- Floor
- The ground floor of three
- Parts
- Two
- Plan
- Four wings on a central courtyard
- At the centre
- A fountain
The ground floor carries the palace of the emirate, in two parts, together with wide halls and a great many rooms.
Its form is the one used for a house rather than a barracks: four wings opening onto a central courtyard, with a fountain at the middle of it. That is a courtyard house of the kind built in Aleppo and Damascus, lifted whole onto the top of a fortified rock.
It is worth being clear about what that means. This was not a garrison post that someone occasionally visited. A ruler lived here, held a court here, and expected the surroundings of a court — running water, shade, halls to receive people in. The military and the domestic are not separate buildings at Qal'at Najm. They are the same building, on different floors.