قصر جبل اسیس .. كتاب العمارة العربية الاسلامية

Mount Asis Palace

At the site of Mount Assis, which is about 105 km east of Damascus, there is a group. The structures indicate the presence of a house for one of the Umayyad caliphs, consisting of a palace, a bathroom, and a mosque. All of these facilities are located on the edge of a shallow lake, and the place is a plateau with volcanic rocks on the outskirts of the desert. Therefore, basalt is the predominant material in construction.

As for the palace, its plan, like most Umayyad palaces, is square, with a side length of 67.53 metres, equipped with towers in the corners, and similar towers in the middle of the sides. We must note that the circular towers at the corners have a plan that forms three-quarters of the circle, while at the sides they often have a semicircle shape. The door is open within a tower in the middle of the northern facade. Following the door is a corridor that leads to a square courtyard paved with stone, surrounded by corridors with pillars and arches, and around it is a group of dwellings independent of each other, as is the case in Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi.

There is evidence that the palace was composed of two floors, and that the upper sections were built of mud, and the corridors overlooking the courtyard on the upper floor were equipped with a balustrade on the other decorated with stucco decorations, the elements of which consisted of niches with double columns, which is a common element in Umayyad decorations. The interior facades, consisting of arches carried on columns, end with toothed or stepped balconies. The German mission headed by Dr. Klaus Breisch, which excavated inside the palace, found fresco-type decorations that also adorned the walls. Rooms (1).