75. Especially on the western side of the tower. See Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 40, and P_212.
76. Compare Bell's photograph of the western side of the tower, Gertrude Bell Archive, Album P_212, with Finster and Schmidt's photo of the same side, ‘Sasanidische’, Taf. 9.
77. Google Earth photograph (© 2015 Google), coordinates 32°20’10.78”N, 43°49’59.69”E.
78. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 40.
79. Bell deemed the tower to be most similar to a minaret at Tauq south of Kerkuk, which is contemporary with similar thirteenth-century constructions at Baghdad; ibid., pp. 40–1; pl. 48 Fig. 1.
80. K.A.C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture. Vol. 2: Early ‘Abbāsids, Umayyads of Cordova, Aghlabids, Ṭūlūnids, and Samānids, A.D. 751–905 (Oxford, 1940), reprint (New York, 1979), p. 98; Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture (New York, 1994), p. 144; Marcus Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology (Edinburgh, 2010), p. 163.
81. Finster and Schmidt, ‘Sasanidische’, p. 26; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 144.
82. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, vol. 2, pp. 94, 98; Finster and Schmidt, ‘Sasanidische’, p. 26.
83. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 41; her plan is on pl. 46, Fig. 2.
84. Ibid., p. 42; pl. 50, Figs 1–2.
85. Ibid., p. 43; pl. 49, Fig. 2; 50, Fig. 2.
86. Ibid., p. 43.
87. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, vol. 2, p. 93.
88. Ibid., p. 98.
89. Finster and Schmidt, ‘Sasanidische’, pp. 21–4.
90. See especially Bell's photographs, Album P_215 and P_216.
91. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, vol. 2, p. 92 and Pl. 22c can be compared to Bell, Palace and Mosque, pl. 49, Fig. 2 and Album P_219.
92. Ibid., pl. 51, Fig. 2 compared to Finster and Schmidt, ‘Sasanidische’, Taf. 5.
93. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 38–43, and pls. 45–51.
94. Vol. IV (Paris, 1896), pls. 40, 42 and 42.
95. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 44.
96. GB letter to her mother, 21 March 1911; GB diary, 22 March 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive.
97. GB diary entries, 23–4 March 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive.
98. Ibid.
99. GB letter to her family, 28 March 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive.
100. See especially Bell's letter to her family, 28 March 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive.
101. GB diary, 25 March 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive.
102. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 44–54, and pls. 51, fig.1, 52, Fig. 2, 53–73, Fig. 1.
103. Ibid., pp. 44–5.
104. Ibid., p. 45.
105. Ibid., p. 80. The platform stretched for approximately 372 m along its east–west axis, while from north to south it covered about 190 m, producing an enormous space upon which to lay out a monumental structure.
106. Ibid., pp. 45, 50, 80.
107. Ibid., pp. 45, 70, pl. 52, Fig. 2. While it is true that such constructions occur in early Islamic buildings such as at Qasr Kharana and Ukhaidir, offset arches and vaults were apparently never a common feature of Sasanian architecture, and Bell's statement that the feature ‘is generally the case in Sasanian vault building, whether in brick or in stone’ is groundless, according to Bier, Sarvistan, p. 30 and fn. 36. Bell was almost certainly thinking of the brick vaults in the side chambers at Sasanian Ctesiphon, which appear as offset constructions, but this brickwork supports pitched brick vaults and not mortared stone rubble, as at Qasr-i-Shirin, and therefore it represents a very different construction technology.
108. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 83–4.
109. Bell reconstructed this porch, marked only by two grass-covered mounds, as consisting simply of two thick walls, these supporting a barrel-vaulted roof. She reports, however, having seen circular patches of brick, which may have been the remains of columns, making possible de Morgan's reconstruction of a room flanked on either side by columns; Jacques de Morgan, Mission scientifique en Perse, vol. IV (Paris, 1896), p. 42; Bell, Palace and Mosque p. 45. Recent investigations of this particular section of the palace by an Iranian team have now confirmed the existence of two parallel lines of thick rectangular stone piers, marking the place of Bell's postulated solid walls. The Iranian work also detected additional columns both in front of and alongside the stone piers, suggesting that the hall was accommodated with porches on either side. See Yusef Moradi, ‘Imarat-e Khosrow in view of the first season of archaeological excavations’, in Hamid Fahimi and Karim Alizadeh (eds), Nāmvarnāmeh: Papers in honour of Massoud Azarnoush (Tehran, 2012), pp. 350–75.
110. The walls of this vast square space were much ruined, and nothing of the roof was preserved, but in Bell's estimation this room would have supported a vast dome, possibly covering an area of some 16 m and supported by corner piers characterized on their two inner sides by engaged columns, the remnants of which were still visible; Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 46, 74.
111. Narrow covered corridors, nos. 11 and 12, led from the hall of audience (no. 3), extended along both sides of the central area marks by Courts A and B, and gave access to the lower level of the platform at the western end of the palace, with its courts and rooms; ibid., p. 46.
112. The open courts (C–J) had groups of vaulted chambers on at least one of their ends, these distinguished by two rooms on either side of a central iwan opening to its full width onto the court, precisely in the manner of the earlier iwans of Parthian Hatra; ibid., p. 47. Latitudinally oriented rooms located behind each of the iwan groups were interpreted as kitchens; ibid.
113. Ibid., p. 80; Oscar Reuther, ‘Sasanian art’, in Arthur E. Pope, A Survey of Persian Art (Oxford, 1938), p. 543.
114. Bier, Sarvistan, p. 71, note 7; Lionel Bier, ‘The Sasanian palaces and their influence in early Islam’, Ars Orientalis 23 (1993) p. 59, and n. 18, citing Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 44–51.
115. Bier, ‘Sasanian palaces’, p. 59.
116. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 81.
117. Reuther, ‘Sasanian art’, p. 541, Fig. 153.
118. Ibid., p. 542, Fig. 154.
119. Bier, ‘Sasanian palaces’, p. 58.
120. Reuther, ‘Sasanian art’, p. 540; Bier, ‘Sasanian palaces’, pp. 58–9.
121. Reuther, ‘Sasanian art’, p. 540.
122. Ibid., p. 540.
123. Ibid., pp. 540–2.
124. Moradi, ‘Imarat-e Khosrow’.
125. The structure measures 134 m by 83 m; Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 51.
126. The main entrance gateway is represented by nos. 1 and 2. Courts A–C were arranged along the eastern side of the structure, flanked by small covered chambers, nos. 3–14. Many of these chambers were found covered with conical domes set over the angles on squinch arches and furnished with small niches on one of the walls, a typical Persian feature; ibid., p. 51; pl. 65, Figs 2–3.
127. These included Courts E–H and I–K and the surrounding rooms, nos. 18–34 and 35–50; ibid., pp. 52–3. At least one of the chambers (no. 39) in these wings was domed with squinches; ibid., p. 53, and pl. 68, Fig. 2.
128. Ibid., p. 90; pls. 71–2.
129. Ibid., p. 53; pl. 69, Figs 1–2.
130. Ibid., pp. 53–4; pl. 70, Figs 1–2.
131. Nos. 58–62 were observed by Bell in the south-west, while Nos. 55–7 were noted in the north-western corner of the building. Ibid., p. 54.
132. Ibid., p. 53.
133. Ibid., pl. 64.
134. Ibid, p. 90.
135. Ibid., p. 90, Fig. 10.
136. Ibid., pp. 92–4.
137. Ibid., p. 94.
138. Jürgen Schmidt, ‘Qaṣr-i Šśrśn, Feuertempel oder Palast?’ Baghdad Mitteilungen 9 (1978), p. 41.
139. Reuther, ‘Sasanian art’, p. 553; Figs 158–9.
140. Observed in Bell's photographs, see especially Bell, Palace and Mosque, pls. 67, 71–2.
141. Reuther, ‘Sasanian art’, p. 553.
142. Ibid., pp. 552–4.
&nbs
p; 143. Schmidt, ‘Feuertempel’, pp. 43–4.
144. Ibid., pp. 45–7.
145. Bier, Sarvistan, p. 71.
146. Ibid.
147. At Chehar Qapu, this is Court E and surrounding Rooms 18–21. At Ukhaidir, this is the mosque in the north-western corner of the palace.
148. Bier, Sarvistan, p. 71.
149. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 92–4.
150. Schmidt, ‘Feuertempel’, p. 43.
151. Moradi, personal communication.
152. Moradi, personal communication.
153. Rüdiger Schmitt, ‘Hatra’, Encyclopedia Iranica XII/1 (2003), pp. 58–61; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hatra (accessed 29 July 2015).
154. L. Michael White, ‘Hatra’, in E.M. Meyers (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (New York, 1997), p. 484.
155. Ibid., pp. 484–5.
156. Joachim Marzahn, ‘1907–1911: Hatra. Feldarchäologie im Schnelldurchlauf’, in G. Wilhelm (ed.), Zwischen Tigris und Nil (Mainz am Rhein, 1998), pp. 68–73.
157. Fu'ad Safar and M.A. Mustafa, Hatra: The City of the Sun God [Arabic title Al-Ḥaḍr, Madi?nat al-shams] (Baghdad, 1974). Hatra's listing as a World Heritage Site is available at http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/277 (accessed 22 June 2015).
158. GB diary, 27 January 1909, Gertrude Bell Archive.
159. Andrae's investigations at Hatra would result in a two-volume report on its architecture: Walter Andrae, Hatra nach Aufnahmen von Mitgliedern der Assur Expedition der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1908 and 1912).
160. GB diary, 24 April 1909, Gertrude Bell Archive.
161. Ibid.; GB letter to her family, 26 April 1909, Gertrude Bell Archive.
162. The whereabouts of the letter is not known, but that it existed is indicated by Andrae's reply to her in a letter dated 20 June 1910. Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University, Miscellaneous, Item 13.
163. Ibid.
164. Ibid.
165. GB letter to her mother, 14 April 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive.
166. Ibid.
167. Ibid.
168. Ibid.
169. Michael Sommer, Hatra. Geschichte und Kultur einer Karawanenstadt im römisch-parthischen Mesopotamien (Mainz am Rhein, 2003), p. 8.
170. For a detailed assessment of each of the Hatra pieces destroyed in the Mosul Museum, see Christopher Jones, ‘Assessing the damage at the Mosul Museum, Part 1: The Assyrian artifacts’ (27 February 2015). Available at https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/assessing-the-damage-at-the-mosul-museum-part-1-the-assyrian-artifacts/ (accessed 30 July 2015).
171. For information on the recent destruction of Hatra inflicted by IS, see Michael D. Danti, C. Ali, T. Paulette, A. Cuneo, K. Franklin, L-A Barnes Gordon and D. Elitzer, ‘ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives (CHI): Planning for safeguarding heritage sites in Syria and Iraq, weekly report 35 – April 6, 2015’, available at www.asor-syrianheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ASOR_CHI_Weekly_Report_35r.pdf (accessed 30 July 2015), and Christopher Jones, ‘Assessing the damage at Hatra’ (7 April 2015), available at http://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/assessing-the-damage-at-hatra/ (accessed 30 July 2015).
172. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 70–3.
173. Ibid., pp. 66–8.
174. GB letter to her father, 10 November 1922, Gertrude Bell Archive.
175. Ibid.
176. Bell, Palace and Mosque, Chapter V, ‘The Façade’, pp. 122–44, and Chapter VI, ‘The Mosque’, pp. 145–60.
177. Ibid., Chapter IV, pp. 55–121.
178. See also the discussion of Strzygowski's scholarship and methodology in Chapter 2, above.
179. Ernst Herzfeld, ‘Die Genesis der islamischen Kunst und das Mschatta-Problem’, Der Islam 1 (1910), pp. 27–63, 104–44; for Herzfeld's date of Mshatta, see p. 143 in this work. See also Thomas Leisten, ‘Concerning the development of the Hira-style revisited’, in Ann C. Gunther and Stefan R. Hauser (eds), Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies, 1900–1950 (Leiden, 2004), p. 375.
180. Jonathan Bloom, ‘Introduction’, in Jonathan Bloom (ed.) Early Islamic Art and Architecture (Aldershot, 2002), p. xvi.
181. Leisten, ‘Development of the Hira-style’, p. 375.
182. Suzanne Marchand, ‘The rhetoric of artifacts and the decline of classical humanism: The case of Josef Strzygowski’, History and Theory 33 (1994), p. 125.
183. Lisa Cooper, ‘Archaeology and acrimony: Gertrude Bell, Ernst Herzfeld and the study of pre-modern Mesopotamia’, Iraq 75 (2013), pp. 143–69.
184. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 60–2.
185. Ibid., and Fig. 5 Building G. This may also be seen in F. von Luschan, D. Humann and R. Koldewey, Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1898), p. 184, Fig. 83.
186. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 62–3, Figs 6–8.
187. Ibid., p. 63.
188. GB diary, 5 April 1911, Gertrude Bell Archive: ‘At lunch we discussed for long the origin of the liwan [iwan]. They have got a liwan here, probably later, on top of temple wall, looking east. The liwan is the gate, originally where the king transacted all business. It is the khilani Look up Singirli. Achaemenid palaces not found in old Assyria, the room is always closed. Introduced avowedly on Hittite models, but so far not found at Boghaz Keui except of course in gate. Reappears in Sasanian times, either singly or with a closed room behind, and so passes to Arab.’
189. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 62, footnote 4. This was published in F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs (Berlin, 1910), p. 186.
190. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 65–6, and Fig. 9. The peristyle is observed, for example, in the small Parthian palace at Nippur. For a more recent discussion of this and other Parthian structures, see especially Malcolm Colledge, Parthian Art (Ithica, NY, 1977); E.J. Keall, ‘The Arts of the Parthians’, in R.W. Ferrier (ed.), The Arts of Persia (New Haven, 1989), pp. 48–59.
191. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 66.
192. Colledge, Parthian Art, p. 63; Keall, ‘Parthians’, p. 249.
193. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 68.
194. Ibid.
195. Ibid., pp. 68–9. From her footnotes, it is evident that Bell was using R. Delbrück's Hellenistiche Bauten in Latium as the authoritative guide for the uses and development of the cut stone vault in the Mediterranean coastal regions and especially Italy; ibid., pp. 68–9, notes 6 and 7 on p. 68 and notes 1 and 2 on p. 69; see also White, ‘Hatra’, p. 484.
196. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 68–9; E.J. Keall, ‘Some thoughts on the early Eyvan’, in Dickran K. Kouymijian (ed.), Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut, 1974), p. 124; Edward J. Keall, ‘Architecture ii. Parthian Period’, Encyclopedia Iranica II/3 (1986), pp. 327–9; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/architecture-ii (accessed 29 July 2015).
197. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 66 and Fig. 10.
198. Ibid., pp. 75–6, pl. 73, Fig. 2; Dietrich Huff, ‘Fśrūzābad’, Encyclopedia Iranica IX/6 (1999) pp. 633–6; an updated version is available online at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/firuzabad (accessed 29 July 2015). Lionel Bier, ‘Sasanian Palaces in Perspective’, Archaeology 35 (1982), p. 33.
199. Bell, Palace and Mosque, p. 75.
200. Ibid., p. 74, note 1 for the presumed date of Sarvistan, and p. 78.
201. Ibid., p. 74, note 1 for date of Qasr-i-Shirin, and p. 80.
202. Ibid., pp. 82–4.
203. Ibid., p. 56; C. Edmund Bosworth, ‘Lakhmids’, Encyclopaedia Iranica (online edition, 2012), available at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/lakhmids (accessed 29 July 2015).
204. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 55–6.
205. Bell, citing the Islamic historian Mas'udi, who was describing the magnificent hira at the Lakhmid capital itself, ‘al-Hirah; ibid., pp. 58–9, 86.
206. Ernst Herzfeld, Erster vorläufiger Bericht übe
r die Ausgrabungen von Samarra (Berlin, 1912), p. 40. Herzfeld's discussion of Balkuwara and its link to a hira is also mentioned in a letter he wrote to Bell, 17 September 1911 (from Ctesiphon), Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University, Miscellaneous, 13. Bell, Palace and Mosque, pp. 58–9, 86–7; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 405; Leisten, ‘Development of the Hira-style’, pp. 377–8.
207. Keall, ‘Some thoughts’, pp. 124–9.
208. Ibid., and Figs 2, 4–5.
209. Ibid., p. 124, Fig. 1; Malcolm Colledge, Parthian Art (Ithaca, NY, 1977), p. 63 and Fig. 26.
210. Oleg Grabar, ‘Ayvān’, Encyclopedia Iranica III/2 (1987), pp. 153–5; an updated version is available online at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ayvan-palace (accessed 29 July 2015).
211. Oskar Reuther, ‘Parthian architecture: A history’, in Arthur E. Pope (ed.), A Survey of Persian Art. Vol. 1: Pre-Achaemenid, Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods (London, 1938), p. 429; Keall, ‘Architecture ii. Parthian Period’.
212. F. Oelmann, ‘Hilani und Liwanhaus’, Bonner Jahrbücher 127 (1922), pp. 189–236.
213. Reuther, ‘Parthian architecture’, p. 429.
214. Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 395. Elsewhere in his book, Hillenbrand compares a formal chamber, often on an upper storey, equipped with a window at which royal persons could make official appearances, to the earlier bit hilani; ibid., pp. 385, 402. This interpretation of the Hittite bit hilani has its adherents, particularly among those who see in it an equation with the word ḥln, known from Biblical and Canaanite texts as a type of multi-storeyed palatial building equipped with a royal ‘window of appearances’. See Irene Winter, ‘Art as evidence for interaction: Relations between the Neo-Assyrian Empire and North Syria as seen from the monuments’, in H-J. Nissen and J. Renger (eds), Mesopotamia und seine Nachbarn (Berlin, 1982), p. 363. In the context of much-later Ukhaidir, such a form could indeed have provided the inspiration for the three-storeyed gatehouse section of the northern section of palace and the high windows that look down upon the interior ‘Court of Honour’. If this is the interpretation of the bit hilani to which Hillenbrand is alluding, it refers to a somewhat different definition of the complex from that originally noted by Koldewey and must be treated as a separate example of a possible cultural borrowing from architectural traditions of the earlier ancient Near East.
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