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. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. UKHAIḌIR 1 II. QṢAIR, MUDJḌAH, AND ‘AṬSHÂN 38 III. QAṢR-I-SHÎRÎN 44 IV. GENESIS OF THE EARLY MOHAMMADAN PALACE 55 V. THE FAÇADE 122 VI. THE MOSQUE 145 VII. THE DATE OF UKHAIḌIR 161 SUBJECT INDEX 169 INDEX OF NAMES 173 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES IN THE TEXT FIG. PAGE 1. UKHAIḌIR, NORTH WALL OF PALACE, SHOWING ORIGINAL SCHEME 11 2. UKHAIḌIR, ARCH CONSTRUCTION 12