1781.b.39, 17(51)

Inscription: Inscribed in the negative, 'Frith E. No. 75.'

Genre: Architectural Photography

View of the ruins of an early domed tomb (see also print 57 for a second view of this structure): 'The tomb in the view now to be described, which is situate far away in the great Southern Cemetery, and under Mount Mukattam, is of the early stage, and seems to be yet older than the time of El-Hákim, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. It is exceedingly bold in the general architectural forms, and the construction is admirable. The fine arch that appears to have formed one side of a hypæthral court, and to have contained the niche (for it is in the direction of Mekkeh), is evidence of the former. Observe, too, the great arches supporting the dome, harmonizing with,and not cut up by, the bold apertures, in the shape of smaller arches, around the dome, and the large pendentives (or stalactites, as they are absurdly called) that break the square base into the circle of the dome. These are of so ancient a form that they may be taken as types of what this kind of ornament was when it first assumed a character of its own, and may be compared with the beautifully elaborate pendentives of the best period, some four centuries later. The excellence of the construction is shown by the fact of this building standing at all, resting, as it does, on little more than two of its four walls, with the weight of that great dome and its thrust to bear. The thickness of the massive walls of brick-work, and the constructive, though ornamental, arches in each wall, afford some explanation of its being still upright, but the fact is notwithstanding almost inexplicable...One feature of this dome is, we believe, unique, at least in Egypt. It is the conceit of placing a smaller cupola on the top of the greater, by no means adding to its beauty, but a curious point in the history of Arab art. In the background lies the long range of the Mukattam Hills...'