The Great Umayyad Mosque at Damascus
Figure 14. Section of the Great Mosque at Damascus
Figure 15. Section of the Great Mosque at Damascus
the level of the two others and has no sky-lights which in a basilica would pour light into the interior; the light enters laterally through the arcades opening onto the courtyard. The courtyard is surrounded by porticos, the arcades of which are also on two levels and have the same form as those supporting the roof of the oratory. This repetition of one and the same architectural device is transformed into rhythm by the one-in-three alternation of pillars and columns.
The most “Byzantine”, and even “Roman”, part of the building consists of a sort of transept, which cuts across the oratory’s naves and accentuates the axis of the miḥrāb by linking it back to the courtyard. A tall cupola on an octagonal drum, the “Dome of the Eagle”, surmounts this transept at its mid-point. There have been attempts to explain the frankly basilical aspect of this section of the building as a transference of Imperial Roman symbolism to the caliphate of the Umayyads. It is possible, in fact, that the