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According to a map presented by Le Strange in Baghdad During the Abbasid Caliphate, the center of Baghdad's "Round City" was founded somewhere in this region (1). I chose this location because the center of this "Round City" was a crossroads similar to the one evident here. It is clear, however, that no such development remains.Upon claiming the caliphate from the Umayyads, the Abbasids looked to the east for a new capital. The Umayyad capital of Damascus would be unsuitable for a variety of reasons--namely, it was the source from which their rivals, the Umayyads, drew their power and sources.After looking at numerous sites in Iraq, including Kufa and a couple other spots along the Tigris, the second Abbasid caiph, al-Mansur, chose the site of Baghdad as his seat of power. This site was chosen because of strategic, economic, and climatic/agricultural conditions.The plans of the capital were drawn up in July of 758 by Khalid ibn Barmak, the head of a distinguished family. The plans were for a city girded by a round wall, the first city of its kind. It is because of this that the site became known as the "Round City." In July of 762, Baghdad was founded. The city and its walls were contructed out of a prevalent material in Iraq, bricks. These bricks were sun-dried and were either cubical in shape or half-bricks similar to those of the Romans. The cube bricks had sides of eighteen inches and weighed about 200 pounds. The others were nine by eighteen and weighed half as much as the cubes (Le Strange 19). One notable brick counter was Abu-Hanifa, the founder of an Islamic school of law (See Abu-Hanifa Mosque).Two major building built at the center of the "Round City" were the Mosque of Mansur and the Palace of the Golden Gate (See Palace of the Golden Gate and Mosque of Mansur). Neither building remains today.The "Round City" had four gates along its round wall. These four gates--Kufa, Basra, Khurasan and Syria--were named in the direction which they gave access to. The walls of the city were massive. At their base they were 145 feet thick and 39 feet thick at the top of the 98 foot high top of the walls. These walls were demolished in the 9th century by the caliph Mu'tadid, because the city was growing too rapidly for the walls to contain it. This marked the end of the original "Round City" al-Mansur had built, as Baghdad spilled out of its walls in all directions north, west, south and even east across the Tigris. During the year 198/814 the "Round City" sustained massive damage when Mamun attacked. Le Strange writes that "during the siege the whole of the Round Ciy was, for the space of severl weeks, continuously bombarded" (33). During this time, the Palace of the Golden Gate suffered great damage.In addition to the damage caused during sieges, urban sprawl has drastically altered the area, as it is difficult to see any similarities between the city al-Mansur founded in 762 and the city of Baghdad today.See: Euphrates River, Mosque of Mansur, Palace of the Golden Gate, "The Great Swamp," Tigris River, and Seaport.Sources:Duri, A. A. "Baghdad." Encyclopaedia of Islam. New ed. 1967.Le Strange, G. Baghdad During the Abbasid Caliphate. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.Wiet, Gaston. Trans. Seymour Feiler. Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. pp. 8-14.