DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32867#0407
ROMAN PERIOD
375
Attic bases, plain, slender shafts, and Corinthian caps of remarkable delicacy and
beauty. Immediately from the caps, without any suggestion of a horizontal member,
springs the arch, which has the profile of an architrave, such as is found in the more
ornate buildings of the second century in this region. Its broad lower member is
carved with a charming design — a rinceau of grape-vine and pomegranate — in
high relief; the upper member is a group of carved moldings, a bead and reel, an egg
and dart, and a cavetto of slender foliate designs, all executed with thc finest technique.
The keystone seems to have borne a bustor other object obnoxious to the iconoclasts,
for it has been completely defaced. The whole design is one of such grace and
refinement that it might easily be assigned to the best period of architectural decora-
tion in the Hauran. This niche and the window in the east cnd of the same hall
again recall the interesting similarity between the classic architecture of the Djebel
H auran and the early Renaissance of Italy, and show the independcnt yet thoroughly
artistic spirit of the architects of the Hauran country. The other window shown in
M. de Vogiie’s drawing (2 on Plate 10), and occupying a position marked n in the
western wall of the northern arm of the palace, has either been destroyed or is con-
cealed by a small modern building. Windows of similar form, however, are to be
seen in different parts of the town of Shakka, the projecting hoods and their brackets
having been taken from the ancient buildings and inserted in modern houses.
The outer buttresses of the south wall of the long compartment are often referred
to as the earliest examples of contreforts of the form employed by the builders of
the Rotnanesque period. Two of these buttresses are shown in a photograph on
page 373. The resemblance to the Romanesque form is obvious, though the pro-
jection from the wall is greater than in most examples of the eleventh century. There
are no set-offs, as the Gothic buttresses have, and the capstone, though provided
with a sort of drip-mold in front, appears to have been flat at the top. Structu-
rally, these buttresses, with a slight interior projection in the piers of the arches, and
the deeper projection on the exterior, mark a decided advance in the science of build-
ing, resisting, as they do, the thrust of the interior arches only at the points where
the pressure is concentrated. In other preserved examples of arch construction in
the Hauran, wherever there is but a single system of transverse arches, the walls are
sufficiently thick throughout their entire length to support the arches, and in buildings
where the triple system was employed the lower arches on either side of the great
ones were sufficiently strong, with the aid of deep interior piers, to resist the thrust of
the high arches. In the arrangement at Shakka the space occupied for these deep in-
terior piers was economized. There is, of course, no historical connection between this
buttress system of the Hauran, which was designed for the support of roofing slabs
of stone, and the Gothic system which was developed a thousand years later for the
support of ribbed vaults, but the architects of the third century in the Hauran had solved
the same problem so far as the demands of their method of roof-building required.
375
Attic bases, plain, slender shafts, and Corinthian caps of remarkable delicacy and
beauty. Immediately from the caps, without any suggestion of a horizontal member,
springs the arch, which has the profile of an architrave, such as is found in the more
ornate buildings of the second century in this region. Its broad lower member is
carved with a charming design — a rinceau of grape-vine and pomegranate — in
high relief; the upper member is a group of carved moldings, a bead and reel, an egg
and dart, and a cavetto of slender foliate designs, all executed with thc finest technique.
The keystone seems to have borne a bustor other object obnoxious to the iconoclasts,
for it has been completely defaced. The whole design is one of such grace and
refinement that it might easily be assigned to the best period of architectural decora-
tion in the Hauran. This niche and the window in the east cnd of the same hall
again recall the interesting similarity between the classic architecture of the Djebel
H auran and the early Renaissance of Italy, and show the independcnt yet thoroughly
artistic spirit of the architects of the Hauran country. The other window shown in
M. de Vogiie’s drawing (2 on Plate 10), and occupying a position marked n in the
western wall of the northern arm of the palace, has either been destroyed or is con-
cealed by a small modern building. Windows of similar form, however, are to be
seen in different parts of the town of Shakka, the projecting hoods and their brackets
having been taken from the ancient buildings and inserted in modern houses.
The outer buttresses of the south wall of the long compartment are often referred
to as the earliest examples of contreforts of the form employed by the builders of
the Rotnanesque period. Two of these buttresses are shown in a photograph on
page 373. The resemblance to the Romanesque form is obvious, though the pro-
jection from the wall is greater than in most examples of the eleventh century. There
are no set-offs, as the Gothic buttresses have, and the capstone, though provided
with a sort of drip-mold in front, appears to have been flat at the top. Structu-
rally, these buttresses, with a slight interior projection in the piers of the arches, and
the deeper projection on the exterior, mark a decided advance in the science of build-
ing, resisting, as they do, the thrust of the interior arches only at the points where
the pressure is concentrated. In other preserved examples of arch construction in
the Hauran, wherever there is but a single system of transverse arches, the walls are
sufficiently thick throughout their entire length to support the arches, and in buildings
where the triple system was employed the lower arches on either side of the great
ones were sufficiently strong, with the aid of deep interior piers, to resist the thrust of
the high arches. In the arrangement at Shakka the space occupied for these deep in-
terior piers was economized. There is, of course, no historical connection between this
buttress system of the Hauran, which was designed for the support of roofing slabs
of stone, and the Gothic system which was developed a thousand years later for the
support of ribbed vaults, but the architects of the third century in the Hauran had solved
the same problem so far as the demands of their method of roof-building required.