The group of rooms 140-152 (the east annex) resembles in its main lines the group 29-42, south of the central court, and must have been intended for the same purposes. The north façade is decorated with blind arcades projecting ·25 metre from the face of the wall ([Plate 39], Fig. 2). The ovoid arches, which contain very shallow calottes, are carried by engaged columns having a diameter of ·40 metre. A recessed polygon was placed in the spandrels. The arcade is best preserved at the west end, and it is there possible to see that a narrow cornice, consisting of a single course of stones, ran along the wall above the arches, and that above the cornice the top of the wall was adorned with small arched niches, borne on stumpy half-columns and separated from one another by larger engaged columns (compare the top of the outer north wall of the palace and the top of the north façade of the central court). At the west end of the façade, in the first intercolumniation of the blind arcade, there is a gateway 1·90 metres wide, covered by a pointed arch. A similar gateway seems to have existed in the second intercolumniation from the east end, but the façade here is much ruined. The north wall of rooms 140, 142, and 145 has fallen ([Plate 39], Fig. 3). There can be no doubt that access was obtained to the lîwân, 140, by a wide archway, as in the case of the corresponding lîwân, 29, south of the central court. I saw no trace of a north door into chambers 142 and 145, though in all probability it existed. The lîwân, 140, is 5·40 metres wide by 10·50 metres long. Like the lîwân 29, it has two doors on each side and a door in the south wall. It is, however, vaulted in stone, not in brick, and the vault does not rise above the level of those on either side. The door-jambs are enriched with shallow pilasters, ·18 metre wide and ·4 metre deep, worked in stucco ([Plate 40], Fig. 2). They do not carry an arch over the archivolt of the door. In the side doors the archivolt cuts into the line of the oversailing vault which is carried over them. Above the south door there is a high narrow arched window, giving additional light to room 141. On either side of the door is placed a shallow arched niche, 1 metre wide and ·5 metre deep. The arch is filled in with a calotte, the lower edge of which is sunk behind the face of the wall. To the west of 140 are two vaulted chambers, 142 and 143, communicating with one another and with a similar chamber, 144, lying further to the south. The vaults of 142, 143, and 144 are set at right angles to the vaults of 140 and 141, so as to form buttresses to them. On the east side the same arrangement is observed in rooms 145, 146, and 147. These six chambers correspond to the more elaborate chambers 31, 32, 33, and 40, 41, 42 of the main palace. No. 141 (which corresponds with No. 30) is provided with four doors, one in the middle of each side. It was covered, not by a barrel vault, but by a stone groined vault, which has now fallen ([Plate 41], Fig. 1). The chambers east and west of 141 (Nos. 144 and 147; compare the columned rooms of the main palace) communicate with the yard on either side and also with the vaulted passage or antechamber 148. Into this passage ([Plate 41], Fig. 2; compare No. 36 of the main palace) the south door of No. 141 opens. The vault of the passage has fallen. It was no doubt carried on the south side by columns and arches like No. 36. There are no chambers to east and west of the passage, but on either side of the open space to the south of it were two chambers, 149 and 150 to the west, 151 and 152 to the east. They communicated with one another and with the yard to the north, as well as with the corridor south of 141. Their vaults ran east and west. No. 150 has fallen almost completely and No. 152 is much ruined.[31] A doorway in No. 148 gives access to a stair which leads down into an underground room lying beneath Nos. 144, 143, and 142 (section e-f, Plate 5, Fig. 1). It is lighted by three splayed windows in the north wall; under the windows there is an arched niche or tâqchah. To the west of No. 142 there is a ruined chamber which contained a stair leading to the roof. Thus the analogy with the block of rooms Nos. 29-42 is complete even to the serdâb and the stair to the roof.
The vault construction in the east annex shows a variation from that of the main palace. Instead of the long tubes running parallel with the barrel vaults, the masonry between the parallel barrel vaults of the annex is lightened by short compartments set at right angles to the vaults. Plate 39, Fig. 3, shows this construction between the vaults of 143 and 146 and the ruined vaults of 142 and 145; Plate 42, Fig. 1, the same construction between the vaults 144, 141, and 147, and the ruined vault of the passage 148. This system is an improvement upon the tubular scheme, inasmuch as it fills in the space between the vaults more completely and gives greater solidity to the roof. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving no long inaccessible tubes to serve as a home for birds and snakes. The decorative effect of the openings of the tubes is lost, but it was not needed in the blank east and west walls of the annex, nor yet in the arcaded north wall.
The fact that a similar system of small compartments is to be observed in the building outside the palace to the north (though they are here laid parallel to the barrel vaults) leads me to suspect that it must have been built at about the same period, and is therefore a later addition to the original plan. It is completely detached from the palace, but it stands in line with the west wall of the palace and parallel to the north wall ([Plate 43], Figs. 1 and 2). It is separated by a distance of 13·25 metres from the face of the arcades of the north wall. It was itself constructed at two different periods. The older portion lies to the south, nearest to the palace, and consists of a large open court, J, 33·20 metres from north to south and 24·80 metres from east to west, flanked on the east side by six vaulted rooms. The southernmost of these six rooms, 153, is 9·55 metres from north to south and 7·80 metres from east to west. It is separated from court J by a wall 1 metre thick, but on the east side its wall is 1·90 metres thick and shows upon the exterior traces of an outer stair, leading to the roof, which passed over the wide arched opening in the east wall. The vault, which must have stood two stories high, like the vault of the great hall, has fallen. The remaining rooms, 154-158, have doors in the east wall and small loopholed windows in the west wall ([Plate 42], Fig. 2). The rooms are divided across the centre by a transverse arch and vaulted in two compartments, the vaults running east and west. Court J had a cloister upon the west side; it has entirely disappeared, but the spring of its vault is visible on the inner side of the west wall. Probably the vault was carried on the east side by columns and arches. Four round towers project at irregular intervals from the exterior of the west wall ([Plate 44], Figs. 1 and 2); they have the same diameter as the towers in the outer palace wall. The southernmost is about 3·40 metres from the southern angle of the court—an exact measurement is difficult because the angle of the wall is ruined. The next tower lies 5·65 metres to the north of the first; an interval of 7·35 metres separates it from the third tower, and the third tower is 10·70 metres from the larger tower at the north-west angle of the court. The angle tower contains a winding stair. The three smaller towers seem to be a later addition to the wall; they bear no relation to the three doors, and they block some of the windows. The windows are placed in groups of three, two groups between the south-west angle and the first door, one group between the first and second, and the second and third doors, and two groups between the third door and the angle tower. There are traces of a similar group in the north wall immediately to the east of the angle tower, and the straight face at the east end of the north wall gives reason to believe that there was a group of windows here also. The north wall is much ruined, and the ruin heaps are covered with blown sand. The arches of the windows are carried by engaged columns.[32]
To the north of room 158, and in a line with it, lie nine vaulted chambers which were added at a later date ([Plate 44], Fig. 2). They are separated from No. 158 by a stair running up to the roof, with a doorway to the west. At the east end there is a small room under the top of the stair with a loophole window in the east wall. From this room, which is accessible from No. 159, a stair, now completely ruined, led down into a substructure. Nos. 159 and 160 are 4 metres broad; they are covered by barrel vaults and have a door at either end. No. 161 opens by two doors into No. 162. No. 162 is 4·80 metres broad and is divided across the centre by a transverse arch. East of the transverse arch only half the space is vaulted over. Besides the doors, there are two small windows high up in the north and south wall. In the east and west walls there is a wide archway instead of the usual doors. The five rooms 163-167 resemble in all respects Nos. 159-161. Except over No. 162, where the vault is higher than in the other chambers, the roof of rooms 154-167 is raised above small compartments lying over the barrel vaults ([Plate 42], Figs. 2 and 3), and the mass of masonry between the vaults was lightened in the same manner. Slit-like windows appear high up in the east wall between the vaults (not, however, in rooms 153-162), doubtless in connexion with these compartments.
At a considerable distance to the north-east of the palace stands the small building which is known as the Ḥammâm (Plate 5, Fig. 3). Unlike the rest of the palace, it is not oriented. It consists of a long chamber running slightly to the west of north (about 24°), 10·65 metres long by 5·30 wide. It was covered by a vault which has now fallen. The door is on the east side; in the north and south walls there is a deep rectangular niche. A door in the north-east corner leads into a smaller chamber, 4·10 × 3·30 metres. In this building the thrust of the vault over the larger chamber is taken by outer buttresses, the only instance of such construction at Ukhaiḍir. On the east side there is one buttress ·60 metre deep; on the west side three, 1·25 metres deep. A stair leading to the roof ran up over the western buttress.
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.