ABSTRACT
Before the Arab conquest the commercial and administrative centres o f
Mesopotamia were located twenty miles downstream from present-day Baghdad.
Seleucia, founded by one of Alexander the GreatÕs generals, stood on the right b a n k
of the Tigris facing Ctesiphon, the winter residence of the Persian shahs. Few
traces survive of Seleucia, a once flourishing city of half a million people, but a t
Ctesiphon one building stood intact until a hundred years ago. Fortunately, ear ly
drawings and photographs record the full grandeur of the shahÕs palace before i ts
north wing collapsed when the Tigris overflowed in the spring of 1887. Even t o d a y
the south wing and the great elliptical Arch of Ctesiphon rank among t h e
architectural wonders of the world.
