* * *
NOTES ON CHAPTER III
Full details of abbreviations and publications are in the Bibliography
1 Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, p.54
2 Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, p.43
3 Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, p.643
4 Rempel, Arkhitekturnyi ornament Uzbekistana, p.507
5 Pope, Persian Architecture, p.78
6 Barthold, Turkestan, p.234
7 Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, p.492
8 Hookham, Tamburlaine the Conqueror, p.6
9 Grousset, L’Empire des steppes, p.492.
10 The Oxus civilisation, also called the civilisation of Bactria or Margiana, was the main Bronze Age civilisation on the territory of present-day Afghanistan and southern Uzbekistan, culminating probably around 2000 BC. Archaeological finds on sites, such as Gonur Tepe near Merv, have brought to light assorted pieces of jewellery and carved stones, the motives of which bear witness to the luxurious life of the local rulers – although no monumental paintings or sculptures that would decorate their palaces. The disappearance of the Oxus civilisation at around 1500 BC coincides with the arrival of the Iron Age with marked Iranian influence in both Bactria and Soghd, the introduction of Zoroatrian religion and, in around 500 BC, the conquest by Achaemenian Persia.
IV
ARCHITECTURE AND
ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION
Iranian and Buddhist
It may be assumed that the eastern Iranian provinces in the Achaemenid period were administered from some kind of urban centres, and it may be equally assumed that these towns and their monumental buildings, temples, palaces, gates etc. were, at least to some extent, built on Iranian models. Another school of architecture that began to penetrate into the area with the expansion of Buddhism was Indian. With some admixture of Greek elements in the Seleucid and Bactrian periods, a composite style emerged in which Iranian and Buddhist influences coexisted and alternated to a varying degree until the arrival of Islam.
In general terms, the earliest towns were most probably built according to two basic considerations, security and the supply of water, to which trade may be added as the third. The citadel was always built on a strategically suitable place and, if no such place was available, the terrain was conveniently altered, an artificial mound was raised, a river arm was diverted etc. The architecture of the citadel had to correspond to the requirements of defence and to the contemporary technique of warfare, and had to be constantly kept up-to-date with it, which led to frequent reconstructions and even relocations. Gates and walls were other architectural elements with defence purposes, and the gates in particular had an important place in monumental architecture and decoration. The layout of the streets and squares was conditioned, in most cases, by the position of the gates and by the system of water conduits, which had to follow the shape of the terrain. The main surface canals were usually lined with streets and converged in, or led to, a water tank or pool, around which a square formed. The supply of water often dictated the location of the town itself, within easy reach of a stream with permanent water.
The bridge is another ancient type of building though not necessarily part of a town. The maydan was originally not a marketplace, but merely an open space located within or outside the walls where military parades and training could take place; it was also used for cattle, horse and camel markets, and caravans could discharge their goods here etc. The town’s commercial activity centred on the bazaar, which combined manufacture and trading, and more often than not took place in one or more ordinary streets. In later periods bazaar buildings were constructed, such as the vaulted structures covering street crossings that still exist in Bukhara and other Central Asian towns. Gardens were another creation of urban design, though the earliest formal gardens that have come down to us date from the late Timurid period only.
Taking the Achaemenid town of Pasargadae as an example, a town of that period may have developed from a military camp surrounded by a wall. Within its precinct, amid parks and gardens, were palaces and temples. The town gate may have been adorned with statues. The main part of the palace was the audience chamber. Its roof was carried by columns and pilasters with decorative capitals and bases. The temple consisted of a cube-shaped structure, the cella, raised on a terrace and accessible by a monumental staircase. According to Ghirshman,1 the Persian art of Pasargadae was already a composite art, with Assyrian, Hittite, Babylonian and Egyptian elements.
The terrace of Masjid-i Suleiman, near Ahwaz, somewhat older than Pasargadae, was part of a defensive enclosure surrounded by a wall with buttresses and recesses, built of huge stones without mortar. It was accessible by five staircases. On it, a triple iwan was probably the audience room of a princely dwelling. The terraces of Masjid-i Suleiman, of Bard-i Nishundah and of Pasargadae all pre-date that of Persepolis.
The town of Susa, built by Darius on Elamite foundations, consisted of a citadel on the acropolis, a palace and a throne room, or apadana, on a neighbouring mound, and of the city proper, which was separated from it by a broad avenue. The whole complex was surrounded by a strong wall of unbaked bricks, with projecting towers, and was protected by a moat.2
The palace still showed a strong Babylonian influence. ‘The plan consisted of interior courts which opened on to the rooms and living quarters; these again were surrounded by long corridors that permitted the guards to watch every movement. The walls of unbaked bricks were also decorated in Babylonian style.’3 ‘The throne room itself, known as the apadana, was a hall, the roof of which was supported by six rows of six columns nearly 65ft in height, surmounted by capitals with protomes of bulls; on the north, east and west the hall was surrounded by three peristyles of twelve columns… It was approached by three wide stairways… Some of the capitals were simple imposts … in others the protomes rested on volutes.’4
The apadana of Darius at Persepolis was built on the same principles; his palace there was built of unbaked bricks, with door and window frames of stone, surmounted by Egyptian lintels.
The Greek influence probably reached the Iranian plateau some time in the mid-fifth century BC. It became much more obvious in the period following the Greek invasion. Ghirshman distinguishes three categories of art under the Seleucids: Iranian, Graeco-Iranian and Hellenistic.5 The temple retained its classical Iranian shape, although in some structures (Istakhr, Kangavar) Greek motifs can be found in the decoration of the capitals and, to some extent, in the general plan of the buildings. Statues are the main manifestaion of Hellenistic art, although it is difficult to determine to what extent they were used as architectural decoration. In urban design the Greek contribution was the agora, a city square designed as an integral part of the town centre.
The early Buddhist architecture was characterised by three main structures: the stupa, the temple and the monastery (vihara). The stupa, which probably originated in the time of Asoka (third century BC), was originally a commemorative mound containing holy relics. The mound was of earth or rubble, with a brick surface, and was surrounded by a wooden fence. Primarily a religious structure, the stupa was a monument for every purpose. There were funerary stupas, stupas as reliquaries or cenotaphs, memorial stupas etc. In the course of time, the mound developed into a square base surmounted by a hemispherical cupola. On top of it was a square railing, or box-like structure, called harmika, from which rose a shaft of metal or wood supporting a number of umbrellas, usually seven, symbolising the stages of heaven.
The whole structure stood either in a courtyard or on a terrace, to permit ritual circumambulation. The terrace itself was sometimes raised, with one or more monumental staircases leading to it. The umbrellas were often painted gold and carried bells, so that the edifice could be seen and heard from afar. Franz6 sees in the simple tumulus stupa a continuation of the Bactrian heritage going back to the nomad kurgans, or tumulus graves, whereas the combination of a square base and a round or cylindrical superstructure contains both Hellenisti
c and Iranian elements. The earliest stupas with a square base, which were the Hellenistic transformation of the Indian stupa, were found in Taxila-Sirkap. They date from the end of the first century BC, at which time, after the end of the Maurya Empire, Greek influence increased considerably. In later periods, the structure became more sophisticated. The stupas were composed of square and cylindrical parts in various combinations; an octagonal part was exceptional. The base was often star or cross-shaped, raised on several superimposed terraces. The cupola rested on a high and richly decorated drum. The main stupa was surrounded by a number of small votive stupas. The building material was usually brick or stone, in Kushan times often the so-called diaper masonry, which consisted of thin layers of schist or slate interspersed with large blocks of differently coloured stone. Inside, the stupa was filled with earth or rubble, except for a small chamber containing the relic. Brick-built stupas seem to be the earliest, with no decoration. The later ones, built of schist or a mixture of schist and brick, often had pilasters with decorative capitals. The architectural decoration was fairly simple: false columns with capitals, cornices, false arches ete. The main decoration, however, were sculptures. Traces of colossal statues, 16–26ft high, have been found on several sites. Large statues stood in niches either at the base or in the walls surrounding the courtyard. Smaller sculptures were ranged in several rows or tiers on all sides of the base. Paintings were sometimes used to decorate the niches or the flat surfaces between them.
The earliest Buddhist temples may have been circular. To the round sanctum a rectangular assembly hall was added and the two together formed what K. Fischer calls Apsidenhalle (hall with apse).7 The cella, round or square, harbouring a statue, and the hall became the basic form of the temple. To it belonged a terrace, open or covered. In subsequent periods the terraces became more numerous, staircases were added and the roof was raised into a tower.
The general feature of the vihara, or monastery, was a fortress-like structure reminiscent of the Greek and Syrian fort (hydreuma). It was square for the most part, with or without towers and with a surrounding wall. The rooms or cells backed onto the wall on the inside. There was one or more courtyards and a principal stupa with a number of smaller stupas either in front of it or surrounding it. The entrance was always opposite the main stupa. The whole complex did not always face the same way. It seems that the direction the main stupa was facing was set with regard to a certain position of the sun.8
Originally, the vihara was a secular building, but often the stupa was incorporated into it to give it a sacred character. Sometimes the stupa occupied a separate courtyard connected with the vihara by a corridor. Some viharas were excavated in the rockside, making a fairly complex troglodyte dwelling like the famous rock monasteries of Haibak, Bamiyan and Foladi, or Kyzyl and Kumtura in Xinjiang.
It is interesting that the cave viharas often imitated in rock certain features of Indian wooden architecture, for example the so-called lantern ceiling, which consisted of wooden beams put across the angles of a square, state by stage, until the square was filled.9 Imitations of the Persian domed cupola and the squinch can be found in later caves. The open-air monastery of the later period used the Persian principles of the four-iwan court, domed ceilings, barrel-vaulted corridors etc.
The Indian Buddhist influence radiated from the great Buddhist centres in the province of Gandhara – now the northern Punjab – and by mixing with the Graeco-Bactrian and later Roman elements produced an art that became known as the art of Gandhara. This art had both a religious and a secular, or dynastic, side; it reached its peak under the Kushan Empire with its capital in Begram, or Kapisa, just north of Kabul, and dominated the area from the first century AD until the invasion of the Hephthalites in the fifth century.
It was characterised mainly by the representation of the Buddha in human form. Previously, these representations had only been symbolic. Some scholars saw in the Gandharan Buddha an orientalised version of the Greek Apollo.10 The Gandharan sculptures mostly represented scenes from the life of the Buddha and the legends connected with it. Apart from purely symbolic images, they contained four main groups of subjects. The Buddhas were all treated in the traditional way, with idealised faces, no facial expression and perfectly balanced features. The bodhisattvas, although equally idealised, show a strong Greek influence and often even imitate Greek models, such as Aphrodite, Alexander or Homer. The donators and soldiers were evidently inspired by real people and reflect different ethnic types, dresses, hairstyles and arms. The demons, on the contrary, were grotesque, anthropomorphic or zoomorphic creatures, not unlike their counterparts in European Romanesque art.
The material was schist, stucco or moulded clay. No paintings in the Gandharan style have been found, and no buildings from that period have survived either, except for some foundations and remnants of walls uncovered on archaeological sites.
With the weakening of Greek tradition, the Gandharan style gradually changed. The Iranian element, never totally absent, became more important as the influence of Sasanian Persia increased in the area. Thus the frescoes of Bamiyan show figures clad in Iranian costumes, wearing Iranian adornments and weapons, and in some cases even with distinctly Persian facial features.
Archaeological discoveries on both sies of the Oxus, as well as Italian excavations in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan, tend to accentuate the regional diversities of Graeco-Bactrian art and its relations with the art of Gandhara, Mathura and also Parthian art. This led D. Schlumberger to coin the term Graeco-Iranian or Kushan art, of which the art of Bactria, Gandhara and Mathura would be only regional aspects.11
The interesting mixture of Indian and steppe elements that can be discerned mainly in the headgear of personalities portrayed on the late Kushan coins, led to different appreciation by different schools of archaeology. Some prefer to identify it with Buddhism and Greek Bactria using terms like ‘Graeco-Bactrian’, ‘Graeco-Indian’, or ‘Indo-Afghan’, while some French scholars coined the ‘Hephthalo-Buddhist’, accentuating the contribution of the steppe.
The later period of the art of Gandhara is sometimes called Indo-Afghan.12 Politically, it coincided with the rule of the so-called Kidara-Kushans, who came to the Punjab from Bactria at the end of the fourth century AD. Its main characteristic is the use of terracotta and stucco in sculpture, whereas the older school almost exclusively used stone. The best examples are the sculptures of the Mohra Moradu and Jaulian at Taxila.
In the Kushano-Sasanian period some new architectural elements emerged and some of the older ones appeared in a new guise.
In town design, some Parthian towns in the west were laid out in the circular form, which, according to some authorities, went back to an old urban tradition in Western Asia and perhaps to the form of Assyrian military camps.13 The inner city of Balkh was laid out in this form, and in Khorezm the site of Koy-Krylgan-Kala was also circular. In domestic architecture, some houses were no doubt built around a courtyard, a form derived from Mesopotamia, as found in Dura Europos and elsewhere. In others, the iwan, mentioned already, developed into a triple chamber with the central part usually somewhat larger than the wings. The Achaemenid cella still survived in the Parthian temple, but it was now separated from the exterior by an ambulatory, while the external staircase was now built into the wall and led up to the roof, where the sacred fire burned.14
The material was rubble and pebbles with mortar, rather than stone. The decoration consisted of stone sculpture, moulded stucco and frescoes. The motifs, apart from some geometrical ornaments showing Assyrian traditions, were acanthus leaves, musicians, divinities and royal personages. The Kushan palace of Toprak-Kala in Khorezm (third to fourth centuries AD) was probably decorated in a similar style. The buildings of Old Nisa show some affinities with Toprak-Kala and Surkh Kotal.15
The Sasanians revived the rectangular town shape based on Greek models, with two main streets bisecting the rectangle and meeting at right angles in the centre. The town of Bishapu
r is the best preserved example of this type. The invention of the arch, which first appeared in the Parthian period, had a profound effect on earlier architectural forms. Thus the iwan was transformed into a vaulted archway, with relief decoration covering all the walls and executed mainly in stucco, but it still retained its function as a reception hall.
The introduction of the cupola, or dome, which was the logical consequence of the arch, entirely transformed the whole concept of roofing. The problem of how to put a circular dome on a square base led to the invention of the squinch, which was to become one of the basic features of Iranian architecture. The first squinches probably appeared in the late second or early third century and can still be seen in the ruins of the palace at Firuzabad.16
The palace of Shapur I at Bishapur shows, perhaps for the first time, the four-iwan courtyard on a cruciform plan, another basic feature of Iranian architecture. (It is sometimes argued that the great hall of the Bishapur palace was covered with a dome, but this cannot be taken for certain.) Round towers, perhaps an influence of Rome, appear at Bishapur and Taxila,17 and found a widespread use as minarets in the Islamic period.
The Sasanian temple, as described by Ghirshman18 consisted of the traditional cella enclosed by four corridors. In Firuzabad, there was a tower, on top of which a fire was lit during the ceremonies. These ceremonies centred around pavilions open on all four sides, with four pillars supporting four arches surmounted by a dome. The decoration of Sasanian palaces was in stucco, fresco painting and, later, in stone. Mosaic pavements were found in Bishapur.
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