Description
The major feature for a visitor would have been the monumental entrance loggia or portico with columns flanked by large massive parts of the building and approached by a broad but relative low flight of steps. On one side a stairway to the upper parts would reside in one of these block like structures. Straight ahead one would enter the great hall, where one would have to turn by 90° to see the throne in the far end of the hall. The overall plan of the building would be rectangular with the large hall in the middle surrounded on all sides by the other much narrower rooms.
This type of design with a large central space surrounded by a double wall with smaller rooms taking up the space within the walls may be based on designs first used in the late Ubaid period in southern Mesopotamia such as the Ubaid house. Pillared porticos as gates or grand entrances were used by several cultures of the Bronze Age around the eastern Mediterranean sea. The examples of the Hittites and the Myceneans may be the best known. Through the megarons and propylaea of the mycenaean palaces the style may have lived into classical Greek designs. The late hilani of the levant may well be the combination of the old broad room concept with a Hittite-style portico. In recent traditional architecture it may have a late resemblance in the design of the liwan house.
Read more about this topic: Bit-hilani
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