Building complex, Qusayr Amra

Doubtless part of a more extensive property, this small group of private buildings is related to what were once termed the "desert castles", those Umayyad constructions in Greater Syria which constitute the rare remains of the civil architecture of the time. Their situation outside the big urban centres reflects the ongoing development of rural agricultural areas that began in the Byzantine period. The irrigation systems discovered in these complexes provided water for the living quarters, which were often equipped with bath houses. At Qusayr Amra terracotta pipes fed the baths from a pumping system situated a few metres outside the entrance, whose water wheel was probably driven by an animal. In the same region the Hammam al Sarakh, a small, solidly made building, was also used for private purposes. 

An audience chamber with three barrel-vaulted naves and a basilican plan reminiscent of Byzantine architecture was the largest single space. There was an alcove in the central nave, together with two other rooms – probably for private audiences – on the south side. This elaborate space served as a robing room (apodyterium). As part of a design closely based on the ancient Roman bath house model, it preceded the barrel-vaulted cold room (frigidarium), the groined-vault warm room (tepidarium) with its raised floor to facilitate air circulation, and the hot room (caldarium) with its dome on pendentives. At the eastern end were the water-heating rooms and a cistern.

The ornamentation, too, draws heavily on ancient Roman models. The floors of the little apses in the audience chamber were covered with mosaics, of which only a few traces remain. The walls – lined with marble to a height of 80 cm in the Byzantine fashion – have their upper parts covered with richly figurative frescoes embracing a wide range of subjects: stage entertainments suggestive of the Roman festivals of Venus and Bacchus, hunting scenes showing the influence of Sassanid Iran, bath house scenes, and individual figures: craftsmen at work, allegories, female dancers, animals and faces. The overall spirit is very much that of a setting for the pastimes of royalty.

However, the famous "Portrait of the Six Kings" fresco in the audience chamber moves into another decorative register: that of a Muslim sovereign's assertion of power over his rivals. This regal self-lionising is also to be found in the alcove facing the entrance, in the (much more conventional) scene of an enthroned prince flanked by two dignitaries.

The dome of the hot room bears the first known representation of constellations and signs of the zodiac in the Arab world.

The figurative style owes a considerable debt to other Mediterranean schools. The plump, naked women with their bodies outlined in brown suggest a Coptic influence,[1] while their elaborate coiffures are reminiscent of paintings from Palmyra.[2] The small, round faces with big eyes remind us of Parthian, Sassanid[3] and Coptic art.

[2] Bust of Ummayat, daughter of Yarhal, second half 2nd century AD, Musée du Louvre, inv. AO 2196.

[3] Mosaic of a woman playing a harp, c. 260 AD, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. AO 26169.