The ruined building known as Umm al-Awlad is one of the many structures dating to the Islamic period along the bed of the canal known as Shatt al-Nil, which cut through the alluvial plain between the Euphrates and the Tigris, branching off the Sarat Canal system in the west and running east toward Nu'maniyya before turning south. According to medieval Islamic sources, the Shatt al-Nil was dug (or re-opened) during the eighth/second century AH and abandoned by the beginning of the thirteenth/seventh century AH.1 The plan of the building (described below) suggests that it served as a tomb. The spartan decoration of the tomb and the method of constructing the zone of transition suggested to Paolo Costa that it dated to the eleventh/sixth century AH on comparison with Iranian buildings of that century.
The structure is a domed cube made of baked brick.2 Entrances in the form of pointed archways give access through the east and north walls of the cube. In the center of the south and west walls, half-round tower bastions protrude from the center of the wall. The cube was covered by a brick dome supported by eight pointed arches that spring from the cornice. The four arches in this support system that span the corners of the room form squinches under the dome. The dome itself probably had an eliptical contour, in the style of Sasanian domes. Enough remained intact during Herzfeld's survey to reveal that four windows were mostly likely opened in the dome.
Notes:
- For the date of the Shatt al-Nil, see Guy Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1905), 72-3.
- Sarre and Herzfeld measured 5.6 meters per side, Costa measured 8 meters.
Sources:
Costa, Paolo. “Islamic Shrines on the Šaṭ Al-Nīl.” Annali Dell ’Istituto Orientale Di Napoli 31 (1971): 1-16.
Sarre, Friedrich, and Ernst Herzfeld. Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet. Vol. 1, p. 245-256. 4 vols. Berlin: D. Reimer, 1911 and 1920.