^{page 44 note 1} The best known sites are Aššur, Warka and Seleucia for Parthian stucco, and Kish and Ctesiphon for Sassanian work. Stucco has also been found in Sassanian buildings at Tepe Hissar in Northern Persia. The earliest examples may be some fragments found in the Hellenistic theatre at Babylon (Koldewey, , The Excavations at Babylon, 305 and Fig. 254Google Scholar).

^{page 44 note 2} But the extant stucco on the façade of the eastern Qaṣr al Ḥayr is said to be moulded, not carved in situ; strictly therefore it falls outside the present subject. So for the same reason does the moulded stucco ornament of Qašr al Kharaneh. See p. 55 below, n. 2.

^{page 44 note 3} In this article I use the terms Iraq, Persia, and Iran without careful distinction; in some contexts I do not know which expresses most accurately the historical fact; in others it does not matter.

^{page 44 note 4} For example, the passage from Ibn al Muqaffa‘’s history quoted by Lammens, , Etudes sur le siècle des Omayyades, 348Google Scholar, which describes the labour forcibly employed by Walid ibn al Yazid to build one of his desert palaces.

^{page 44 note 5} For a case in point see p. 55 below, n. 2.

^{page 45 note 1} It is unfortunate that none of the buildings excavated in Iraq which have yielded carved plaster seems to belong to the Umayyad period; so that we have no strictly contemporary examples with which the sculptures of Umayyad Syria may be compared. Apart from the Sassanian material there are stuccoes from houses at al Ḥira attributed to the end of the eighth century (cf. Rice, Talbot, Ars Islamica I, 54Google Scholar), some similar fragments from Ctesiphon (Reuther, , Ausgrabungen der deutschen Ktesiphon-Expedition im Winter, 1928–1929, 32 f.Google Scholar) and, of course, Samarra, A.D. 836–892. (Herzfeld, , Ausgrabungen von Samarra, vol. I.Google Scholar) The stucco ornament of al Ukhayḍir, which may be Umayyad (unless, as suggested by Creswell, , Early Muslim Architecture, vol. IIGoogle Scholar, al Ukhayḍir was the residence of ‘Isa bin Masa), was moulded not carved.

^{page 45 note 2} See The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, XIV, 100–119. Pls. XLI–XLVGoogle Scholar.

^{page 45 note 3} See Pope, , Survey of Persian Art, vol. I, 525Google Scholar.

^{page 46 note 1} cf. from Ctesiphon a number of small square plaques with female heads protruding, now in Baghdad and Berlin, Survey of Persian Art, Pl. 174 D. Similar plaques from Tepe Hissar, ibid., Pl. 178 D. Again, royal male and female heads and torsos from Kish, reproduced in Survey of Persian Art, vol. I, 589 and 634, Figs. 172 and 211Google Scholar.

^{page 46 note 2} cf. The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, XIV, 104–106 and Pl. XLGoogle Scholar.

^{page 46 note 3} Fragments of four of these horses and riders were shown in The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, XIV, Pl. XLI, 1, 2, 4, 5.

^{page 47 note 1} Iran in the Ancient East, 291, 313, etc.

^{page 47 note 2} Attributed to al Walid 1; Mshatta being dated with probability to the Caliphate of al Walid II (A.D. 743–4).

^{page 48 note 1} cf. the horseman on a painted floor at Qaṣr al Ḥayr reproduced by Schlumberger, D. in Syria, XXV, Pl. AGoogle Scholar, now exhibited in the Damascus Museum.

^{page 48 note 2} Reuther, , Die Ausgrabungen der deutschen Ktesiphon-Expedition im Winter 1928–1929, Abb. 15Google Scholar. Kühnel, , Die Ausgrabungen der zweiten Ktesiphon-Expedition, Winter 1931–1932, Abb. 37Google Scholar. A better reproduction of the latter in Syria XV, Pl. III, F.

^{page 48 note 3} For examples see references in The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, XIV, 108 and 110, n. 1Google Scholar.

^{page 48 note 4} For details of comparison see The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, XIV, 116–7Google Scholar.

^{page 48 note 5} See an article by Dr.al Aṣil, Naji in Illustrated London News, 17th 11, 1951, Figs. 5 and 6Google Scholar.

^{page 49 note 1} A. Musil, Ksejr Amra, Taf. XVII, XVIII.

^{page 49 note 2} Reuther, op. cit., 12, 27–32.

Kühnel, op. cit., 16–25.

Schmidt, J. H., Syria XV (1943), 8–18Google Scholar. L'expedition de Ctesiphon en 1931–2.

Schmidt, E. F., Museum Journal XXIII (1933), Excavations at Tepe Hissar near Damghan, 455–9Google Scholar.

Rice, Talbot, Ars Islamica I. The Oxford Excavations at Hira, 58 fGoogle Scholar.

Herzfeld, , Ausgrabungen von Samarra, Vol. IGoogle Scholar; also see the publications of the Directorate of Antiquities in Iraq, Samarra Excavations, Part I.

^{page 50 note 1} P.E.Q., 1949, 01–Apr., Pl. V, 2Google Scholar.

^{page 50 note 2} Reconstruction by Kimball, in Survey of Persian Art, vol. I, 581, Fig. 167Google Scholar.

^{page 50 note 3} Its archivolt and intrados are illustrated by Schmidt, in Syria, XV, Pl. IIGoogle Scholar, H. and G. (Also given by Survey of Persian Art, Pl. 172, B., and Kühnel, op. cit., Abb. 40 and Abb. 42.)

^{page 51 note 1} The outstanding examples being the triangles D to K at Mshatta and the vaulted ceiling of the entrance hall at al Mafjar. On Plate VII, No. 4, behind the figure, we see a minor example.

^{page 52 note 1} Balustrade posts and panels in carved plaster found at al Mafjar were published in vol. XIII of The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, 1–58. The window grilles are still unpublished. Two of them are illustrated in the official guide to the site by D. C. Baramki.

^{page 52 note 2} Reuther, op. cit., 27, Abb. 14; a reconstruction of the parapet is given in Survey of Persian Art, I, 523, Fig. 45Google Scholar.

^{page 52 note 3} Kühnel, op. cit., Abb. 41.

^{page 52 note 4} Unpublished.

^{page 53 note 1} See especially, in the latest instance, the remarkable series of sculptured patterns from the tower altar lately published by P. Collart and P. Coupel, L'antel monumental de Baalbei, Pls. LXXXVII–XCVII.

^{page 53 note 2} For details of such motifs on the plaster balustrades at al Mafjar, see especially The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, XIV, Figs. 37 and 54, and n. 2 on p. 56Google Scholar. Their distribution and development in Iran is discussed and illustrated by Herzfeld, Am Tor von Asien, and by Baltrusaitis, in Survey of Persian Art, vol. I, chapter 30Google Scholar, on Sassanian stucco.

^{page 53 note 3} al Muqaddasi, Vide, Aḫsan at taqasim fi ma‘rafati’l aqalim, 159 (Leyden, 1902)Google Scholar; also Lestrange, , Palestine under the Muslims, 98Google Scholar.

^{page 54 note 1} See The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, XIV, 101–104, Pls. XXXV-XXXVIIIGoogle Scholar. The ceiling recalls some mural paintings rather more than the stiffer designs of extant mosaics. cf., for example, a painted tomb of Roman date near Ascalon: ibid., VIII, 38–44, Fig. 2; or the more graceful Nabataean fresco near Petra: Revue Biblique, 1906, Pl. 43a, reproduced larger in The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, VII, Pl. L.

^{page 55 note 1} So far as we can judge without seeing it either complete or in position.

^{page 55 note 2} In relation to the broad conclusion that Umayyad carved plaster began with al Hishām, and was the work of native Syrians, the plaster ornament of Qaṣr al Kharaneh, dated by a graffito not later than A.D. 710, may seem at first an exception. But in fact it tends rather to confirm than to refute the thesis. For not only is that ornament moulded not carved, but also it belongs almost certainly to Iraqi not to Syrian architecture, as the manifold resemblances between al Kharaneh and al Ukhayḍir, both in construction and in decoration, irresistibly suggest. (See Jaussen, and Savignac, , Mission en Arabie, Vol. III, 115–120Google Scholar). That al Kharaneh in the Balqa should have been decorated by Iraqis in the Iraqi manner is quite consistent with its date, perhaps two decades before the earliest known Syrian sculpture in plaster.