BASEMENT PANEL OF THE FAÇADE OF THE MIHRAB.]
EXTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF SAN PEDRO, NORTH SIDE, IN THE MOSQUE.]
A KUFIC INSCRIPTION ON THE ADDITIONS MADE TO THE MOSQUE, BY ORDER OF THE KHALIF AL-HAKEM.]
A KUFIC INSCRIPTION ON THE ADDITIONS MADE TO THE MOSQUE, BY ORDER OF THE KHALIF AL-HAKEM.]
EASTERN SIDE OF THE EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE, AND DETAIL.]
PLAN OF THE ARCH AND CUPOLA OF THE MIHRAB.]
SECTION AND DETAILS OF THE MIHRAB OF THE MOSQUE.]
DETAILS OF THE CUPOLA OF THE VESTIBULE OF THE MIHRAB.]
GENERAL VIEW OF THE ROMAN BRIDGE AND CALAHORRA OVER THE GUADALQUIVIR, TAKEN FROM THE ARAB MILL.]
GENERAL VIEW OF THE ROMAN CASTLE OF THE CALAHORRA.]
GENERAL VIEW AND ROMAN BRIDGE OVER THE GUADALQUIVIR.]
GENERAL VIEW OF THE BANK AND THE ROMAN BRIDGE OVER THE GUADALQUIVIR.]
THE BANK OF THE GUADALQUIVIR FROM THE BRIDGE.]
ANCIENT RECEPTACLE FOR WATER OF MEDINA AZ-ZAHIRA, 10TH CENTURY.]
_Specially drawn for The Spanish Series_]
[1] It is said that many of the pillars were brought from the plunder of Narbonne, the French town on the Mediterranean.
[2] The new Christian Church was dedicated to SS. Faustus and Marcial. The priests quitted their Cathedral peacefully, bearing in procession the relics and images of the saints.
[3] _The maksurrah_ is a screen or enclosure surrounding the _mih-rab_, with a sort of throne or platform where the Sultan sits, elevated above the level of the Mosque. The whole of that space which was taken up by the _maksurrah_ is now occupied by the chapel of St. Estevan.
[4] The _mih-rab_ is a recess having a cavity within one of its walls, wherein stood that copy of the Koran held in highest veneration. The cavity also marked that point of the compass towards which stands the _Ka’bah_, the object of veneration at Mecca.
[5] The four columns are yet in place in what is now the chapel of St. Peter. Behind the mih-rab at Cordova was a room where other copies of the Koran were kept. Both the sanctuary, and the mih-rab room, now form part of St. Peter’s Chapel, which the inhabitants vulgarly call La Capilla del Zancarron--the chapel of the shin-bone--from a popular belief that the shin-bone of the Prophet was there preserved.
[6] _Foseyfasa._--Gayangos tells us that the word is not in the dictionaries, but that, according to an old Arabian writer, it is a substance of glass and small pebbles crushed and baked together, uniting, with great variety of colour, great brilliancy and beauty; it is sometimes mixed with silver and gold. One of the conditions of peace granted to the Emperor of Constantinople by the Khalif Al-walid was that the Emperor should provide a certain quantity of _foseyfasa_ or enamelled work for the great Mosque at Damascus. Idrísí, in his description of the Mosque of Cordova, says that the enamel which covered the walls of the _mih-rab_ came from Constantinople.