MESOPOTAMIA. — Region lying between the mountains (Kafiari) of Armenia to the north, the Zagros Mountains to the east, and the Syro-Arabian desert to the south; to the west it borders on the Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains. It may be divided into Upper M., which extends down to ‘Abd el-‘Aziz, Singâr, and Hamrîn; Middle M., extending to the borders of Babylonia; and Lower M., which is Babylonia itself, previously known as Akkad (north) and Sumer (south). The name M. is generally restricted to the middle and lower regions. Of particular note are the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, which, rising in Armenia, are at most about 467 km. apart along their courses; they then approach each other near Baghdad, only to separate again until they jointly form the Saṭṭ el-‘Arab (at el-Qurnah), a river that reaches the Persian Gulf after about 161 km. The Ġezirah,
“island,” is the region between the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Ḥabur, which, like the Balîḥ to its west, is a tributary of the Euphrates. In the east, the two rivers Zab and especially the Dijala contribute to giving the Tigris its steep and violent course, little suited to navigation.
The uniform character of M. forced its inhabitants either to cultivate the fertile soil, thereby eventually forming powerful states (v. MARI; MITANNI), or to engage in nomadic pastoralism in the regions farther removed from the rivers.
M. had many names. As early as Samâl-Adad I (1748–1716 B.C.) of Assyria, it was described as “the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates.” The importance of these two rivers is reflected in the name naḥrima of el-‘Amârnah, naharin in Egyptian, and the biblical ‘Aram nahârájim, which was used from the sixteenth to the tenth century B.C. For the dual or non-dual interpretation of this name, and for its synonyms, Mitanni, Ḥanigalbat, Ḥurri, V. MITANNI. For the most part, the Assyrian conquerors mention the names of cities in M. or of localities such as Šubaru, Kummub, Bit-Adini, etc. From Assurbanapal (669–626) onward, the phrase ebir nâri, “beyond the river,” denotes the Assyrian provinces west of the Euphrates; in Persian texts it denotes the satrapy of Syria, which, under Darius, also included the region east of the Euphrates. The dual force of Nahârájim is seen in the Greek Μακασποταμία (in the Septuagint, cod. B of Inde, 3, 8, 10, Σορία ποταμῶν is found instead), which, strictly speaking, refers to the land between the two great rivers. But here too usage varied. Alexander the Great apparently founded a new satrapy under the name Μακασποταμία, extending east of the Tigris, and this satrapy continued to exist in the Seleucid period. Eratosthenes and Strabo exclude Babylonia from the concept of M., while Pliny sometimes includes II. The Roman province of M., probably already in existence from the year A.D. 195, seems to have extended from the Ḥabur to the Tigris and, after Diocletian, also included the region of Amida in the north. For the history of M., V. ASBIRI.
The Christians of M. therefore soon found themselves, perhaps as early as the second century, obliged to construct religious buildings, churches, as is also documented by the Mīḥa Zhha, or religious chronicle of Adiabene, whose substantial authenticity, despite its very early date, some have sought in vain to dispute.
The most archaic Christian sanctuary known today is that discovered at the site of Qasr bint al-Qaḏi in Ctesiphon. Excavations have brought to light two churches, the second built over the ruins of the first, with the two sharing their perimeter walls. The lower church is a very elongated rectangular hall, with two rows of columns along, and almost adjoining, the longer walls; the apsidal section has completely disappeared. The structure of this hall is very similar to that of certain Sāsānid royal buildings. The second church is much better preserved: it is a rectangular hall with doors only in the long walls. The western wall is completely solid, while in the eastern wall there are doors opening into three rectangular chambers, forming the tripartite sanctuary characteristic of Mesopotamian churches in later periods as well. Along the long walls are two rows of four piers each, connected to the perimeter walls by small arches which must have supported vaults. The structure is identical to that of a hall in the Palace of Sarvīstān, dating from the period of Bahrān Gūr (420–438). Examination of these monuments reveals two fundamental facts. The first is that the church was conceived as a broad hall, that is, with entrances on the long sides, thereby perpetuating an extremely ancient Mesopotamian tradition in temple construction; this was contrary to the tradition of the classical world, which always—apart from very rare exceptions—placed the entrance to a temple on one of the short sides. The second is that the church copied, in its architectural structure, a great hall of a Sāsānid royal palace. Since the Christians of M. had to build a church while living entirely outside every classical tradition that might have led them to adopt the basilical form, they conceived it according to the ancient indigenous tradition of the temple as a broad hall, and gave it the architectural forms of the great assembly halls of contemporary royal palaces. This constitutes their profound distinguishing characteristic.
The two churches discovered at al-Ḥīrah belong to a later period. Both have the general form of the churches at Ctesiphon just mentioned, namely, that of an elongated rectangle with entrances on the longer sides and the same tripartite sanctuary. One of these churches has a nave divided into three parts by two rows of four massive round piers. In the middle of the church, in what would have been the central nave, is the Bīẓūẓ, that is, a platform raised above the floor, with a bench for the priests on three sides. This arrangement is also found at Ruṣāfah and in many churches of northern Syria, and is well described in the liturgical treatise attributed to Giorgio di Arbela. The churches of al-Ḥīrah are decorated with stuccoes in the style dominant in M. during the seventh and eighth centuries. Of an entirely different type are the churches found in the northern part of the region, in the Tūr 'Abdīn. The most important are those of Mar Azizael at Kefz Zeh, of Mar Kyriakos at Arnās, and of Mar Philoxenus at Midyād. Their ground plans invariably consist of broad, very elongated rectangular halls, without interior supports and therefore with a single nave, ending in an apse to the east and surrounded by several rooms, some even behind the apse itself. They generally have a rectangular narthex on the south, as long as the church. The latter is covered by a barrel vault resting on a series of arches attached to the long walls. This structure is already found in the small Syrian temple of Dat Ras and is characteristic of the great audience halls, the “gate” of Muslim palaces: for example, at Msāttā, Kherbet al-Mefḡer, and Ukhaidir. The conception of taking the great assembly hall of a palace as the model for the church thus continued.
The Tūr 'Abdīn, however, has also preserved several examples of monastic churches. Monasticism is very ancient in M.: tradition connects it with an Awḡīn
(Eugenio) of Clysmā (Suez), who is said to have brought the Rules of s. Antonio and s. Pacomio from his native Egypt; but the monuments still surviving certainly date from considerably later than the supposed period of this legendary figure. The most important are those of Qartamīn, which probably dates from the time of the emperor Anastasius (401–518), and those of Mar Ibrāhīm and Mar Ubil at Midyād. There the church consists of a narthex in the form of a portico on piers, from which one enters a rectangular hall covered by a barrel vault—a broad hall in which the generators of the vault are perpendicular to the axis of the building. The rear wall of the hall is pierced by three doors giving access to the three square chambers of the sanctuary. The walls are lined with large arches, as in the group of churches described above. At the convent of Mar Ya'qūb al-Ḥabīs at Ṣalāh, the church has the same ground plan, with the sole difference that the central chamber of the sanctuary is provided with an apse, semicircular inside and polygonal outside, clearly reflecting Byzantine influence. The characteristic tripartite sanctuary, together with the portico on the façade, connects the ground plan of these churches with the type of the Babylonian temple, especially in its Roman-period derivatives, such as the Qasr Fīra'ūn at Petra or the temples of the Palmyrene gods and of Artemis-Nanānīa at Dura. More precise Syrian influences are found in the church of al-'Adrā at Hāh: the carved decoration is entirely of northern Syrian type, while the plan of the central hall—with its middle section covered by a dome and its two end sections by two semidomes—and the central part of the sanctuary, semicircular and faced with a decoration of niches alternating with small columns, bring it closer to monuments with a trichome cell in Palestine and Egypt.
In the later Middle Ages, churches are found in M. of a form entirely different from that described thus far, namely, a structure with three elongated naves, separated by two rows of pillars, all three covered by barrel vaults at the same height, with the usual triple sanctuary, whose chambers are likewise covered by barrel vaults and, exceptionally, by a dome, as at the Ulu Ġamī' of Karkūh, the churches of Mar Petrōs and Mar Aḥudhēemmeh, both in Moṣul, and that of the convent of Mar Beḥīnām. Other churches, such as those of Mar Girgīs, Mar Ya'qūb, and Taḥrat Mīrām al-'Adrā, all in Moṣul, have a more complex sanctuary, differing from one case to another and not conforming to any fixed rule. There are, however, also single-nave churches, such as that of the convent of Mar Awḡīn or that of Mar Yūḥannān in Moṣul. The former is a reconstruction of 1282 in the Seleucid era (= 1271). Particularly noteworthy in these churches is the rich carved decoration, especially at Mar Aḥudhēemmeh, where some decorative elements belong to the period of Nūr ad-Dīn and others to the Mongol period; at Mar Petrōs, with fragments dating from the time of Badr ad-Dīn Lū'lū; and at the convent of Mar Beḥīnām, rebuilt in 1164. Also highly noteworthy are the structures of the domes with exposed ribs, executed in the form of star-shaped polygons of the Selgūqid type, which are also found in the mosque of Iṣfahān. All this decoration is absolutely in the same style as that found in contemporary Islamic monuments. The phenomenon of the stylistic and iconographic identity of the Christian and Muslim artistic productions of Mesopotamia under the Selgūqids and the Il-Khāns is not confined to architectural decoration. One must also take into account the many inlaid bronze and copper objects, several of which bear depictions of Christian subjects and whose principal production center was Moṣul. These are works by artists who worked indifferently for Christians and Muslims, such as the well-known Dāwūd ibn Ṣalāma. The religious tolerance of that period went so far that the masterpiece of this series, namely, the large dish with Christian subjects now in the collections of the Duke of Arenberg in Brussels, was executed, according to an inscription engraved upon it, for Malik Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb, sultan of Egypt and Damascus in 1240–49, who was of Mesopotamian origin. The same fusion of the art of the two communities is also manifested in the miniatures: see
(Anderson photograph)
principally the eastern Laurentian manuscript 387, written at Merdin in 1299; that of the British Museum, Add. 7170, from 1216–20; and the Vatican Syriac manuscript 559, produced in 1220 at the monastery of Mar Mattai. Their beautiful miniatures are in the same style as those of contemporary Muslim manuscripts.