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For purposes of comparison, I will set beside the tower of Mudjḍah a minaret, as yet unpublished, belonging to a ruined mosque at Ṭâûq, south of Kerkûk ([Plate 48], Fig. 1).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]