DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44946#0094
58
II. A. i. Ammonitis.
other side a low modern structure completely fills the lower parts of the apse and the
vaulted space before it, and employs one of the great columns as a corner stone. In
the courtyard of this house one may see, half-buried, a little doorway that connects
with a staircase that led through the wall and down to the lower level (see Ill. 38 plan).
The columns are so spaced that the intercolumniations in front of the apsis must have
been provided with arches, and there can be no doubt that the members of the
entablature of the colonnade were carried over these spaces in arched form. No remains
of capitals or entablature were found sufficiently preserved to give details. It may be
assumed that raking cornices surmounted the three arched architraves, and this assump-
tion is supported by Captain Conder’s photograph in the frontispiece, where a slanting
wall, — one side of a gable — may be seen above the wall on the left of the great apsis,
showing that the whole middle section of the structure, with its six columns and arched
central intercolumniation, was covered by a double pitched roof. There seems to be a
general impression that the building was at some time converted into a fortress, and
that the original structure suffered severely at that time. There are now no evidences
of conversion, and every part of the structure now standing is of the original building.
The walls which flank the trench that leads up from the lower arch were undoubtedly
constructed to prevent the trench from being filled up, and to provide passage for the
water which undoubtedly descends from the valley at the north during the wet season,
and thus to provide against flooding the town. It will be noticed, in an examination
of the photograph (Ill. 37), that the interior face of the great wall is pitted with small,
deep incisions, regularly disposed over the surface. The arrangement of these holes is
such as to leave no doubt that they were connected with the fastening in place of a
casing of marble, or other semi-precious material, consisting of an entablature at the
top of the wall, pediments and colonettes for the niches, and probably a complete
revetment over the flat surfaces. I found, in the interior, a piece of such interior
ornament in oriental alabaster, a material so perishable under exposure to the weather
that only a small fragment had survived in a well protected spot. If the walls of
this great building were revetted in this material it is not surprising that no remnant
of it has survived. A restoration of the front of the edifice is presented in Plate V.
This has been reconstructed on the general lines of my tentative scheme (Ill. 38). The
details of the entablature were studied from the arched entablature and pediment at
Damascus, those of the niches are adapted from similar details in the propylaea at
Djerash, and the wall of the temenos at Ba'albek.
Purpose. It is quite impossible to determine the nature or purpose of this great
edifice. It is certain that it was neither a basilica nor a palace, and almost equally as
certain that it was not thermae or balneae, in the ordinary sense. I doubt if there was
ever much more of the structure than is represented in the conjectural parts of my plan.
It consisted, as we have seen, of a colonnaded exedra almost 70 m. broad, with a
basin 9 m. deep before its colonnades. Into this basin flowed a small stream, and
behind the building, at a fraction of a meter below the level of the basin, flowed the
perennial waters of the Wadi Amman. By closing the arched outlet of the smaller
stream, or by damming the greater one just outside, it would have been possible to flood
the basin to any desired height, up to 9 meters. The level of the basin was far below
the level of the colonnaded avenue and of other buildings to the north, so that there
must have been a retaining wall for the basin on that side. It seems almost conclusive
II. A. i. Ammonitis.
other side a low modern structure completely fills the lower parts of the apse and the
vaulted space before it, and employs one of the great columns as a corner stone. In
the courtyard of this house one may see, half-buried, a little doorway that connects
with a staircase that led through the wall and down to the lower level (see Ill. 38 plan).
The columns are so spaced that the intercolumniations in front of the apsis must have
been provided with arches, and there can be no doubt that the members of the
entablature of the colonnade were carried over these spaces in arched form. No remains
of capitals or entablature were found sufficiently preserved to give details. It may be
assumed that raking cornices surmounted the three arched architraves, and this assump-
tion is supported by Captain Conder’s photograph in the frontispiece, where a slanting
wall, — one side of a gable — may be seen above the wall on the left of the great apsis,
showing that the whole middle section of the structure, with its six columns and arched
central intercolumniation, was covered by a double pitched roof. There seems to be a
general impression that the building was at some time converted into a fortress, and
that the original structure suffered severely at that time. There are now no evidences
of conversion, and every part of the structure now standing is of the original building.
The walls which flank the trench that leads up from the lower arch were undoubtedly
constructed to prevent the trench from being filled up, and to provide passage for the
water which undoubtedly descends from the valley at the north during the wet season,
and thus to provide against flooding the town. It will be noticed, in an examination
of the photograph (Ill. 37), that the interior face of the great wall is pitted with small,
deep incisions, regularly disposed over the surface. The arrangement of these holes is
such as to leave no doubt that they were connected with the fastening in place of a
casing of marble, or other semi-precious material, consisting of an entablature at the
top of the wall, pediments and colonettes for the niches, and probably a complete
revetment over the flat surfaces. I found, in the interior, a piece of such interior
ornament in oriental alabaster, a material so perishable under exposure to the weather
that only a small fragment had survived in a well protected spot. If the walls of
this great building were revetted in this material it is not surprising that no remnant
of it has survived. A restoration of the front of the edifice is presented in Plate V.
This has been reconstructed on the general lines of my tentative scheme (Ill. 38). The
details of the entablature were studied from the arched entablature and pediment at
Damascus, those of the niches are adapted from similar details in the propylaea at
Djerash, and the wall of the temenos at Ba'albek.
Purpose. It is quite impossible to determine the nature or purpose of this great
edifice. It is certain that it was neither a basilica nor a palace, and almost equally as
certain that it was not thermae or balneae, in the ordinary sense. I doubt if there was
ever much more of the structure than is represented in the conjectural parts of my plan.
It consisted, as we have seen, of a colonnaded exedra almost 70 m. broad, with a
basin 9 m. deep before its colonnades. Into this basin flowed a small stream, and
behind the building, at a fraction of a meter below the level of the basin, flowed the
perennial waters of the Wadi Amman. By closing the arched outlet of the smaller
stream, or by damming the greater one just outside, it would have been possible to flood
the basin to any desired height, up to 9 meters. The level of the basin was far below
the level of the colonnaded avenue and of other buildings to the north, so that there
must have been a retaining wall for the basin on that side. It seems almost conclusive