. The story of architecture: an outline of the styles in all countries. Jus-tinians old church of St. John and erected the greatmosque bearing his own name, using the same ma-terials. The example thus set by the commandersof the faithful was quickly followed by the governorsof even the most distant provinces, and artificers ofChalcis, Heliopolis, Tyre and Cassarea, Antioch, andJerusalem thronged every city of the realm till eachgained something of that delicate distinction whichcharacterizes the arcades of Damascus and the bal-conies of Cairo. El Aksah stands first among the monuments of thepe
. The story of architecture: an outline of the styles in all countries. Jus-tinians old church of St. John and erected the greatmosque bearing his own name, using the same ma-terials. The example thus set by the commandersof the faithful was quickly followed by the governorsof even the most distant provinces, and artificers ofChalcis, Heliopolis, Tyre and Cassarea, Antioch, andJerusalem thronged every city of the realm till eachgained something of that delicate distinction whichcharacterizes the arcades of Damascus and the bal-conies of Cairo. El Aksah stands first among the monuments of theperiod. Its circumference, according to Amrecy,measured nearly a Roman mile or two hundred andfifteen toises in length by one hundred and seventy-two in breadth. These dimensions were acceptedfor a long time as authentic, but the discovery of THE HOUSE OF AL ABBAS. 263 an old manuscript written by Arculphus (a Christianmonk who saw the building about a century after itscompletion) has corrected these figures, and showsthe mosque to have been about the same size as that. Fig. 102.—View of the tomb at Sultaneiah of to-day, i. e., covering fifty thousand square feet,while the description of its appearance bespeaks littlesubsequent alteration. Even more propitious to art than the Omiaddynasty were the caliphs of the Persian house ofAl Abbas. The capital, which had been removed from Medinato Damascus, was now transferred a second time ; and 264 THE MAHOMETAN OR SARACENIC STYLE. Bagdad, founded by Almansur, soon set the mode inarchitecture to all Islam. Little now remains of the glories of Bagdad underthe Abassides and the Seljukian monarchs ; for thoughthe mosques and palaces were overlaid with gold andsilver, and we are told that no Moorish court everreached a higher pitch of enlightenment and magnifi-cence than that of Haroun al Raschid, still the con-structive portions of the buildings could have beenlittle more than wood, sun-dried brick, or other per-ishable materials, and we m
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