Bit-hilani

A Bit-hilani (Akkadian: Bīt-Ḫilāni, meaning 'house of pillars') is an ancient architectural type of palace. It seems to have become popular at the end of the tenth and during the ninth century BCE during the early Iron Age in northern Syria although it may have originated as early as the Bronze Age. Contemporary records call it a Hittite-style palace, probably after the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of northern Syria.

The oldest excavated building described as Hilani by its excavator Sir Leonard Woolley is a palace in level IV at Alalakh dated to the 15th century BCE. The palace is thought to have been built by Niqmepa, a son of Idrimi of the royal family of the Amorite state of Yamhad based in Halab.

A building at the citadel (Büyükkale) of the Hittite capital Hattusa may also have been of the hilani type. As most of the structures on the citadel underwent considerable rebuilding during the reign of Tudhaliya IV (ca. 1237 BCE–1209 BCE), it is usually dated to the 13th century BCE.

Kapara, king of the Aramaean kingdom of Bit Bahiani in the 10th or 9th century BCE, built himself a palace of this style in his capital at Guzana (Tell Halaf). The palace, with a rich decoration of statues and relief orthostats, was excavated by Max von Oppenheim in 1911. Some of the finds were taken to Berlin, and most of them destroyed when his private museum was hit during a bombing raid in November 1943. The National Museum of Aleppo has reconstructed the pillared portico in front of its entrance.

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