DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45581#0027
8o
II. A. 2. — Southern Hauran
the aisles (See sections A-B and E-F, in Ill. 60). These vaults, with their supports,
and the south wall of the bath are in ruins; but the foundations are all traceable, and
great sections of the vaulting lie just as they fell. It is not impossible that there was
a doorway at the west end of the middle aisle, like that in the bath at Koser cAmra.
All the openings in the building are semi-circular; some of the interior arches and some
of the tunnel-vaults are bluntly pointed. I have not attempted to discover the use of
various apartments of the bath; the walls of the domed chamber and of the room with
a cross-vault show grooves and earthenware pipes running vertically. The small vaulted
chamber northeast of the main room also has piping in its walls. I had no opportunity
to trace these pipes to their head, nor could I discover if there had been a water-tank
above the vaults of any of the smaller apartments. Only excavations could discover
the furnace for the heating of water; but for digging there was, of course, no time.
South and east of the bath are the ruins of a garden wall that enclosed a considerable
space, as is shown in the completed plan in Ill. 60. Near the east wall is an elevated,
paved, space which undoubtedly covers a vaulted or arched cistern; beside this is a
well over two metres in diameter and more than twenty-two metres deep; its sides are
walled with stone work of excellent workmanship.
This bath is certainly to be studied in connection with the mosque on the hill a
mile to the westward. It belongs unquestionably to the same period, and was pro-
bably placed at such a distance to take advantage of the larger supply of water that
would naturally have been found on the lower ground. The materials and methods
of construction employed in both buildings are identical. Unfortunately the bath offers
no more written records than the mosque. An interesting analogy is to be found be-
tween this bath and the one at Kos£r cAmra which is dated by Professors Musil,
Noldeke and Littmann between the years 711 and 750 of our era.
This bath is hardly to be considered as having been built as a rendezvous for
the Bedawin of the desert — a place where the half-wild Arab could come to bathe
in luxury, and to spend an idle hour in a leafy garden —; it must be looked upon
as a building erected by a great prince or potentate for his own luxurious use, and
the use of his chosen followers. It is far from the remains of any settlement, and it
can only have been that the chief who commanded the castle and built the mosque
erected this building, partly no doubt in connection with the ceremonial washing requi-
site to worship in the mosque, and partly as a place for the indulgence of idleness,
luxury and ease. I have explained above my reasons for believing that the mosque
is of early construction, not later than the eighth or ninth century. The same reasons
are to be applied here. The two-centered arches and pointed tunnel-vaults need not
be considered as a sign of a later mediaeval period of building; for many of the arches
of the buildings at Kasr Ibn Wardan,1 in Northern Syria, which are definitely dated
in the sixth century, are two-centered and of the same form as these.
8. KASR IL-BACIK.
Fortress: 411-12A.D. Near the western border of the Southern Hauran, upon
the crest of a low hill, and at the meeting point of at least three Roman roads is the
1 cf. Sect. B, Pt. 1, pp. 26—45.
II. A. 2. — Southern Hauran
the aisles (See sections A-B and E-F, in Ill. 60). These vaults, with their supports,
and the south wall of the bath are in ruins; but the foundations are all traceable, and
great sections of the vaulting lie just as they fell. It is not impossible that there was
a doorway at the west end of the middle aisle, like that in the bath at Koser cAmra.
All the openings in the building are semi-circular; some of the interior arches and some
of the tunnel-vaults are bluntly pointed. I have not attempted to discover the use of
various apartments of the bath; the walls of the domed chamber and of the room with
a cross-vault show grooves and earthenware pipes running vertically. The small vaulted
chamber northeast of the main room also has piping in its walls. I had no opportunity
to trace these pipes to their head, nor could I discover if there had been a water-tank
above the vaults of any of the smaller apartments. Only excavations could discover
the furnace for the heating of water; but for digging there was, of course, no time.
South and east of the bath are the ruins of a garden wall that enclosed a considerable
space, as is shown in the completed plan in Ill. 60. Near the east wall is an elevated,
paved, space which undoubtedly covers a vaulted or arched cistern; beside this is a
well over two metres in diameter and more than twenty-two metres deep; its sides are
walled with stone work of excellent workmanship.
This bath is certainly to be studied in connection with the mosque on the hill a
mile to the westward. It belongs unquestionably to the same period, and was pro-
bably placed at such a distance to take advantage of the larger supply of water that
would naturally have been found on the lower ground. The materials and methods
of construction employed in both buildings are identical. Unfortunately the bath offers
no more written records than the mosque. An interesting analogy is to be found be-
tween this bath and the one at Kos£r cAmra which is dated by Professors Musil,
Noldeke and Littmann between the years 711 and 750 of our era.
This bath is hardly to be considered as having been built as a rendezvous for
the Bedawin of the desert — a place where the half-wild Arab could come to bathe
in luxury, and to spend an idle hour in a leafy garden —; it must be looked upon
as a building erected by a great prince or potentate for his own luxurious use, and
the use of his chosen followers. It is far from the remains of any settlement, and it
can only have been that the chief who commanded the castle and built the mosque
erected this building, partly no doubt in connection with the ceremonial washing requi-
site to worship in the mosque, and partly as a place for the indulgence of idleness,
luxury and ease. I have explained above my reasons for believing that the mosque
is of early construction, not later than the eighth or ninth century. The same reasons
are to be applied here. The two-centered arches and pointed tunnel-vaults need not
be considered as a sign of a later mediaeval period of building; for many of the arches
of the buildings at Kasr Ibn Wardan,1 in Northern Syria, which are definitely dated
in the sixth century, are two-centered and of the same form as these.
8. KASR IL-BACIK.
Fortress: 411-12A.D. Near the western border of the Southern Hauran, upon
the crest of a low hill, and at the meeting point of at least three Roman roads is the
1 cf. Sect. B, Pt. 1, pp. 26—45.