Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir: A Study in Early Mohammadan ArchitectureBell, Gertrude Lowthian
History
Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir: A Study in Early Mohammadan Architecture
Bell, Gertrude Lowthian
Iraq -- Antiquities; Mosques; Ukheidar
Hatra, while the inner walls of the town were flanked by rectangular
towers, solid or casemated, and casemated bastions, on the outer wall a
rounded tower has been recorded, and Dr. Andrae conjectures that it was
one of many.[217] In this particular, as in the approximately circular
outline assumed by its walls, Hatra may exhibit traits borrowed from the
civilization of the southern Hittites. There are rounded and rectangular
towers in the larger Parthian palace at Niffer.[218] In Sasanian
fortifications the rounded tower seems practically to have displaced the
rectangular.[219]
[Illustration: FIG. 27. Lagash. (From _L’Acropole de Suse_, by kind
permission of M. Dieulafoy.)]
Flanking towers strengthened the walls of Hittite cities. At Zindjirli
the gradual development of more scientific methods can be traced in the
successive walls which encompassed the town and the acropolis. The inner
city wall, which was the first in date (it was probably built in the
thirteenth century), is provided with rectangular towers which have a
salience of 2 metres. The outer acropolis wall (Fig. 5), built about 900
B.C., has semicircular towers with a salience of 3½ metres; the
strategic disadvantages of rectangular towers had been realized and
corrected. A further improvement was effected in the inner cross wall,
behind the main gate of the acropolis. The wall is built in retreating
angles, and set with towers alternately rounded and rectangular; the
rectangular towers project 1·80 metres from the face of the wall, while
the rounded towers cover them with a projection of 4·50 metres. The
outer city wall was built after the destruction of the city by
Asarhaddon in 681 B.C. and is no more than a copy of the earliest wall,
but at the same period casemates were added to the walls of the
acropolis.[220] The Hittite capital of Qadesh on the Orontes, as
depicted in the frescoes at Abû Simbel, a temple built by Rameses II
(1388-1322), was protected by a wall with towers, the height of which
must be due partly to the imagination of the Egyptian craftsman.[221]
These towers have the appearance of being round, but the absence of
architectural records of round towers at so early a date throws doubt
upon the matter. In Asia Minor rectangular towers have been found upon
the outer and the inner walls of Boghâz Keui;[222] they do not as a rule
exceed a projection of 2½ metres. At Troy the earliest walls had
towers 3 metres wide, and 2 metres salient; the curtain wall was in some
places not longer than 10 metres, and the city gates were flanked by
deep bastions. In the walls of the third period at Troy three towers
were uncovered on the south-east side; they are 3·20 metres wide, 2·35
salient, and are separated from one another by a distance of only 6·40
metres.[223] But on the Greek mainland, at Tiryns, and at Mycenae, the
fortifications are characterized by crémaillères and by deep bastions
rather than by towers.[224] Much more lavish is the use of towers in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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