Qusayr Amra was one of the magnificent desert palaces set-up by the Umayyad rulers, perhaps as a relief from their urban life as caliphs of Damascus. The site is unique because of its frescoes - painted by Byzantine artists in the years before figurative painting was banned under islam. For a detailed account of the site and its architectural features, see Cresswell's 'Early Islamic Architecture'. On the basis of the iconography and the events occuring at the time, Cresswell dates the complex to the second decade of the 8th century.
The surviving structure consists of an audience chamber (triple-roofed structure on the left of the photo) and an attached bath complex (lower buildings to the right).