EMBELLISHING THE INTERIOR SPACES OF ASSYRIA'S ROYAL PALACES: THEBĒT ḪILĀNIRECONSIDERED

Abstract

The bēt ḫilāni is one of the most famous features of Assyria's royal palaces as well as one of its most elusive. The term is mostly known from Assyrian royal inscriptions, which describe it as an architectural feature inspired by the architecture of Syro-Anatolia. Such explicit references to the architecture of other cultures is exceptional and provides a rare glimpse into the valuations of Assyria's architects.Modern attempts to identify the bēt ḫilāni archaeologically are almost as old as the field of ancient Near Eastern Studies. Unfortunately, the discourse has become more convoluted over time through the integration of disparate architectural features into a single bēt ḫilāni discourse and a narrow view of how architectural exchanges occur. Past research has generally assumed a morphological correspondence between the Assyrian bēt ḫilāni and the external porticoes that typify Syro-Anatolian architecture. This article will argue that Assyrian architects had a different set of ideals and interests which led them to change the external Syro-Anatolian portico into an interior feature used to add monumentality and ornamentation to the rooms of Assyria's palaces. This changes the bēt ḫilāni from a morphological category into a decorative one and contextualises it within the architectural traditions of Assyria.

Architectural Assemblages: The Northwest Complex at Zincirli

“…It is a modern derivation of the Assyrian term bēt ḫilāni , which is only known from Assyrian texts. In those texts, the bēt ḫilāni is described as being constructed in the likeness of Syro-Anatolian architecture (for an overview of these discussions, see Kertai 2017, 85–7; Reade 2008, 31–6). The term bēt ḫilāni is already published in its correct transliteration by Jules Oppert (1859, 347–8), but it is not until Otto Puchstein (1892, 8–9) that an excavated building is described as a Hilani.…”

“…The hypothesis that the external portico forms the Hilani's essential feature has led to the assumption that this is what the Assyrians meant by their use of the term bēt ḫilāni . More likely, the Assyrians understood the bēt ḫilāni in terms of decoration, rather than as a morphological category (Kertai 2017), an argument that seems to have been made first by Bossert (1933–4). This paper will therefore focus on the preserved architecture, rather than the ancient terms that might have described them.…”