Читать книгу Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir: A Study in Early Mohammadan Architecture - Gertrude Lowthian Bell - Страница 3

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I have attempted in this book to bring together the materials, so far as they are known, which bear upon the earliest phases of Mohammadan architecture, to consider the circumstances under which it arose and the roots from which it sprang. No development of civilization, or of the arts which serve and adorn civilization, has burst full-fledged from the forehead of the god; and architecture, which is the first and most permanent of the arts, reflects with singular fidelity the history of its creators. Not only does their culture stand revealed in the crumbling walls which sheltered them and in the monuments raised for perpetual remembrance over their bones, but the links which bound them to that which had gone before are therein confessed, as well as their own contribution to the achievements of their predecessors, to mechanical skilfulness, to utility, and to beauty. It is the nature and the extent of this contribution which is of vital importance to the student, and it is this which lends to architecture its keenest significance. What, then, was the contribution of the first builders of Islâm?

It must be confessed that the question admits of no very striking rejoinder. The Mohammadan invaders were essentially nomadic; their dwelling was the black tent, their grave the desert sands. The inhabitants of the rare oases of western and central Arabia were content, as they are to-day, with a rude architecture of sun-dried brick and palm-trunks, unadorned by any intricate device of the imagination, and unsuited to any but the simplest needs. Even the great national shrine at Mekkah, the sacred house of the Ka’bah, was innocent of subsidiary constructions. It is true that on the northern trade-route the rock-cut tombs of Madâin Ṣâliḥ and of Petra bear witness to a higher order of artistic impulse, but it was an impulse which borrowed its power from without, from Hellenized Egypt and from Hellenized Syria. If there were an indigenous Arabian architecture worthy of the name, it can only have existed in the southern limits of the peninsula, where as yet exploration has been too imperfect to afford data for argument, nor is there evidence to show that in the seventh century of our era it can have played a part in the development of the northern tribes. Upon the northern frontiers the influence of the Byzantine and of the Sasanian empires would seem to have been predominant, and when the invaders established themselves in provinces which had been ruled from Constantinople or from Ctesiphon, they employed Greek and Persian artificers to fulfil their newly developed requirements and to satisfy their newly developed taste for architectural magnificence. The palaces of the conquerors were planned, constructed, and adorned by those whom they had conquered; their learning and their civilization were borrowed from them; even the ritual of their faith was shaped by contact with older forms of worship. No more significant example of the debt which Islâm owes to alien races can be cited than that which is afforded by the history of the mosque. Out of the mud-built courtyard of the Arab house, the open space for domestic and tribal assembly, Greek and Persian builders created an architectural type which governed the whole Mohammadan world. And the only contribution of the masters for whom they worked was the demand for just such large and open spaces, easily accessible, oriented in a certain manner, and partially shaded from the rays of the sun.

It is therefore scarcely possible to say that a specifically Mohammadan art existed during the first century after the Flight, though its germs were latent in the welding together of Hellenized with un-Hellenized, or barely Hellenized, regions under a single hand. The architecture of the first century gives evidence of the formative character of this process of compression; before the third century had ended it may be said to have been completed. If the monuments of the first century are still a faithful reflection of earlier and foreign creations, they hold the promise of further and more definitely characterized growth. But in an age and in lands where change was slow-footed, older conceptions continued to hold the field long after the political conditions under which they had arisen had vanished or had been baptized with other names. As we now know, the Mesopotamian palace builders of the ninth century of our era were guided by schemes which their Sasanian forerunners had inherited from remoter times; while the mosque builders had advanced little beyond the plan laid down in the camp-cities of the conquest. But the interchange of workmen between East and West was continuous, the intercourse unbroken; and from that intercourse, coupled with the needs of the age and the prejudices of the Faith, the arts of Islâm were born.

In the present study my eyes have been turned chiefly, and necessarily, backwards. I have not been so much concerned with the offspring as with the parentage of the buildings which I have passed under review. Of these buildings the most important is the great palace of Ukhaiḍir on the eastern side of the Syrian desert. I have given, also, the first plans and photographs of three small ruins in its vicinity, Qṣair, Mudjḍah, and ‘Aṭshân. If they do not belong to the same period as the palace, they cannot be far removed from it in date. The problems presented by Ukhaiḍir led me back to Sasanian architecture, and I publish here new plans and photographs of two vast constructions at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn. I have, further, taken this occasion to publish the plans of two mosques, the one at Diyârbekr, the other at Mayâfârqîn, both of which belong to a later period. The first of these has been known to us only through a sketch made by Texier, which I found to be inaccurate in many significant points, as it is also incomplete. The second has not previously been studied.

The palace of Ukhaiḍir was practically unknown until the winter of 1908-9, although it had been seen by European travellers as early as the seventeenth century. Della Valle passed by it in June 1625 on his way from Baṣrah to Aleppo, and described it as ‘a great ancient fabric, perfectly square, with thirteen pilasters or round columns on each side without, and other compartments of arches; within which were many chambers, with a court of no great bigness and uncovered. The Arabians call this fabric Casr Chaider. I could not conjecture whether it had been a palace or temple or castle; but I incline to believe it a palace rather than anything else.’[1] Pedro Teixeira’s account is doubtful. He says:[2] ‘At eleven in the morning we came to a dry channel which in winter they say has much water, and I thought it likely by the nature of its situation and capaciousness. Over it, on a rising ground, is still an ancient square fort, with twelve bastions, three on each side, made of burnt brick and lime, strong and well built. Without it, at about sixty paces distance, is a small Alcoran, or Tower, ten cubits high, tho’ it appears to have been higher, of the same structure, all decay’d with age; yet it appears to be a royal fabrick by its goodness and the place it stands in, where it could not be raised without mighty cost and much labour, and difficulty. It was done by an Arabian king, grandfather to Xeque Mahamed Eben Raxet, whom I said before I was carried to see, to secure the caravans going that way before the Turks possess’d themselves of Bagdat and Bazora. The Arabs call it Alcayzar or Kayzar, which signifies a palace or Cesar’s House, for so they call all that belong to kings and princes. This they reckon the half-way from Bazora to Mexat Aly, whither we were going. We found some small wells in this channel, the water of them clear and fresh, but of an intolerable ill scent, yet necessity prevail’d.’ The only item in this description which connects Teixeira’s palace with Ukhaiḍir is the name. Teixeira reached Meshhed ‘Ali (Nedjef) six days after he had passed by Alcayzar and he gives the situation of the palace as half-way between Baṣrah and Nedjef, whereas Ukhaiḍir lies to the north-west of Nedjef. There is no ‘Alcoran’, i.e. minaret, at Ukhaiḍir, neither could the building be described, even by the least careful observer, as a square fort with three bastions on each side. I am therefore inclined to suppose that there is another ruin called Ukhaiḍir further to the south. We need not linger over the derivation which he assigns to the name.

Scarcely more correct as to architectural features is Tavernier’s allusion to Ukhaiḍir. There can, however, be no doubt that it is to Ukhaiḍir that he refers, by reason of the geographical position of his ‘grand Palais’. Coming from Aleppo, he turned off at ‘Ânah into the desert and after some twenty days of journeying he observes:[3] ‘Cinq jours aprés que nous eûmes quitté ces deux familles Arabes, nous découvrîmes un grand Palais tout de brique cuite au feu; et il y a de l’apparence que le pays a esté autrefois semé, et que les fourneaux où on a cuit cette brique ont esté chauffez avec du chaume: car à quinze ou vingt lieües à la ronde il n’y a pas une brossaille ni un brin de bois. Chaque brique est d’un demi-pied en quarré et épaisse de six pouces. Il y a dans ce Palais trois grandes cours, et dans chacune de beaux bastimens avec deux rangs d’arcades qui sont l’un sur l’autre. Quoy que ce grand Palais soit encore entier, il est toutefois inhabité, et les Arabes fort ignorans de l’antiquité ne me sceurent apprendre pour qui il a esté basti, ny d’autres singularitez dont je m’informay, et dont j’aurois bien voulu qu’ils m’eussent instruit. Devant la porte de ce Palais il y a un étang accompagné d’un canal qui est à sec. Le fond du canal est de brique, de mesme que la voûte qui est à fleur de terre, et les Arabes croyent que c’a esté un conduit par lequel on faisoit passer l’eau de l’Euphrate. Pour moy je ne sçaurois qu’en juger, et ne puis comprendre comme on pouvoit faire venir de l’eau de si loin, l’Euphrate estant éloigné de ce lieü-là de plus de vingt lieües. De ce Palais nous tirâmes au nord est et après une marche de quatre jours nous arrivâmes à un méchant bourg, autrefois nommé Cufa et à present Meched-Ali.’[4]

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.