Ctesiphon and the Palace of Khosroes Author(s): E. Heawood Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Feb., 1919), pp. 105-108 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1779540 Accessed: 11-06-2016 05:38 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 128.252.67.66 on Sat, 11 Jun 2016 05:38:55 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CTESIPHON AND THE PALACE OF KHOSROES 105 then to hand, we felt convinced that we would be unlikely to find any inscriptions of real interest or of scientific value. This much is certain, that Al#Bilad was built when the Dhofar sea-coasts supported a larger and more flourishing population of Marwari tribes than may be found in these modern times. We asked them what use they made of the coconut. They roof their huts with the palm-leaves, use the shells for spoons and basins, and weave a little rope for their own use; but they were not alive to the possibilities of trade in copra and coir. Their coconut palms do not seem to be irrigated to any extent. The young tree is watered about once a week, but it seems that its tap-root strikes to the water, which is sufficiently plentiful at less than 7-feet depth. In Dhofar a tree yields about six years after planting. The coconut grove dfringes the shore to a depth of about half a mile. Further inland is devoted to jowari, but very little of the ground is under cultivation, for the needs of the inhabitants are very modest. With cordial farewells to our friends of Dhofar, we re-embarked in the surf-boat; but working the boat out again was a difficult matter. We were carried aboard when the boat was just afloat and bumping slightly. It saves confusion if the passenger knows the best method of being carried aboard for embarkation. A lusty Arab squatted down. We placed one leg over each of his shoulders and steadied ourselves by putting our hands to his head. He was able to carry us steadily to the boat against the strong surge of the breaking surf, disengaging easily as we climbed into the boat. The boat was worked out through the breaking swell with her bows slightly aslant to the surf. It was surprising to see how the boat rose to the crest of an overhanging and almost breaking wave; an English service-bullt boat would be too heavy to work out through the surf which we encountered at Dhofar. It was not till we were through the surf that we had time to note the details which had occurred during that rather exciting interval. Of four oars, two were broken during the passage, a very usual incident. It is seldom that the boat works through without at least one oar being broken. Some of the men use a thole-pin to their oars. Some of them merely lash the oar to the top strake with light palm- leaf twine. If the oar does not break, either the thole-pin snaps or the palm-twine bursts. CTESIPHON AND THE PALACE OF KHOSROES WE (here have reproduced) received from of the Lieut. ruins H. of F. the S. Butt-Gowold palace twoat Ctesiphon photographs in which the great Khosroes or Anushirwan, of the Sassanian dynasty of Persia, held his court in the sixth century a.d. It is of interest to compare them with the third photograph, taken in 1864 and presented to our This content downloaded from 128.252.67.66 on Sat, 11 Jun 2016 05:38:55 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 106 CTESIPHON AND THE PALACE OF KHOSROES Collection by the late Sir Frederick Goldsmid, such a comparison showing at once the amount of destruction which the ruin has suffered in the past fifty-five years, and the urgent need, which the British authorities in-Meso- potamia fortunately fully recognize, of the systematic protection of all the ancient monuments in this cradle of civilization, if they are to be pre? served for the benefit of posterity. It will be seen from the recent photographs that provisional steps in this direction have already. been taken by the erection of a wire fence round the ruins. Rising in solitary grandeur from the desert plain which surrounds it, this great ruin has attracted the attention of travellers from an early date. As mentioned by Mr. Carruthers in his paper on the old caravan route from Aleppo to Basra {Joumal, vol. 52, p. 162), it was seen by the Portuguese missionary traveller, Gaspar de Sa o Bernardino, during his journey through Asiatic Turkey in 1606-7, and the great arch was described by him as large enough for a sailing ship to pass under. The famous Italian traveller Della Valle (" II Pellegrino ") correctly identified the ruin with the palace at Ctesiphon ({Viaggi,' Bologna edit, 1677, vol. 1, Lettera 17, pp. 516-17; French edit., 1670, vol. 1, pp. 60-61), and described it in some detail, giving the horizontal dimensions as ascer- tained by him with some care by pacing during his visit in 1616. It was also mentioned and described in somewhat later times by Ives, Niebuhr, and others, and was visited and measured by Lieut. J. B. Bewsher during his survey work in Mesopotamia begun in 1862. His account is to be found in faz Joumal of this Society, vol. 37, 1867, pp. i74~5- Further descriptions and illustrations were given by the French archaeologist Dieulafoy, and quite recently it was visited by Miss Gertrude Bell, who considers it " one of the most imposing ruins in the world," and gives views of it in her book * Amurath to Amurath' (1911). The ruin represents the sole important relic, still standing, of the extensive city or cities which flourished here, on both banks of the Tigris below Baghdad, during the times of the Parthian and Sassanian Empires. Ctesiphon, on the left bank, came into prominence after the decay of Seleuceia on the opposite side of the river, becoming the summer resi- dence of the Parthian kings and reaching its zenith in the time of the Sassanian monarch Khosroes (or Khusrau) the First, who in 540 a.d. transported thither the inhabitants of Antioch, settling them in a new quarter of the city built for the purpose. His great palace, which owes its comparative state of preservation to its construction (in part at least) of burnt, not merely sun-dried, bricks, was built some ten years previously. The central feature was the great hall of audience?its portal open to the rising sun and formed by the great arch shown in the photograph of 1864. This hall was flanked by chambers on either side, but Della Valle tells us that these were already in ruins in 1616. Only the front walls were standing in 1864, and of these walls that to the right, together with the great central arch, has since entirely disappeared. This content downloaded from 128.252.67.66 on Sat, 11 Jun 2016 05:38:55 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CTESIPHON AND THE PALACE OF KHOSROES 107 The great central hall ?153 feet long, 86 feet high according to Bewsher?was one of the most remarkable specimens of vaulted buildings ever made, and was all the more wonderful if, as is supposed, the vaulting was constructed entirely without the aid of supporting trusses. The side walls are no less than 82 feet apart at ground-level, giving an unsupported span far in excess of any to be found in cathedral vaultings, and approach- ing that of Domitian's palace on the Palatine (100 feet), which was also roofed by barrel vaulting, but which was built with the aid of trusses, and has since fallen. At Ctesiphon the span was somewhat reduced (to about 71 feet) before the springing of the vault by causing the flat bricks to overlap slightly from about 40 feet from the ground. In the vault itself the successive rings of bricks were laid, flatwise, at a slight inclination from the vertical cross-section, and the tenacious quality of the mortar is supposed to have permitted the bricks to hold together until the com- pletion of the ring. The chambers on either side, of which there are said to have been five, supplied the means of withstanding the lateral thrust of the great vault. They too were vaulted, and the springing of the vault in one of them is to be traced in one of Miss Bell's photographs. She states that when Dieulafoy first visited Ctesiphon the east wall of both wings and all the vault were perfect. Surely this is an error as regards the vault, for even Della Valle says that a portion of this, as well as of the back wall, was in ruins at the time of his visit. This is con- firmed, too, by an engraving given by Ives (c Voyage from England to India/ 1773, p.