ردهة طابق قصر الحير الغربي المُسْتَحْدَثَة

 

ألُحِقَت هذه القاعة برواق الطابق العلوي بعد إعادة بناء بوّابة قصر الحير الغربي والأجنحة حَوْلَها في متحف دمشق الوطني. استُعْمِلَت هذه الردهة صالةً عَرْضٍ لعددٍ من لُقى القصر ممّا سيأتي ذِكْرُهُ بمزيدٍ من التفصيلٍ كما يلي:

- الجدار الشرقي: لوحة جداريّة ملوّنة كبيرة لموسيقيّيَن وفارس يطاردُ غزالاً.

- الجدار الغربي: لوحة جداريّة ملوّنة كبيرة أبرز ما فيها غايا، الإلهة التي تجسِّدُ الأمَّ الأرض. 

- الجدار الجنوبي: قطع من تمثال جصّي، يُعْتَقَد أنّهُ لهشام بن عبد الملك، باني القصر. 

- الجدار الشمالي: عددٌ من النوافذ الجصيّة المعقودة والمخرّمة. 

- وسط القاعة: عيّناتٌ عديدة من السياجات balustrades، وتيجان الأعمدة الصغيرة منها والكبيرة، وكُسَر من لوحاتٍ جداريّة للخدم من الجنسين، وزخارف نباتيّة. تشدّ الانتباهَ خصوصاً لوحةٌ لشخصٍ يعتمرُ غطاءَ رأسٍ إفرنجيّ الطراز، يحتمَلُ أنّهُ يمثّل أحد الأسرى. 

  محمّد أبو الفرج العشّ وعدنان الجندي وبشير زهدي. المتحف الوطني بدمشق، دليل مختصر. المديريّة العامّة للآثار والمتاحف ١٩٦٩. 

الصورة عن سليم عادل عبد الحقّ في الحوليّات الأثريّة السوريّة، الجزء الأوّل، المجلّد الأوّل ١٩٥١. إعادة تشييد جناح قصر الحير الغربي في متحف دمشق (صفحة ٥-٥٧). 

Catalogue du Musée National de Damas. publication de la Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées. Damas 1969. 

Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Ġarbī : la grande salle

Ǧāmiʿ as-Sayyid Yaḥyā

 

This is the most important historical site in Damascus, and may have been originally an open space, the centre of which was occupied by an altar dedicated to the idol-god of the Syrians long before Abraham passed this way, to go into the land of Canaan."Here, no doubt, was the house of Rimmon," probably erected by one of those Ben-hadads who reigned in this city from the time of David, and which is referred to by Naaman in his interview with Elisha (2 Kings V. 17, 18). And here Ahaz the king of Judah may have seen that altar when he came to Damascus, ''the pattern" of which he sent to Urijah the priest in Jerusalem (2 Kings XVI:11). Several hundred years later, when the Greeks and the Romans were here, a heathen temple stood upon this spot, with its altars and courts, its colonnades and triumphal arches. It must have occupied an area nearly equal in size to that of the present Ḥaram aš-Šarīf, in Jerusalem. After Christianity became the established religion of the Byzantine Empire, the temple was converted into a church and dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and the Moslems believe that his head still remains in the cave where it is said to have been placed by the monks of that church.

 
When Damascus fell into the hands of the Muhammedans, in the seventh century, this church was occupied by Moslems and Christians, the former taking possession of the eastern part, while the latter were allowed the use of the western portion. That division, which indicated the comparative toleration of Muhammedanism at that period, did not continue long, and the Christians were not only expelled from their place of worship, but they were forbidden to enter the enclosure of the sacred edifice. From thenceforth the entire structure was transformed into Ǧāmiʿ as-Sayyid Yaḥyā, or the Mosque of St. John, which name it still bears. The church was in the form of a basilica, and the space between the enclosing walls of the quadrangle upon which it stood was about five hundred feet long and three hundred and fifty feet broad. It occupied nearly one half of that space, on the south side of the quadrangle, and but few changes have been made in the interior plan since it was transformed into a mosque. The open court on the north occupies much the largest part of the quadrangle, and the ancient outbuildings in it have been removed, and fountains and minarets erected in their place.

William McClure Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. III, Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond Jordan. Harper1886 (p. 379-381).

الفنّ الساساني في قصر الحير الغربي

 

عُثِرَ على هذه البقايا في جملةِ منحوتات ستارة parapet طابق الرواق العلوي الذي سَبَقَ ذِكْرُهُ. تظهرُ في الصورة امرأتان عاريتا الصدر، ترتدي كلٌّ متهما نطاقاً فوق تنّورَةٍ وتحملُ رمّانةً بيدِها اليسرى. اليد اليمنى مبتورةٌ. الفنّ إيرانيّ الإلهام دون شكّ، في رأي Schlumberger، سواءً في غطاء الرأس والشَعْر، أو الزيّ، أو الهيئة العامّة. لا يمتّ هذا الطرازُ بصلةٍ إلى النماذج اليونانيّة والرومانيّة، وإنّما يشبِهُ ما نراهُ في الفضيّات الإيرانيّة الساسانيّة أو اللاحقة للساسانييّن. 

Daniel Schlumberger. Les fouilles de Qasr el-Heir el-Gharbi (1936-38), rapport préliminaire (antiquités syriennes). p 354.

L'art sassanide à Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Ġarbī

Remnants of an Ancient Gateway

 

From the bazaar of the goldsmiths we have now found our way into that of the booksellers. Copies of the Qurʾān, beautifully illuminated, were occasionally found in the shops, but in these days a good manuscript copy can only be obtained secretly and by paying a high price for it. The magic energy of the printing-press will ere long altogether supersede the laborious methods of the copyist, and even now but few manuscript books of special value are exposed for sale in these stalls. Here is another side-door, which the same amount of bakhshish will unlock, and from the terrace of this private house we can examine the remains of an ancient gateway in front of the western entrance to the Great Mosque. Those four massive columns are all that can be seen of it here in the street.

What we now see rising above the roof of the bazaar is a portion of the arch and pediment of the gateway, supported by three columns with Corinthian capitals. The one at the end is composed of a square pier of masonry, with a semi-column on the inner and outer side. The cornice, arch, and pediment are profusely ornamented with scroll-work, flowers and foliage, and other architectural designs similar to those seen among the ruins at Baalbek. In the masonry over the cornice there is a small window with a double moulding, and, judging from the proportions of this elaborate fragment, the entire gateway must have been more than seventy feet high and of about the same width. Let us descend and walk through the booksellers' bazaar to Bāb al-Barīd, at the end of the street. The double colonnade which formerly extended from this ancient portal to the mosque has been almost entirely destroyed, and only a few of the columns remain; some of them are built into the walls of the shops and houses along the street.

Here we are at this unpretentious entrance to the mosque, and the custodians have brought the slippers we are required to wear within the sacred edifice. On former visits I had to purchase slippers in the shoemakers' bazaar, but the keepers have become more accommodating, expecting to be liberally rewarded for their polite attentions when we leave the mosque.

William McClure Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. III, Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond Jordan. Harper1886 (p. 378-379).

Baradā and ʿAyn al-Fīǧā

 

Here at ʿAyn al-Fīǧā one is at a loss which most to admire — the great quantity of water that bursts from beneath this ruined platform, cold and beautifully clear, or the rushing, roaring cataract, foaming and tumbling over the rocks as it plunges down its narrow channel; or the thick forest of tall trees, willows and walnuts, sycamores, plane and poplars, that overshadow the banks, or the magnificent cliffs that rise a thousand feet or more and shut in this happy vale on every side. Each in turn delight the eye of the beholder and captivate the imagination.

ʿAyn al-Fīǧā, though not the most distant, is by far the most copious source of the Baradā. Arab geographers, however, regarded it as the fountain-head of the river of Damascus. That is hardly correct, for the upper Baradā drains the entire mountains and valleys of this part of Anti-Lebanon for more than twenty miles, and during the rainy season it is a formidable river, altogether independent of its auxiliary from ʿAyn al-Fīǧā. This fountain bursts out from a cavern under the mountain that has two openings, one of which is partly arched over, and in winter the volume of water is twice the size of that in the upper Baradā.

Escaping from the cavern, it rushes down over and amongst the rocks, and through a perfect forest of walnut, poplar, and other trees, with the impetuosity of a roaring torrent, and then expands into a broad stream, clear as crystal. A hundred paces farther on it joins the Baradā, and the two streams run side by side for some distance, until the limpid waters of ʿAyn al-Fīǧā are finally merged into the turbid stream of the Baradā.

Above the cavern is an ancient platform, built of large and massive stones, and upon it are the remains of a small temple, about thirty feet square; but it now has neither portico nor columns. Below the platform, and to the right of the cavern, there appears to have been another temple constructed over a heavy vault, through which the stream from the fountain may have been conducted. The side-walls or piers supporting the vault are nearly forty feet long and six feet thick. The rear wall rested against the bank, and was about thirty feet long and four feet thick. It had an opening as if to receive the water from the fountain, and there is a similar opening towards the front, apparently for the stream to flow out. These ancient structures were perhaps dedicated to the god of fountains and streams and overshadowing groves.

More than half of our day's ride still remains to be accomplished, and it is time for us to proceed on our way. 

I should like to spend days here instead of hours. 

No doubt; and yet, like the first Paradise, this one has its serpent. Fever and ague lurk about it and infest its groves. Owing to the superabundance of water, and the dense foliage and the rank vegetation, ʿAyn al-Fīǧā is decidedly unhealthy in summer and autumn. I have been struck, while passing up the valley in October, with the sallow countenances of the natives. It is then not safe to sleep a single night at that glorious fountain.

William McClure Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. III, Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond Jordan. Harper1886 (p. 352-354).

Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Ġarbī : la grande salle

 

L'étage supérieur comporte un portique et une grande salle destinée à servir de salle d'exposition.

Les pièces suivantes sont exposées dans la grande salle :

- Grande fresque fixée sur le mur Est. Elle couvrait le sol de l'une des salles du palais et elle était faite avec un mortier aussi résistant que le béton. Elle représente trois tableaux en couleur: dans le premier on voit deux musiciens, dans le second un cavalier pourchassant une gazelle, dans le troisième qui est en mauvais état, il s'agit peut-être de la capture d'animaux sauvages. Les costumes des personnages sont nettement inspirés de l'art sassanide. Dimensions: 500 cm x 458 cm.       

- Grande fresque fixée sur le mur Ouest. Elle couvrait également le sol d'une salle. On y voit, en couleur, le buste d'une femme portant des fruits. Un serpent rougeâtre s'enroule autour de son cou. Cette scène semble inspirée de la représentation mythologique grecque de Gê, déesse de la terre. Dans le champ, on voit deux centaures marins, dont la partie supérieure est humaine, et la partie inférieure est animale comportant des pattes analogues à celles d'un gros chien, un arrière-train semblable au corps d'un énorme serpent. Dimensions: 521 cm x 443 cm.  

- Sur le mur Sud, on voit les fragments d'une statue en stuc avec des traces de couleurs. Elle semble représenter un personnage important, coiffé d'un turban oriental et portant de riches vêtements de style sassanide. Peut-être s'agit-il du calife Hišām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, constructeur du palais.

- Sur le mur Nord sont exposés divers modèles de fenêtres et de claires-voies en stuc ajouré. 

- Au milieu de la salle sont exposés de nombreux spécimens de balustrades, de chapiteaux grands et petits, des fragments de peintures murales en couleurs représentant des serviteurs et des servantes de la cour ainsi que des motifs végétaux naturalistes. L'une de ces importantes peintures attire particulièrement l'attention. C'est elle d'un personnage portant un bonnet de type franc, et on se demande s'il s'agit là d'un Franc tombé en captivité.

Texte: Muḥammad ʾabū al-Faraǧ al-ʿUšš.

Traduction: Gabriel Saadé. 

Musée National de Damas

Catalogue du Musée National de Damas. publication de la Direction Générale des Antiquités et des Musées. Damas 1969. 

Salīm ʿĀdl ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq. Les Annales archéologiques de Syrie, T I 1951 (P. 5-75). 

جالسٌ على العرش

 

افترضَ عبد الحقّ (صفحة ٤٥-٤٦) أنّ النحت بين النافذتين الثانية والثالثة في الطابق العلوي من واجهة قصر الحير الداخليّة يمثّلُ رجلاً جالساً على عَرْشِهِ. قد يكون هذا صحيحاً بيد أنّ بقايا التمثال لا تسمح بتحديد جنس الشخص، على الأقلّ استناداً إلى الصورة.  

العرشُ محزّز القائمين. تستندُ القدمان على كرسي صغير واطئ ياخذُ شكلَ بناءٍ واجهتهُ محمولةٌ على سبعة قناطرٍ معمّدة. نصفُ التمثال العلوي مفقودٌ. الثوبُ سابغٌ يسندلُ حتّى القدمين. الأصابعُ ظاهرةٌ عَبْرَ خفٍّ مزركش يغطّي أعلى القدمين. ارتفاعُ التمثال، أو بالأحرى ما تبقّى منهُ، ١٤٠ من عشيرات المتر. 

سليم عادل عبد الحقّ في الحوليّات الأثريّة السوريّة، الجزء الأوّل، المجلّد الأوّل ١٩٥١. إعادة تشييد جناح قصر الحير الغربي في متحف دمشق (صفحة ٥-٥٧).