Dictionary of islamic architecture

Khirbet al-Mafjar (Qasr Hisham)
Umayyad palace located in the Jordan valley near the
ancient city of Jericho.
The palace at Khirbet al-Mafjar is a large complex
comprising three main architectural elements: the
mosque, the palace, and the bath house or audience
hall. These are all set within a large enclosure entered
by a main gateway in the outer enclosure wall. This
gateway projects outwards from the enclosure wall and
is set between two quarter-circular solid buttress
towers. The gateway leads into a long rectangular
courtyard which runs the whole length of the western
side of the palace. In the centre of the courtyard is a
Merlon at Khirbet al-Mafjar
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square pool or fountain whilst towards the south end
of the west wall there is another gateway leading
into the central palace complex. This consists of a
roughly square enclosure with solid round corner
towers and semi-circular buttress towers in the
middle of the south, west and north walls. In the
centre of this palace area is a square colonnaded
courtyard with access to the ground-floor rooms. The
north range consists of one large rectangular room
divided into fourteen bays (two bays wide and seven
long). The south range consists of five long rooms
oriented north—south; in the south wall of the
central room is a large concave niche which may have
functioned as a mihrab. Approximately in the middle
of the west colonnade is a staircase descending into
a small serdab, or cellar.
In the north-west corner of the central palace is a
staircase leading to a gateway which gives access to a
rectangular courtyard connecting the palace to the
bath house or audience hall. In the west wall there is
a small opening to the outside, whilst on the east side
there is a mosque. The mosque is a fairly simple
rectangular structure aligned north-south and entered
via a rectangular entrance vestibule on the north side.
The sanctuary at the south end is three aisles wide
and two bays deep with a concave mihrab niche in
the centre of the south wall. In addition there is another
entrance to the mosque via a staircase leading down
from the upper floor of the palace to a position in the
south wall of the mosque next to the mihrab.
Probably the most famous part of the palace is
the audience hall or bath house which stands at the
north-west corner of the complex. This was a highly
sophisticated building consisting of a nine-domed
hall supported on sixteen piers and flanked on all
four sides by barrel-vaulted exhedrae terminating
in semi-circular apses. At the south end of the hall is
a pool three aisles wide and filling the three southern
apses. In the centre of the east wall is a monumental
doorway which leads from a small courtyard in front
of the mosque. Directly opposite this doorway in the
centre of the west wall is the principal apse
Stone decoration of Khirbet al-Mafjar, near Jericho
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distinguished by a huge stone chain which hung
down from the arch above. At the end of the chain
was a tall conical pendant which has been interpreted
as a representation of an imperial Sassanian crown.
In the western most apse of the north wall is a
doorway into the actual bath complex which is
heated by an underfloor hyper-caust system. In the
north-west corner of the hall is a doorway leading
into a small rectangular room with an apse at the
end. This room has been interpreted as the caliph’s
private audience room and is decorated with the
famous mosaic of a lion bringing down a gazelle in
front of a large tree.
The complex is mostly built out of finely dressed
ashlar blocks although baked brick is used
occasionally as in the bath complex. One of the most
significant features of the palace is its decoration
which consists of elaborately carved and painted
three-dimensional stucco as well as extensive carpet-
like mosaics. The stucco decoration includes
representations of semi-naked women as well as
male statues which are thought to represent the
caliph himself.
There has been much discussion of the purpose
of the palace and the function of the various rooms,
most of which emphasize the evidently luxurious
nature of life in the palace. It is not known exactly
when the complex was built and there is no specific
identification of it in early Islamic texts. The only
historical evidence comes from a piece of graffiti
which mentions the caliph Hisham (724–43);
however, it is now generally agreed that in its final
(unfinished) form the palace represents the tastes and
lifestyle of al-Walid II (mid-eighth century). The
solution may be that the core of the palace
represented by the courtyard palace structure was
built during the rule of Hisham whilst the ‘bath hall’
was added by his more exuberant nephew.