A part of the grand royal complex located north of present-day Raqqa (Al-Rafiqa), built by Harun al-Rashid, who chose Al-Rafiqa as his residence between 796 and 808 AD.
\nThe complex comprises seven palaces and two residential quarters, covering a vast area of approximately 10 km\u00b2.
\nThe largest among them, Qasr al-Salam, measures 350 \u00d7 300 meters and served as the caliph\u2019s residence. Other palaces, designated A, B, C, D, along with the eastern and western palaces, were likely reserved for the caliph\u2019s family and royal entourage.
\nPalace B follows a north-south parallelogram layout, stretching 115 meters in length. The southern wall is 74.6 meters wide, while the northern wall measures 69.7 meters. Its outer walls feature circular buttresses 1.4 meters thick. The 17-meter-wide main entrance is positioned on the northern fa\u00e7ade, preceded by a fortified wall enclosing an outer garden.
\nThe structure was built using sun-dried bricks, with certain sections reinforced with kiln-fired bricks. The main entrance leads to the western wing, which consists of a spacious open-air courtyard paved with kiln-fired bricks, surrounded by a colonnaded gallery.
\nNumerous fragments of engraved and painted gypsum decorations have been unearthed in this area. Three doors in the southern wall grant access to formal chambers, including two halls\u2014one of which is paved with glass bricks. The eastern wing, accessible through three separate doors from the formal chambers, served as the residential section, complemented by a walled garden to the south.
\nThe interior and exterior walls of the palace were coated with white gypsum, while significant and formal areas\u2014particularly the gates\u2014were adorned with decorative gypsum friezes featuring vine leaf motifs. Raqqa\u2019s architectural ornamentation draws direct inspiration from classical designs, particularly those found in the desert city of Palmyra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A part of the grand royal complex located north of present-day Raqqa (Al-Rafiqa), built by Harun al-Rashid, who chose Al-Rafiqa as his residence between 796 and 808 AD. The complex comprises seven palaces and two residential quarters, covering a vast area of approximately 10 km\u00b2. The largest among them, Qasr al-Salam, measures 350 \u00d7 300 meters and served as the caliph\u2019s residence. Other palaces, designated A, B, C, D, along with the eastern and western palaces, were likely reserved for the caliph\u2019s family and royal entourage. Palace B follows a north-south parallelogram layout, stretching 115 meters in length. The southern wall is 74.6 meters wide, while the northern wall measures 69.7 meters. Its outer walls feature circular buttresses 1.4 meters thick. The 17-meter-wide main entrance is positioned on the northern fa\u00e7ade, preceded by a fortified wall enclosing an outer garden. The structure was built using sun-dried bricks, with certain sections reinforced with kiln-fired bricks. The main entrance leads to the western wing, which consists of a spacious open-air courtyard paved with kiln-fired bricks, surrounded by a colonnaded gallery. Numerous fragments of engraved and painted gypsum decorations have been unearthed in this area. Three doors in the southern wall grant access to formal chambers, including two halls\u2014one of which is paved with glass bricks. The eastern wing, accessible through three separate doors from the formal chambers, served as the residential section, complemented by a walled garden to the south. The interior and exterior walls of the palace were coated with white gypsum, while significant and formal areas\u2014particularly the gates\u2014were adorned with decorative gypsum friezes featuring vine leaf motifs. Raqqa\u2019s architectural ornamentation draws direct inspiration from classical designs, particularly those found in the desert city of Palmyra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,262],"tags":[241],"class_list":["post-2265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-al-raqa","category-heritage-houses","tag-partially-destroyed"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}