Build the temple tower as a solid stepped mass of brick, each stage set back on the one below, with a shrine on its summit and stairs climbing its principal face.
Rooms round a court, the main room on the south side
Build the house blank to the street, enter it through a bent passage, and arrange its rooms round a single open court, with the principal room broad and on the south side so that it faces north into shade.
From Ur in the early second millennium to Babylon in the sixth century BC the Mesopotamian town house changed little: walls of mud brick, sometimes with baked brick below, a flat roof of beams, matting and earth used as a terrace, and every room lit from the court, not from the street. In the Neo-Babylonian houses of Merkes the widest room, where guests were received, lies on the south side of the court and so faces north, out of the sun, the same answer to the climate as the Egyptian portico turned to the north wind.
Related rules
Lay the city out square, walled and moated, with the river through its middle; run the streets straight, some along the river and others across it at right angles, each ending at a gate in the wall along the bank.
Raise and pave the processional road from the city gate to the god’s temple, wall it on both sides, and build the gate of glazed brick bearing the beasts of the gods, with cedar roofs and bronze-clad doors.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Rooms round a court, the main room on the south side”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/babylonian-courtyard-house. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.