Damascus
The Dome of the Treasury stands in the western part of the Umayyad Mosque's courtyard. It was built in 789 on the orders of Fadl ibn Salih, the Abbasid…
The Dome of the Treasury stands in the western part of the Umayyad Mosque's courtyard. It was built in 789 on the orders of Fadl ibn Salih, the Abbasid governor of Damascus, as a strongroom for the mosque's treasury and endowment funds. In later centuries it also held a store of old manuscripts in many languages, which visiting scholars were allowed to examine in 1898. The treasury is a small octagonal chamber raised high above the ground on eight reused Roman columns, and its outer walls are covered in colourful mosaics made to match the mosque's Umayyad mosaics. Much of the mosaic work seen today was restored in the twentieth century from surviving fragments. It is one of the best-known sights of the mosque and can be seen from across the courtyard.