Which period is this building from

The history page in this section gives the order of the periods and ends with three quick questions: how is the stone cut, what shape is the arch, what is the plan. This page is the detail behind those three questions. The aim is not to look at a building and pronounce a date — that takes an inscription and a record. The aim is to bring the stone in front of you close to a period and narrow the margin of error.

Rome: basalt, cut limestone and columns

What marks the Roman layer is scale and order. The stone is large, regular and cut finely enough to be laid without mortar; the arch is round; columns are everywhere and follow a system. In the south the material is black basalt, inland and in the desert pale limestone — the Roman theatre at Bosra was built entirely of basalt in the 2nd century, while the colonnaded street of Palmyra is light-coloured.

The most misleading thing about Rome is what happened to it later. At Bosra the theatre’s doors were walled up and the building turned into a stronghold, then into a full Ayyubid castle. From outside you see a castle; inside stands Rome.

Byzantium: basilica plan and carved crosses

In the Byzantine layer the scale shrinks and the workmanship does not. The plan is a basilica: a long hall, rows of columns on either side, an apse at the east end. Ornament is cut into the stone — crosses, vine branches, rosettes. Qalb Lozeh church was built around 460 and the two towers of its west front anticipate a Romanesque facade that appears in Europe four centuries later. Serjilla was founded around 473; its timber roofs are gone, its walls and triangular gables are in place.

Visit one exception knowing what it is: Qasr Ibn Wardan was built in the 6th century in the brick tradition of Constantinople and resembles nothing else in the region. You expect stone and you get brick.

The Umayyads: reused columns and mosaic

An Umayyad building does not invent a language, it assembles one. The columns and capitals are taken from earlier structures, the plan is the wide Syrian courtyard scheme, and the ornament is glass mosaic. The Umayyad Mosque was finished in 715 and the gold-ground mosaic on the west wall of its courtyard is the signature of the period. At Bosra two inscriptions place the founding of the Omar Mosque between 720 and 745.

One tell is enough: if capitals standing side by side do not match each other, they were reused, and you are probably in the early Islamic centuries.

Zengids and Ayyubids: plain stone, muqarnas doorway

In this period the wall goes plain and the ornament collects at the door. There is no band of colour on the facade; the stone is one colour and evenly laid. The portal, on the other hand, deepens and its hood fills with muqarnas. The Nur al-Din Bimaristan was founded in 1154 and its doorway is the most famous muqarnas in Damascus. The Halawiyya Madrasa was converted into a madrasa in 1149 under Nur ad-Din Zengi.

The military side has the same plainness: the stone bridge of the Aleppo citadel and its entrance block with three gates in succession are Ayyubid and carry no ornament at all. Their work is defence.

The Mamluks: ablaq and a long facade

The Mamluk period is the easiest to recognise in Syria, because it has a colour. Black basalt and yellow limestone are laid in alternating courses, which is called ablaq. The facade faces the street and runs long; niches, fan-shaped arches and a carved portal break it up. The minaret is octagonal with a muqarnas balcony.

The Tawashi Mosque in Aleppo was built in 1348 and what identifies it is not its minaret but the niched wall running along the street. The Bimaristan Arghun was founded in 1354. The 1491 facade of Hammam Yalbugha can be told apart by its banding from a distance.

The Ottomans: lead dome, pencil minaret, tilework

Ottoman building in Syria does two separate jobs. The first is the plan sent from the centre: one large dome, a lead roof, a pencil-thin minaret. The Tekkiye Suleymaniye was completed between 1554 and 1560 to a plan by Mimar Sinan and stands in Damascus like a foreigner. The second is adaptation to the local language: the Darwish Pasha Mosque of 1574 and the Sinan Pasha Mosque of 1590 both use the ablaq banding of Damascus on their facades. The minaret of Sinan Pasha is faced in green glazed brick from top to bottom.

On the domestic side the measure is more local still. The Azm Palace was built between 1749 and 1752: a blind wall outside, a courtyard with a pool behind the door, an iwan and painted woodwork. Khan Asad Pasha is what the same governor put up immediately afterwards, and its courtyard is roofed with nine domes.

Three periods in one courtyard

Buildings from a single period are a minority in Syria. The ground under the Great Mosque of Hama was a Roman temple, then a church, then a mosque. The square minaret in its courtyard is dated 1124, the octagonal one 1427, and the treasury pavilion in the middle sits on ancient columns. The Halawiyya Madrasa is a madrasa outside and a cathedral in its columns. Under the Umayyad Mosque there is a temple and a church.

The right question is therefore not “which period is this building from” but “which period is this wall from”. One courtyard can give three different answers and all three can be correct.

Where you go wrong

Six traps, all of them present in records on this site.

• Reused stone looks old. The oldest piece in a wall does not date the building, it only tells you there were ruins nearby.
• Reconstruction looks old. The Great Mosque of Hama was destroyed in 1982 and rebuilt by about 2001; most of the stone you see is new.
• Recent buildings can wear an old style. The Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque was built in an Iranian idiom at the end of the 20th century; the shrine is old, the building is not.
• Repairs change facades. An Ottoman repair can add plaster and timber to a Mamluk front.
• Basalt occurs in every period. In the south it is the only building stone; colour alone is not a date.
• The pointed arch is a wide bracket. It covers the whole Islamic period, and six centuries cannot be split by one sign.

Getting it wrong is not the problem. The problem is being certain enough not to notice.