‘Anjar

At the foot of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, near the ancient site of Majdal ‘Anjar and the source of the ‘Ayn al-Jarr, for which it is named, is the site of ‘Anjar which is situated on marshy land, on the road between Damascus and the port of Beirut. Byzantine and Syriac sources attribute its foundation to either Caliph Al-Walid (r. 705-715), or his son, Al-‘Abbas, who played a major role in its construction. To date, archaeologists have found no evidence of prior occupation. Like many other settlements of this era, ‘Anjar appears to have been created ex nihilo and then abandoned at the end of the Umayyad Dynasty, before it was even completed. It is highly likely that a plan to drain the land was developed but never carried out. Smaller scale occupation during the Medieval era is evidenced by finds of Mamluk pottery

Aside from Byzantine prisoners of war, brought by Al-‘Abbas, Nestorian Christian workers from Northern Iraq appear to have participated in the construction. They left graffiti in Syriac[1] in the quarries that no doubt provided the stones for the site, at Kamid al-Lawz[2]. Five of these inscriptions are dated Hegira 96/714-715. The presence of Coptic workers is evidenced for the same year by a papyrus written in Greek found at Aphrodito, in Upper Egypt. On the wall surrounding ‘Anjar, graffiti in Arabic – pious formulas, proper names – are attributable by the script to the Umayyad period. One of them mentions 741, proving that the wall and the general layout of the city were already in place at that time.

Rectangular in shape, ‘Anjar is surrounded by a wall broken up by semi-circular towers. Two wide avenues, (the cardo and the decumanus) divide the city into four quarters. Lined with arcades sheltering stalls, these avenues link four doorways facing the four points of the compass, and intersect at right angles at the centre of the site, marked with a monumental tetrapylon. This classic, very regular layout is reminiscent of the layout of Roman military camps, adapted to civil functions, namely commerce. In the south-east quarter is a mosque and an adjacent palace, as well as two other smaller palaces and baths. Residential areas for the common people, much like the Roman insulae, are located in the south-west quarter, while in the other two quarters are the foundations of a palace that was never built, an array of cells and small clusters of living areas. Empty spaces were to contain gardens.

The courtyard of the mosque is surrounded by a portico with two bays to the east and west, and one to the north. On the south side, the prayer hall has two naves parallel to the qibli wall, like the Great Mosque of Damascus, but no bay is raised. Walls mark the location of a maqsura in front of the mihrab. A small door next to the mihrab led to the great palace adjoining the mosque, of which a high fragment of the façade still stands. This presents a symmetrical layout around a central courtyard; three-part rooms with apses stand on the north and south sides, while bayts similar to those of other Umayyad palaces[3] are positioned along the east and west sides. The structure alternates stone beds and brick beds, attesting to a Byzantine influence. Like at Qusayr ‘Amra, the baths of ‘Anjar had a large three-part receiving hall, as well as cold, lukewarm and hot rooms. The walls of the baths were covered with marble panelling with engraved decorations, while the floors were paved with mosaics with geometric patterns similar to those at Qastal.

On the site, the columns, bases and capitals came, for the most part, from Antique and Christian monuments, but some capitols are Umayyad, copied from the Antique model. While the sculpted decorations of the mosque are basically inspired by vegetation, those of the palace are richer. They contain figurative and botanical motifs: lions, eagles, figures riding horses and dromedaries, acanthus leaves, etc. However, the pomegranate, symbol of abundance associated since Antiquity with the tree of life, and the vine, symbol of resurrection, dominate the ornamentation of the palace and the mosque. These two elements, inherited from Classic art, were used profusely in Umayyad art[4].