Note 118 — Chapter VI · BAGHDÂD TO MÔṢUL April 12—April 28
Reading edition
The Malwîyeh can scarcely be any other than the minaret described by Balâdhurî among Mutawakkil’s buildings: Futûḥ ul Buldân, p. 306, Cairo edition of 1901. The ruins of Sâmarrâ have not yet received the detailed study which they deserve, but Professor Sarre and Dr. Herzfeld are about to begin an exhaustive examination of the site. Sketch plans have been published by De Beylié (Prome et Samarra), and at about the same time Herzfeld brought out a small monograph entitled Sâmarrâ. I had this monograph with me, and finding the plans to be incorrect and the drawings inexact (for example, the ornament drawn in fig. 5 gives little idea of the original), I measured and photographed all the ruins over again. Meantime Viollet has published a short account of his journey in Mesopotamia, in which he has given plans of the ruins of Sâmarrâ: Le Palais de Al Moutasim, etc., Mémoires of the Acad. des Inscrip. et Belles-Lettres, Vol. XII. Part II. His attempt to reconstruct the ground plan of the palace of which the Beit el Khalîfah forms part, is of great interest.