paris, Berlin, New York, and Chicago. Many other museums have panels, especially a group of college museums in New England, with the museum at Dartmouth College having seven panels. Altogether there are some 75 pieces in the United States.

Apart from the British Museum, in the United Kingdom, the Ashmolean Museum has 10 reliefs (2 large, 8 small) Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery has 3 large reliefs, and the National Museum of Scotland (2.4 x 2.2 m), and Victoria and Albert Museum one relief each.

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Babylonian art

Babylonian art encompasses the visual creations produced by the inhabitants of ancient Babylonia, a civilization that thrived in Mesopotamia. It is characterized by its elaborate patterns, intricate carvings, and vibrant colors, often incorporating religious symbolism and depicting scenes of daily life and royal power. 

Characteristic

Clay was a primary material, especially in the early periods, used for tablets, sculptures, and even architecture like ziggurats. Later, more durable materials like diorite were used for sculptures and reliefs. Visual art in Babylonia was not intended to simply imitate or replicate reality, the goal was to produce a representation that acted as a stand-in or substitute for the real thing. This representation was then perceived as part of actual reality. 

Babylonian temples are massive structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains. One such drain at Ur was made of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, and of frescoes and enamelled tiles. The walls were brilliantly coloured, and sometimes plated with zinc or gold, as well as with tiles. Painted terracotta cones for torches were also embedded in the plaster. 

Babylonian art frequently features deities, particularly Marduk, and religious rituals. The king's image and authority were often depicted in art, highlighting his piety and strength. Figures were often depicted in stiff profiles, meant to convey timelessness and a sense of static power. Vibrant colors, such as red and black, were often employed, especially in painted reliefs and murals. 

Babylonian artists also created functional objects like cylinder seals for identification and authentication. Monumental stepped temple pyramids, like the Ziggurat of Etemenanki, were prominent architectural features. Relief Sculpture and Murals were used to decorate buildings and tell stories. 

Due to its abundance, clay was widely used for various art forms, including tablets, sculptures, and building materials. Techniques like firing and glazing were used to strengthen and preserve clay art. 

History

First Babylonian Dynasty (1830–1531 BC)

From the 18th century BC, Hammurabi (1792 BC to 1750 BC), the Amorite ruler of Babylon, turned Babylon into a major power and eventually conquered Mesopotamia and beyond. He is famous for his law code and conquests, but he is also famous due to the large amount of records that exist from the period of his reign. During the period Babylon became a great city, which was often the seat of the dominant power. The period was not one of great artistic development, these invaders failing to bring new artistic impetus, and much religious art was rather self-consciously conservative, perhaps in a deliberate assertion of Sumerian values. The quality of execution is often lower than in preceding and later periods. Some "popular" works of art displayed realism and mouvement, such as the statuette of a walking four-headed god from Ishchali, attributed to the period between 2000 and 1600 BC.

The Burney Relief is an unusual, elaborate, and relatively large (20×15 inches) terracotta plaque of a naked winged goddess with the feet of a bird of prey, and attendant owls and lions. It comes from the 18th or 19th century BC, and may also be moulded. Similar pieces, small statues or reliefs of deities, were made for altars in homes or small wayside shrines, and small moulded terracotta ones were probably available as souvenirs from temples.

The Investiture of Zimri-Lim, now in the Louvre, is a large palace fresco that is the outstanding survival of Mesopotamian wall-painting, although comparable schemes were probably common in palaces.

After the death of Hammurabi, the first Babylonian dynasty lasted for another century and a half, but his empire quickly unravelled, and Babylon once more became a small state. The Amorite dynasty ended in 1595 BC, when Babylonia fell to the Hittite king Mursilis, after which the Kassites took control.

Neo-Babylonian period (626–539 BC)

The famous Ishtar Gate, part of which is now reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, was the main entrance into Babylon, built in about 575 BC by Nebuchadnezzar II, the king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who exiled the Jews; the empire lasted from 626 BC to 539 BC. The walls surrounding the entrance way are decorated with rows of large relief animals in glazed brick, which has therefore retained its colours. Lions, dragons and bulls are represented. The gate was part of a much larger scheme for a processional way into the city, from which there are sections in many other museums. Large wooden gates throughout the period were strengthened and decorated with large horizontal metal bands, often decorated with reliefs, several of which have survived, such as the various Balawat Gates.

Other traditional types of art continued to be produced, and the Neo-Babylonians were very keen to stress their ancient heritage. Many sophisticated and finely carved seals survive. After Mesopotamia fell to the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which had much simpler artistic traditions, Mesopotamian art was, with Ancient Greek art, the main influence on the cosmopolitan Achaemenid style that emerged, and many ancient elements were retained in the area even in the Hellenistic art that succeeded the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great.

Examples

The Ishtar Gate - A magnificent structure adorned with glazed bricks depicting lions, dragons, and other symbols. 

The Burney Relief (Queen of the Night) - A baked clay relief depicting a winged female figure, likely a goddess, from around 1800 BC. 

Cylinder Seals - Small, intricately carved seals used to make impressions on clay tablets and other objects. 

Stele of Hammurabi - A basalt stele inscribed with the Code of Hammurabi, showcasing a relief of the king receiving laws from the sun god.

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