Like the Achaemenid palaces, Firûzâbâd and Sarvistân were not intended for the lodging of vast hordes of retainers. These may have been accommodated in tents or in mud-built houses of an unpretending nature. But with the close of the sixth century we come to a group of royal dwelling-places wherein provision was made for an indefinite number of women, courtiers, servants, and guards, and the type of building thus created was taken over by the khalifs of Islâm and extended to proportions vaster still. Of this type the palace of Khusrau at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn is the best example we possess.[149] In general terms Ukhaiḍir is its fortified counterpart. The palace of Khusrau is built upon an artificial platform like Persepolis and the Assyrian palaces, while additional lodgings for the king’s family and suite are placed on the level of the plain. The double ramps or stairways by which the platform is approached are exactly similar to those employed in the older prototypes. The eastern end of the platform is occupied by an immense open space lying before the entrance to the state apartments. A deep porch, possibly with columns on either side, leads into a latitudinal chamber, the details of which cannot be determined without excavation. From this antechamber a doorway communicates with the square hall of audience, which corresponds precisely with the audience halls of Firûzâbâd and Sarvistân. In the posterior wall there is a deep lîwân in which, perhaps, the throne of the Chosroës may have been placed. Behind the reception-rooms there is an open court round which the living-rooms are grouped, not singly, but in a series of subsidiary courts, some of which are placed on a lower level. The whole scheme is thus exactly parallel to the scheme of the palaces in Fars, though the reduplication and enlargement of the various parts somewhat obscures the resemblance at first sight. At Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn a porch is added to the lîwân palace and the entrance lîwân has become a closed chamber, the porch having superseded the columned entrance of the Achaemenids and the archways of the earlier Sasanians. The rectangular audience hall of the normal Sasanian khilâni palace follows. The small lîwân to the rear, with its flanking rooms, have their parallel at Firûzâbâd, but the small lîwân at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn forms part of the hall of audience and three of the flanking rooms can be entered from that hall, as well as from the open court behind it.