Stone column base

Like the city and castle gates, the entrances to other buildings in Sam’al also featured decorative elements, of which this column base is a particularly distinctive example. The castle structures known as bit hilani had entrances with a considerable clear span. To support the lintel, one or more columns were therefore inserted at this point, with stone bases serving as their foundations. This architecturally load-bearing element was always given a distinctive design. The piece shown here from Hilani III is one of two identical bases in the form of double sphinxes, whose powerful backs figuratively supported the columns and which simultaneously served as guardian figures at the entrance. The left front section has been supplemented with a cast of the right side. [Joachim Marzahn]