Roofing in Iraq

Iraq, the heart of ancient Mesopotamia, has some of the longest roofing traditions on record. Reed arches have roofed buildings in its southern marshes for at least 5,000 years, mud brick was the basic material of the Sumerian cities, and the Sasanian brick vault at Ctesiphon is one of the great roofs of antiquity.

Climate and hazards

Most of Iraq has very hot, dry summers and low rainfall, with the Tigris-Euphrates delta forming a vast wetland in the south. Mud-built remains are especially vulnerable to erosion, and floods have damaged major monuments: a flood in 1888 demolished most of the Taq Kasra palace.

Roofing history

Sumerian cities. Uruk, Ur and Eridu grew on the edges of the southern freshwater marshes between the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Mud was the main building material, used for temples and ziggurats.

Reed architecture. A carved image of a reed guest house (mudhif) from Uruk, about 3300 BC, is held by the British Museum, showing the form has been built for at least 5,000 years.

Babylon. The legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon are the region's most famous, and most debated, "roof garden" (see hanging-gardens-of-babylon).

Sasanian. The Taq Kasra at Ctesiphon, built sometime between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, has a brick vault about 37 m (121 ft) high and 26 m (85 ft) across, built without timber centring by laying bricks at an angle against the rear wall with fast-setting mortar. Part of it collapsed on 7 March 2019. See taq-kasra.

Modern. As elsewhere in the region, new buildings mostly have flat reinforced concrete roofs (see roofing-in-the-middle-east-and-gulf).

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Mudhif: a tunnel-shaped hall of bundled reed arches covered with woven reed mats, used as a sheikh's guest house; it is rebuilt about every ten years. Family reed houses include the raba (with entrances at both ends) and the single-room bayt. See mudhif.
• Mud brick: flat earth roofs and vaults on mud-brick walls across the plains.
• Brick vaults: vaults built without centring, a technique with a long history in a timber-poor land.

Roofing today

As across the region, flat reinforced concrete roofs are standard in towns.

Codes, standards and regulation

Antiquities and Heritage Law No. 55 of 2002 protects the ancient cities of Uruk, Ur and Eridu.

Notable roofs

• The Ahwar of Southern Iraq (UNESCO): marshes where reed mudhifs are still built, together with Uruk, Ur and Tell Eridu.
• Taq Kasra, Ctesiphon: the great Sasanian brick vault.

Local roofing terms

• mudhif (al-muḍīf) - reed guest house
• sarifa - general term for reed structures
• raba - family reed house with doors at both ends
• bayt - single-room reed house
• ihdri - the reed most used in marsh building

The marsh draining

The marsh communities (Ahwari or Marsh Arabs) numbered about half a million in the 1980s. From about 1993 the marshes were drained by the government; after 2003 residents broke the dykes and reed building resumed in reflooded areas.

Sources and gaps

Detailed climate data and information on modern Iraqi roofing practice, census data, codes and industry: published information is limited.