Butler, Howard Crosby: Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899 - 1900 (Band 2): Architecture and other arts (New York, 1903)

ROMAN PERIOD

373

Oculus, originally above large window in palace
at Shakka.

Window in east wall of long hall of
palace at Shakka.

carved with an acanthus design. The arch above the
portal is perfectly plain. At the level of the crown of the
arch above the portal, a deep overhanging molding, in

profile a cyma recta, is
carried across the fagade,
arching above the portal
in a great elliptical curve
— not a semicircle, as it
is represented in M. de
Vogue’s plate — which
may suggest the lines
of the dome above it.

There seems to have
been an Attic story above

the chief molding on either side of the arch, four
courses of which are still in place; but there is no indication that this was pierced
with windows.

The remaining exterior features
of interest are windows, of which
there are three, all of them shown
in Plate io of “ La Syrie Cen-
trale.” The great window at the
east end of the long hall is still
partly intact. The lower opening
of the two, with its molded sill,
its delicately carved pilasters, and
its lintel, adorned in Christian
times with three crosses, and
flanked by florid consoles, still re-
mains as M. de Vogtie saw it;
but the beautiful little oculus
shown in Plate io, with its dimin-
utive Ionic pilasters, its molded
cornice, and the rich moldings
about the opening, has been re-
moved to the interior of the build-
ing, where it stands above the
doorway of the maddfeh, or public
room, of the village, which occu-

pies the small rectangular chamber Buttresses and window in south wall of palace at Shakka.