Qusayr 'Amra
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- In the painted sky of the hot room, the lines radiate correctly from the north celestial pole, but the stars run in mirror image, hinting at a copied flat model.
- Al-Walid is said to have once been entertained by performers dressed as stars and constellations, a possible link to the painted dome.
- An inscription found during restoration in 2012 finally pinned the building to 723–743, ending a long debate over its patron.
- Because the Visigothic king Roderic reigned only in 710–712, scholars long dated the paintings to around 710 and credited Caliph al-Walid I.
- Near the image of the kings the Greek word NIKE, meaning victory, was found, suggesting the scene proclaimed the caliph's supremacy.
- The story of Jonah and the whale appears four times in the west aisle of the hall.
- Following the advice of Arab physicians of the time, the bath rooms were painted with hunts, lovers and gardens to restore bathers' drained spirits.
- In the changing room, animals are painted performing human activities, above all playing music.
- One fresco shows the building itself under construction, and a detached section of the hall's paintings is now in Berlin's Museum of Islamic Art.
- It is among the oldest surviving bathhouses, or hammams, anywhere in the Islamic world.
Why it is worth it
From the road across the eastern Jordanian desert, Qusayr ʿAmra looks like almost nothing — a small, low building of limestone and basalt with a triple-vaulted hall and a small bath wing. Inside, it holds the most important surviving cycle of early Islamic painting. The little palace was built between about 723 and 743 for al-Walid ibn Yazid, the Umayyad prince who became Caliph al-Walid II, as a desert retreat with a reception hall and a bathhouse. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985.
The walls and vaults of the audience hall and the baths are covered in frescoes of remarkable freedom. There are hunting scenes and feasts, bathing women, the earliest known depictions in Islamic art of Jonah and the whale, and a scene of rulers — among them the Byzantine emperor, the Visigothic king Roderic, the Sasanian shah and the Negus of Ethiopia — often read as a statement of the Umayyads' place among the powers of the world. The baths follow the Roman pattern of changing room, warm room and hot room; in the dome of the hot room is painted the sky, with the zodiac and some 35 constellations — the earliest known depiction of the night sky on a curved rather than flat surface.
The explorer Alois Musil rediscovered the building in 1898, and his colleague Alphons Mielich drew its paintings. Conservation has been a long learning process: a campaign in the 1970s coated the frescoes with shellac, later removed, and since 2010 an international team has been cleaning and stabilising them. Nearby, a well about 40 m deep with a shaft for an animal-driven lifting wheel shows how water was brought to the baths in the desert.
Getting there
The palace stands on the north side of Highway 40, about 85 km east of Amman and about 21 km south-west of Azraq; the nearest town counted by the region is Az-Zulayl, about 46 km away. Queen Alia International Airport (AMM) is about 57 km in a straight line. The site has a paved car park and a visitor centre, and it is usually combined with the other desert castles of the region, such as Qasr al-Kharanah.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Qusayr 'Amra or Quseir Amra, sometimes also named Qasr Amra, is the best-known of the desert castles located in present-day eastern Jordan. It was built some time between 723 and 743, by Walid Ibn Yazid, the future Umayyad caliph Walid II, whose dominance of the region was rising at the time. It is considered one of the most important examples of early Islamic art and architecture.
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