THE FAÇADE
The breaking up of the wall-face into horizontal zones was a device
familiar to the ancient East. In the main gateway of Sargon’s palace at
Khorsâbâd the wall is divided into a high orthostatic podium, decorated
with reliefs, and a brick superstructure diversified by vertical flutes
and rectangular recesses.[271] In the interior of the palace, the court
of the ḥaram shows a similar disposition, except that the podium is of
enamelled brick, not of stone.[272] The upper part of the walls is in no
case preserved. On Assyrian reliefs it is not uncommon to find a
horizontal band along the top of the walls below the crenellations;[273]
but the nature of the upper zone or zones in decorated façades such as
those of Khorsâbâd is a matter of conjecture. Concerning Chaldaean wall
decoration we have little evidence. The building on the Wuswas mound at
Warka, of which Loftus published a sketch,[274] has recently been
re-examined by Dr. Jordan, who believes it to be post-Babylonian.[275]
The walls of the temple of Bel at Niffer were decorated with shallow
buttresses, while the gates bore resemblance, both in plan and
decoration, to the gates of Khorsâbâd.[276] The gateway of Gudea at
Tellôh has the same doubly recessed rectangular niches that have been
noted at Khorsâbâd, but they do not seem to have been grouped in panels,
and the plinth is reduced to insignificant proportions.[277] It is
significant that in the post-Babylonian construction at Tellôh both the
rectangular niche and the flute are present, and it may be surmised that
the walls of Wuswas, with their recessed and fluted panels placed one
above the other, represent an ancient scheme. It is a scheme which may
be compared with that of the façade of Ctesiphon (see below, p. 134). At
intervals groups of recessed niches are carried up continuously to the
height of two registers of panels, just as in the two lower zones at
Ctesiphon the engaged columns embrace two registers of arched niches.
But at Ctesiphon we have architectural forms borrowed from Hellenism
instead of the surface decoration (recess and flute) of Chaldaea and
Assyria.
The orthostatic construction was used in Hittite architecture at
Zindjirli, Boghâz Keui, and Sakcheh Geuzu. Mr. Hogarth has found it at
Carchemish and Baron Oppenheim at Râs al-’Ain.[278] But in all these
buildings, Babylonian, Hittite, and Assyrian, there was no attempt to
ornament the façade with the similitude of plastic architectural forms.
The elements of such ornament were not indeed lacking, but they appear
in isolated examples and were not applied to the wall-face in a
continuous decorative system. Side by side with stelae and altars
adorned with fluted motives akin to those of the façades[279] there are
instances of mock architecture in relief. An Assyrian stela upon a slab
found at Quyundjik and now in the British Museum will serve as an
illustration (Fig. 11). Two pilasters carry an architrave consisting of
a double fillet and a band of crenellations; between and behind the
pilasters an arched niche, placed in counterfeited perspective, frames a
hunting scene. It is an early example of the application of the third
dimension to architectural ornament, and it conveys the impression of
plastic architecture in two planes. As Professor Delbrück observes, by
the addition of free-standing columns placed before the pilasters, we
should have here a motive familiar to Graeco-Roman façades.[280] The
archivolt, of which the enrichment is expressed at Quyundjik in the
terms of a shallow fillet, appears at Khorsâbâd, with enamelled brick
enrichment, over a doorway,[281] and also upon reliefs.[282] All the
methods of decorating the face of the arch which were known to antiquity
are found on the Assyrian monuments. The podium façade is oriental, for
it was used in Assyria and in Persia. Pre-Greek is the employment of
blind openings; in the Persepolitan palaces a blind niche is placed in
every intercolumniation, and in plastic architecture an open gallery or
loggia was common to Egypt and to Assyria.[283] In pre-Hellenic Egypt
and western Asia there is, however, no example of a continuous series of
arches in relief, though the continuous treatment of decoration on the
wall-face is typical of Babylonian architecture from the earliest time,
and it remained only to apply it to true architectural motives instead
of to the purely decorative motives of Chaldaea and Assyria. That these
last were mainly based upon the outward aspect of primitive wooden
structures, I do not doubt, but at the remote date at which we first
know them they had already lost all structural significance. The step
from pattern to imitative architecture must have been taken at an early
stage in the Hellenistic East. Seleucid buildings which have vanished
are reflected in the stupas of Hellenistic India, where the surfaces are
adorned with blind openings between engaged piers, and in the rock-cut
temples, where the decorative scheme of the façade is a podium carrying
a colonnade in relief.[284] In Egypt rows of niches are present in the
interior of tombs,[285] and an early example of the same motive can be
seen in the gateway at Perge, a city which lay under the direct
influence of Antioch.[286] The lightening of the massive wall by means
of niches and blind openings can be traced through pre-Greek
architecture in Mesopotamia (Assyrian palaces and temples) and in Egypt
(from the Eighteenth Dynasty and even earlier) down to the Achaemenid
period. The systematic application of this principle to the wall-face,
and its union with imitative architecture in relief as a decorative
scheme took place, as far as can be determined at present, in the
Hellenistic age.
In the third and in the second century B.C. the division of the wall
into two zones by means of a moulding appears at Delos, Priene,
Magnesia, and other parts of western Asia,[287] and a little later it is
found in what is known as the incrusted style at Oscan Pompeii. The
lower zone consists of unpainted stucco decoration representing a stone
wall, composed of one or of two rows of orthostatae, and above them
several courses of dressed stones. The upper zone, which was at first
undecorated (it represented space, the upper air), takes on later the
semblance of a colonnaded gallery[288] in imitation of the open
galleries characteristic of Eastern Hellenistic architecture.[289] The
podium façade carrying an open arcade is, as Professor Delbrück is
careful to point out, in origin different from the galleried wall, but
in façade schemes the two run together so as to be almost
indistinguishable. The theme is represented in relief upon the façade of
the Bouleuterion at Miletus[290] and frequently in Pompeii, where,
however, the engaged columns do not stand upon a podium.[291] Behind the
columns, both at Delos and in the Pompeiian examples, the wall is still
divided into two zones by a moulding. In all cases it is a theme which
stands as a representation in relief of plastic architecture, of deep
colonnades such as those which were to be seen on the Mausoleum at
Halicarnassus.[292] The blind order of the Ephebeum at Priene may be
cited as another striking example of imitative architecture.[293]
Similarly the superimposition of one blind order upon another, a
decorative motive so familiar in Roman theatres and amphitheatres, finds
its prototype in the colonnades of Hellenistic stoae, such as those
erected by Attalus in Athens and in Pergamon.[294]
Professor Delbrück is of opinion that the impulse towards decorating the
wall-face with the similitude of plastic architecture was quickened by
Greek painting, which, from the fourth century B.C. onward, gained an
increasing mastery in the representation of spatial dimensions. Plastic
examples of the phase of development represented by the Boscoreale
frescoes might be expected in the second century B.C., and in fact there
were at that period mock colonnades in relief, such as the Ephebeum at
Priene. The cutting away of the wall-face by means of niches was
foreshadowed in Hellenistic art; the lightening of the wall-mass by
niches has been noticed in the gate at Perge and the tombs of
Alexandria, while windows in the intercolumniations were of frequent
occurrence.[295] It is possible, as Professor Delbrück suggests, that in
Hellenistic Mesopotamia decoration by means of blind openings, whether
doors, windows, or niches, won a great popularity because it was based
on pre-Hellenic tradition, and it is interesting to observe that the
only early examples of the arched niche, which is the leading motive at
Ukhaiḍir, are to be found in western Asia.[296] But the systematic
application of these principles to the façade was accomplished only in
the latest phases of Hellenistic art, and we may perhaps owe it to Roman
builders. In the intercolumniations of the decorated zone niches,
arcades and windows take the place of the traditional moulding,[297] and
the upper wall is broken by a row of arches or of windows.[298] On inner
walls a double row of niches is sometimes accompanied by stucco
incrustation,[299] while the podium is decorated with engaged
columns.[300]
It remained for the Imperial period to complete the development. Orders
of columns were placed in zones one above the other; niches of richer
type occupied the surface of the wall, and not infrequently they were
placed one within the other; rounded and rectangular niches followed one
another in a rhythmic sequence; columns and piers stood out in higher
relief and the podium and architrave were broken above and below them.
Gradually the orders and niches lost their original significance; they
were looked upon merely as decorative motives, and as such followed a
development of their own. They lent to the wall-surface an
ever-increasing movement and rhythm as their forms grew richer and
freer. This evolution can be seen upon the walls of Roman buildings
which are yet standing; if in the cities of the eastern Mediterranean
most of the monuments have fallen, the elements of their composition
have been found and put together, as in the Nymphaeum at Miletus,[301]
or the theatre at Ephesus,[302] and similar decoration can still be
studied upon the walls of Ba’albek.[303] But in western Asia, and
notably in Syria, the old classical love of unbroken wall-surfaces died
hard--perhaps it may be said to have survived long into the Middle Ages
in the smooth faces of dressed stone which give so much dignity to the
Mohammadan buildings of Damascus and Aleppo. Older and simpler
decorative forms continued to rule when in Rome the evolution had gone
on to other stages. The façade of the Nabataean temple at Sî’, for
example, echoes in free-standing architecture the features of the relief
decoration of the Ephebeum at Priene.[304] In the temenos of the
basilica at Apamea (second century A.D.) the solid outer wall has
disappeared, and its place is taken by a series of piers with
rectangular openings between, but in the basilica itself the treatment
of the wall is still of an extremely simple character.[305] The temenos
wall of the temple at Palmyra is treated with the old formal severity.
At Bâqirḥâ and at Isriyyeh the walls are unbroken save by shallow
pilasters,[306] a simplicity which rivals that of the pre-Roman tomb of
Ḥamrath at Swaidâ.[307] At Mushennef and at Qanawât pilasters are set at
the angles, and the rest of the wall is undecorated.[308] In the
pre-Roman temple at Swaidâ, niches, in imitation of small doors, are
placed on either side of the single entrance;[309] at ‘Atîl a double
order of niches, the lower rectangular, the upper rounded and arched,
occupy the same position, but the walls of the cella are without even
the customary pilasters;[310] in the Qaisariyyeh at Shaqqâ a genuine
opening flanks the doorway on either side, but the façade is otherwise
unadorned.[311] In the Philippeion at Shahbâ the side niches are omitted
and there are no pilasters except at the angles; rounded and rectangular
niches are employed on the interior walls of the palace, and on either
side of the interior doorways of the bath, but in all other respects the
latter building is noticeable for the entire absence of decoration upon
its walls;[312] and as late as the sixth century angle pilasters set
upon a podium were considered a sufficient decoration for the walls of
the exquisite tomb at the southern Dânâ,[313] while the porticoes of
house and stoa are models of severity.[314]
The fantastic variety which characterized the late Hellenistic and the
Roman Imperial age must be sought for in south-west Asia in another
group of monuments. The influence of Alexandria dominates over the tomb
façades of Petra, and was felt even in the earlier tombs at Madâin
Ṣâliḥ.[315] With the latter I am not immediately concerned, except in
so far as they help to determine the date of the Petra tombs. It is
enough to notice that the local oriental forms, the pylon tombs with a
band or bands of crenellated ornament, or with a staircase motive at the
angles, dropped out of fashion during the first half of the first
century after our era, and that in the first century A.D. Hellenistic
forms had invaded the Ḥedjr tombs.[316] The gable tomb and the columned
façade, which Domaszewski has christened the Roman temple tomb, do not
indeed appear at Madâin Ṣâliḥ, but the fully developed aedicula, with
quarter-columns in the antae, is found there as early as the year A.D.
31 in the tabernacle which frames the doorway,[317] and the tabernacle,
both with a gable and with an archivolt, was employed in Arabia at an
early date for votive niches.[318] It is therefore unnecessary, as
Puchstein has pointed out, to assign such gable tombs at Petra as date
from a period before the Roman occupation (i.e. before A.D. 106) to some
fortuitous Greek influence,[319] since the type was familiar to the
stone-cutters of an earlier period. Not later than the middle of the
first century A.D. a second order of dwarf columns was placed in the
attic (the earliest dated example is tomb F 4 at Madâin Ṣâliḥ, A.D.
63-64), but it is instructive to note that the appearance of a new form
does not imply the elimination of older types. At Madâin Ṣâliḥ all the
different variations continue to exist side by side, and there is an
example of the primitive pylon tomb with a single band of crenellations,
the unmitigated copy of an Arabian house for the living turned into a
house for the dead, which is dated as late as the year A.D. 74,[320]
just as the Egyptian gorge is found side by side with, and indeed upon
the same tombs as, a fully developed Ionic entablature. The Roman temple
tomb of Petra is predicted in the dwarf piers of the attic (which are of
frequent occurrence at Madâin Ṣâliḥ) inasmuch as they imply a
corresponding series of engaged piers in the wall below. A single
example of this so-called temple tomb exists at Madâin Ṣâliḥ, but
without the piers in the attic; it is probably to be dated in the middle
of the first century A.D.[321] The engaged column, in contradistinction
to the engaged pier, is employed at Madâin Ṣâliḥ only in the antae of
the tabernacles; at Petra it takes its place among the main supports of
the façade. At Petra, too, the plastic freedom of late Hellenistic
architectural forms makes itself felt. Broken podiums are found upon
wall paintings of the second style at Boscoreale, though their
architectural counterpart cannot be pointed out at so early a date;
broken entablatures are present in late Hellenistic work at Alexandria,
but not elsewhere in the Greek cultural sphere at the same period.[322]
Both these features, together with the preference for engaged columns
instead of piers, are common at Petra, and they are like sign-posts
pointing to the source whence the stone-cutters of Petra drew their
inspiration. There are, it is true, early examples of the broken
architrave in Italy in the triumphal arches of Rimini (27 B.C.) and
Aosta (25 B.C.), but the systematic use of broken podium and entablature
is one of the distinctive features of the later Imperial period. In the
Lion Tomb at Petra, which recalls the tabernacle of the tomb F 4 at
Madâin Ṣâliḥ, architrave, frieze, and cornice are broken over the angle
columns and piers. In the tombs of the second century the principle is
carried further; architrave, frieze, and cornice are all broken, and the
system is extended to the plinth-like member which is interposed between
the entablature and the dwarf order of the attic, and, when the façade
reaches a second story, to the upper entablature also.[323] In the
Corinthian tomb, the Dair, and the Khazneh a second order is
superimposed upon the first. In each case a tholos occupies the centre
of the upper story and the pairs of flanking columns are crowned by a
broken pediment. In the Dair an engaged pier and quarter-column fill out
the façade on either side (Plate 82, Fig. 2). In the Corinthian tomb the
lower zone is complete in itself (Plate 82, Fig. 1). The engaged columns
stand upon a high plinth and carry a broken architrave composed of
frieze and cornice only; the dwarf piers are placed upon a broken plinth
with a moulded cornice, which is interrupted above the central door by a
moulded archivolt. The dwarf columns carry a complete entablature,
architrave, frieze, and cornice, and a low broken pediment occupies the
centre of the façade. Above this structure the second order, with its
tholos, stands upon a moulded plinth. In the Storied tomb the lower
order carries a complete entablature and a broken attic which contains
the gables and archivolts of the doors; upon a plinth with a moulded
cornice rises a second order bearing an entablature; a second plinth,
itself divided by a horizontal moulding, carries a dwarf order which is
crowned by a third entablature (Fig. 30). Yet another order crowned the
tomb, but it was built, not rock-cut, and little of it remains. The
tholos in these façades is a Hellenistic motive, though it is known to
us at an early period only from wall paintings and from literary
sources.[324] To the multiplication of horizontal decorations earlier
Nabataean tombs had shown a strong inclination. The double band of
crenellations in the pylon tombs of Madâin Ṣâliḥ and of Petra, the
double attic of the so-called Ḥedjr tombs in both places, point the way
to such compositions as the Storied tomb. Everywhere a strong
centralization rules the scheme of the façade. It is rare to find more
than one door; where doors are placed in the flanking intercolumniations
they are insignificant in size, as in the Corinthian tomb. In the Dair
(Plate 82, Fig. 2), mock windows occupy the outer intercolumniations. In
the Storied tomb, where there are four doors, the two central entrances
are higher than the others, and, in the upper story, the central
intercolumniation is wider than those on either side. But the long
unbroken lines of the horizontal mouldings give an exceptional monotony
to this façade. Usually a gable or archivolt, breaking into the attic,
emphasizes the centre of the façade and is re-echoed in the pediment,
with its central acroterion which crowns the whole, while in the tholos
tombs the centralization is even more strongly underlined. The angles
are commonly in antis, with a quarter-column set against the corner
pier. The archivolt is conspicuous by its absence. It is never used
except in exchange for the pediment over aediculae, and, exceptionally,
over mock windows, as for example in the lower zone of the Dair.
[Illustration: FIG. 30. Petra, the Storied tomb.
(From _Provincia Arabia_, by kind permission of Professor Brünnow.)]
The same insistence upon horizontality is to be observed in the façades
of Ctesiphon and Ukhaiḍir; but the effect is produced in a different
manner. No doubt it is difficult to do justice to the horizontal members
in these buildings, owing to the fact that, from the perishable nature
of the material, they have suffered complete destruction, but it can
safely be conjectured that they were never of much importance to the
general effect. The space left between the decorated zones is too small
to admit of the full entablature, attic, and podium which separate the
lower order from the first upper order in the Storied tomb, or even of
the entablature and podium which are interposed between the upper order
and the order of dwarf columns. The multiplication and the breaking of
horizontal members in Western Hellenistic monuments are discarded in
Mesopotamia, and with them vanishes much of the significance of the
façade. The zone decoration becomes a pattern composed of innumerable
groups of architraved and arched divisions, set one within the other, so
as to cover the whole surface of the wall. Where exigency demands, real
doors and windows may be placed in the niches; the zones may correspond
to a certain extent with the structural division of the building into
stories; but the main intention of the architect is to cover his wall
with continuous motives which are not dependent upon the structure and
must fit into it as best they can. It is the traditional surface
decoration of the ancient East, disguised in the new dress which it had
borrowed from Hellenism.
No better example of the oriental practice can be found than in the
façade of Ctesiphon. The north wing and the face of the great central
arch have fallen, but they are preserved in M. Dieulafoy’s
photograph[325] (Plate 83). The façade is divided into three zones, but
organic connexion between them is lacking. Each zone, in either wing, is
subdivided into two horizontal registers. The lower register of the
lowest zone consists of wide arches separated by pairs of engaged
columns which are carried up to the top of the zone. The width of the
intercolumniations bears no relation to the width of the wing; a space
remains over at the outer end which is awkwardly filled by two small
blind arched niches, placed one above the other. The upper register is
occupied by groups of three niches; in each group the central niche is
wider than the other two, and each niche is flanked by engaged
colonnettes. At the outer end there is no room to complete the pattern,
and the outer flanking niche is omitted. The lower zone breaks off
abruptly here against a plain pylon-like wall, and at the inner end it
is not organically connected with the great archway which forms the
centre of the façade. Single engaged columns divide the middle zone into
five compartments. They are not placed above the pairs of engaged
columns of the lower zone, nor yet in the centre of the lower
intercolumniations, but purely in accordance with the dictates of the
pattern which covered the middle zone. It, too, is subdivided into two
horizontal registers. In the lower register there are five pairs of
niches, with three engaged colonnettes between. At the inner end the
pair must have been incomplete owing to lack of space; at the outer end
the engaged column is omitted for the same reason. In what relation the
triple colonnettes stood to the niche arches is not clear. They were not
regarded as necessary to the arch, for on the outer side of each pair
they are absent, and the same applies to the colonnettes and arches in
the upper register of this zone. These groups consist of three niches of
equal size, with a pair of colonnettes between the central and the
flanking niches. In the third zone the upper of the two registers has
almost entirely disappeared; it is obvious, however, that the two
registers were not welded together by engaged columns. In the lower
register the arched niches, separated by engaged colonnettes, are
conceived without any thought of the division of the wall below them,
and, from the fragment of the upper register which remains, it would
seem that the niches which adorned it were equally independent of the
niches of the lower register. Into this confusion breaks the huge
central arch, cutting short the pattern at the inner end of the wings
just as the pylon wall cuts it short at the outer end. Yet the gigantic
size of the façade and the even repetition of the arches in each
register gives to the eye a sense of orderly grouping, and draws the
whole into an apparent symmetry which an analysis of the details proves
to be lacking in reality.
Ukhaiḍir, separated from Ctesiphon by an interval of some 500 years,
shows a sensible advance. The north façade of the court is not indeed
centralized, nor is it symmetrically placed in the wall of the
three-storied block, but the two lower zones are organically connected
with one another. The seven blind niches of the lower order correspond
with those of the second order. In the second order the breaking up of
the zone into registers is still adhered to, but since an archivolt has
taken the place of the architrave of Ctesiphon, the principle is not so
strongly marked. It works only within the arched niches. That it is
substantially the same is, however, apparent from the fact that at
Ukhaiḍir, as at Ctesiphon, the lower register consists of groups of two
small niches, the upper register of groups of three, the central niche
being the largest. The seven large niches of the second order are
separated by a cluster of four columns; in the spandrels of the arches
there are niches containing windows. The pylon-like wall of Ctesiphon is
represented by a battered wall at Ukhaiḍir, but instead of sloping back
and forming horizontal ledges, its perpendicular face seems to have been
divided at intervals by horizontal bars of masonry. There is no space
between the zones for important horizontal mouldings. Dr. Reuther in his
reconstruction (_Ocheïdir_, Plate 25) places a plain masonry balcony
along the narrow platform formed by the summit of the second zone. It
is, however, conjectural, and in my opinion it lays a stress upon the
horizontal divisions between the zones which is contrary to the spirit
of the decorative scheme. In the upper zone the plain wall is in far
better accord with the classical treatment of wall-surfaces than are the
restless nichings of Ctesiphon, and it enhances the value of the rich
orders below it. But it is not regarded, like the plain wall of early
Hellenistic decoration, as representing space, the upper air;[326] it
is rather the gallery wall of ancient Assyrian and early Hellenistic
architecture. It is confined by an upper row of arched niches, each one,
so far as can be determined in their ruined condition, placed within a
rectangular frame of engaged columns and architrave, like the niches
upon the outer fortification wall of the palace. And here we have the
system that dominates Ctesiphon, the column and architrave framing
arched niches. In the upper zone of the Ukhaiḍir façade symmetry has
vanished. The long crowning row of niches calls attention to the fact
that the decorated lower zones of the façade do not stand in the centre
of the wall, and the doorways of the third zone bear no more relation to
the arches below them than the perpendicular divisions of the Ctesiphon
wall bear relation to one another. Another similarity exists between the
two buildings. The arches of the second zone at Ukhaiḍir are decorated
not with the mouldings of the classical archivolt, but with the cusp of
the great arch at Ctesiphon. So far as I am aware the earliest example
of this cuspidated ornament in monumental architecture is at Ctesiphon.
It appears in northern Syria in the fifth century A.D., when it can be
seen both with the cusps pointing inward[327] and with the cusps
pointing outward.[328] In the latter form it bears a close resemblance
to the broken palmette of late Graeco-Roman ornament,[329] and its
origin is probably to be sought in oriental Hellenism, but whether it
was developed in the Syrian or in the Mesopotamian regions I cannot
determine. It became a common motive in Syrian architecture during the
sixth century,[330] where it is used in both forms, but in the
Mesopotamian sphere it is almost always inverted, as at Ctesiphon. We
have it at Ukhaiḍir, not only in the façade but also on the arches of
the mosque doorways and possibly in the lîwân arches in the courts.[331]
In exactly the same form it is employed in the early Abbâsid buildings
of Sâmarrâ,[332] and there is another notable example of its use over
the doorway of the mosque at Ḥarrân, where an outward-pointing cusp is
used (Plate 84, Fig. 2). In the mosque at Mayâfârqîn it is found
inverted on the elaborate arches which cover the miḥrâb niches, on the
relieving arches over the doors of the outer north wall (Plate 84, Fig.
3), and on the blind niches above. This part of the wall belongs to the
earlier portion of the building, which is ascribed, in an inscription
round the dome, to the Ortokid Alpi (A.D. 1152-1176). It is a common
feature of Ortokid decoration at Diyârbekr,[333] and in the first half
of the thirteenth century it is seldom absent from the lintels of
Christian churches and Mohammadan mosques in Môṣul and the surrounding
districts,[334] nor yet, in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
centuries, from the lace-like decoration of the arches in the mosques at
Ḥasan Kaif[335] (Plate 84, Fig. 1). Other examples in late Mohammadan
architecture are too numerous to be mentioned. I select the few which I
have quoted because they are little known.
In attempting a reconstruction of the Ukhaiḍir façade (Plate 85) I have
sought some guidance from the representation of a Sasanian fortress
which is to be seen upon a silver dish, now in the possession of the
Kais. Archäol. Kommission of St. Petersburg[336] (Plate 86, Fig. 2). It
has been assigned to the beginning of the Sasanian period. The façade
depicted bears some interesting analogies to that of Ukhaiḍir. It is
divided into two stories. In the lower story the lower zone consists of
eight arched niches, the arches borne on tall engaged columns without
capitals. The archivolts are decorated with three fillets and a small
oval motive is placed in the spandrels. Above the arches there is a
cornice composed of two simple horizontal mouldings with a band of
spirals between them. I surmise that these spirals, which seem to be
singularly out of place in a monumental façade, were put in to fill up
the space and have no warrant in any actual building. The gateway
occupies the centre of this zone. A wide archway, set in a rectangular
frame, covers two narrow arched doors. Within the semicircle of the
embracing arch there is a shallow calotte decorated with broken
concentric rings. The archivolt is outlined by a moulding which is
carried up continuously round the rectangular frame. Within this frame a
horizontal moulding is laid above the arch. This scheme of archivolt and
rectangular frame with a continuous moulding is common in Syria and
Mesopotamia.[337] The crowning member of the portal breaks the line of
the cornice. It consists of a frieze carved in relief with a human (or
divine?) head and bust, and a cornice bearing a row of cusps. The upper
zone of the lower story is less easy to describe in terms of
architecture. There is a frieze (or dwarf order?) decorated with four
groups of six flutings or engaged colonnettes and five groups of four
circles, each circle containing a quatrefoil. The cornice is composed of
two bands, the first decorated with alternate circles and rhomboids, the
second with diagonal brickwork. A projecting hourd is placed at either
end of the building, and between the hourds the top of the wall is
battlemented. These crenellations form a parapet to the gangway which
runs along the base of the second tower-like story. Upon the gangway
stand eight figures, seven of whom are blowing trumpets. Behind them
the wall is plain, but the upper part is decorated first with a band of
half-florettes, then with a row of arched niches, each niche being set
within a rectangular frame, and finally with a band of diagonal
brickwork. The summit of the wall is battlemented and a wooden hourd
projects from either side. The lower zone of the lower story corresponds
very fairly with the lowest zone at Ukhaiḍir. The schematized horizontal
bands of the second zone bear little or no relation to real
architecture, but the upper story is set back, as at Ukhaiḍir, and the
battlemented parapet of the gangway is a very probable solution for the
parapet of the Ukhaiḍir gangway. The upper story, with its plain wall
and its row of niches is the same in both façades, and the upper
battlements may safely be restored at Ukhaiḍir.
At Ctesiphon the capitals and bases (if bases there were) of the columns
and colonnettes were moulded in stucco and have disappeared. Bases seem
to have been absent from the slender engaged columns on the outer walls
of Firûzâbâd and Sarvistân, but at both places the state of the ruins
renders an exact determination of such details difficult. The engaged
columns seem to rest upon a low plinth. The decoration in those palaces
is, however, far more nearly connected with oriental than with
occidental tradition. We have not much information as to Sasanian
capitals. The columns and double columns of the inner rooms at Sarvistân
are covered by rectangular imposts,[338] and de Morgan gives a drawing
of a stucco capital from Shirwân.[339] It is scarcely necessary to
allude to the famous impost-capitals of Bîsutûn and Iṣfahân, which
belong, in all probability, to the end of the sixth or the beginning of
the seventh century. They show far greater skill in the handling of the
rectangular impost than the capitals at Sarvistân, but whether they are
a natural development out of the latter, or borrowed directly from
Byzantine art, existing material does not enable us to decide.[340] The
latter theory seems to be the more probable, and it is supported by the
fact that the evolution of the Mesopotamian capital did not proceed upon
the Bîsutûn-Iṣfahân lines. At Ukhaiḍir there is a reversion to the
simple impost of Sarvistân, nor did the development there go beyond the
elementary impost-capital of rooms 30 and 40. The capitals of the
swelling columns on the north façade of the central court may have been
more like those of Bîsutûn and Iṣfahân, but unfortunately they are
completely ruined. At a later date, in the church of Mâr Ṭahmâsgerd at
Kerkûk (eighth or ninth century), the scheme of the Sarvistân halls is
repeated, but the pairs of columns are without capitals or bases, and
the colonnettes of the niches in the spandrels are similarly treated
(Plate 75, Fig. 1). I should be inclined to reconstruct all the columns
and engaged columns at Ukhaiḍir and Sarvistân, and possibly at Ctesiphon
also, without bases.
On the western side of the Syrian desert the evolution of the capital
is different. The engaged capitals at Madâin Ṣâliḥ and Petra show a
marked tendency towards the Corinthian. Like the capitals of the Kôm
al-Shukâfa oasis[341] and capitals on Pompeiian frescoes of the second
style, they have the Corinthian form and the Corinthian rosette upon the
abacus, not indeed worked out into a true rosette, but left in the shape
of a simple boss. In the second-century façades at Petra, such as the
Corinthian tomb and the Khazneh, this tendency reaches full expression.
The replacing of the architrave by the archivolt created a structural
need which was satisfied by the introduction of the impost-capital, and
we find the latter both at Mshattâ[342] and at Muwaqqar,[343] the
capitals at Muwaqqar being closely related to the Bîsutûn-Iṣfahân type.
With these stone-carved capitals, the brick and plaster capitals of
Ukhaiḍir, so far as they are preserved, are little concerned. The
further history of the Muwaqqar capitals must be sought, in the realm of
Mohammadan art, at Sâmarrâ and in the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn.[344]
New to Mesopotamian architecture are the clustered columns in the middle
zone of the Ukhaiḍir façade. No doubt they are not essentially different
from the triple supports between the arches of the second zone at
Ctesiphon; but at Ukhaiḍir they are given a true architectural meaning,
the central pair carries the wall, the flanking columns carry the cusped
arches; moreover they are set in different planes, the central pair
standing in front of the flanking columns. The effect produced is almost
Gothic, a foreshadowing of the clustered piers of Armenian
churches.[345] It was a scheme which was not to remain sterile in early
Mohammadan art. Clustered piers carried the roof of the great mosque at
Sâmarrâ[346] and the arcades of the mosque at Ibn Ṭulûn.
The first great distinction, then, between the second-century façades of
Petra and the third-century façade of Ctesiphon is that the mock
architecture at Petra is organically coherent, whereas at Ctesiphon it
is incoherent, i.e. it is a pattern covering the wall-face rather than a
simulation of plastic construction. The second great distinction is the
systematic use of the archivolt at Ctesiphon for all the secondary
intercolumniations in the wings. It is perhaps not without importance to
observe that the same change from architrave to archivolt took place,
though at a rather later date, in the stone-building regions of western
Asia. In Syria, for example, the arched window almost entirely replaced
the rectangular window in the course of the fifth century.[347] In the
lower and central zones of Ctesiphon the arches are framed by groups in
a rectangle composed of engaged piers and architraves; in the upper zone
this system is abandoned. The principle of the arched niche within a
rectangular frame appears, as has been seen, as early as Assyrian
stelae, but for the use of the motive in a continuous series upon the
façade there is, so far as I am aware, no example earlier than the
Tabularium.[348] In the Augustan age it is found upon the Porta
Praetoria at Aosta,[349] and thenceforward it governs the decorative
scheme of Roman city gateways. Whether it was derived from Hellenistic
Alexandria, together with the whole city gateway type, as Schultze
surmises;[350] or whether it was evolved out of such wooden
superstructures as gave birth to the decoration upon the Etruscan gates
at Perugia;[351] or whether it was a specifically Roman (Stadtrömisch)
conception, it is impossible to say. Nor does it signify. We know it as
Roman, not only in the gateways, but also in the theatres and
amphitheatres of the Roman empire, and I cannot doubt that the perfected
Roman scheme is at least as directly responsible for Mesopotamian
wall-surface decoration as is the western Asiatic development of
Hellenistic façades. The gateway at Aosta, the Storied tomb at Petra,
may well be taken as representing the immediate progenitors of
Ctesiphon.
Five hundred years later, in round figures, comes Ukhaiḍir--five hundred
years of architectural growth and of fairly continuous intercourse with
the West. The architrave has vanished from the principal orders; it is
retained only to form the old rectangular framework for the small niches
at the top of the wall. Symmetry and organic cohesion rule over the two
lower zones. But in the details of its composition there is nothing at
Ukhaiḍir which might not have been foretold from the façade of
Ctesiphon.
The lower zone of the north façade forms part of the decorative scheme
of the central court as a whole. The central court resembles, as has
been observed by Dr. Reuther, a Greek peristyle with engaged columns in
place of free standing columns; the southern side is, however, treated
as a separate façade, the façade of the lîwân. The principal feature was
necessarily the wide arched opening of the lîwân itself. There is
nothing new here; we have it at Ctesiphon, combined with Hellenistic
wings; we have it at Firûzâbâd, without side doors, and at Sarvistân and
at Hatra.
Hatra, though in plan it is no less purely oriental than Ctesiphon,
shows direct Western influence far more strongly than the southern
Mesopotamian or the Persian palaces. Dr. Herzfeld has compared its
triple-arched façade, wherein the central arch surpasses the flanking
arches in height and width, with that of the triumphal arch,[352] and
the comparison is apt. So far as my knowledge goes, the triple-arched
scheme appears for the first time in the Assyro-Persian cultural sphere
at Hatra, and it is accompanied there by strongly Hellenized details of
decoration, which distinguish it from the older oriental palaces to
which it is related in plan. This Hellenized decoration is present in
all other Parthian ruins, and it is not surprising that it should be so.
The Parthians wrested their empire from a Greek dynasty. The
Mesopotamia which they conquered was a part of Asiatic Greece; it was
more closely linked to Greek culture than it had ever been linked
before, or was ever to be linked again. The Hellenistic triple-arched
scheme fitted the lîwân plan admirably, inasmuch as it provided the
great opening which was essential to the lîwân hall. But it implied the
placing of doors in the two flanking chambers, and this was done for the
first time at Hatra. The side doors were an innovation which was not
accepted without hesitation. It was not adopted in the façade of
Firûzâbâd, where Hellenistic influence is almost entirely lacking. To a
great extent the Sasanians stand for a reaction against Hellenism. A
fresh wave of orientalism flows back into Mesopotamia with their
conquest, and they went far to complete the severance with the West
which the Parthians had begun when they overthrew the Seleucids. But the
Greek domination, together with the fitful occupation of parts of
northern Mesopotamia by Roman armies, left an indelible mark. Moreover,
the Sasanian frontiers marched with those of Rome, and the
interpenetration of the two civilizations was inevitable. It is felt in
the façade of Ctesiphon. Though the triple-arched scheme is not present
there, the provision of independent doors to the side chambers was a
convenience; it was used at Firûzâbâd in the lîwân group at the back of
the posterior façade; it was used at Ctesiphon, and thereafter it was
not to disappear. With it the triple-arched façade came into favour. It
formed part of the truly oriental façade of Sarvistân; no doubt it
existed at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn; it exists at Ukhaiḍir, but it is there
completely re-orientalized. The ṭarmah-lîwâns bear a faint resemblance
to the Hellenistic motive; in the lîwâns of courts C and G the likeness
fades; in the south façade of the central court it is gone altogether
and the side doors are no more necessary to the scheme than they were at
Ctesiphon. In place of the triumphal arch façade we have the lîwân
façade which dominates the architecture of Persia and of India. The
central hall is raised above the flanking vaults and this raised vault
implies a lifting of the central part of the façade. Dr. Reuther
conjectures that a rectangular frame was given to the central arch, and
since that is the stereotyped form of the lîwân façade of a later date,
I have adopted his view. Moreover, some such device must have been used
at Hatra. There, too, the vault of the lîwân rises above the flanking
vaults, and Dr. Andrae, in his reconstruction of the façade, has given
it a rectangular frame (Fig. 31). But at Hatra the arched opening of the
lîwân was considerably lower than its vault and need not necessarily
have broken the horizontal lines of the façade. It must, however, be
borne in mind that something very like the later lîwân façade must have
existed at Hatra, as it existed at Ukhaiḍir. Flandin and Coste, in their
restorations of Sarvistân (_Voyage en Perse_, Plate 29), give a true
lîwân façade to the principal entrance and to the side lîwân, and indeed
their section indicates the vault of the side lîwân as springing so high
that the façade must have been raised to correspond. The lîwân arch has
been given in these restorations the same rectangular frame which has
been conjectured to have existed at Hatra and at Ukhaiḍir. At Ukhaiḍir,
as at Ctesiphon, the wings are decorated by blind arcades, two of which,
for the sake of convenience, are broken by doors. The arcades are
shallower than those which are carried round the other three sides of
the court; the capitals of the columns, as Dr. Reuther has pointed out,
must have been different from the other engaged capitals, since the
shafts swell outwards towards the top;[353] and the calottes which cover
the niches are adorned with Hazârbâf, the interwoven motive common in
oriental woodwork.[354] The great arch of the lîwân is carried by pairs
of engaged columns set in antis, and this is the arrangement which was
usually adopted in the later lîwân façades. We have seen it in the tombs
of Madâin Ṣâliḥ and of Petra. On either side there is a narrow arched
niche which has the appearance of buttressing the central arch; beyond
these follow three arched niches of wider span, the innermost on either
side being slightly narrower than the others. The engaged column of the
lîwân arch is joined to the quarter-column of the small flanking niche
by a straight wall-face, on the same principle as that which is employed
in the central supports of the ṭarmah-lîwâns of courts B and H. The
result is in plan a double column, similar to the double columns which
carry the arcades of every early Christian church in central
Anatolia.[355] I saw one of these double columns in a graveyard at
Raqqah, where it is used as a tomb-stone. They are foreshadowed in the
Nabataean façade at Si’ in the Ḥaurân.[356]
[Illustration: FIG. 31. Hatra, façade of palace reconstructed.
(From _Hatra_, by kind permission of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft.)]
The triple-arched façade must have been popular in the early Abbâsid
period. It is found in the Bait al-Khalîfah at Sâmarrâ, where it is as
pronounced as it was at Hatra. It was present in the two main façades of
the audience chambers at Balkuwârâ.[357] But the single arched motive
was to play an equally important part in Mohammadan architecture, a
part of which an early (perhaps the earliest) indication is to be seen
at Ukhaiḍir. On the north wall of the great hall the central feature is
the great arch with its shallow calotte. Within this frame is set the
smaller arched opening of the door. Here, as Fergusson has
observed,[358] is the ‘perfectly satisfactory solution of a problem
which has exercised the ingenuity of architects of all ages’. It has
always been manifest ‘that to give a large building a door at all in
proportion to its dimensions was, to say the least of it, very
inconvenient. Men are only six feet high and they do not want portals
through which elephants might march. It was left, however, for the
Saracenic architects completely to get over the difficulty. They placed
their portals--one or three, or five, of moderate dimensions--at the
back of a semi-dome. This last feature thus became the porch or portico,
and its dimensions became those of the portal, wholly irrespective of
the size of the opening. No one, for instance, looking at this gateway
(south gate of Akbar’s mosque at Fatehpur Sîkrî) can mistake that it is
a doorway, and that only, and no one thinks of the size of the openings
that are provided at its base. The semi-dome is the modulus of the
design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its
magnificence’. The same principle rules over two of the smaller doorways
of Ukhaiḍir, the doors at the outer ends of the corridor 5-6.
The arched niche, either blind or pierced with doors or windows, is used
at Ukhaiḍir to complete the decoration of the north wall of the great
hall. Blind niches with a rectangular frame stand on either side of the
central calotte, while above it the three niches are pierced by windows.
Here and in all other examples at Ukhaiḍir, the opening, simulated or
real, is covered by a shallow calotte. In the central court the single
niche at the south-east corner is potentially a doorway; it is covered
by a fluted semi-dome (compare the doubtful example at Mshattâ, above,
p. 118). In the same manner the niches on the two side walls of room 32
are potentially windows; at Karkh, where they are similarly placed, but
in outer walls, they are actually pierced by window openings. The single
niche motive is found in room 140, where, however, the niche is
unusually shallow. That the form of such niches as those of the great
hall and of rooms 31 and 32 is Hellenistic is not open to a moment’s
doubt. Out of the countless classical parallels I may cite the aedicula
upon the east façade of the basilica at Shaqqah.[359] The archivolt at
Shaqqah is carried on colonnettes, the semi-dome is fluted, and the
addition of a pediment, in the true Graeco-Roman style of Syria,
involves the doubling of the colonnettes. The purely decorative
character of the aedicula may well be compared with that of the niches
on either side of the central calotte in the great hall. Dr. Reuther
draws an apt parallel between the placing of the niches in the great
hall and the placing of the niches in the building on the citadel at
‘Ammân,[360] and he calls attention to the fact that at ‘Ammân the
colonnettes have neither capital nor bases and that the archivolts of
one of the pairs of niches in room 32 are decorated with a zigzag
ornament analogous to that of ‘Ammân. All these points help to prove the
Mohammadan origin of the building on the citadel. It is not, however,
strictly correct to describe the colonnettes either at ‘Ammân or at
Ukhaiḍir as being without capitals. They are all provided with a small
impost block. In room 32 a strikingly oriental motive is introduced into
the niches on the side walls. The spear-shaped ornament in the centre of
each niche was familiar to Assyrian decoration. Whether it had, or had
not, its origin in the spear-shaped loopholes of fortified walls,[361]
it is used for purely ornamental purposes in Assyrian decorative
crenellations at Assur and in Parthian crenellations at Warka.[362] It
was common in a similar position during the Achaemenid period,[363] and
was carried on into later Mohammadan work, with the difference that the
whole niche was given a spear-shaped or trifoliate heading[364] (Plate
75, Fig. 1). Nor are the recessed rosettes of the stucco decoration at
Ukhaiḍir connected with Hellenistic types; they have affinities with the
rosette motives of Assyrian fresco and enamelled brick,[365] but the
floret shape of the Assyrian rosette disappears with the perspective
treatment. In a cruder form the rosette of Ukhaiḍir is used at Mâr
Ṭahmâsgerd. Here it is not recessed but cut deeply into the wall, and
its effect is produced solely by the resultant shadow. The crenellated
motive of the stucco work in the mosque has its counterpart in the
ornamental crenellations of Assyria and Persia, but it is used at
Ukhaiḍir with singular freedom. The crenellations are combined so as to
form recessed rhomboids; they are even applied to the archivolt in the
two doorways of corridors 5 and 6.[366] Save for the rosettes, all the
stucco decoration at Ukhaiḍir is of an architectural character--that is
to say that it imitates plastic construction such as crenellations,
arched and columned openings; or else it is an elaboration of structural
details, such as the squinch or the transverse arch. Sometimes it is
actually called into being by structural processes, as in the horizontal
ridges of the vaults in the mosque and room 31. The motives placed on
the summits of the vaults in rooms 31 and 32 are reminiscent of
coffering, and I have little doubt that their origin is to be sought in
the Hellenistic scheme of ceiling decoration. It is, however,
interesting to note that Western forms are more obscured at Ukhaiḍir
than in buildings of a later Mohammadan period. The stucco coffers of
the vaults at Sâmarrâ stand very close to classical types,[367] whereas
the coffers at Ukhaiḍir are employed in a manner foreign to classical
conceptions. This must be largely due to the fact that in the great
palaces at Sâmarrâ Western artificers were at work, while in the
comparatively unimportant desert retreat oriental workmen and oriental
ideas had the upper hand, yet I would suggest that the differences
between Ukhaiḍir and Sâmarrâ indicate a considerable difference in date.
In the ninth century Western influence was stronger in Mesopotamia than
it was in the preceding age, when the arts were still held closely in
the thrall of Sasanian tradition. Consequently we find at Sâmarrâ
capitals inspired by the Corinthian acanthus capital, and among the wall
decorations the Hellenistic vine motive plays a conspicuous part.[368]
We have yet to learn that the flowing vine, so essential to Coptic
decoration and to that of the Hellenistic coast-lands, was a feature of
Sasanian architectural ornament. It occurs in monuments of the Umayyad
period which were directly under the sway of Hellenistic Syria, such as
Mshattâ and the miḥrâb of the Khâṣakî Djâmi’,[369] but except for
sporadic examples in Parthian architecture, where the Hellenizing
tendencies of the decorations are indisputable,[370] its systematic use
on Babylonian soil begins (so far as the evidence goes) at Sâmarrâ in
the middle of the ninth century, and there it was the artificers, not
the work of their hands, which were imported. I do not deny that in
comparison with the Sâmarrâ palaces Ukhaiḍir is a crude product of local
workmanship, wherein it is natural to expect a closer adherence to local
tradition; but it is important to point out how close that adherence is,
and how well it corresponds with recorded examples of Mesopotamian and
Persian decoration earlier than the Umayyads, whereas the decoration in
the same regions, but at a later period, diverges widely from the older
schemes. The divergence is due, in my estimation, to the diffusion of
Western influence when the western and the eastern provinces of the
khalifate were drawn together under the Abbâsids and all quarters of
their empire contributed to their constructions. In the ninth century we
find Mesopotamian architecture in Cairo and Coptic decoration in
Sâmarrâ. I regard the oriental character of Ukhaiḍir as indicative not
only of its isolated position, beyond the direct course of international
civilization and arts, but also as typical of the primitive age during
which it arose.
Materials for the study of early Mohammadan decoration are still so
scanty that the difficulty of assigning exact dates to such as we
possess is great. It is enhanced by the fact that the workmen of the
first khalifs must have been of non-Arab extraction. The Arab invaders,
pouring in out of deserts which were innocent of monumental
constructions, had nothing to contribute to architecture or to the arts.
So far as we know them in the pre-Mohammadan period they had not
created an art of their own. Along the trade-routes, the rock-cut tombs
of Madâin Ṣâliḥ and of Petra exhibit, without salient divergence, the
artistic principles of Hellenized Egypt and Hellenized Syria, while
concerning the older Arab civilizations in the southern parts of the
peninsula we have as yet no evidence save that of inscriptions. The
Mohammadan conquerors employed the workmen of their predecessors, and
according to the nature of their own traditions, these workmen might
raise a palace with a basilical hall, like Mshattâ, or a palace entirely
composed of lîwân groups like Ukhaiḍir; they might cover their walls
with Hellenistic fresco, as at Qṣair ‘Amrah, or with ornament derived
mainly from the ancient East, as again at Ukhaiḍir. The variations of
this period were due to individual idiosyncrasy, or rather to individual
training; there is no reason why they should be taken to denote a
chronological distinction. A hundred and fifty years later this
heterogeneous material had been welded together and the Islâmic
_Weltkunst_ was beginning to take shape. Sâmarrâ, in the eastern part of
the Abbâsid dominions, the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn in the western part,
re-echo one another; artistic conceptions are not only interchangeable,
they are the same; and though, all through the history of the arts of
Islâm, local peculiarities, based on local conditions and traditions,
continue to differentiate one region from another, it is not the
differences but the similarities which are the most striking. They go
hand in hand with the singular solidarity of Islâm, with the
uninterrupted intercourse between remote parts of the Mohammadan world,
with the ceaseless passage of travellers and scholars from the western
limits of Europe on the one hand to the eastern limits of Asia on the
other. This intercourse was quickened, as the Prophet had intended that
it should be, by the institution of the annual pilgrimage. The mosque of
Ibn Ṭulûn is not an isolated example of a direct borrowing by one region
from another. The gates of al-Mehdiyyeh in Tunis were copied from the
gates of Raqqah.[371] It is impossible to explain the curious niching of
the walls of the eleventh-century palace of the Menâr, to take another
Tunisian example, except by a comparison with the wall-surface
decoration of Babylonia and Assyria.[372] I am fully aware that a long
period of time had elapsed between the fall of the Mesopotamian empires
and the erection of the Menâr, and that it would be vain to attempt to
establish a continuous sequence of buildings between them, but I would
point out that the Parthians, when they reconstructed the Babylonian
palace at Tellôh, reproduced the Babylonian wall decoration so closely
that de Sarzec was persuaded that the ruins of their palace belonged to
the Chaldaean age.[373]
Turn again to the fortress of the Bani Hammâd and you will find the
cusp motive of Syria and Mesopotamia repeated on its arches;[374] and
at the palace of Medînat al-Zahrâ in Spain (end of the tenth century) we
have the plaster decorations of the walls of Sâmarrâ carried out in a
style which betrays their Coptic and classical parentage,[375] though
they are not devoid of characteristic motives, such as the palmette tree
and the continuous pattern, which are rooted in oriental tradition.[376]
In the same ruins the workers in stone have borrowed alike from
Byzantium and from Mesopotamia; some of the continuous geometrical
patterns are closely allied to those of Sâmarrâ,[377] while the free use
of the crenellated motive may be compared with its use at Ukhaiḍir
(Plate 87). The earliest Mesopotamian examples of such patterns as these
are Parthian (Plate 86, Fig. 1).
One of the structural features of Ukhaiḍir has a value which is not only
structural but also decorative. I allude to the use of masonry tubes
between parallel barrel vaults. Obviously it is a scheme which was born
of the systematic use of the vault. It is to be found at Hatra, where it
appears in some of the tombs.[378] The same system is present at
Firûzâbâd, where there was a masonry tube between the barrel vaults of
the side chambers of the entrance lîwân and the domed chamber.[379] In
later Mohammadan architecture I have found masonry tubes at Khân
al-Khernîna above Tekrît.[380] A second device for the lightening of the
wall mass between parallel barrel vaults is employed at Ukhaiḍir in the
east annex and in the buildings to the north of the palace. It takes the
form of a number of narrow tubes. I saw it also in a fourteenth-century
khân at the foot of the Djebel Sindjâr (Plate 88, Fig. 1), a khân which
is famous for the dragon reliefs on its doorway,[381] and in a mosque of
the early fifteenth century at Ḥasan Kaif (Plate 88, Fig. 2). The
decorative importance of the first scheme, the large single tube, lies
in the effect which its opening produces on the façade. This can be
observed in the courts on the ground floor at Ukhaiḍir, as well as in
the court on the upper story of the gate-house. The arched openings of
the tubes between the arched doors of the lîwân and its side chambers
form an essential part of the façade, and they are retained when vault
and tube are alike absent. The existence of tube openings in the façades
round the central court, the ṣaḥn, of the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn is
sufficient to show that the Egyptian mosque was copied from a vaulted
prototype (Plate 89, Fig. 1). I do not doubt that it was modelled on the
vaulted buildings of Mesopotamia, though vault and tube are absent from
its structure. The great mosque at Sâmarrâ was not vaulted;
unfortunately the data are insufficient to determine the scheme of the
façades of its ṣaḥn. Nor was the mosque of Abû Dulaf vaulted; it had a
flat roof carried on arches, like Ibn Ṭulûn; but the tube openings
appear in the form of niches on the façades of the ṣaḥn (Plate 89, Fig.
2). As at Ibn Ṭulûn, they have become purely decorative. I do not know
whether there are tubes between the vaults of the Bait al-Khalîfah at
Sâmarrâ, but the openings are simulated upon the façade by shallow blind
niches. The same system holds good in the ṣaḥn façades of the Azhar at
Cairo, a building which has no other connexion with Mesopotamian
architecture than this traditional use of a decorative motive, the true
significance of which had long been forgotten.