Cloister at Moissac (ca. 1100 AD, southern France) The first part of the Middle Ages saw very little building of anything but houses in northern Europe, as people struggled to adjust to the fall of [...]
Remains of the ziggurat at Warka, in Iraq, 3000 BC (before it was reconstructed) Like the Egyptians at the same time, Bronze Age Sumerians and Iranians around 3000-2500 BC devoted a lot of energy to building [...]
Parthian architecture - the so-called Arch of Sapor - Parthians - Ctesiphon, Iraq, probably about 500 AD Romans and Parthians About 100 BC, the Hellenistic Greek kingdoms gave way to [...]
Mesopotamian architecture: The Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon, built during the Neo-Babylonian period (600s BC). Now in Berlin. Mesopotamian architecture Builders in Mesopotamia always had a serious problem. There was not [...]
Sumerian architecture: the ziggurat at Warka (reconstructed by Saddam Hussein) Mud-brick and brick Like other people around the world, the Sumerians started to build big temples on artificial platforms around 3500 BC. [...]
History of beds: Drawing of the grass bed inside a reed hut from Ohalo II (Galilee, 21000 BC) When were beds invented? When people came to West Asia from Africa about 60,000 BC, they [...]
On the walls of one of the Assyrian palaces, Assyrian soldiers attack a town. Some are swimming, using balloons made of goatskins to hold themselves up. Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Nimrud, [...]
Olmec Pyramid, La Venta, Mexico (500 BC) The earliest big buildings from South America are in Ecuador and Peru, along the Pacific coast. The Norte Chico people and the Valdivia people built [...]
Insulae at Ostia (can you see where the wooden balconies would have been?) Roman apartment buildings In big cities, most Romans lived in apartment buildings we call insulae (IN-sue-lie), or [...]
Vomitorium in the Colosseum in Rome(The roof has fallen in.) You might think a vomitorium must have something to do with barfing, and those stories about Romans eating too much and then [...]
