Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/410

 378 SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. but the site of Dustagird is still a matter of dispute. So little in fact remains that we should hardly be able to form an idea of what the style really was, but for the fortunate discovery of a palace at Mashita in Moab, which seems undoubtedly to have been erected by the last great king of this dynasty, and which is yet unsurpassed for beauty of detail and richness of ornament by any building of its class and age. As nearly as may be, one thousand years had elapsed since the completion of the palaces at Persepolis and Susa and the commencement of this building, and for the great i^art of that period the history of Persian or Central Asian architecture is a blank. The Seleucidae built nothing that has come down to our times. The Parthians too, have left us little, so that it is practically only after a hiatus of nearly six centuries, during which no building now known to exist can be quoted, that we again begin to feel that the art had not entirely perished in the populous countries of Central Asia ; but even then our history recommences so timidly and with buildings of such uncertain dates as to be very far from satisfactory. One of the oldest buildings known as belonging to the new scliool is the palace of Al Hadhr, situated in the plain, about 30 miles from the Tigris, nearly west from the ruins of Kaleh Shergat. D c 252. Plan of Palace at Al Hadhr. (From a Sketch by Mr. Layard.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. The city itself is circular in plan, neai'ly an English mile in diameter, and surrounded by a stone wall with towers at intervals, in the centre of Avhich stands a walled enclosure, nearly square in plan, about 700 ft. by 800. This is again subdivided into an outer and inner court by a wall across its centre. The outer court is unencumbered by buildings, the inner nearly filled with them.i The principal of 1 Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society, ix. pi. 9, p. 476.