FIGURES AND FIGURE CAPTIONS

Fig. 1
Architecture and alphabet: Is what is shown here merely a more extreme effect, which owes itself to an Òimmanent connection of the pictureÓ (Oechslin)? Evidently, Piranesi still had an idea that the Corinthian column was not merely a decorated load support, if he puts his initialÒPÓ Ñ as a structurally enlarged analogy to this column Ñ on the Roman forum (acc. to Oechslin in Braegger, 1982).

Fig. 2
Script and monogram as architectural plan: ÒHISÓ-Jesuit college by F. Roppelt, 1783, Berlin Art Library (acc. to Oechslin in Braegger, 1982). A late representation of the unity of architecture and writing in terms of the history of ideas: the matter becomes absurd!

Fig. 3
Unity of architecture and writing in modern art: surrealistic reinterpretation in the form of a reminding monument (Markus LŸpertz, Babylon. dithyrambisch II, oil painting, 1975, according to Oechslin in Braegger, 1982).

Fig. 4
Ethnoarchaeological method according to Andrae (1930): reed huts and vault-formed reed hall still being built traditionally in Southern Iraq.

Fig. 5
Ethnoarchaeological method according to Heinrich (1957): graphic presentation of modern reed building at the lower Euphrates (reception room of a Sheik at El Chidr), related to archaeological studies of construction. Noteworthy are the reed bundles bent in the form of arcs, supporting the roof covering of the Islamic assembly room.

Fig. 6
The evolution of the Ionian column (3) from the Sumerian reed ringbundle: (1) the sign of Ishtar, the city deity of Uruk. In the midfield (2) the most important sources are shown bridging about three millennia (acc. to Egenter, 1980).

Fig. 7
JordanÕs find Ñ a clay inset about 15 cm. in size, fromUruk Ñ plays a fundamental role in AndraeÕs evolutionary theory. It proves that the script sign of the deity Ishtar was originally of a constructive nature: a column bundled from reed, a very early type of building. It sconstructive texture proves also Ñ in reduced size Ñ the existence of earliest metabolism and transformation of a spatially plastic form into the two-dimensional plane (acc. to Andrae, 1933).

Fig. 8
Hut and ring bundles on the plaster stone tray in the British Museum and Berlin Museum (acc. to Andrae, 1933:27). The roof ridge ÒdecorationsÓ of the reed hut and the flanking designs of the city divinity of Uruk imply that the image shows a cult place characterized by a temple-type of the founding times of Uruk: Òa seat of well being for the gods?Ó

Fig. 9
Substrate thesis according to Andrae (1933). The archaeologically tangible, primordial form points to a sunken prototype made of organic materials (Egenter, 1980).

Fig. 10
Form variations of the reed ring bundle, the pictographic sign of the city deity of Uruk (acc. to Andrae, 1933).

Fig. 11
Cretan-Minoan script tablet (acc. to Evans, 1952)

Fig. 12
Cretan-Minoan linear script sign (acc. to Evans, 1909 Ð1952, 1921)

Text 1, 2, 3
Figures 1, 2
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