قصر الحير الغربي .. كتاب العمارة العربية الاسلامية

Al-Hayr Western Palace

In 1936, he began excavating the ruins of an archaeological site in the desert, east of the village of Al-Qaryatayn, approximately halfway between it and Palmyra. This site is recently called Qasr al-Hayr, and scholars have not yet identified its original name. After two years of excavation work under the supervision of the French archaeologist Schlumberg, the features of the palace became clear, and the excavators found its lower sections and many architectural and decorative elements that had fallen from the building (Photo No. 14). It turned out to be an Umayyad palace, and the excavators attributed it to Caliph Hisham bin Abdul Malik based on a text written in Kufic script on a door said to be the door of an old khan located close to the palace, which stated the following:

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful . There is no god but God alone, with no partner. He ordered this work to be done by Abdullah Hisham, the Commander of the Faithful, and God made it obligatory to reward him. He worked at the hands of Thabit bin Abi Thabit in Rajab of the year one hundred and nine.

The spot where Qasr Al-Hayr was built is a desert area with fertile soil that is capable of cultivation and germination if it is provided with irrigation. This was actually achieved by constructing a reservoir and a dam over the waters of one of the valleys called Wadi Khreika.

This dam is located at a distance of 6.5 km south of the palace, and from it extends a main canal that runs underground, then small canals branch off from it to the palace and the bathroom, and end in a pool that serves as a reservoir, then it heads towards the palace orchard, and a branch of it heads to the mill.

The orchard was surrounded by a mud wall that was demolished, but its stone foundations remained. The walls were interspersed with semicircular supports, and the length of the orchard wall reached (442-1050 metres), equipped with two small entrances.

As for what is called Al-Khan, which is ten kilometers away from the palace, its architecture is similar to that of the palace. It was, of course, designated for the landing of caravans, and nothing remains of it except its door, on which the aforementioned historical inscription was engraved. It was transferred to the garden of the Damascus National Museum. The palace gate was also transferred and rebuilt in the aforementioned museum. With two floors on either side of the entrance.

Thus, we see at the Qasr Al-Hayr site an integrated urban work that includes! The palace, the bathroom, the orchards, the canals, the reservoirs, the dams, and a home for traveling caravans. For us, we will be satisfied with a study of the palace, which, with its plan, buildings, and architectural and decorative elements revealed, provides a clear picture of the art of architecture in the Umayyad era.

Palace plan

The general appearance of the palace makes it resemble a fortress. A high wall equipped with towers, a tower at each corner with a plan of three quarters of a circle, with the exception of the northwestern corner, which is occupied by a tower of the Ghassani Monastery dating back to the sixth century AD, and a semicircular tower in the middle of the sides.

The facades are closed to the outer perimeter, with only narrow windows resembling the gates of forts. The plan of the palace is a square with a side length of seventy metres, with one door in the middle of its eastern façade, open between two towers in the shape of a half cylinder. The door leads to a wide vestibule lined on both sides by terraces for guards or servants to sit on, roofed with a semi-cylindrical arch equipped with two stone arches carried on pillars attached to the wall.

The vestibule leads to a covered gallery that surrounds a heavenly courtyard on its four sides, and its floor is slightly higher than the ground of the courtyard. This hallway overlooks the courtyard with a group of Coranthian-style columns, eight on each side, with a jamb in each corner. In the middle of the courtyard is a pool of water.

The corridors are followed by residential suites consisting of six independent houses, each containing between eight and thirteen rooms, in the middle of which is a large room perpendicular to the palace wall, from which small rooms are distributed, and each house is equipped with a toilet.

The rooms derive their light either from outside the palace, if they are adjacent to the wall, through the narrow windows we referred to, or from the courtyard if they are adjacent to the hallway.

The rooms have wide doors topped with skylights with a mesh of ornate perforated plaster, allowing a little light to enter if the doors are closed.

The plaster skylight is surrounded by a shoulder arch, shaped like a horseshoe or transcendent (more than half a circle).

Palace decorations

The palace's decorations consist of two main elements: plaster inscriptions and frescoes.

As for plaster decorations, we find them covering most parts of the palace, inside and outside, in the palace gate with two towers, in the railings of the corridors of the upper floor, in the windows and skylights above the doors, and in the interior facades.

It is noted that this decorative element is suitable for buildings covered with limestone, which is a new style of decoration that was not previously common in Syrian buildings built according to classical art in the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine eras in which the use of carved stone prevailed. The reason for this is the use of Iraqi or Sassanid workers and artists who were accustomed to using plaster in their buildings, which were often built of mud, brick, and facade stone.

These materials always need a layer of plaster to cover them. It is easy to use for decoration and engraving, but it is considered naive and poor if left unadorned.

The topics represented in these inscriptions are multiple. It contains architectural elements, geometric drawings, and plant and living themes (representing humans and animals).

In the palace gate, we find in the lower layers floral and geometric decorations, topped by a layer consisting of niches, arches and columns. These are common in Umayyad art in particular. At the top of the gate are serrated merlons with a slit resembling a goal (Photo No. 15). As for the interior, we find statues of relief affixed to the walls and at the front of the railing overlooking the courtyard on the upper floor, representing. Girls and people in different positions reflect the destructive effect. As for the geometric themes, we see them decorating the windows and door skylights (Photo No. 17).

In addition, there is the use of architectural elements as subjects of decoration, including arches, and a trefoil arch appears for the first time. Among them are also columns of various shapes, and among them are shallow niches, and other elements.

In the frames of the door arches, you can see floral decorations consisting of grape leaves, acanthus, palm fronds, roses, and lily flowers.

As for the second common decorative element, it is the colorful drawings (frescoes), which we see covering the walls of the interior rooms, including drawings that imitate interlaced marble, which we saw and explained in the talk about the Umayyad Mosque (Photo No. 16). Among them are pictorial paintings representing a hunter riding a horse, a woman playing the oud, a man blowing a flute, and other subjects. There are geometric and botanical drawings in other places. These themes are inspired by classical and Sasanian arts. The colors are consistent and attractive, including black, red, porphyry, yellow, blue and green.

In addition to these two main elements, carved wood and others decorated with paint and colors were found in parts of the palace. And on glass mosaic pieces in limited places.