According to Archibald Sayce, the primitive pictographs of the Uruk period era suggest that "Stone was scarce, but was already cut into blocks and seals.

It was provided with a door which turned on a hinge, and could be opened with a sort of key; the city gate was on a larger scale, and seemed to have been double.

... Demons were feared who had wings like a bird, and the foundation stones – or rather bricks – of a house were consecrated by certain objects that were deposited under them.

This planned structural life cycle gradually raised the level of cities, so that they came to be elevated above the surrounding plain.

Civic buildings slowed decay by using cones of coloured stone, terracotta panels, and clay nails driven into the adobe-brick to create a protective sheath that decorated the façade.

Specially prized were imported building materials such as cedar from Lebanon, diorite from Arabia, and lapis lazuli from India.

Babylonian temples are massive structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains.

In Babylonia, in place of the bas relief, there is greater use of three-dimensional figures in the round – the earliest examples being the statues from Girsu, that are realistic if somewhat clumsy.

The paucity of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious, and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting.

The forms of Assyrian pottery are graceful; the porcelain, like the glass discovered in the palaces of Nineveh, was derived from Egyptian models.

That they were proud of this achievement is attested to in the Epic of Gilgamesh which opens with a description of Uruk—its massive walls, streets, markets, temples, and gardens.

Uruk became the template of an urban culture which spread throughout Western Asia via colonization and conquest, and more generally as societies became larger and more sophisticated.

The finer structure of residential and commercial spaces is the reaction of economic forces to the spatial limits imposed by the planned areas resulting in an irregular design with regular features.

The palace is called a 'Big House' (Cuneiform: E₂.GAL Sumerian e₂-gal Akkdian: ekallu) where the lugal or ensi lived and worked.

A similarly complex example of a Mesopotamian palace was excavated at Mari in Syria, dating from the Old Babylonian period.

These pictorial programs incorporated either cultic scenes or the narrative accounts of the kings' military and civic accomplishments.

Gates and important passageways were flanked with massive stone sculptures of apotropaic mythological figures, lamassu and winged genies.

Massive amounts of ivory furniture pieces were found in some Assyrian palaces pointing to an intense trade relationship with North Syrian Neo-Hittite states at the time.

Temples often predated the creation of the urban settlement and grew from small one room structures to elaborate multiacre complexes across the 2,500 years of Sumerian history.

Sumerian temples, fortifications, and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, and half columns.

[19] The sacredness of 'high places' as a meeting point between realms is a pre-Ubaid belief well attested in the Near East back the Neolithic age.

The plan of the temple was rectangular with the corners pointing in cardinal directions to symbolize the four rivers which flow from the mountain to the four world regions.

This configuration was called the bent axis approach, as anyone entering would make a ninety degree turn to face the cult statue at the end of the central hall.

In the Early Dynastic period high temples began to include a ziggurat, a series of platforms creating a stepped pyramid.

Ziggurats were huge pyramidal temple towers which were first built in Sumerian City-States and then developed in Babylonia and Assyrian cities as well.

Classical ziggurats emerged in the Neo-Sumerian Period with articulated buttresses, vitreous brick sheathing, and entasis in the elevation.

This entire mudbrick core structure was originally given a facing of baked brick envelope set in bitumen, 2.5 m on the first lowest stage, and 1.15 m on the second.

The most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are the temple complexes at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples and palaces from the Early Dynastic period sites in the Diyala River valley such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar, the Third Dynasty of Ur remains at Nippur (Sanctuary of Enlil) and Ur (Sanctuary of Nanna), Middle Bronze Age remains at Syrian-Turkish sites of Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Aleppo and Kultepe, Late Bronze Age palaces at Hattusa, Ugarit, Ashur and Nuzi, Iron Age palaces and temples at Assyrian (Kalhu/Nimrud, Khorsabad, Nineveh), Babylonian (Babylon), Urartian (Tushpa/Van, Haykaberd, Ayanis, Armavir, Erebuni, Bastam) and Neo-Hittite sites (Karkamis, Tell Halaf, Karatepe).

Among the textual sources on building construction and associated rituals are Gudea's cylinders from the late 3rd millennium are notable, as well as the Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions from the Iron Age.

An ancient Assyrian fountain "discovered in the gorge of the Comel River consists of basins cut in solid rock and descending in steps to the stream."