The least inaccurate description of Ukhaiḍir is furnished by an anonymous Englishman, quoted by Niebuhr.[5] ‘Ich habe’, says he, ‘in dem Tagebuch eines Engländers, der von Haleb nach Basra gereiset war, gefunden, dass er 44 Stunden nach Osten von Hêt eine ganz verlassene Stadt in der Wüste angetroffen habe, wovon die Mauer 50 Fuss hoch und 40 Fuss dick war. Jede der vier Seiten hatte 700 Fuss, und in der Mauer waren Thürme. In dieser Stadt, oder grossem Castell, findet man noch ein kleines Castell. Von eben dieser verlassenen Stadt hörte ich nachher, dass sie von den Arabern el Khader genannt werde und um 10 bis 12 Stunden von Meshed Ali entfernt sei. Sie ist ohne Zweifel gleichfalls wegen Mangel an Wasser verlassen worden: und da man hier gar keine Städte oder Dörfer in der Nähe findet, so ist dies wohl die Ursache, dass man davon nicht alle brauchbare Steine weggebracht hat, wie von Kufa und Basra, wo fast nichts mehr übrig ist.’ In the same volume (p. 236) Niebuhr gives the route from Baṣrah to Aleppo through the desert and mentions therein Ukhaiḍir under the name of el Chäder, remarking that it is the castle to which the Englishman referred. This Englishman I conjecture to have been Mr. Carmichael, whose route is shown in a map published by Ives,[6] and there called ‘the common route of the caravans from Aleppo to Bassora over the great desert of Arabia, as described in a journal kept by Mr. Carmichael in the year 1751’. Ukhaiḍir appears upon it as ‘Alkader, the ruins of a most magnificent building’.
Major John Taylor saw it in June 1790 and dismissed it with short shrift.[7] He too was following the desert road from Aleppo to Baṣrah. On leaving Shethâthâ he says: ‘The camels being loaded at half past 6 this morning, we set forward over a barren flat desert. We crossed the bed of a river and at 11 a.m. we passed to our left the ruins of a small square fort, distant about half a mile, which the Arabs call Ula Kayder.’
Ritter[8] gives a summary of all these notices by early travellers, including that of Teixeira, which he accepts unquestioned, in spite of the fact that Teixeira’s palace lies, according to his own account, at least seven days’ journey to the south of the site of Ukhaiḍir.
M. Massignon was, however, the first to make any record of Ukhaiḍir. His preliminary notes, together with a plan and some photographs, were published in the Bulletin de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of March 1909, and in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts of April 1909. The next visitor to the palace was myself. I left Aleppo in February 1909 and reached Ukhaiḍir on March 25, travelling by the east bank of the Euphrates and across the desert from Hît via Kubaisah and Shethâthâ. I had no knowledge of M. Massignon’s journey, neither did the Arabs, who were at that time inhabiting the place, give me any information concerning him. I did not hear of his discovery until I reached Constantinople in the following July. M. Massignon followed up his observations with the first volume of his Mission en Mésopotamie (published in 1910), which was concerned chiefly with Ukhaiḍir. I, in the meantime, had published a paper on the vaulting system of the palace in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1910 (p. 69), and I gave a more detailed account of the building in the following year (Amurath to Amurath, p. 140). I returned to the site in March 1911, in order to correct my plans and to take measurements for elevations and sections. Going thence to Babylon, I found that some of the members of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft who were engaged upon the excavations there had been to Ukhaiḍir during the two years of my absence and were preparing a book upon it. They were so kind as to show me their drawings while I was at Babylon, and I had the advantage of discussing with them my conjectures and difficulties, and the satisfaction of finding that we were in agreement on all important points. Their book appeared in 1912 (Dr. Reuther, Ocheïdir, published by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft), and is referred to frequently in this volume. For their generosity in allowing me to use some of their architectural drawings, I tender my grateful thanks, together with my respectful admiration for their masterly production.
I feel, indeed, that I must apologize for venturing to offer a second version of the features of a building which has been excellently described and portrayed already. But my excuse must be that my work, which was almost completed when the German volume came out, covers not only the ground traversed by my learned friends in Babylon, but also ground which they had neither leisure nor opportunity to explore; and, further, that I believe the time has come for a comparative study of the data collected by myself and others, such as is contained in this book.
I must also thank M. Dieulafoy, M. de Morgan, Professor Strzygowski, Professor Sarre, Dr. Herzfeld, Professor Brünnow, Professor Haverfield, M. Velazquez Bosco, the Director of the Imperial Museums in Berlin, the Council of the K. Akademie of Vienna, the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, and Messrs. Holman, Macmillan, Gebhardt and Bruckmann, for permitting me to reproduce plans, drawings, and photographs prepared or published by them. I have in every case acknowledged my indebtedness in the text of this book. Dr. Moritz and Professor Littmann have been so kind as to give me their views on the graffito in the palace, and their suggestions as to its deciphering. Finally I should like to thank the Clarendon Press for the care which has been expended upon the publication of my work, and Sir Charles Lyall for the help which he has given me in revising the proofs.
With this I must take leave of a field of study which formed for four years my principal occupation, as well as my chief delight. A subject so enchanting and so suggestive as the palace of Ukhaiḍir is not likely to present itself more than once in a lifetime, and as I bring this page to a close I call to mind the amazement with which I first gazed upon its formidable walls; the romance of my first sojourn within its precincts; the pleasure, undiminished by familiarity, of my return; and the regret with which I sent back across the sun-drenched plain a last greeting to its distant presence. The unknown prince at whose bidding its solitary magnificence rose out of the desert, the unknown lords who dwelt in its courts, cannot at the time of its full splendour have gloried and rejoiced in their handiwork and their inheritance more than I who have known it only in decay; and, in the spirit, I part from it now with as much unwillingness as that which I experienced when I withdrew, further and further, from its actual protection.
GERTRUDE LOWTHIAN BELL.