Tepe Gawra, ancient Mesopotamian settlement east of the Tigris River near Nineveh and the modern city of Mosul, northwestern Iraq. It was excavated from 1931 to 1938 by archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania.
Excavations at Tepe Gawri revealed 16 levels showing that the Tepe Gawra site was occupied from approximately 5000 BC to 1500 BC. They include the earliest known temple to be decorated with pilasters and recesses. The Gawra Period (3500–2900 BC) is named for the site.
The site, which apparently was continuously occupied from the Halaf Period (c. 5050–c. 4300 bc) to about the middle of the 2nd millennium bc, gave its name to the Gawra Period (c. 3500–c. 2900) of northern Mesopotamia. Prior to the Gawra Period, however, the site seems to have been influenced by the Ubaid culture (c. 5200–c. 3500) of southern Mesopotamia.
The pilaster is an architectural element in classical architecture used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. In contrast, an engaged column or buttress can support the structure of a wall and roof above.
In discussing Leon Battista Alberti’s use of pilasters, which Alberti reintroduced into wall-architecture, Rudolf Wittkower wrote, “The pilaster is the logical transformation of the column for the decoration of a wall. It may be defined as a flattened column which has lost its three-dimensional and tactile value.”
A pilaster appears with a capital and entablature, also in “low-relief” or flattened against the wall.
Pilasters often appear on the sides of a door frame or window opening on the facade of a building, and are sometimes paired with columns or pillars set directly in front of them at some distance away from the wall, which support a roof structure above, such as a portico. These vertical elements can also be used to support a recessed archivolt around a doorway. The pilaster can be replaced by ornamental brackets supporting the entablature or a balcony over a doorway.
When a pilaster appears at the corner intersection of two walls it is known as a canton.
As with a column, a pilaster can have a plain or fluted surface to its profile and can be represented in the mode of any architectural style. During the Renaissance and Baroque architects used a range of pilaster forms. In the giant order pilasters appear as two-storeys tall, linking floors in a single unit.
The fashion of using this element from Ancient Greek and Roman architecture was adopted in the Italian Renaissance, gained wide popularity with Greek Revival architecture, and continues to be seen in some modern architecture.
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