قصر الحير الشرقي ٢_a .. كتاب العمارة العربية الاسلامية

We will return to the topic of the history of buildings during the study of the architecture represented by the two palaces, the small and the large.

A - The Small Palace:

This building still retains the bulk of its walls, up to . It is built of well-carved limestone, and it is noted that its stones are smaller than the stones of Byzantine buildings, and its pillars are only 0.33 meters high. Above the walls was a defensive corridor 1.60 meters wide behind a curtain of bricks 0.50 meters thick. Most of it was demolished, leaving the parts adjacent to the main door remaining.

As for the palace’s plan, it is close to a square with a side length of about 70 metres. The towers are distributed in its corners, and its sides have two towers in each side. It has a main door in the middle of the western facade. It is located between two towers and its opening is estimated at three metres. The door leads to a covered vestibule. Inside is a heavenly courtyard surrounded by a corridor, and around it are rooms, which are roofed with arches of brick, most of which are dilapidated. Stone tiles were found in the courtyard and corridors. But the familiar decorations, such as frescoes and mosaics, are not present in this palace. It resembles the gate of Al-Hayr Al-Gharbi Palace, which was described above, but it differs from it in details and decorations.

The door is a complete rectangle! With a stone lintel surmounted by an arch that is partially obstructed by closing the space between them with polished stones. It is noted that the door’s circular lintel and the stones of the arch are decorated with engraved lines that are called moldings (1), and they form a band that also encircles the two arches at the level of the door’s lintel.

On either side of the door are two small mihrab bordered by two mihrab bowls with a carved bowl in the shape of a shell. These mihrab have no function, they are for beautification and decoration only (Photo No. 18).

Above the door there is a prominent defensive balcony (2), consisting of two (3) ladles for pouring boiling oils. This roof is considered the oldest example of its kind in Arab military architecture.

At the top of the façade we see a brick wall (curtain) with plaster inscriptions consisting of a group of decorative niches based on double wall columns, in which plant veins appear. The stone courses at the end of the wall are also interspersed with a strip of brick consisting of prominent squares whose vertices are adjacent, forming a decorative element that reflects the effects of art. Sassanian.

The wall's towers are full, that is, devoid of rooms, except at the top, which contains a small observation room roofed with a brick dome. These rooms are connected to the defensive corridor mentioned above.

b) The Grand Palace:

The Grand Palace must be the city referred to in the historical text mentioned above, engraved on the stone of the mosque. Especially since its internal plan and organization do not give it the character of a palace, but rather make it more like a small city. It is in the shape of a square, with a side length of 160 metres.

Its walls, which are equipped with towers, have four main doors facing each other, distributed on the four sides of the wall. Some of these doors are made of palanquin, and a street extends from each door. The four streets intersect in the center of the city.

Inside, a group of small houses, or palaces, were found, as well as traces of a press and a mosque occupying the southeastern corner of the city. The mosque consists of a sanctuary with three corridors parallel to the Qabbalah, interrupted by a corridor perpendicular to the mihrab (a conclusive corridor). A courtyard surrounded by porticoes, which, like the porticoes of the sanctuary, are composed of stone arches supported by pillars.

We note that the layout of this mosque is similar to Al-Waleed Mosque in Damascus. As for the minaret, it is square in shape, but it is unique as it is located between the two palaces.

Professor Grabar estimated that the city (the Great Palace) was more recent than the Small Palace, due to the noticeable difference between them in terms of the details of the architectural elements and the style of construction. The paving stones in the city walls are executed with less care, and the courses are higher (0.70) metres. The facades are devoid of the architectural ornaments and moldings that we saw on the façade of the palace. The arches of the doors (the high arch) are not of the N type, but rather a pointed or Persian arch of the type that It was common at the beginning of the Abbasid era.

He also explained the poverty of the small palace inside and the loss of decorations such as mosaics and frescoes that are usually seen in other Umayyad palaces, by the fact that the palace was not completed during the Umayyad era, and was completed later, that is, in the Abbasid era, and it is believed that it was not a palace but rather a khan.

We rule out that the small palace was completed during the Abbasid era. Because such urban work cannot happen unless there is a desire from someone with authority, and this could not have happened to the region during the Abbasid era. We knew that Al-Zaytouna remained inhabited by the Umayyads, and that the Abbasids directed their efforts to building Al-Rafiqa.

It is likely that the small palace was completely built during the Umayyad era, before Hisham assumed the caliphate, and this explains its lack of decoration. When Hisham directed his attention to the construction of other palaces, such as Al-Rusafa, Al-Hayr Al-Gharbi Palace, and Khirbet Al-Mafjar, Al-Zaytouna was transformed into a secondary headquarters.

As for the city, its founding occurred during the days of Hisham’s caliphate, and this is attested to by the aforementioned historical text, as a station for the caliph and his entourage and for housing farmers and the garrison, but its construction was completed at the end of the Umayyad era. The period between the construction of the palace and the city is sufficient to cause a slight development in the architectural details observed between the architecture of the palace and the city. This is in addition to restorations that took place on it during the Abbasid era.

C) Other facilities: During the recent excavations conducted by the American mission headed by Grabar, a bathroom was found located outside Kasserine to the north. Investigations indicate that it is an important and spacious bathroom. Its lower part was built of stone and its upper part of brick, and the inside was covered with marble. Heating was done by steam passing through spaces under the bath floor, according to the common technique in Roman baths.

On the south-eastern side of the palace site, there are the remains of the walls of large farms and orchards, carefully constructed, built of carved stone and brick, equipped with semi-circular wall supports resembling towers, and the walls are interspersed with bridges for passage and irrigation water.

Water reached the palace and the bathroom from the Al-Koum spring, located to the northwest, at a distance of thirty kilometers, through a canal built of carved stone, sections of which were found. Underground water reservoirs built of bricks were also found in the small palace.