Monuments read through the ground they stand on: the rock, the setting and the age of each site.
Building stone, groundwater, river terraces and tectonics decided where people settled and how their monuments survived. The atlas records both sides for each site, with photos, era filters and directions.
A karst cave in folded Zagros limestone, and one of the most important Palaeolithic sites in the Middle East. Excavations recovered Neanderthal remains and stone tools from layers tens of thousands of years old.
The core of the Kassite city of Dur-Kurigalzu. Layers of reed matting and bitumen every few courses of mudbrick are an early example of engineered reinforcement, and the reason the core still stands.
A brick complex on the Tigris known for its pointed arches and muqarnas vaulting. Its fired brick came from the same river clays that underlie the city.
A tall conical dome of stacked muqarnas cells, outside and in. The geometry spreads load down the cone, a structural answer to building tall on soft river sediment.
Babylon · vitrified brick
Basra · salt plug, gypsum and rock salt
Baghdad · fired brick on the Tigris
Baghdad · floodplain mudbrick
Baghdad · defensive brick gate
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