Fig. 30. Petra, the Storied tomb.
(From Provincia Arabia, by kind permission of Professor Brünnow.)
The same insistence upon horizontality is to be observed in the façades of Ctesiphon and Ukhaiḍir; but the effect is produced in a different manner. No doubt it is difficult to do justice to the horizontal members in these buildings, owing to the fact that, from the perishable nature of the material, they have suffered complete destruction, but it can safely be conjectured that they were never of much importance to the general effect. The space left between the decorated zones is too small to admit of the full entablature, attic, and podium which separate the lower order from the first upper order in the Storied tomb, or even of the entablature and podium which are interposed between the upper order and the order of dwarf columns. The multiplication and the breaking of horizontal members in Western Hellenistic monuments are discarded in Mesopotamia, and with them vanishes much of the significance of the façade. The zone decoration becomes a pattern composed of innumerable groups of architraved and arched divisions, set one within the other, so as to cover the whole surface of the wall. Where exigency demands, real doors and windows may be placed in the niches; the zones may correspond to a certain extent with the structural division of the building into stories; but the main intention of the architect is to cover his wall with continuous motives which are not dependent upon the structure and must fit into it as best they can. It is the traditional surface decoration of the ancient East, disguised in the new dress which it had borrowed from Hellenism.
No better example of the oriental practice can be found than in the façade of Ctesiphon. The north wing and the face of the great central arch have fallen, but they are preserved in M. Dieulafoy’s photograph[325] ([Plate 83]). The façade is divided into three zones, but organic connexion between them is lacking. Each zone, in either wing, is subdivided into two horizontal registers. The lower register of the lowest zone consists of wide arches separated by pairs of engaged columns which are carried up to the top of the zone. The width of the intercolumniations bears no relation to the width of the wing; a space remains over at the outer end which is awkwardly filled by two small blind arched niches, placed one above the other. The upper register is occupied by groups of three niches; in each group the central niche is wider than the other two, and each niche is flanked by engaged colonnettes. At the outer end there is no room to complete the pattern, and the outer flanking niche is omitted. The lower zone breaks off abruptly here against a plain pylon-like wall, and at the inner end it is not organically connected with the great archway which forms the centre of the façade. Single engaged columns divide the middle zone into five compartments. They are not placed above the pairs of engaged columns of the lower zone, nor yet in the centre of the lower intercolumniations, but purely in accordance with the dictates of the pattern which covered the middle zone. It, too, is subdivided into two horizontal registers. In the lower register there are five pairs of niches, with three engaged colonnettes between. At the inner end the pair must have been incomplete owing to lack of space; at the outer end the engaged column is omitted for the same reason. In what relation the triple colonnettes stood to the niche arches is not clear. They were not regarded as necessary to the arch, for on the outer side of each pair they are absent, and the same applies to the colonnettes and arches in the upper register of this zone. These groups consist of three niches of equal size, with a pair of colonnettes between the central and the flanking niches. In the third zone the upper of the two registers has almost entirely disappeared; it is obvious, however, that the two registers were not welded together by engaged columns. In the lower register the arched niches, separated by engaged colonnettes, are conceived without any thought of the division of the wall below them, and, from the fragment of the upper register which remains, it would seem that the niches which adorned it were equally independent of the niches of the lower register. Into this confusion breaks the huge central arch, cutting short the pattern at the inner end of the wings just as the pylon wall cuts it short at the outer end. Yet the gigantic size of the façade and the even repetition of the arches in each register gives to the eye a sense of orderly grouping, and draws the whole into an apparent symmetry which an analysis of the details proves to be lacking in reality.
Ukhaiḍir, separated from Ctesiphon by an interval of some 500 years, shows a sensible advance. The north façade of the court is not indeed centralized, nor is it symmetrically placed in the wall of the three-storied block, but the two lower zones are organically connected with one another. The seven blind niches of the lower order correspond with those of the second order. In the second order the breaking up of the zone into registers is still adhered to, but since an archivolt has taken the place of the architrave of Ctesiphon, the principle is not so strongly marked. It works only within the arched niches. That it is substantially the same is, however, apparent from the fact that at Ukhaiḍir, as at Ctesiphon, the lower register consists of groups of two small niches, the upper register of groups of three, the central niche being the largest. The seven large niches of the second order are separated by a cluster of four columns; in the spandrels of the arches there are niches containing windows. The pylon-like wall of Ctesiphon is represented by a battered wall at Ukhaiḍir, but instead of sloping back and forming horizontal ledges, its perpendicular face seems to have been divided at intervals by horizontal bars of masonry. There is no space between the zones for important horizontal mouldings. Dr. Reuther in his reconstruction (Ocheïdir, Plate 25) places a plain masonry balcony along the narrow platform formed by the summit of the second zone. It is, however, conjectural, and in my opinion it lays a stress upon the horizontal divisions between the zones which is contrary to the spirit of the decorative scheme. In the upper zone the plain wall is in far better accord with the classical treatment of wall-surfaces than are the restless nichings of Ctesiphon, and it enhances the value of the rich orders below it. But it is not regarded, like the plain wall of early Hellenistic decoration, as representing space, the upper air;[326] it is rather the gallery wall of ancient Assyrian and early Hellenistic architecture. It is confined by an upper row of arched niches, each one, so far as can be determined in their ruined condition, placed within a rectangular frame of engaged columns and architrave, like the niches upon the outer fortification wall of the palace. And here we have the system that dominates Ctesiphon, the column and architrave framing arched niches. In the upper zone of the Ukhaiḍir façade symmetry has vanished. The long crowning row of niches calls attention to the fact that the decorated lower zones of the façade do not stand in the centre of the wall, and the doorways of the third zone bear no more relation to the arches below them than the perpendicular divisions of the Ctesiphon wall bear relation to one another. Another similarity exists between the two buildings. The arches of the second zone at Ukhaiḍir are decorated not with the mouldings of the classical archivolt, but with the cusp of the great arch at Ctesiphon. So far as I am aware the earliest example of this cuspidated ornament in monumental architecture is at Ctesiphon. It appears in northern Syria in the fifth century A.D., when it can be seen both with the cusps pointing inward[327] and with the cusps pointing outward.[328] In the latter form it bears a close resemblance to the broken palmette of late Graeco-Roman ornament,[329] and its origin is probably to be sought in oriental Hellenism, but whether it was developed in the Syrian or in the Mesopotamian regions I cannot determine. It became a common motive in Syrian architecture during the sixth century,[330] where it is used in both forms, but in the Mesopotamian sphere it is almost always inverted, as at Ctesiphon. We have it at Ukhaiḍir, not only in the façade but also on the arches of the mosque doorways and possibly in the lîwân arches in the courts.[331] In exactly the same form it is employed in the early Abbâsid buildings of Sâmarrâ,[332] and there is another notable example of its use over the doorway of the mosque at Ḥarrân, where an outward-pointing cusp is used ([Plate 84], Fig. 2). In the mosque at Mayâfârqîn it is found inverted on the elaborate arches which cover the miḥrâb niches, on the relieving arches over the doors of the outer north wall ([Plate 84], Fig. 3), and on the blind niches above. This part of the wall belongs to the earlier portion of the building, which is ascribed, in an inscription round the dome, to the Ortokid Alpi (A.D. 1152-1176). It is a common feature of Ortokid decoration at Diyârbekr,[333] and in the first half of the thirteenth century it is seldom absent from the lintels of Christian churches and Mohammadan mosques in Môṣul and the surrounding districts,[334] nor yet, in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, from the lace-like decoration of the arches in the mosques at Ḥasan Kaif[335] ([Plate 84], Fig. 1). Other examples in late Mohammadan architecture are too numerous to be mentioned. I select the few which I have quoted because they are little known.
In attempting a reconstruction of the Ukhaiḍir façade ([Plate 85]) I have sought some guidance from the representation of a Sasanian fortress which is to be seen upon a silver dish, now in the possession of the Kais. Archäol. Kommission of St. Petersburg[336] ([Plate 86], Fig. 2). It has been assigned to the beginning of the Sasanian period. The façade depicted bears some interesting analogies to that of Ukhaiḍir. It is divided into two stories. In the lower story the lower zone consists of eight arched niches, the arches borne on tall engaged columns without capitals. The archivolts are decorated with three fillets and a small oval motive is placed in the spandrels. Above the arches there is a cornice composed of two simple horizontal mouldings with a band of spirals between them. I surmise that these spirals, which seem to be singularly out of place in a monumental façade, were put in to fill up the space and have no warrant in any actual building. The gateway occupies the centre of this zone. A wide archway, set in a rectangular frame, covers two narrow arched doors. Within the semicircle of the embracing arch there is a shallow calotte decorated with broken concentric rings. The archivolt is outlined by a moulding which is carried up continuously round the rectangular frame. Within this frame a horizontal moulding is laid above the arch. This scheme of archivolt and rectangular frame with a continuous moulding is common in Syria and Mesopotamia.[337] The crowning member of the portal breaks the line of the cornice. It consists of a frieze carved in relief with a human (or divine?) head and bust, and a cornice bearing a row of cusps. The upper zone of the lower story is less easy to describe in terms of architecture. There is a frieze (or dwarf order?) decorated with four groups of six flutings or engaged colonnettes and five groups of four circles, each circle containing a quatrefoil. The cornice is composed of two bands, the first decorated with alternate circles and rhomboids, the second with diagonal brickwork. A projecting hourd is placed at either end of the building, and between the hourds the top of the wall is battlemented. These crenellations form a parapet to the gangway which runs along the base of the second tower-like story. Upon the gangway stand eight figures, seven of whom are blowing trumpets. Behind them the wall is plain, but the upper part is decorated first with a band of half-florettes, then with a row of arched niches, each niche being set within a rectangular frame, and finally with a band of diagonal brickwork. The summit of the wall is battlemented and a wooden hourd projects from either side. The lower zone of the lower story corresponds very fairly with the lowest zone at Ukhaiḍir. The schematized horizontal bands of the second zone bear little or no relation to real architecture, but the upper story is set back, as at Ukhaiḍir, and the battlemented parapet of the gangway is a very probable solution for the parapet of the Ukhaiḍir gangway. The upper story, with its plain wall and its row of niches is the same in both façades, and the upper battlements may safely be restored at Ukhaiḍir.
At Ctesiphon the capitals and bases (if bases there were) of the columns and colonnettes were moulded in stucco and have disappeared. Bases seem to have been absent from the slender engaged columns on the outer walls of Firûzâbâd and Sarvistân, but at both places the state of the ruins renders an exact determination of such details difficult. The engaged columns seem to rest upon a low plinth. The decoration in those palaces is, however, far more nearly connected with oriental than with occidental tradition. We have not much information as to Sasanian capitals. The columns and double columns of the inner rooms at Sarvistân are covered by rectangular imposts,[338] and de Morgan gives a drawing of a stucco capital from Shirwân.[339] It is scarcely necessary to allude to the famous impost-capitals of Bîsutûn and Iṣfahân, which belong, in all probability, to the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century. They show far greater skill in the handling of the rectangular impost than the capitals at Sarvistân, but whether they are a natural development out of the latter, or borrowed directly from Byzantine art, existing material does not enable us to decide.[340] The latter theory seems to be the more probable, and it is supported by the fact that the evolution of the Mesopotamian capital did not proceed upon the Bîsutûn-Iṣfahân lines. At Ukhaiḍir there is a reversion to the simple impost of Sarvistân, nor did the development there go beyond the elementary impost-capital of rooms 30 and 40. The capitals of the swelling columns on the north façade of the central court may have been more like those of Bîsutûn and Iṣfahân, but unfortunately they are completely ruined. At a later date, in the church of Mâr Ṭahmâsgerd at Kerkûk (eighth or ninth century), the scheme of the Sarvistân halls is repeated, but the pairs of columns are without capitals or bases, and the colonnettes of the niches in the spandrels are similarly treated ([Plate 75], Fig. 1). I should be inclined to reconstruct all the columns and engaged columns at Ukhaiḍir and Sarvistân, and possibly at Ctesiphon also, without bases.
On the western side of the Syrian desert the evolution of the capital is different. The engaged capitals at Madâin Ṣâliḥ and Petra show a marked tendency towards the Corinthian. Like the capitals of the Kôm al-Shukâfa oasis[341] and capitals on Pompeiian frescoes of the second style, they have the Corinthian form and the Corinthian rosette upon the abacus, not indeed worked out into a true rosette, but left in the shape of a simple boss. In the second-century façades at Petra, such as the Corinthian tomb and the Khazneh, this tendency reaches full expression. The replacing of the architrave by the archivolt created a structural need which was satisfied by the introduction of the impost-capital, and we find the latter both at Mshattâ[342] and at Muwaqqar,[343] the capitals at Muwaqqar being closely related to the Bîsutûn-Iṣfahân type. With these stone-carved capitals, the brick and plaster capitals of Ukhaiḍir, so far as they are preserved, are little concerned. The further history of the Muwaqqar capitals must be sought, in the realm of Mohammadan art, at Sâmarrâ and in the mosque of Ibn Ṭulûn.[344]
New to Mesopotamian architecture are the clustered columns in the middle zone of the Ukhaiḍir façade. No doubt they are not essentially different from the triple supports between the arches of the second zone at Ctesiphon; but at Ukhaiḍir they are given a true architectural meaning, the central pair carries the wall, the flanking columns carry the cusped arches; moreover they are set in different planes, the central pair standing in front of the flanking columns. The effect produced is almost Gothic, a foreshadowing of the clustered piers of Armenian churches.[345] It was a scheme which was not to remain sterile in early Mohammadan art. Clustered piers carried the roof of the great mosque at Sâmarrâ[346] and the arcades of the mosque at Ibn Ṭulûn.