After the conquest of Asia the Achæmenids generally gave to the fire-altars the form of Græco-Lycian chapels. In the sculptures of a royal tomb at Nakhsh-i-Rustam we see a king in adoration before Ormuzd, and a fire-altar, which has the form of a square block of masonry with projections in imitation of pilasters, supporting an entablature formed of three steps one above the other; the highest, larger than the other two, forms the platform on which the fire is lighted ([fig. 141]).[62]
The architectural influence of Assyria is manifest in the construction of certain fire-altars. Near Firuzabad are the ruins of Jur, particularly interesting on account of the remains of an atesh-gah ninety-one feet high, described by travellers, and apparently a copy of the staged towers (zikkurat) of Chaldæa and Assyria, a type of which, the most complete in existence, is here handed down to us. M. Dieulafoy remarks that the atesh-gah at Jur resembles the minaret of the mosque of Ibn Tûlûn, one of the oldest Mussulman edifices. Thus types of religious architecture invented by the Chaldæans exercised their influence even on the modern art of the East.[63]
The funeral rites imposed by the Avesta had another consequence—that of creating a kind of architecture unknown in any country besides Persia. Human corpses might neither be committed directly to the ground, nor burnt, nor thrown into the river, for this would have caused pollution to water, earth, and fire. Cities of the dead had been established in remote and deserted spots: these were tall round towers called dakhmas, built of masonry, and showing no architectural ornament even round the top. These towers supported a wooden trellis-work on which the corpses were laid; birds of prey came and tore these abandoned bodies to pieces: they often carried off separate limbs to a distance, where wild beasts devoured what was left of them. That which remained in the charnel-house was buried, but previously covered with wax to avoid all direct contact with the ground. Herodotus has preserved a reminiscence of these distressing practices. “The corpse of a Persian” he says, “is not buried until it has been torn to pieces by dogs or birds of prey.... The Persians cover the dead body with wax, after which they inter it.” There is still at the present day in Persia a certain number of ruins of the sepulchral towers of the Mazdeans, and one of the best known is not far from Teheran.
But the dakhmas only served for popular burials; for the Achæmenid kings, at any rate, broke the Mazdean law, which perhaps itself made in practice an exception in favour of the royal family. The tombs of the Achæmenid princes can be divided, from the architectural point of view, into two large classes, according as they are or are not anterior to the conquest of Egypt. The former are conceived according to the style and plan of Græco-Ionian tombs, the latter according to the Egyptian hypogæa.
In the valley of Polvar-Rud, two and a half miles to the south of Takht-i-Madar-i-Soleiman, stands a small rectangular edifice, the probable burying-place of Mandane, the mother of Cyrus; the Persians call it Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman, “tomb of the mother of Solomon” (fig. 139). The archaic Greek character of this monument is striking. Constructed of large blocks in regular courses, without mortar, the stones being cut and fitted with the greatest exactness, it is provided with a triangular pediment, the only one ever observed in a monument of ancient Persia; it is reached by six steps running all round the little building. The roof is formed of flat slabs, sloping on each side according to the inclination of the pediment. Round the roof is a cornice composed of a reversed ogee enclosed within two fillets, an architectural decoration found repeated round the door, the double frame of which is copied from that of the Greek buildings in the Ionian style. The inner chamber measures scarcely six square yards. Round Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman was a courtyard surrounded by a portico; the chapel was not exactly in the centre of the courtyard, but stood at the bottom of it; so that an open space was left in front.
Fig. 139.—The Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman (after Dieulafoy).
Not far from this is the tomb of Cambyses the First, the father of Cyrus. It is so dilapidated that only one façade is almost intact; this is enough, however, to enable us to compare it with another tomb at Nakhsh-i-Rustam in a good state of preservation. Both of them were square towers, constructed of fine and regular masonry, the mortar being replaced by iron clamps. The tower, solid at the base, contains in its upper part a chamber, the ceiling of which is formed of large slabs fitted together; a staircase built outside gave access to a small door. The exterior façade is furnished on its four sides with false windows; the idea has even been adopted of building the back of these niches of black basalt, in order to give them the appearance of true apertures. The summit of the edifice is composed of a cornice adorned with a row of denticulations.