The diffusion of light by translucent media in antiquity: a propos two alabaster window-pane fragments from ed-Dur (United Arab Emirates).

The diffusion of light by translucent media in antiquity: a propos two alabaster window-pane fragments from ed-Dur (United Arab Emirates). From a University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (Danish: K?benhavns Universitet) is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. excavation in the United ArabEmirates United Arab Emirates,federation of sheikhdoms (2005 est. pop. 2,563,000), c.30,000 sq mi (77,700 sq km), SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. come two fragments of sheet alabaster alabaster,fine-grained, massive, translucent variety of gypsum, a hydrous calcium sulfate. It is pure white or streaked with reddish brown. Alabaster, like all other forms of gypsum, forms by the evaporation of bedded deposits that are precipitated mainly from , from a large privatehouse dated to the 1st century AD. They prompt consideration ofalabaster's use for windows and of provision for natural lightingin the ancient buildings of the broad region, using ethnohistoricobservations, medieval literary sources and ancient epigraphic ep��i��graph?n.1. An inscription, as on a statue or building.2. A motto or quotation, as at the beginning of a literary composition, setting forth a theme. evidence.Whereas archaeologists (in particular classical archaeologists) havedevoted a considerable amount of energy to the study of lamps, they havesaid very little about natural light and illumination in antiquity. Theaim of this paper is to discussion means by which natural light was usedand enhanced in ancient western Asia [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1OMITTED].Illumination versus ventilationAbout 1000 years ago the properties of a shaft of light entering adarkened room were discussed in detail by the renowned Arab physicistand mathemetician, Ibn al-Haytham Ibn al-Haytham(ĭb`ən äl-hīth-äm`)or Alhazen(ălhəzĕn`), 965–c.1040, Arab mathematician. (c. 965-1039) in one of his mostimportant extant works, Fi 'l-daw' (Vernet 1971: 788-9;Baarmann 1882: 195-237). That this should have interested Ibn al-Haythamis not surprising, for in 10th- and early 11th-century Basra, where hewas born, most houses probably suffered acutely from poor interiorlighting. This is no slur on the quality of life in medieval Iraq,(1)rather it is a natural conclusion to draw given the type of house inwhich the bulk of the population probably lived, a standard type whichhad characterized southern Iraq since prehistoric times. O.E. Ravn(1942: 68) described the typical Iraqi or Babylonian house as follows:There were no windows in the outer walls, and there was only oneentrance. Within, one or more rooms opened on a court which wasuncovered to give air and light. Possibly, as to-day, channels forventilation were laid high up in the outer wall. During the hot seasonthe direct rays of the sun are to be avoided, so the most characteristicarrangement of a house is to place the living-room - or the largestliving-room - south of the court, and let only indirect light into theroom and the doorway on the court.Descriptions of traditional houses on Bahrain present us with asimilar situation. In describing a Bahraini kitchen house as it lookedin 1960, Henny Harald Hansen Harald Hansen (born March 14, 1884 in Copenhagen - died May 10, 1927 in Aarhus) was a Danish amateur football (soccer) player, who played as a defender for the Denmark national football team, with whom he won silver medals at the 1908 and 1912 Summer Olympics. (1968: 40) wrote,With the exception of the door there are no openings through whichthe light can enter. High up on the wails, some horizontal slits arefound partly covered inside by square stone slabs in such a way thatfresh air is allowed to enter. This arrangement therefore acts as a sortof air-conditioning.These openings correspond to the roshien through which 'risinghot air was vented' in the traditional architecture of mainlandeastern Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia(sä`dē ərā`bēə, sou`–, sô–), officially Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, kingdom (2005 est. pop. (Winterhalter 1981: 160) which were strictlydifferentiated from those intended to provide illumination. AsWinterhalter (1981: 160) writes,The rooms of houses in the old centres therefore had two rows ofwindows, one to provide light and the other to ventilate ventilate,v 1. to provide with fresh air.v 2. to provide the lungs with air from the atmosphere.v 3. to open, to free, as in to openly express one's feelings. the rooms. Theupper windows were small and always placed above the bigger windows, butdirectly below the ceiling.Speaking again of Bahrain in 1960, Hansen noted that wooden framewindows with vertical, iron bars but without glass, bought ready-made inManama, 'arrived late as a foreign element in traditionalhouses', but (Hansen 1968: 57),There were none in the house which I inhabited. . . . It was one ofthe oldest houses in the village and the finest one architecturallyspeaking. The door was the only opening to the house. When it was closedat night fresh air entered through two small circular openings approx.0.05 m. in diam., made through the hard coral limestone in one of thewalls.From all of this I would suggest that, in many studies of earlyarchitecture in western Asia, archaeologists have often confusedapertures for ventilation with those intended to effect illumination,and thereby misunderstood their function completely. For example,several years ago Jean-Daniel Forest noted that the generally smallwindows of late prehistoric houses in Mesopotamia would have offeredlittle effective lighting (Forest 1986: 442) precisely because they onlygave access to a straight, undiffused shaft of light. This, however, wasnot their intended function. Olivier Aurenche correctly described therole of the earliest wall apertures (a more function-neutral term than'window') in western Asia as 'de laisser passer l'air, de permettre, eventuellement, l'evacuation de la fumee, defournir, accessoirement, un peu de lumiere' (Aurenche 1981: 179).At the Ubaid period site of Tell Madhhur (c. 4500-4000 BC) in theHamrin basin of eastern Iraq, wall apertures in a mud-brick house wereobserved in two sizes: 18-cm wide openings (height unspecified) werefound in small rooms with a usable floor area under 3 sq. m, while 50-cmwide openings (again height unspecified) were characteristic of roomswith less than 10 sq. m of floor area (Roaf 1989: 97, table 2). AlthoughMichael Roaf Michael Roaf is a British orientalist, who specialized in ancient Irarian studies and Assyriology. He studied Archaeology of Western Asia at the University College of London, and wrote his doctoral thesis, Sculptures and Sculptors at Persepolis (published, 1983) at Oxford. accorded equal significance to both ventilation and lightin discussing the wall apertures at Tell Madhhur (Roaf 1989: 96),Jean-Claude Margueron has observed that the larger openings, consideredwindows by Roaf, were only about 1 m above the floor level and thereforewould have provided poor illumination. On this basis Margueron suggestedthat these openings were intended for ventilation, not illumination(Margueron 1986: 364; cf. Forest 1986: 456). Margueron's view,however, may well reflect a western notion of what constitutes theproper positioning of wall apertures in houses for purposes ofillumination. Indeed, like the Ubaid owners of the house at TellMadhhur, Hansen's Bahraini landlord described to her his intentionto install new windows (the pre-fabricated sort described above)'low in the walls'. 'He did not doubt', wrote Hansen(1968: 57), 'that the siting of windows would enhance the beauty ofthe house and increase its value.' In any case, it seems notunlikely that the different-sized wall apertures at Tell Madhhur maywell have had different primary functions, the larger having beenintended to let in light, and the smaller to act as ventilation ducts.Occasions can arise when wall apertures may need to be closed off. AtTell Madhhur, Roaf suggested that the 'window openings . . . mayhave been blocked in winter as is the practice in Iraq today' (Roaf1989: 96). In Level D at the much earlier site of Ganj Dareh Ganj Dareh is a Neolithic settlement in Iranian Kurdistan, it is located in the east of Kermanshah. The site dates back to ca. 10,000 years ago and yielded the earliest evidence for goat domestication in the world. in theIranian Zagros (c. late 8th/early 7th millennium BC), circular'port-holes' varying from c. 20 to 40 cm in diameter werediscovered in a number of walls, some of which had been intentionallyplugged with mud, chineh (packed mud or pise), or actual 'disc-likeor conical objects of clay, often with finger-holes . . . possibly . . .designed for insertion of fingers and thumbs, for easier handling'(Smith 1990: 330). These would seem to represent a remarkably efficientsystem of re-usable covers for wall appertures, and it is tempting tosuggest that the Ganj Dareh 'port-holes' were blocked inwinter in order to reduce heat loss. As P.E.L. Smith noted, other earlyNeolithic sites in Western Asia, including Bouqras, Mureybit, AbuHureyra (all in Syria), Umm Dabaghiyah (Iraq), Beidha (Jordan), andCatal Hoyuk (Turkey) have similar wall openings.To conclude, in reflecting on the small size of the wall apertures inboth prehistoric and traditional architecture in Western Asia, we mustkeep two points in mind. First, many of the smaller apertures wereundoubtedly intended primarily for ventilation, and only secondarily asaccess routes for light. Interior lighting was, on the other hand,provided primarily by an open door. These two functions - illuminationand ventilation - have often been confused in archaeological discussionsof early architecture. Second, the paucity of windows, in the sense ofopenings intended to effect interior illumination, is due in large partto climatic considerations. The benefits of letting in light arenecessarily subordinated to the disadvantages of letting in heat. AsG.R.H. Wright remarked in discussing modern Yemeni architecture (1988:214, 216), 'walls are pierced only as and when required' andare characterized by a 'minimum of openings'. Thus, whendiscussing wall apertures we should be more circumspect cir��cum��spect?adj.Heedful of circumstances and potential consequences; prudent.[Middle English, from Latin circumspectus, past participle of circumspicere, to take heed : in limiting theuse of the word 'window' to apertures intended to provideillumination, as opposed to openings the primary function of which isventilation and air-circulation.Speaking of the latter category, we find fairly widespread use of anunglazed window lattice or pierced screen mounted within the ventilationaperture. These were often of wood, terra-cotta or stucco, and theirancestry can be traced back in in Mesopotamia to the Old Akkadian period(c. 2334-2154 BC) when they first appear at Tell Asmar (Delougaz et al.1967: plate 67A). In Egypt they appear by the reign of Ramses III Ramses III(died 1156 BC) King of ancient Egypt, 1187–56 BC. Son of Setnakht, the founder of Egypt's 20th dynasty, he fought off Libyan invaders in the fifth year of his reign and the Sea Peoples (a conglomeration of migrating peoples from Anatolia and the (c.1198-1166 BC) who had screens of this sort in his palace at Medinet Habu Medinet Habu is an important Egyptian archaeological and tourist locality on the West Bank of the modern city of Luxor.Somewhat ambiguously, the toponym Medinet Habu can refer to either: (Herbig 1929: 254, Abb. 20). They are also attested in Egyptian templesduring the Ptolemaic period, for example at Deir el-Medina; on Romansites in the Syrian Hauran (Herbig 1929: 254); during the 1st century ADin the Casa del Labertino at Pompeii (Mau 1909: 2184); and they became acommon device in later Islamic architecture (e.g. von Folsach 1990: 157,169). In the traditional private house of the Eastern Province of SaudiArabia 'perforated plaster elements usually covered the upperopenings', i.e. those intended for ventilation, in the wall(Winterhalter 1981: 160), where King (1978: 15) noted, 'carvedplaster screens are often set into the walls, either as piercedventilation screens or as straightforward decoration'. In the mid19th century, W.G. Palgrave (1865: 191) described the fort (Karmoot orKut/Qal'at) of al-Qatif as follows: 'The windows, where theyyet remain entire, are filled with a beautiful stone trellis 1. Trellis - An object-oriented language from the University of Karlsruhe(?) with static type-checking and encapsulation.2. Trellis - An object-oriented application development system from DEC, based on the Trellis language. (Formerly named Owl). , never thesame in pattern throughout the whole range of the palace, and markingmuch ingenuity and taste.'The diffusion of light by translucent mediaAt what point, do we find evidence for the conscious manipulation oflight entering a house? When were the first efforts made to diffusethose narrow shafts or beams of light about which Ibn al-Haythamtheorized 1000 years ago? To begin with, let us make a clear distinctionbetween the diffusion of light by means of translucent media, and thetransmission of light (and retention of heat or cool air) by means oftransparent media Transparent materials such as 35mm slides, large transparencies and photographic negatives in which the scanner shines light through the objects to the sensors on the other side in order to record the image. Transparent media require a transparency adapter in the scanner, if available. . Translucent media may effect illumination byspreading natural light so that its presence in an interior room is nolonger limited to that of a single beam. This is quite a differentfunction from that peformed by transparent media which let in lightwithout diffusing it, but at the same time help restrict the loss ofheat or cool air, depending on the season. The histories of the use oflight-diffusing versus light-transmitting media, while certainly notunrelated, should be examined independently. We shall begin with thediffusion of light through a translucent medium, the history of whichdoes not seem to pre-date the 1st century BC.It is certainly instructive that in his Ten books on architecture,the late-1st-century BC Roman architect Vitruvius made no mention ofeither the transmission or diffusion of light. In a short chapter (BookVI, chapter IV) on 'The proper exposures of the differentrooms', Vitruvius discussed the relative merits of eastern andsouthern exposures of different parts of the private house, but wassilent on the matter of windows as such. In contrast, Pliny the Elder Pliny the Elder(Caius Plinius Secundus) (plĭ`nē), c.A.D. 23–A.D. 79, Roman naturalist, b. Cisalpine Gaul. He was a friend and fellow soldier of Vespasian, and he dedicated his great work to Titus. ,writing in the 1st century AD, dealt with this topic in Book XXXVI ofhis Natural history, devoted largely to stones. 'Specular stone(lapis specularis)', he wrote, has an 'amenable characterwhich allows it to be split into plates as thin as may be wished'(XXXVI: xlv 160). Further on, Pliny spoke of 'windows of specular spec��u��lar?adj.Of, resembling, or produced by a mirror or speculum.specu��lar��ly adv.Adj. 1. stone' (XXXVI xlv 163) through which light could 'penetratefrom without', and indeed the stone lapis specularis gave its nameto the early window pane, known in Latin as specularia. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. D.E. Eichholz (1962: 126, note d), Lat (Local Area Transport) A communications protocol from Digital for controlling terminal traffic in a DECnet environment. LAT - Local Area Transport . lapis specularis denotedselenite sel��e��nite?n.Gypsum in the form of colorless clear crystals.[Latin seln , rather than mica with which it has traditionally beenidentified. Pliny noted that specular stone came originally only fromSpain, and that while it was later imported from Cyprus, Cappadocia,Sicily and Africa, the Spanish variety was superior. This is interestingin view of the fact that Seneca (4 BC-AD 65), himself born at Cordoba cor��do��ba?n.See Table at currency.[American Spanish c��rdoba, after Francisco Fern��ndez de C��rdoba (1475?-1526?), Spanish explorer.]Noun 1. ,said the glazing of windows with specular stone only came into useshortly before his own day (Mau 1909: 2184).According to Eichholz (1962: 127, note d), selenite was'sometimes used as a substitute for window glass as late as the18th century' (Eichholz 1962: 127, note d). Other materials wereemployed in medieval and Renaissance Europe as well. Thus, in medievalEngland, although particularly grand residences of a baronial ba��ro��ni��al?adj.1. Of or relating to a baron or barony.2. Suited for or befitting a baron; stately and grand: a baronial mansion.Adj. 1. orecclesiastical character were already being outfitted with glazedwindows in the 13th and 14th centuries, it is important to note,'Beryl was sometimes used instead of glass, and in houses of aninferior order, when they possessed any thing superior to the woodenshutter, the lattice-work was glazed with thin horn or talc; or withcanvas' (Turner 1853: 38, note e). Indeed, beryl and horn werestill being used in the 16th century, and 'glass windows, even atthis period, were by no means common, but were regarded as objects ofimportance and value' (Turner 1859: 121).Pliny mentioned yet another medium for the diffusion of light whichhas never, to my knowledge, been identified. He writes in the Naturalhistory (XXXVI: xlvi 163), 'According to Juba, there exists inArabia too a stone that is transparent like glass, and is used as windowpanes'. What might that stone have been?Alabaster as a light-diffusing medium in pre-Islamic ArabiaThe answer, I suggest, is provided by two objects discovered in 1987by the University of Copenhagen expedition to ed-Dur in the United ArabEmirates (emirate e��mir��ate?n.1. The office of an emir.2. The nation or territory ruled by an emir.Noun 1. emirate - the domain controlled by an emir of Umm al-Qaiwain Umm al-Qaiwain(m äl-kīwīn`), sheikhdom (1995 pop. 35,157), c.300 sq mi (780 sq km), part of the federation of seven United Arab Emirates, SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf. ).Ed-Dur is the largest late pre-Islamic site in the Lower ArabianGulf Arabian Gulf:see Persian Gulf. . Covering an area of c. 4 sq. km, the site is dotted with theremains of numerous graves and buildings, the majority of which can besecurely dated to the 1st century AD, although one area (Area F) has anassemblage dating to the 3rd-4th centuries AD. The site was excavatedbetween 1987 and 1994 by a European expedition comprising teams fromCopenhagen, Gent, London and Lyons. The objects in question[ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED] may be briefly described as follows:ED 87.C 56 (Square II, UF 102, Locus 413): flat alabaster fragment,smooth surfaces; 8.5x6x1 cmED 87. C91 (Square III, UF 103, Locus 414): flat alabaster fragment,smooth surfaces; 9x4.5x1 cmThe alabaster fragments both come from a large private house in AreaC which may be considered elite by virtue of its large roundedbuttresses and corner towers, features not present on most of the ed-Durprivate houses. Both the building and its contents are easily dated tothe 1st century AD by fragments of imported Roman pillar-moulded glassbowls found within it.A ready explanation for the function of these 1-cm thick sheets ofalabaster is provided by a combination of ethnohistoric observations,mediaeval me��di��ae��val?adj.Variant of medieval.mediaevalAdjectivesame as medievalAdj. 1. literary sources and ancient epigraphic evidence, all of whichattest to the use of alabaster as a light-diffusing medium inpre-Islamic, early Islamic and modern Yemen.In 1928, when Carl Rathjens and Hermann von Wissmann undertook theirarchaeological expedition to Yemen, they observed that round alabasterplates were being used as window panes in San'a (Rathjens &vonWissmann 1932: 142). Alabaster window panes can still be seen in somemosques in Yemen (M.C.A. Macdonald pers. comm.).Book 8 of Al Iklil by the early 10th-century Yemeni savant sa��vant?n.1. A learned person; a scholar.2. An idiot savant.[French, learned, savant, from Old French, present participle of savoir, to know al-Hamdanicontains a poem on Ghumdan, the pre-Islamic palace-castle of San'a(the site of which is still extant, see Serjeant ser��jeant?n. Chiefly BritishVariant of sergeant.serjeantNounsame as sergeantNoun 1. 1976: 89, n. 35), inwhich we read, 'The upper part of the edifice, above the structureof it, is a chamber lined with marble.' M.B. Piotrovsky (1988: 34)has commented on this passage as follows: 'In all the descriptionsan apartment on top of Ghumdan is mentioned. It was covered with ahalf-transparent roof or a dome of alabaster'. Epigraphically,Ghumdan is attested by the late 2nd/early 3rd century AD, e.g. in thetext Nami 12 in which the Sabaean king Sha'ir Awtar calls himself'king of Saba and of the castles Salhin and Ghumdan'(Piotrovsky 1988: 29). Even if the interpretation of Al-Hamdani'sallusion to its translucent roof or dome are arguably more poetic thanreal, we possess other, epigraphic sources, which confirm the antiquityof alabaster's use as a medium for the diffusion of light.Two inscriptions of Sarahbi'il Ya'fur, king of Saba anddhu-Raydan (active c. 450 AD, see Muller 1989: 563) and originallypublished by G. Garbini, contain the phrase 'lhgm/mwglm, i.e.'(upper)window of alabaster' (Gar S??Y, A/5 and B/2-3),following W.W. Muller's translation. Muller (1991: 119-20) suggestsfurther that the South Arabian The term South Arabian covers South Semitic languages spoken on the southern Arabian peninsula, i.e. those not found in Africa: Old South Arabian, a group of extinct Western South Semitic languages Modern South Arabian or Eastern South Semitic. word for alabaster, mwglm is related toAkkadian gisnugallu, but in Mesopotamia there is no evidence, to myknowledge, of alabaster ever having been employed as a light-diffusingmedium in either traditional or ancient architecture.Thus, the tradition of using alabaster as a light-diffusing medium inArabia can be traced from the 1st century AD at ed-Dur, through to the5th-century epigraphic evidence of Sarahbi'il Ya'fur, the10th-century literary attestation of al-Hamdani and the 20th-centuryarchitectural observations of Rathjens, von Wissmann and more recenttravellers. Yet the earliest evidence of this practice comes not fromsouth Arabia The term South Arabia refers to the region currently known as Yemen.In fact, Yemen or al-yaman means "the south".[1]Three thousand years ago several different political entities ocupied the region, e.g., M'ain, Qataban, Hadhramaut, Saba. itself, but from the Oman peninsula, where the alabaster inquestion was almost certainly an imported item. Alabaster usage wascommon in ancient south Arabia where not only thousands of alabasterobjects but quarries have been identified as well (e.g. Rathjens &von Wissmann 1932: 142). While there is little direct evidence forcontact between ed-Dur and south Arabia, we know that some contact didexist. Thus, at least one example of the indigenous coinage ofsoutheastern Arabia, hundreds of examples of which have been found ated-Dur and some of which was minted not far away (under 50 km) atMleiha, is in the Aden Museum (Munro-Hay 1991: 411, figure 16.33; Potts1994: 68).The beginnings of true glazingThus far we have considered wall apertures without any built-inmedium for the transmission or diffusion of light, as well as the use ofvarious media (selenite, alabaster, horn and beryl) mounted in windowsfor the transformation of shafts or beams of natural light into diffusedillumination. With the use of glass it became possible to increase thedissemination of natural light, to protect the interior of the housefrom the elements and partially to control the interior climate of adwelling.In spite of an extensive glass industry (Moorey 1994: 189-215),glazed windows seem never to have been invented in ancient Mesopotamia.Although the date of the introduction of transparent media in windows isconsidered uncertain (Cressidi 1960: 696), the Romans were certainlyusing blown glass in windows by the 1st century AD. Glass (vitrum)mounted in bronze frames has been found, for example, in the Villa ofDiomedes at Pompeii, and literary references to window-glass exist aswell (Mau 1909: 2185; Cressidi 1960; Gross 1979: 534).(2) Glass was usedcontemporaneously with selenite in Roman architecture, but if theexample of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance is anything to go by,it was probably confined to very elite residences. In Britain, forexample, glazed windows were not considered 'fixtures' ofEnglish architecture until the time of Henry VIII. Prior to that time,what little glass was used was fitted not to the stonework stonework,term applied to various types of work—that of the lapidary who shapes, cuts, and polishes gemstones or engraves them for seals and ornaments; of the jeweler or artisan who mounts or encrusts them in gold, silver, or other metal; of the stonemason who of a housebut to wooden 'frames or casements, which were moveable, and wereremoved and packed up when the family was absent, shewing that glass wasstill scarce and valuable' (Turner 1853: 37). This iswell-illustrated by an account written in 1556 by Henry VIII'sSurveyor-General on the subject of Alnwick Castle (Turner 1859: 122):And because throwe extreame wind the glase of the windowes of thisand other my lord's Castells and houses here in this countriedoothe decaye and waste [y.sup.t] were good the whole height of everiewindowe, at the departure of his Lordship from lyinge at any of his saidCastells and houses, and deuringe the time of his Lordship'sabsence or others lying in them, were taken down and lade appart insafetie; and at such time as either his Lordship or any other shouldelie at any of the said places, the same might then be sette up of newe,with small change to his Lordship when now the decaye thereof shalle bevery costlie and chargeable to be repayred.Clearly, window glass was expensive and had to be taken good care ofeven at this date, nor did the situation change much until the presentcentury.ConclusionAs countless studies of traditional architecture in western Asia haveshown, windows have generally lacked any sort of light-diffusion ortransmission medium, whether alabaster or glass. And yet, this is hardlysurprising when we recall that so great a figure in the history ofarchitecture as Vitruvius was silent on the subject of means fordiffusing or transmitting light in ancient Roman buildings. In the moreremote past, as we have seen, there is no evidence of any concertedattempt at manipulating those direct shafts of light about which Ibnal-Haytham theorized some 10 centuries ago. Simple wooden shutters wereno doubt used, but the practice of modifying light through the insertionof a medium to effect its diffusion or allow its transmission was adevelopment which does not seem to be attested much before the 1stcentury BC. Given the relatively infrequent employment of glass or anyother glazing materials in Europe prior to the medieval era, the use ofselenite and glass in the Roman world has long been consideredremarkable. As the South and East Arabian evidence now attests, however,an equally precocious attempt at diffusing natural light - one mightalmost say at 'harnessing' the useful powers of natural light- was being attempted almost simultaneously far to the east in the Omanpeninsula and Yemen. Through the introduction of a diffusing medium suchas glass, selenite, alabaster or horn, a beam of light entering adarkened room through a necessarily (for climatic reasons) smallaperture was transformed into a useful agent of interior illumination.It is to be hoped that, in the future, the study of natural lighting inantiquity will come to be regarded as an integral part of any analysisof ancient architecture, and that some of the confusion surroundingillumination and ventilation will be better appreciated. These are someof the human dimensions of early buildings which are all too oftenignored by 'Bauhistoriker' who concentrate on architecturalplans, omitting the actors who lived and worked in the ancient builtenvironment.Acknowledgements. The ed-Dur project, which involved a number ofstudents from the Carsten Niebuhr Carsten Niebuhr (March 17, 1733 - April 26, 1815) was a German traveller. BiographyNiebuhr was born in L��dingworth, Land Hadeln/Lower Saxony, the son of a small farmer. He had little education, and for several years of his youth had to do the work of a peasant. Institute of the University ofCopenhagen between 1987 and 1989, was funded by the Danish HumanitiesResearch Council. I would like to thank all who participated in theexpedition for their hard work, and in particular Paul John Paul John is a former Wales international rugby union player. A scrum-half, he played his club rugby for Pontypridd RFC. Frandsen,Peder Mortensen, and Lise Hannestad, who helped me secure the firstseason's funding.1 Basra was a highly esteemed city. Indeed, according to a popularsaying recorded in several sources (e.g. Ibn Qutaiba, Ibn Abi Hadid,Tha'alibi), 'Iraq is the eye of the world, Basra the eye ofIraq'. See Pellat 1953: 11, n.7.2 Herbig (1929: 274) refers to his Heidelberg dissertation 'DasFenster in der Architecktur des Altertums' (1929), which I havebeen unable to find. There he treated, among other things, 'antikeGlasfenster, Befensterung vorgeschichtlicher Wohnbauten, Fenster amgriechischen Wohnbauten'.ReferencesAURENCHE, O. 1981. La maison orientale: L' architecture duproche orient ancien des origines au milieu du quatrieme millenaire.Paris: Bibliotheque Archeologique et Historique 109.BAARMANN, J. 1882. Abhandlung uber das Licht Licht (Light), subtitled "The Seven Days of the Week," is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen which, in total, lasts over 29 hours. OriginThe project, originally titled Hikari von Ibn al-Haitam,Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 36: 195-237.CRESSIDI, G. 1960. Finestra, Encicopledia dell'Arte Antica 3:694-6.DELOUGAZ, P., H.D. HILL & S. LLOYD. 1967. Private houses andgraves in the Diyala region. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute Oriental Institute is a name given to a number of institutions of higher education throughout the world that are engaged in the study of Asian culture, languages and history. .Publication 88.EICHHOLZ, D.E. 1962. Pliny Natural History Vol. X, Libri XXVI-XXVII.Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press The Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. .FINKBEINER, U. (ed.). 1993. Materialien zur Archaologie derSeleukiden- und Partherzeit im sudlichen Babylonien und Golfgebiet.Tubingen: Wasmuth.FOLSACH, K. VON. 1990. Islamic art: the David Collection. Copenhagen:Davids Samling.FOREST, J.-D. 1986. L'architecture Obeidienne et le probleme del'etage, in Huot (ed.): 437-45.GROSS, W.H. 1979. Fenster, Der Kleine Pauly 2: 534.HAERINK, E., C.S. PHILLIPS, D.T. POTTS & K.G. STEVENS. 1993.Ed-Dur, Umm al Qaiwain (UAE), in Finkbeiner (ed.): 183-94.HANSEN, H.H. 1968. Investigations in a Shi-'a village inBahrain. Copenhagen: Publications of the National Museum. Ethnographicalseries XII.HERBIG, R. 1929. Fenster an Tempeln und monumentalen Profanbauten,Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts 44: 224-62.HUOT, J.-L. (ed.). 1986. Prehistoire de la Mesopotamie. Paris:Editions du CNRS CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Center for Scientific Research, France)CNRS Centro Nacional de Referencia Para El Sida (Argentinean National Reference Center for Aids).KING, G.R.D. 1978. Islamic architecture in Eastern Arabia,Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 8: 15-27.LECOMTE, O. 1993. Ed-Dur, les occupations des [3.sup.e] et [4.sup.e]s. ap. J.C.: contexte des trouvailles et materiel ma��te��ri��elor ma��t����ri��el ?n.The equipment, apparatus, and supplies of a military force or other organization. See Synonyms at equipment. diagnostique, inFinkbeiner (ed.): 195-218.MARGUERON, J.-C. 1986. Quelques remarques concernantl'architecture monumentale a l'epoque d'Obeid, in Huot(ed.): 349-77.MAU, A. 1909. Fenestra, Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopadie derklassischen Altertumswissenschaft 12:2180-85.MOOREY, P.R.S. 1994. Ancient Mesopotamian materials and industries.Oxford: Clarendon Press.MULLER, W.W. 1989. Marib, Encyclopaedia of Islam The Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI) is the standard encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies. It embraces articles on distinguished Muslims of every age and land, on tribes and dynasties, on the crafts and sciences, on political and religious 6: 559-67.1995. CIH CIH Chartered Institute of Housing (UK)CIH Certified Industrial Hygienist (ABIH)CIH Constant Image HeightCIH Camshaft in Head (engine)CIH Chen Ing-Hau 325: Die jungste datierte sabaische Inschrift, in Etudessud-arabes: recueil offert a Jacques Ryckmans: 117-31. Louvain:Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain.MUNRO-HAY, S.C.H. 1991. The coinage of Shabwa (Hadhramawt), and otherancient south Arabian coinage in the National Museum, Aden, Syria 58:393-418.PALGRAVE, W.G. 1865. Narrative of a year's journey throughCentral and Eastern Arabia (1862-63). London: Macmillan.PELLAT, C. 1953. Le milieu Basrien et la formation de Gahiz. Paris:Librairie d'Amerique et d'Orient.PIOTROVSKY, M.B. 1988. The fate of Castle Ghumdan, in Ancient andmediaeval monuments of civilization of Southern Arabia: investigationand conservation problems. 28-38. Moscow: Nauka.POTTS, D.T. 1994. Supplement to the pre-Islamic coinage of EasternArabia. Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute. Publications 16.RATHJENS, C. & H. VON WISSMAN. 1932. Vorislamische Altertumer.Hamburg: Rathjens-v. Wissmannsche Sudarabien-Reise 2. HamburgischeUniversitat Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde 38, Reihe B19.RAVN, O.E. 1942. Herodotus' description of Babylon. Copenhagen:Nyt Nordisk Forlag.ROAF, M. 1989. Social organization and social activities at TellMadhhur, in E.F. Henrickson & I. Thuesen (ed.), Upon this foundation- the 'Ubaid reconsidered: 91-146. Copenhagen: Carsten NiebuhrInstitute Publications 10.SERJEANT, R.B. 1976. South Arabian hunt. London: Luzac.SMITH, P.E.L. 1990. Architectural innovation and experimentation atGanj Dareh, Iran, World Archaeology 21: 323-35.TURNER, H. 1853. Some account of domestic architecture in Englandfrom Edward I to Richard II. Oxford: Parker.1859. Some account of domestic architecture in England from RichardII to Henry VIII. Oxford: Parker.VERNET, J. 1971. Ibn al-Haytham, Encyclopaedia of Islam 3: 788-9.WINSTER, H.J.J. 1954. The optical researches of Ibn al-Haytham,Centauras 3: 190-210.WINTERHALTER, C.P. 1981. Indigenous housing patterns and designprinciples in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Dissertationsubmitted to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology may refer to one of two institutes of higher education in Switzerland: ETH Zurich in Zurich ��cole Polytechnique F��d��rale de Lausanne in Lausanne , Zurich.WRIGHT, G.R.H. 1988. Mud building in Yemen, Archaologische Berichteaus dem Yemen 4:204-17.