CHAPTER II

QṢAIR, MUDJḌAH, AND ‘AṬSHÂN

QṢAIR

Among gypsum hillocks, about an hour’s ride to the north-east of Ukhaiḍir, lie the ruins of a village known to the Arabs as Qṣair.[33] There have been here a number of small houses, possibly lodgings for the gypsum workers, and I noticed several deep rectangular tanks, though whether they were intended for the storage of water, or were connected with the process of gypsum working, I do not know. Broken pottery was scattered sparsely over the ruin heaps; most of it was unglazed, but there were also fragments of blue glazed ware and a few pieces with a black glaze on the inner side. Such sherds as these are to be found on every site, mediaeval or modern, in Mesopotamia, and do not offer any conclusive evidence as to date. One large building is standing in ruins (Plate 5, Fig. 4). It lies approximately north-east by south-west and has been enclosed by a wall of sun-dried brick, set with towers. On two sides this wall was clearly visible; it lay thirty-two paces from the central edifice on the north-east and one hundred and ten paces from it on the south-west side. The ‘little castle’, from which Qṣair takes its modern name, is a long narrow building 45·15 × 8·95 metres. The walls, 1 metre thick, are constructed of stones and gypsum mortar, but the masonry is slightly different in character from that of Ukhaiḍir. The stones, instead of being broken into thin slabs, are used in thicker blocks, and the binding courses are of the same blocks, whereas at Ukhaiḍir they are almost always composed of particularly thin slabs. There are traces of plaster upon the walls, but window and niche angles are finished with large blocks cut with a certain amount of care, another feature which is not to be observed in the smaller materials of Ukhaiḍir. The north-east end of the building was divided off by a wide archway, of which only the returns in the walls remain. The chamber thus formed (6·30 metres long by 5·95 metres wide) was finished by a niche covered by a shallow ovoid calotte. The niche is rectangular in plan, 1·26 metres deep by 3·25 metres wide. The calotte was carried over the angles by shallow squinches, of which the archivolt was decorated with a zigzag ornament in plaster,[34] while at the base of the calotte there has been a similar band of plaster ornament. The construction of this niche recalls with fidelity the terminal semi-dome of a room in the Umayyad castle of Kharâneh (see below, p. 114). Above the calotte there is a small rectangular window (Plate 45, Figs. 1 and 2). The back wall of the niche is exceedingly thin (·45 metre thick) and has in consequence broken away. There is a window high up in each of the side walls of the chamber, ·50 metre from the transverse arch.

The remainder of the building appears to have consisted of a single chamber 33·10 metres long. The south-west end is very much ruined. There are traces of five doors on either side, and of a door in the south-west wall. The two doors in either side wall at the north-west end of the chamber were flanked by windows--probably there were more windows, though the ruined condition of the wall makes it difficult to speak with certainty. As regards the roof, there are remains of the spring of a vault in the north-east chamber and on the south-west side of the southern return of the transverse arch. On the exterior, at the north-east end, the wall is set back above the top of the calotte, and immediately below that level the east corner is sliced off diagonally, so as to form a triangular niche which has been partly covered by thin slabs (Plate 45, Fig. 3). Above the level of the calotte the angles of the building on either side appear to have been similarly sliced off. The side windows of the north-east chamber are rounded at the top, but the openings are so small that it was not necessary to construct these arches with voussoirs, and they are merely cut out of the masonry of the wall. The archivolt of the north-east niche is composed of a single row of voussoirs laid horizontally, as is the case in some of the more roughly built arches at Ukhaiḍir (for instance the door of passage 137, Plate 24, Fig. 2). None of the doorways are preserved up to the height of lintel or arch.

I am inclined to suppose that this building was connected in some way with the working of the gypsum. It is possible that it may belong to the same period as Ukhaiḍir.

MUDJḌAH

I sighted the tower of Mudjḍah from the top of the ṭâr east of Ukhaiḍir[35] (Plate 46, Fig. 1). It stands in the level desert which stretches east to the Hindiyyeh; there are no ruins in its vicinity, nor any evidence of water storage (Plate 47, Fig. 2). The tower is built of bricks measuring ·27 × ·27 × ·7 metre. It rests upon a base of 4·35 metres square and 2·85 metres high, each side of which is adorned with three rectangular niches ·20 metre deep and ·36 metre wide. Each niche is covered by a triply recessed arch, roughly constructed of half-bricks set in rings, not as voussoirs (Plate 47, Fig. 3). Above the square niched substructure the tower is circular, and for a height of about 2 metres the wall is plain. On the east side, above the central niche of the substructure, is placed a door (Plate 47, Fig. 1). The arch of the door, which is set in the second decorated zone of the tower, consists of a double row of half-bricks laid vertically and an outer belt of brick voussoirs laid horizontally. Each of the three members of the arch is recessed behind the other, the outer voussoirs being flush with the face of the wall. The door gives access to a winding stair, ·60 metre wide, which leads to the top of the tower. The second decorated zone consists of a band of rectangular flutings, forming a zigzag in plan. Two courses above these flutings there is a course of bricks laid corner-wise so as to constitute a dog-tooth motive. The wall is then carried up for another six courses in plain masonry, above which lies a second course of brick dog-tooths. The succeeding zone is adorned with eight triply recessed niches with rectangular heads. After four more courses of plain brickwork there is a third course of dog-tooths, and on the west side of the tower five courses of plain brickwork are preserved above the dog-tooths. That there was at least one other decorated zone seems certain. If my theory is correct, that the tower was intended as a landmark for caravans passing over this flat expanse from Nedjef to ‘Ain al-Tamr, it is important to observe that at its present height it is not visible from ‘Aṭshân, which is the nearest caravanserai to the east of Mudjḍah.

For purposes of comparison, I will set beside the tower of Mudjḍah a minaret, as yet unpublished, belonging to a ruined mosque at Ṭâûq, south of Kerkûk (Plate 48, Fig. 1). This minaret stood upon a low square base of which the surface of the brickwork is decayed. Upon this base was placed an octagon divided into three decorated zones; the first and third are furnished with eight small arched niches, the central zone with eight larger niches, each one being recessed behind a rectangular frame of masonry. The remainder of the minaret is round and is adorned with broad alternating bands of brickwork, zigzags and diamonds, the latter being slightly recessed. The door is placed high up above the octagon and has no apparent means of access; probably it was approached from the top of the mosque. The summit of the minaret has fallen; of the mosque nothing remains but low mounds, and I know no record of its construction. Ṭâûq is not mentioned by the earlier Arab geographers.[36] Rich saw there a small gateway, the architecture of which he compares with the Mustanṣiriyyeh at Baghdâd,[37] dated A.D. 1233, and the brickwork zigzags of the minaret are not unlike the decoration of the minaret in the Sûq al-Ghazl at Baghdâd, which may have been built about the same time as the Mustanṣiriyyeh or a little earlier.[38] This is the period to which I should assign the minaret of Ṭâûq, but the tower of Mudjḍah must belong to an earlier age. Instead of the broad ogee of the arches in the Ṭâûq niches, the arches in the lower zone of niches at Mudjḍah are round, or as nearly round as their primitive construction would permit. The rectangular flutings are characteristic of a group of Persian monuments which are dated by Professor Sarre from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries,[39] but the prototype is to be found in two minarets of an older period, the towers of Ghazni, one of which was built by Maḥmûd of Ghazni (A.D. 947-1030) and the other by his immediate successor.[40]

‘AṬSHÂN

Two hours’ ride to the south-east of Mudjḍah is the ruined caravanserai which the Arabs call ‘Aṭshân, the Thirsty--the name is well deserved, for there is no water nearer than the Hindiyyeh.[41] It is not exactly oriented, but faces approximately north (Plate 46, Fig. 2). It is built of brick tiles varying from ·31 × ·31 × ·7 metre to ·32 × ·32 × ·8 metre and sometimes as large as ·34 metre square. The walls enclose an area 29 metres square; they are 1·80 metres thick, and are strengthened at the angles by round towers, 4·10 metres in diameter, projecting 1·90 metres from the face of the walls, as well as by smaller towers 2·75 metres in diameter which are placed in the centre of the east, west, and south walls. The small towers have the same projection as the angle towers. In the centre of the north wall is the gate, which is pierced through a double tower having a projection of 3·10 metres from the face of the wall. The gate towers are preserved up to a considerably greater height than the other towers (Plate 48, Fig. 2), but the systematic levelling of the walls and towers is probably due to brick-robbers, and there is nothing to indicate their original height. Even the gate-house towers have been higher than they are at present (Plate 49, Fig. 1). The west wall has fallen, carrying with it the south-west tower and all the constructions in the interior which ran along this side. The whole edifice looks as if it had been terribly shaken by earthquake; great cracks have sprung open in the solid masonry; the north-east tower leans outward and is on the point of falling.

The north doorway is set back ·75 metre within the segments of the flanking towers.[42] The doorway is 1·35 metres wide and opens into a small chamber, 2·40 metres square, which is covered by a barrel vault. The inner doorway is set back within an arched niche (Plate 49, Fig. 2). To the west, a small opening has been pierced through the wall (it can be seen in Plate 49, Figs. 1 and 2), but it has been formed merely by removing the bricks of the wall and bears no sign of having existed in the original plan. The arches over the outer doorway and over the interior niche are composed of a course and a half of tiles laid vertically and an outer ring of brick voussoirs laid horizontally. The gateway leads into an irregular courtyard which has been surrounded on three sides by chambers. Near the centre of the court there is a brick tank, 2·90 by 3·25 metres. This seems to have been the only provision which was made for water. A row of chambers 3·50 metres wide lies along the west wall. No. 1 is 5·80 metres long and has been roofed with a barrel vault running north and south. No. 2 has a length of 3·75 metres and was vaulted from east to west. No. 3 is 9·10 metres long and No. 4 is 4·15 metres long. There is no door between Nos. 3 and 4. In the latter room a space of ·80 metre is left open upon the east side and the remainder of the chamber is covered with a barrel vault lying east and west. Judging from the analogy of similar rooms at Ukhaiḍir, No. 4 was probably the kitchen. No. 3 seems to have communicated with the court by a door in the north-west corner. Parallel to it lies the vaulted lîwân, No. 5, 4·90 metres wide (Plate 50, Figs, 1 and 2). At its southern end a door, placed in a wide and shallow niche, opens into No. 6. No. 6 communicates both with No. 4 and with the long, partially ruined hall, No. 7. The doorway between 6 and 7, 2·05 metres wide (the arch has broken away), is placed within a niche 1·45 metres deep which is covered by the segment of a semi-dome (Plate 51, Fig. 2). The semi-dome is laid across the angles by means of masonry brackets which must have borne a very strong resemblance to pendentives. The horizontal courses are carried up in the centre of the semi-dome for three courses, each shorter than the one below, and round this pyramidal core the brickwork of the semi-dome is laid concentrically.[43] To the south, the door niche is carried back beyond the width of the semi-dome, forming a small vaulted recess. No. 7 seems to have been provided with a door opening on to the court, but the western end of the north wall is completely ruined. A very narrow door under the semi-dome gave access to room 8, which could also be approached from the court by an arched door in the west wall (Plate 52, Fig. 1). No. 8, 2·90 by 5·75 metres, lies parallel to No. 7, and is roofed with a barrel vault. In the west wall, north of the door, there is an arched niche, ·54 metre deep, and a similar niche is placed in the north wall. The main interest of No. 8 is the decoration on the exterior. On the west wall a simple and effective pattern is produced by laying a couple of rows of brick tiles face outwards at intervals along the top of the wall, and below these, north of the door, a rectangular tablet was formed, for purely decorative purposes, by inserting 2 or 2½ rows of faced tiles into the wall. The top of the north wall was ornamented with a row of four arched niches (Plate 50, Fig. 2). Small engaged columns, without bases, carry imposts formed of a single brick, from which spring round arches decorated with three fillets in plaster. One of the niches is pierced by a narrow window. The vault construction is very similar to that of Ukhaiḍir. All the vaults oversail the walls by 4 centimetres. The lower part of the vault is composed of from five to nine courses of bricks laid horizontally, the upper of bricks laid vertically. Over the ovoid arch thus formed (it is always a course and a half thick) are carried the horizontal courses of the walls. I looked carefully for any trace of tubes between the parallel vaults, but found none; the masonry seems to be solid in every case. All the door arches, as far as can be determined in their ruined state, were round and sprang flush with the jambs.

The fortress-like character of the khân of ‘Aṭshân, the plan of its gateway, and the details of its construction and decoration incline me to assign to it a date not far removed from that of Ukhaiḍir. The tower of Mudjḍah must stand in intimate connexion with the khân, for I can conceive of no reason for the erection of an isolated tower in the midst of a waterless desert, unless it were intended to serve some purpose on the caravan track from Kûfah to ‘Ain al-Tamr, of which the khân of ‘Aṭshan was the intermediate stage.[44] I would suggest that neither khân nor tower can be dated much later than the ninth century; both are valuable and interesting examples of early Mohammadan architecture of the age, or at least of the school, to which Ukhaiḍir itself belongs.