Piers and Arches

 

We are now in the large open court enclosed by the walls of the mosque. Including the colonnade on the east, north, and west, the court is about four hundred and fifty feet long, and one hundred and eighty feet broad. The columns in the northern colonnade are encased in masonry, and support twenty-four horseshoe arches, upon which rests an upper tier of fifty smaller round arches. The sides of the masonry piers are ornamented with various patterns in panelwork, and elaborate designs of rich arabesque adorn the capitals, while the arches are painted on the inside in alternate black and white irregular squares, presenting a striking and checkered appearance. The upper tier of arches is composed entirely of layers of black and white limestone, and the combined effect of those varied designs and different colors in the colonnade gives it an appearance eminently Oriental and attractive. More than half the number of Corinthian columns remain exposed to view in the eastern and western colonnades, and the arches in the upper tier are supported by smaller columns of the same order.

William McClure Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. III, Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond Jordan. Harper1886 (p. 382-385).