Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 2 of 2). Charles Bucke
account of the ruins of this celebrated place,” says Mr. Buckingham. “There is no temple, as at Thebes, at Palmyra, or at Balbec, sufficiently predominant over all other surrounding objects to attract the chief attention, and furnish of itself sufficient matter for description and observation. Here, all is broken and detached fragments, extremely numerous, and each worthy of attention; but so scattered and disjointed, as to give no perfect idea of the whole. Its principal feature is, that it presents an assemblage of tall, slender, and isolated pillars, and separate door-ways and sanctuaries, spread over a large platform, elevated, like a fortification, from the level of the surrounding plain.”
“The works of different travellers, describing these ruins,” says Sir William Ouseley, “furnish many instances of extraordinary variation. But this discordance is not peculiar to those, who have written accounts of Persepolis. We find that, concerning the same visible and tangible objects, two, three, and even four, travellers in other countries have disagreed; – all men of considerable ingenuity, and none intending to deceive.” Sir William then refers to a passage in Sir Thomas Herbert’s Travels. “Forasmuch as the remaining figures, or images, are many and different, and so many, as in two days I was there it was impossible I could take the full of what I am assured an expert limner may very well spend twice two months in, ere he can make a fancy draught; for, to say the truth, this is a work much fitter for the pencil than the pen; the rather for that I observe how that travellers, taking a view of some rare piece together, from the variety of their fancy, they usually differ in those observations: so that when they think their notes are exact, they shall pretermit something that a third will light upon.” These observations were made by Sir Thomas among the ruins of the city, of which we now are treating.
“Nothing,” says Mr. Fraser, “can be more striking, than the appearance of those ruins on approaching them from the south-west. Placed at the base of a rugged mountain, on a terrace of mason-work that might vie with the structures of Egypt, it overlooks an immense plain, inclosed on all sides by distant but dark cliffs, and watered by the Kour Ab, which once supplied a thousand aqueducts. But the water-courses are dried up; the plain is a morass or a wilderness; for the great city, which once poured its population over the wide expanse of Merdusht, has disappeared, and the grey columns rise in solitary grandeur, to remind us, that mighty deeds were done in the days of old.”
The last account of this place we have by an Eastern writer, is that given by Mirza Jan, in the account he gives of a journey he made from Shirauz to Isfahan. “Beyond the village of Kenarch, about half a parasang, is a mountain, and at the foot of it an extraordinary place, wherein are columns and marbles, sculptured with strange devices and inscriptions, so that most persons imagine this edifice to have been constructed before the creation of man.” This is very curious; since the sculptures themselves give positive evidence of his existence.
The following account of these ruins is taken from Mr. Francklin. “They are about two days’ journey from Shiraz, on a rising ground, in a plain, surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains. They occupy a circumference of one thousand four hundred square yards. The front is six hundred paces from north to south, and three hundred and ninety from east to west, and the height of the foundation from forty to fifty feet.
“The columns are ascended by a grand staircase of blue stone, about fifty feet high, the sides embellished with two immense sphinxes, dressed out with bead-work. At a small distance from these portals you ascend another flight of steps leading to the grand hall of columns. The sides of these stairs are charged with reliefs of figures holding vessels in their hands, camels, triumphal cars, horses, oxen, and rams. At the head of the stair is a relief of a lion seizing a bull. This stair leads to the great hall of forty or fifty pillars, in nine rows, of six each; of which fifteen remain entire, from seventy to eighty feet high; the diameter at the base twelve feet, and distance between the columns twenty-two. Their pedestals are curiously wrought, and little injured, the shafts fluted to the top, and the capitals adorned with a profusion of fret-work. East of this, are remains of a square building, entered by a door of granite; most of the doors and windows standing of black marble, highly polished. On the sides of the doors, at entering, are bas-reliefs of two figures, representing a man stabbing a goat; a common device all over the palace. Over another door of the same apartment are two men, and a domestic behind them, with an umbrella. At the south-west entrance of this apartment are two large stone pillars, carved with four figures in long garments, holding spears ten feet long. Exclusive of the ancient inscriptions, in unknown characters, interspersed over these ruins, there are others, accurately described by Niebuhr. Behind the hall of the pillars, and close under the mountains, are remains of a very large building, with two principal entrances from north-east, and south-west; the wall divided into several partitions, ornamented with sculpture, and over its twelve doors the relief of the lion and bull, as before: and besides the usual figures, one of a man in long garments, with a cap turret-formed, seated on a pillar, holding in his hand a small vessel, and wearing a girdle round his waist, projecting beyond his clothes, and under him several lions. Behind this ruin, a considerable way to the north, up the mountain Rehumut, are remains of two buildings, of three sides, cut out of the rock, forty feet high, ascended to by steps, now destroyed. Two of the sides are loaded with carvings, as of some religious ceremony, including the figure last mentioned. Former travellers have supposed these tombs to be of the kings of Persia; the natives call it Mujilis Jemsheed, or the Assembly of king Jemsheed, who resorted hither with his nobles. Under these reliefs several openings lead to a dark subterranean passage, of six feet by four, into the rock. At the foot of this mountain, to the south, are the remains of windows, like those in other parts of the palace; and, a little westward from it, a stone staircase, leading to a magnificent square court, with pediments, and corners of pillars, and on those ancient inscriptions. In several parts of the palace are stone aqueducts. These venerable ruins have suffered from time, weather, and earthquakes; and are half buried in sand, washed down from the mountains. Persian writers ascribe it to King Jemsheed; and the addition of one thousand columns more, to Queen Homaie, eight hundred years after; but there is no epoch assigned.”
This account is from Mr. Francklin; we now turn to Mr. Morier. “Tavernier and Des Ferrières-Sauvebœuf, are the only persons who have spoken slightingly of these ruins; but there is no small reason to believe, that the latter never saw the ruins he speaks of; and that the former merely wrote from the dubious information of a capuchin, who resided for some years at Isfahan.”
Besides the inscriptions, above alluded to, there are others in Arabic, Persian, and Greek. Dr. Hyde observes, that the inscriptions are very rude and clumsy; and that some, if not all, are in praise of Alexander; and therefore, they must be later than that conqueror.
The Persepolitan capitals convey the idea of rich silks and feathers having been tied round the upper part of tall wooden posts; and rich silks, feathers, and precious stones, have always been the materials with which Eastern monarchs form their most gorgeous decorations.
These ruins bear incontrovertible evidence of antiquity; and although in some things they resemble Egyptian, and in others Indian edifices, they, especially in the palace, possess leading features, sufficiently distinct to entitle them to be considered as of a separate school. Yet, being, amongst numerous palaces, the only vestiges of lofty stone columns and numerous sculptures, and being traced immediately subsequent to the Egyptian expedition under Cambyses, they afford strong grounds for believing, that Thebaid influence, by example, or workmen, or both, led to these works, so unlike what had formerly been practised in Persia. That the style was not spread over the empire, may be accounted for from its immediate subjugation by the Greeks. In latter times the use of the Gothic arches, and Turkish domes, highly ornamented, have been, throughout all Persia, extensively introduced in their palaces, mosques, and tombs. The hand of the Musselman has likewise reached the remotest quarters of India85.
The materials, of which the palace is composed, are chiefly hard blue stone; but the doors and windows are of black marble, and so beautifully polished, that they reflect objects like a mirror. This high polish is agreeably alluded to in the account, given by Mr. Murray, in his historical account of travels in Asia, where he mentions that those ruins were visited by Garcias de Sylva in 1621. “The ambassador came to the spot called Cilminar, celebrated for the mighty ruins which cover its site – the remains of the ancient Persepolis. They were diligently
Civil Architecture.