[66] De Beylié: _Prome et Samarra_, p. 68. See, too, Viollet’s memoir presented to the Acad. des Inscrip. et B.-Lettres, quoted above. He, too, was shown the fragment of Assyrian relief and gives an illustration of it, for which reason I do not trouble to publish my photograph. [67] Pognon: _Inscriptions mandaïtes des coupes de Khouabir_. [68] Chesney notices that the ruins of the old town lie on the left bank below the present ’Ânah. Quoted by Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 724. [69] It is, I suppose, Chesney’s Sarifah, which has been conjectured to be the Kolosina of Ptolemy: Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 730. [70] These ruins give additional weight to Ritter’s suggestion that Ḥadîthah was the Parthian station of Olabus: Vol. XI. p. 731. The Arab town of Ḥadîthah is first mentioned by Ibn Khurdâdhbeh, ed. de Goeje, p. 74. [71] Julian crossed the Euphrates at Parux Malkha, which cannot be far from Baghdâdî, and captured the castle of Diacira. This castle must have stood at the southern end of the great bend made by the Euphrates below Baghdâdî. Chesney saw the ruins of a fortress there. It is perhaps Ptolemy’s Idicara and the Izannesopolis of Isidorus: Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 737. [72] Herodotus mentions the bitumen wells and calls the town Is. It has been identified with the Ihi of the Babylonian inscriptions, the Ahava of Ezra, and with the Ist from which a tribute of bitumen was brought to Thothmes III, according to an inscription at Karnak. [73] Yâḳût mentions Kebeisah as the oasis four miles from Hît upon the desert road. There are, he says, a number of villages there, the inhabitants of which live in the extreme of poverty and misery, by reason of the aridity of the surrounding waste. [74] The central division wall in the long south chamber is a later addition. [75] Described by Choisy: _L’Art de bâtir chez les Byzantins_, p. 31. [76] For example Ḳasṭal (Brünnow and Domaszewski: _Provincia Arabia_, Vol. II. pl. xliv.); Ḳaṣr el Abyaḍ (de Vogüé: _La Syrie Centrale_, Vol. I. p. 69); Deir el Kahf, founded in A.D. 306 (Butler: _Ancient Architecture in Syria_, Section A, Part II. p. 146); Ḳuṣeir el Ḥallâbât, dated A.D. 213 (ditto, p. 72); barracks at Anderîn, dated A.D. 558 (ditto, Section B, Part II. pl. viii.). [77] Ṭuba with a triple court (Musil: _Ḳuṣeir ’Amra_, Vol. I. p. 13); Kharânî (ditto, p. 97); Khân ez Zebîb (_Provincia Arabia_, Vol. II. p. 78). [78] The whole area of ruins is known as Kherâb = ruin. [79] It is not necessarily so late, for the Baghdâd Gate at Raḳḳah has the same arch, and it is certainly earlier. [80] See Rothstein: _Die Dynastie der Lakhmiden in al Ḥîra_, p. 25. He gives reasons for believing that the art of writing Arabic was first practised at Ḥîrah. The population was largely Christian (the ’Ibâd of the Arab historians); Ḥîrah was the seat of a bishopric, and frequent allusion is made to churches and monasteries in and near the town.