The Rays of Šamaš: Light in Mesopotamian Architecture and Legal Practice

Abstract

As part of ongoing research into the significance of light in ancient Mesopotamian architecture and ideology, a reorientation of the main external gateways of city temples can be identified, occurring from around the beginning of the Ur III period. This change in orientation allowed temple gateways to receive direct sunlight onto their external façades during the morning throughout the year. One possible explanation for this architectural change is found in the legal practices of the late third and second millennia B.C. It is proposed that access to sunlight, and therefore the presence of the sun god, was significant for the taking of oaths and the administration of law at temple gateways from the Ur III period onwards, thereby promoting a south-easterly orientation for these gateways. With this in mind, the careful provision of morning light access to the doorways of the neighbourhood chapels of residential Ur may be taken as evidence for the local neighbourhood administration of some legal functions. This in turn suggests a possible cultic and legal basis for the formation of these localised subdivisions of urban communities.