Fire Temples.
Near the town of Istakr, and opposite the tombs of Naksh-i-Rustam, stands a small tower-like building, represented in Woodcut No. [100]. The lower part is solid; the upper contains a small square apartment, roofed by two great flat slabs of stone. Access to this chamber is obtained by a doorway situated at some distance from the ground.
Both the traditions of the place and the knowledge we have of their religious practices point to this as one of the fire temples of the ancient Persians. Its roof is internally still black, probably with the smoke of ancient fires, and though simple and insignificant as an architectural monument, it is interesting as the only form of a temple apart from regal state which the ancient Persians possessed.
100. Khabah at Istakr. No scale.
Another, almost identical in form, is found at Pasargadæ,[[97]] and a third exists (according to Stolze) near Maubandajan, at the foot of the Kuh Pir-i-mard, eleven miles to east of Fasa. Perrot suggests it may have been the tomb of Hytaspes, father of Darius. The celebrated Kaabah at Mecca, to which all the Moslem world now bow in prayer, is probably a fourth, while the temple represented in Woodcut No. [81], from Lord Aberdeen’s Black Stone, may be a representation of such a structure as these, with its curtains and paraphernalia complete. It is too evident, however, that the Persians were not a temple-building people,[[98]] and the examples that have come down to our time are too few and too insignificant on which to found any theory.