Mshatta Palace

In all likelihood built during the reign of the caliph Al-Walid II, the artist-prince who is also believed to have commissioned Khirbat al-Mafjar, Mshatta Palace is one of the last buildings belonging to the "desert castles" group. Similar to them in its outer wall with twenty-five semicircular buttresses, its single entrance, its use of rubblestone faced with ashlar, and its square shape, it is nonetheless different in many respects.

While it still uses the 35-metre Roman module common to all the Ummayad palaces, it multiplies it not by two but by four. The only other site where these colossal dimensions are found is Qasr al-Tuba in Jordan, a building similar in a number of respects, such as the inclusion of latrines in some of the towers. This is not Mshatta's sole distinctive feature, however: far from being based around a central courtyard, its plan is divided into three parts along a north-south line. The two lateral sections were never built; it is presumed that they were intended as accommodation for the military, servants and courtiers, while the middle part was for the owner and his family.

As in the palace in Amman, the central strip is divided into three. An entrance complex comprising, in addition to the majestic entry itself, rooms for everyday practical matters and a mosque identifiable by its mihrab, leads to a large courtyard. At the far end a triple arcade suggesting Roman triumphal arches leads to a basilica-shaped room terminating in a triconch. Doubtless the throne room, this space is based on a classical model most likely from around the 3rd century. It is framed by four bayt – accommodation units – of the kind found in many civilian Ummayad buildings and such later examples as the palace at Ukhaidir. Using the Syrian plan of a central courtyard with four rooms opening on to it, these units, with their vaults and bricks, are reminiscent of Sassanid Iran and were perhaps destined for the caliph's four wives.  

Mshatta is also known for its rich decoration, particularly on the south facade, of which a large part is now in the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin: a strip of elaborately sculpted mouldings divided by a zigzag perhaps deriving, says Kühnel, from Arabic popular art. The broken line creates triangular spaces filled with rosettes and vegetal motifs, often clusters of vine leaves. They are punctuated by figures of animals either real (big cats, birds), fanciful (griffins, senmurvs, centaurs) or, on the qibli wall of the mosque, aniconic. A number of sculptures in the round of lions and female figures recall the stucco ornaments at Khirbat al-Mafjar in Palestine.

As indicated in the account by Abassid historian Yakubi (d. 892) of the building of the palace of Baghdad, Mshatta seems to have been built using a system of forced labour overseen by a small number of craftsmen. Among the masons' marks identified, a number of cross-shaped ones signal that Christians were involved, while summary drawings using the imagery of the Sassanid sovereigns doubtless point to the presence of Iranians. Thus Mshatta seems to have been a junction for a diversity of cultures which left their marks on the building in the form of patterns and architectural approaches.