Foreign topography; or, an encyclopedick account, alphabetically arranged, of the ancient remains in Africa, Asia, and Europe; forming a sequel to the Encyclopedia of antiquities / By the Rev. Thomas Dudley Fosbroke.
- Thomas Dudley Fosbroke
- Date:
- 1828
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Foreign topography; or, an encyclopedick account, alphabetically arranged, of the ancient remains in Africa, Asia, and Europe; forming a sequel to the Encyclopedia of antiquities / By the Rev. Thomas Dudley Fosbroke. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Franklin, and then from Sir R. K. Porter, the latest traveller, and highest authority upon the subject. Behind the hall of pillars, and close under the mountain, are the remains of a very large building (p. 20S), of a quadrangular form. It has four principal entrances, two froiti the north-east and two from the south-west. The walls are divided into several partitions, ornamented with various pieces of sculpture. Over the doors, which are twelve in number, are bas-reliefs. The recesses on the walls are all lined with fine granite, and their fronts have handsome cornices of stones. Descending to the foot of the mountain, on the south, you meet with the remains of a small square building, which has several doors and windows still standing, with similar carved figures to the others. A little to the west of this, you ascend by a stone- staircase, into a magnificent court of a quadrangular form. Several pedestals of pillars, and the remains of two grand portals to the east, are still visible. The cornice of the portals appears to have b^een very superb. They are of an oblong shape. On many of the broken pieces of the pillars, are ancient inscriptions. The tombs of A^akschi Roustam (a legendary hero of the Persians, like our St. George*) are like those of TchehebMinar; and one description, says Mongez (p. 2fi0), with some small difference in ornaments, will serve for all. Four columns support a vast entablement, upon which is sculptured a kind of altar, adorned with two ranks of figures, which, with elevated arms, support the mouldings. Above the altar is a votary with a brasier lighted before him. Still higher is a round indistinct object. [TheSun, thiriks Franklin, p, 213.j The old man holding a circle, surmounts the .whole. He is borne, as in the bas-relief of Tchehel Minar, upon a winged object. [Sacy, from the Persian Mythology, and its occurrence upon coins, makes this figure a spiritual being called Farouher, meaning the Principle of Sensation. FI] A false door is placed be- tween the columns. A part of this false door opens, and allows entrance to the tombs, by descending with a cord. These tombs only contained, from the first. Sarcophagi, and they are conjectured to have belonged to the founders of Persepolis. To the same lera and people is ascribed a square building, 27 feet broad, and at least as many high. Fifteen courses of white marble form the whole mass of it. Each is of a single stone. The exterior has only one door, elevated very far from the ground, by which it is lighted. It has niches hollowed in the walls, to receive, according to tradition, in- scriptions graven upon brass plates. It is divided into two stories. The uses are un- known. Mongez, 264—266. The materials (says Franklin^ 228) of which the palace is composed, are chiefly of hard blue stone, but the doors and windows of the apartments are all of black marble, polished like a mirror. The wall of the palace includes a circumference of 1402 square yards; the front is 600 paces from north to south, and 390 from east to west. The hall of pillars appears to have been detached from the rest of the palace, and to have had a communication with the other parts by hollow galleries of stone. By the pe- destals of the pillars, which Mr. Franklin counted very exactly, the hall seems to have originally consisted of nine distinct rows of columns, each containing six, making con- sequently in all thirty-four. The fifteen which remain are from 70 to 80 feet high, the diameter at the base 12 feet, and the intercolumniations 22 feet. By the position of the front pillars, the hall appears to have been open towards the plain: but four of * See a better definition hereafter. 2 D](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22012035_0299.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
