On the side of a hill overlooking the plain is a platform of masonry (Woodcut No. [82]) which originally supported either a temple or fire-altar, but this has now entirely disappeared, and the structure is only remarkable for the beauty of its masonry and the large dimensions of the stones with which it is built. These are drafted (Woodcut No. [83]), not only at their joints but often on their faces, with the same flat sinking as is found in all the Jewish works at Jerusalem, and sometimes in Greek buildings of the best age. Thus an ornament of great beauty and elegance is formed out of what would otherwise be merely a plain mass of masonry.
The tomb of Cyrus has already been referred to (p. [164]) as a copy in stone of one of the ziggurats or terrace-temples. But it must be borne in mind that the most celebrated example of this form is as often called the tomb, as the temple of Belus;[[88]] and among a Turanian people the tomb and the temple may be considered as one and the same thing. The tomb is surrounded on three sides[[89]] by a portico of columns standing 14 feet apart: no stone capitals have been found, but it is probable that the columns carried wooden bracket-capitals to diminish the bearing of the wooden architrave or beam which supported the roof. Beyond the portico there are the traces of a second enclosure 25 feet wide, which, from its width, was probably an open court.
84. Tomb of Cyrus. (From Texier’s ‘Arménie et la Perse.’)
On the plain are the remains of buildings, three of which were palaces, and one the ruin of a tomb. The plan of one of them, called the palace of Cyrus, has been measured and published by M. Texier, MM. Flandin & Coste, and M. Dieulafoy, and although the restoration given by the latter goes somewhat farther than the remains will account for, there are certain features in which they all agree, and which show that it contained at least two porches or porticoes and a great hall of columns not dissimilar from the examples found at Persepolis. The angle piers or responds of two porticoes still exist in situ; on one of them in the upper stone is cut the socket in which the architrave of the portico rested, the form of this socket having a peculiar value, as it shows more clearly than the socket in the respond of the portico of the palace of Darius, that the Persian architrave was composed of two or more beams placed one over the other, and overhanging, as in the tomb of Darius. A second pier has an inscription which enables us to ascribe its erection to Cyrus. A column, 34 feet high, of the great hall still remains, which shows that at all events in this case the central hall rose above the porticoes, deriving its light therefore through clerestory windows. No capitals have been found,[[90]] and it is possible therefore they were in wood, as we have suggested may have been the case in the portico of the tomb of Cyrus.
85. Plan of Tomb of Cyrus, Pasargadæ. (From Texier.)
86. Section of Tomb of Cyrus. (From Texier.)
To the east of this palace, and distant about 170 yards, are the remains of a second palace with a hall of columns, and measuring 124 by 49 ft., and on the west side of it is the stone jamb of a doorway similar to those at Persepolis, and carved with the well-known bas-relief of Cyrus. The third palace has been excavated by Mr. Weld Blundell, and the foundations of its walls traced, measuring 187 by 131 ft., with a hall of 24 columns.