[1] It is dated in the year 545 A.H., i. e. A.D. 1150.

[2] The Persian influence had probably filtered through Egypt, for similar leaf motives are to be found in Cairo, for example in a fine bit of woodwork in the Museum: Herz Bey, Catalogue Raisonné, fig. 24. The prototype must be looked for in the plaster decorations of Ibn Ṭûlûn.

[3] M. Saladin believes this entrelac to be of Damascene origin. Manuel d’Art Musulman, i. p. 115.

[4] Ed. Reinaud, p. 267. He wrote in A.D. 1321.

[5] Anabasis, Bk. I. ch. iv, 10.

[6] Zur antiken Topographie der Palmyrene, p. 31.

[7] Mr. Hogarth also noticed that Bâb is marked out of its true place: Annual of the British School at Athens, XIV. p. 185.

[8] Plutarch: In Crass.

[9] Sachau saw it: Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien, p. 148.

[10] Ed. de Goeje, p. 162. He wrote in A.D. 864.

[11] Manbij is the name used in literary Arabic, but it is noticeable that in the colloquial the word approaches more nearly to the earliest form, being pronounced Bumbuj.

[12] Eskî Serûj according to Chapot: La frontière de l’Euphrate, p. 306.

[13] Geography, Bk. XVI. ch. i. 27.

[14] Ritter: Erdkunde, Vol. VII. p. 961.

[15] Procopius makes the same observation: De Bell. Per., II. 20.

[16] It is so given in the Antonine Itinerary: Hierapoli—Thilaticomum—Bathnas—Edissa.

[17] Ammianus Marcellinus, Bk. XXIII. ch. ii. 7.

[18] Chapot, op. cit. p. 281.

[19] Chapot believes that the passage was effected at a point north of Cæciliana, which would fit in with Tell Aḥmar: op. cit. p. 254, note 5.

[20] Mr. Hogarth suggests that the Abbess Ætheria crossed at Tell Aḥmar on her way to Edessa: loc. cit. p. 183.

[21] Birejik and the Tell Aḥmar passage (whatever may have been its ancient name) and Thapsacus do not exhaust the number of recorded routes, for Chosroes, in his first expedition against Justinian, crossed at Obbanes, somewhere about the modern Meskeneh, and on his third expedition he built a bridge of boats near Europus, which is perhaps the modern Jerâblus. (Mr. Hogarth doubts the accepted identification of Jerâblus with Europus: Annals of Arch. and Anthrop., Vol. II. p. 169.) During the Mohammedan period other points are mentioned. Ibn Khurdâdhbeh, writing in the ninth century, makes the road from Aleppo to Babylon cross at Bâlis, the ancient Barbalissos (ed. de Goeje, p. 74), but Iṣṭakhrî, a hundred years later, says that Bâlis, though it was once the Syrian port on the Euphrates, had fallen into decay since the days of Seif ed Dauleh, and was little used by merchants (ed. de Goeje, p. 62). In the twelfth century, and perhaps earlier, its place had been taken by Ḳal’at en Nejm, where Nûr ed Dîn, who died in 1145, built a great fortress, famous during the wars against the Crusaders. The bridge there was called Jisr Manbij (“the bridge of Manbij”), but it cannot have been constructed by Nûr ed Dîn, for Ibn Jubeir, writing about the year 1185 a description of his journey from Ḥarrân (Carrhae) to Manbij, says that he “crossed the river in small boats, lying ready, to a new castle called Ḳal’at en Nejm” (Gibb Memorial edition, p. 248). In Yâḳût’s day (circa 1225) the caravans from Ḥarrân to Syria always crossed here.

[22] Ammianus Marcellinus, Bk. XXIII. ch. ii. 6.

[23] The Buildings of Justinian (Palest. Pilgrims’ Text Society), p. 66.

[24] A few of these may have preserved a certain importance in a later age: Tell el Ghânah, directly to the east of Tell Aḥmar, has been conjectured to be Thilaticomum (possibly incorrectly: Regling, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, 1902, Vol. I. p. 474) and Tell Bada’ah to be Aniana, the first being mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary and the second by Ptolemy.

[25] Mr. Hogarth (at whose request I visited Tell Aḥmar) has published the carved slabs and the stela in the Annals of Archæology and Anthropology, Vol. II. No. 4. He saw them when he was at Tell Aḥmar in 1908.

[26] Jerâblus or Jerâbîs, the names are used indiscriminately. The former is thought by Nöldeke to be an Arabic plural of Jirbâs (mentioned by Yâḳût as opposite Ḳinnesrin, Dictionary, Vol. II. p. 688) and the latter as Arabicized from Europus.

[27] The inscription is given by Pognon: Inscriptions de la Mésopotamie, p. 17. The tomb was visited by Oppenheim, and is mentioned by him in Tell Halaf (1st number, 10th year of Der alte Orient), and in his Griechische und lateinische Inschriften. (Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 1905, p. 7.)

[28] Oppenheim thought it was the end of a sarcophagus, but Pognon’s guide climbed into the upper chamber and found it to be nothing but a block of stone closing the entrance.

[29] For the cyborium tomb, see Heisenburg: Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, Vol. I. ch. xvi.

[30] A photograph of the fourth, the Ziareh of Khoros at Cyrrhus, was published by Chapot in Le Tour du Monde, April 8, 1905, p. 162.

[31] Mylasa: published by the Dilettanti Society; Tripoli: Nouvelles Archives des Missions, Tome XII. fas. 1; Dana: De Vogüé, La Syrie Centrale, plate 78.

[32] Tomb of Absalom, Jerusalem.

[33] Gereme: Rott, Kleinasiatische Denkmäler, p. 171; El Bârah: De Vogüé, op. cit. pl. 75.

[34] M. Cumont’s monuments are of this type and I have seen a fine example at Barâd in N. Syria, also as yet unpublished except for a photograph given by me in The Desert and the Sown, p. 287.

[35] Maden Sheher: published by Sir W. Ramsay and myself in The Thousand and One Churches, p. 230.

[36] The name which has been suggested for the site is Baisampse, a place mentioned by Ptolemy. There are a considerable number of cut stones on the mound near the village.

[37] It was re-copied by Pognon and published by him in Inscrip. de la Mésopotamie, p. 82. The similarity between some of the characters in the two inscriptions is striking.

[38] It appears in the extreme right-hand top corner of his Fig. 22, Inschrif. aus Syrien und Mesopot.

[39] I could not reconcile the topography here with Kiepert’s map. He marks a northern tower, which he calls Nesheib (doubtless my Neshabah) and places there the Mazâr of Sultan ’Abdullah. He has a second tower further to the south-east, and finally the castle itself. The second tower is non-existent, or else it represents the minaret in the castle. The only mazâr which I saw or heard mentioned is that of Sultan Selîm, a small modern building between Neshabah and the castle.

[40] It resembles the tower tombs at Irzî, which will be described later.

[41] This is Abu’l Fidâ’s account, ed. Reinaud, p. 277. He wrote in A.D. 1321. Yâḳût, a century earlier, gives the same story.

[42] Quoted by Ritter, Erdkunde, Vol. X. p. 241.

[43] Ainsworth believed this to be the site of Benjamin of Tudela’s Jewish settlement (Euphrates Expedition, Vol. I. p. 269), and he speaks of a monastic ruin here.

[44] It is so described in his map.

[45] Sachau thought that Ḥaraglah was of Hellenistic origin (Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien, p. 245); Sarre believes that it may be Parthian, and the circular outer fortification gives colour to the suggestion (Zeitschr. der Gesell. für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1909, No. 7).

[46] Sachau (op. cit. p. 243) gives the inscription, and my copy tallied with his.

[47] Just as the first mosque in Cairo, that of ’Amr, was built entirely on columns taken from earlier buildings, Muḳaddasî describes one of the Raḳḳah mosques as [Arabic script]; it would be satisfactory to imagine that he referred to the columned arcades of the mosque round the square minaret, but the phrase cannot reasonably be twisted into that or any other meaning. The square minaret is the ancient Syrian tower type; Thiersch has recently published an exhaustive study of it in his Pharos.

[48] I saw traces of two such arcades on the E., N. and W. sides of the court, and, judging from the vestiges that remain, the arcades must have been three deep to the south. The bricks of the vanished arcades have been dug out and carried away for building purposes. The outer walls are so much ruined that I could not determine the position of the gates with certainty.

[49] Professor van Berchem has published the inscription in his Arabische Inschriften, a chapter appended to the work of Professor Sarre and Dr. Herzfeld entitled Reise in Euphrat-und Tigris-Gebiet. But the publication has appeared too late for me to do more than refer to it.

[50] M. Viollet has published a short description of these ruins (Publications de l’Académie des Inscrip. et Belles-Lettres, 1909, Vol. XII. part 2). He believes the palace to have been erected by Hârûn er Rashîd.

[51] I expect that this is Sachau’s Bergland Tulaba—see Kiepert’s map.

[52] Bk. XXIII. ch. iii. 8.

[53] It was visited and planned by Sarre and Herzfeld in 1907; Sarre, Reise in Mesopotamien, in the Zeitschrift der Gesch. für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1909, No. 7, p. 429. Sarre pronounces the greater part of the ruins to date from the time of Justinian.

[54] Ibn Ḥauḳal is, I think, the first to speak of it. Idrîsî says that it had busy markets and that much traffic went through it. They wrote respectively in the tenth and twelfth centuries.

[55] Zur antiken Topographie der Palmyrene, p. 39.

[56] The reference is not, however, certain: Moritz, op. cit. p. 35.

[57] Sachau travelled up the left bank of the Khâbûr, and should therefore have crossed the course of the canal, but he makes no mention of it.

[58] I should conjecture that on the Euphrates as on the Tigris the disappearance of the settled population dates from the terrible disaster of the Mongol invasion.

[59] I looked carefully for any trace of a big canal opposite Ṣâliḥîyeh and saw none.

[60] Anabasis, Bk. I. ch. 5, 9.

[61] With the doubtful contribution made by Ammianus Marcellinus to the question, I have dealt in the Appendix to this chapter.

[62] Amm. Mar., Bk. XXIV. ch. i. 6.

[63] Ed. de Goeje, p. 233.

[64] Ed. Reinaud, p. 286.

[65] Quoted by Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 717.

[66] De Beylié: Prome et Samarra, p. 68. See, too, Viollet’s memoir presented to the Acad. des Inscrip. et B.-Lettres, quoted above. He, too, was shown the fragment of Assyrian relief and gives an illustration of it, for which reason I do not trouble to publish my photograph.

[67] Pognon: Inscriptions mandaïtes des coupes de Khouabir.

[68] Chesney notices that the ruins of the old town lie on the left bank below the present ’Ânah. Quoted by Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 724.

[69] It is, I suppose, Chesney’s Sarifah, which has been conjectured to be the Kolosina of Ptolemy: Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 730.

[70] These ruins give additional weight to Ritter’s suggestion that Ḥadîthah was the Parthian station of Olabus: Vol. XI. p. 731. The Arab town of Ḥadîthah is first mentioned by Ibn Khurdâdhbeh, ed. de Goeje, p. 74.

[71] Julian crossed the Euphrates at Parux Malkha, which cannot be far from Baghdâdî, and captured the castle of Diacira. This castle must have stood at the southern end of the great bend made by the Euphrates below Baghdâdî. Chesney saw the ruins of a fortress there. It is perhaps Ptolemy’s Idicara and the Izannesopolis of Isidorus: Ritter, Vol. XI. p. 737.

[72] Herodotus mentions the bitumen wells and calls the town Is. It has been identified with the Ihi of the Babylonian inscriptions, the Ahava of Ezra, and with the Ist from which a tribute of bitumen was brought to Thothmes III, according to an inscription at Karnak.

[73] Yâḳût mentions Kebeisah as the oasis four miles from Hît upon the desert road. There are, he says, a number of villages there, the inhabitants of which live in the extreme of poverty and misery, by reason of the aridity of the surrounding waste.

[74] The central division wall in the long south chamber is a later addition.

[75] Described by Choisy: L’Art de bâtir chez les Byzantins, p. 31.

[76] For example Ḳasṭal (Brünnow and Domaszewski: Provincia Arabia, Vol. II. pl. xliv.); Ḳaṣr el Abyaḍ (de Vogüé: La Syrie Centrale, Vol. I. p. 69); Deir el Kahf, founded in A.D. 306 (Butler: Ancient Architecture in Syria, Section A, Part II. p. 146); Ḳuṣeir el Ḥallâbât, dated A.D. 213 (ditto, p. 72); barracks at Anderîn, dated A.D. 558 (ditto, Section B, Part II. pl. viii.).

[77] Ṭuba with a triple court (Musil: Ḳuṣeir ’Amra, Vol. I. p. 13); Kharânî (ditto, p. 97); Khân ez Zebîb (Provincia Arabia, Vol. II. p. 78).

[78] The whole area of ruins is known as Kherâb = ruin.

[79] It is not necessarily so late, for the Baghdâd Gate at Raḳḳah has the same arch, and it is certainly earlier.

[80] See Rothstein: Die Dynastie der Lakhmiden in al Ḥîra, p. 25. He gives reasons for believing that the art of writing Arabic was first practised at Ḥîrah. The population was largely Christian (the ’Ibâd of the Arab historians); Ḥîrah was the seat of a bishopric, and frequent allusion is made to churches and monasteries in and near the town.

[81] Meissner: “Ḥîra und Khawarnaḳ”, Sendschriften der D. Orient Gesell., No. 2.

[82] I have already published the plan in the Hellenic Journal for 1910, Part I., p. 69, in an article on the vaulting system of the palace. Ukheiḍir was visited in the year 1907 by M. Massignon, though this fact was unknown to me until I returned to England in July 1909. He has published an account of it, together with a sketch plan made under circumstances of great difficulty, in the Bulletin de l’Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres of March 1909, in the Gazette des Beaux Arts of April 1909, and in the Mémoires de l’Institut français du Caire, vol. xxviii. (The last named has not yet appeared, but he has been so kind as to let me see an advance copy.) Neither to M. Massignon nor to me belongs the honour of discovery; an unknown Englishman had visited the palace in the eighteenth century, and his brief report is given by Niebuhr (Reisebeschreibung, vol. ii., p. 225, note): “Ich habe in dem Tagebuch eines Engländers, der von Haleb nach Basra gereist war, gefunden, dass er 44 Stunden Südfost nach Osten von Hit, eine ganz verlassene Stadt in der Wüste angetroffen habe, wovon die Mauer 50 Fuss hoch und 40 Fuss dick war. Jede der vier Seiten hatte 700 Fuss, und in der Mauer waren Thürme. In dieser Stadt oder grossem Castell, findet man noch ein kleines Castell. Von eben dieser verlassenen Stadt hörte ich nachher, dass sie von den Arabern El Khader genannt werde, und nur 10 bis 12 Stunden von Meshed Ali entfernt sei.” I cannot feel any doubt that the “forsaken town” referred to in the diary, the existence of which was confirmed by the Arabs, who spoke of it to Niebuhr under the name of Khader, is our Ukheiḍir. So far as I have been able to discover, the nameless Englishman was the first modern traveller to visit the site.

[83] I wish to call special attention to the presence of this construction at Ctesiphon because Dr. Herzfeld has stated erroneously that it does not exist in Sassanian buildings. (Der Islâm, vol. i. part ii. p. 111.)

[84] The name Ukeidir can have no connection with the name Ukheiḍir. The two words are differently spelt in Arabic.

[85] The history of Mesopotamian rivers is exceedingly complicated owing to the frequency with which they change their beds. Mr. Le Strange (Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, p. 70 et seq.) believes that the Nahr Hindîyeh, which is probably identical with the ’Alḳâmî of Ḳudâmah and Mas’ûdî, was considered in the tenth century to be the main stream of the Euphrates, though even at that time it was not so broad as the Ḥilleh branch. Writing in 1905 Mr. Le Strange speaks of the Ḥilleh branch as being undoubtedly the main stream in modern times, but in 1909 nearly all the water, as I shall describe, flowed down the Kûfah branch (the Hindîyeh canal) and the Ḥilleh branch lay dry all the winter. This, however, will, it is to be hoped, be rectified by the new irrigation schemes on which Sir William Willcocks is at present engaged.

[86] It is known as the ’Amalîyeh Mukallifeh.

[87] This applies, I believe, only to lands leased from the State, arḍîyeh amîrîyeh.

[88] The foundations were, however, traced by Dieulafoy, who has indicated them in his plan: L’Art ancien de la Perse, Vol. V. When he first visited Ctesiphon, the east wall of both wings and all the vault of the hall were perfect.

[89] It was founded by Anushirwân the Just after he had taken Antioch of Syria in 540. He transported the inhabitants of Antioch to the Tigris and settled them opposite Seleucia in a new city which is said to have been built on the plan of Antioch. Le Strange: Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, p. 33.

[90] Sûrah, XIV. vs. 46. The Arabs called the double town Medâin, the cities, but Ṭabarî uses the name for the eastern city and describes the western as Bahurasîr. I have abridged Ṭabarî’s account of the siege from the text of de Goeje’s edition, Vol. V., Prima Series, under the years 15 and 16 A.H.

[91] The White Palace is not represented by the existing ruin on the east bank, which was known to the Arabs as Aywân Kisrâ, the hall of Chosroes. The White Palace was also on the left bank, but about a mile higher up. It had disappeared by the beginning of the tenth century. Le Strange, op. cit., p. 34.

[92] Bricks stamped with Nebuchadnezzar’s name have been found along the quays, and there was a flourishing Persian Baghdâd on the west bank of the Tigris towards the end of the Sassanian period. The chief authority for the history of Baghdâd is Mr. Le Strange’s admirable book, Baghdâd during the Abbâsid Caliphate, which has made it possible to understand the very complicated topography of the town.

[93] It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the Shî’ahs regard ’Alî ibn abî Tâlib, who lies buried at Nejef, as the only lawful khalif. He and his eleven immediate heirs are known as the Twelve Imâms, the twelfth being Muḥammad III al Mahdî, who is credited with having been concealed in a cave at Sâmarrâ whence he will emerge at the end of days and re-establish the true faith.

[94] The whole argument is given by Le Strange, Baghdâd, p. 160 et seq., and pp. 351-2.

[95] From its relation to similar buildings (for instance at Ḥadîthah on the Euphrates and at Dûr on the Tigris) in places which probably flourished until the time of the Mongol invasion, i.e. towards the end of the thirteenth century, I should, however, place the tomb of Sitt Zobeideh earlier than 1200.

[96] See de Beylié: Prome et Samara, p. 34.

[97] Mr. Le Strange gives good reasons for believing that Mustanṣir did not found the mosque to which this minaret belongs, but that it is no other than the Jâmi’ el Ḳaṣr, built by the Khalif el Muktafî (A.D. 902) as a Friday Mosque adjoining the palace of his father Mu’taḍid. The palace was known as the Ḳaṣr et Tâj, the Palace of the Crown: Baghdâd, p. 269.

[98] These are exactly copied in the domes over the carrefours in the bazaars, which are certainly much later in date.

[99] I have been able to give an illustration of this system from Khân Khernîna; the chambers at Baghdâd were so dark that photography was almost impossible.

[100] Some admirable photographs of it are given by De Beylié, op. cit., p. 33 et seq.

[101] A good photograph has been given by Viollet: Le Palais de Al-Moutasim, Mémoires présentés à l’Acad. des Inscrip. et Belles-Lettres, Vol. XII. Part II. Viollet believes it to have come from a church. See too Herzfeld: “Die Genesis der islamischen Kunst,” in Der Islâm, Vol. I. Part I.

[102] De Beylié, op. cit., p. 30. He gives several illustrations.

[103] Kiepert calls it Khân eṭ Ṭarniyeh.

[104] Sitace cannot be placed with certainty. Ritter (Vol. X. p. 21) conjectures that the bridge must have lain about four hours above Baghdâd. After the battle of Cunaxa, a field of which the site is not determined, the Greeks pursued the Persians to a village on a mound where they passed the night. Here they learnt that Cyrus was dead. Next day they joined Ariæus and marched in one day to some unnamed Babylonian villages. They then marched through fertile country for a space of time not specified, probably a day, to well-supplied villages, where they stayed twenty-three days. In three days from these villages they reached the Median Wall, under the guidance of Tissaphernes, who must have led them by a tortuous course across Mesopotamia, and in two days more they came to Sitace, which was a populous city lying on an island formed by the Tigris and a canal. Sitace is perhaps Pliny’s Sittace (Bk. VI. ch. xxxi.), though his confused statement would seem to place it on the left bank of the Tigris. Ptolemy mentions a place called Scaphe, which Müller is inclined to connect with the Sablis of the Tab. Peut., but it appears to have been some distance to the east of the Tigris (Ptolemy, ed. Müller, p. 1006). The placing of Sitace depends upon the position of Opis, which is not satisfactorily determined.

[105] There was an earlier Dujeil which started from the Euphrates a little below Hît, crossed Mesopotamia and joined the Tigris above Baghdâd, but by the tenth century its eastern end had silted up. The later Dujeil was a loop canal from the Tigris; it left the river opposite Ḳâdisîyah and rejoined it at ’Ukbarâ. These complicated questions may easily be understood by referring to the first map in Mr. Le Strange’s Baghdâd.

[106] The term is the equivalent of the northern Chiflik. The latter is a Turkish word signifying merely farm, but it designates especially a farm belonging to the Sultan.

[107] ’Ukbarâ was a well-known place in the days of the Khalifate. Muḳaddasî (ed. de Goeje, p. 122.) It lay on the east bank of the Tigris, i.e. on the east bank of the old channel. Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, p. 50.

[108] Kiepert marks Wâneh to the south of ’Ukbarâ, whereas I should place it a little to the north. We rode to Sumeikhah in about an hour from the Imâm Muḥammad ’Alî, which would have been impossible from Kiepert’s Wâneh, or for that matter from his ’Ukbarâ. I am relying, however, for the names upon the not too certain testimony of Ḳâsim. Both ’Ukbarâ and Wâneh are mentioned by Muḳaddasî, but he gives no indication of their relative position. He provides us with no more information about Wâneh than its name (ed. de Goeje, pp. 54 and 115), which he spells Aiwanâ. The customary mediæval spelling is Awânâ, and other authorities place the town on the west bank of the old Tigris bed, while ’Ukbarâ lay opposite to it on the east bank (Streck: Die alte Landschaft Babylonien, p. 227). This would correspond fairly well with my itinerary. I rode from ’Ukbarâ in a north-westerly direction and reached Wâneh in forty-five minutes.

[109] Journal of the Geog. Soc., Vol. XI. p. 124.

[110] Anabasis, Bk. II. ch. iv. 25.

[111] Bk. I. 189.

[112] Bk. XVI. ch. i. 9.

[113] Bk. VI. ch. xxxi. Though I believe that the ruins on the east bank seen by Ross and the extensive ruin field on what is now the west bank of the Tigris must represent Opis, the locating of the city is complicated by the fact that Xenophon took four days to reach Opis from Sitace. Now if Sitace is anywhere near Baghdâd it is strange that the Greeks should have marched four days and got no further than a town situated immediately to the north of the ’Aḍêm. The Physcus, which Xenophon crossed by a bridge of boats before coming to Opis, may be the ’Aḍêm, but some have supposed it to be the great Ḳâṭûl-Nahrawân, a loop canal on the east bank of the Tigris. I do not know, however, that there is any record of a canal here before the Sassanian period (Le Strange: Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, p. 57). Chesney tried to solve the difficulty of Xenophon’s march by placing Opis higher up the river at Ḳadsîyeh, but that would leave the great ruin field lower down unidentified, and would, besides, leave too long a time for the march from Opis to the Great Zâb, which occupied the Greeks eleven days. For the site of the Babylonian Opis, see King: Sumer and Akkad, p. 11.