Federico Buccellati 2010

“The Monumental Temple Terrace at Urkesh and its Setting,”
in J. Becker, R. Hempelmann, and E. Rehm (eds.), Kulturlandschaft Syrien – Zentrum und Peripherie - Festschrift für Jan-Waalke Meyer, AOAT 371, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, pp. 71-85.

“The Temple Terrace at Tell Mozan is one of the most impressive structures discovered to date in third millennium Syria” (p. 71). This opening statement is for sure a historical evidence: the Temple Terrace at Urkesh [see here an overview] consists of a high terrace with a sloped ramp, a central plaza [see JP], a revetment three meter high stone wall and a stone staircase [see J2].

After the introduction, the author presents the results of the excavation in Temple BA, offering a chronological sequence of the temple complex (from ED II to late Akkadian and Khabur periods, with some glimpses to previous Chalcolithic age), an analysis of the architecture underlining the psychological effects on the perception of the ancient inhabitants of the site (describing an empirical, a ‘neo-platonist’ and a rationalist approach).

A definition of spaces and their meanings is traced in the following paragraph, pointing out the meaning of some peculiar place, such as the access and investigating some concepts, such as the ‘verticality’ of the access to the temple, the material value of the building, and the function (and related meaning) of empty spaces.

In the end, the role of architecture in the religious context of Tell Mozan is defined, displaying the relationship between private individuals (viewed as a dynamic entity) and religion, which is “reinforced through continual reactivation [in which] the static nature of the architecture still plays an active role in this reactivation” (pp. 80-81).