Jan. 15th. After reading prayers to our society, I hastened to the ruins. I went on this principle, that I would endeavour to draw and ascertain all that former travellers had omitted; and for that purpose I took Chardin and Le Brun in my hand, that I might complete all that I found wanting in their views and notices. Finding, however, that they differed from each other (and one of course therefore from the reality) in many essential points, I thought that an entire description of the ruins in their present state would answer my purpose better than a partial and unconnected account, referring only to the mistakes or omissions of others.
The most striking feature, on a first approach, is the staircase and its surrounding walls. Two grand flights, which face each other, lead to the principal platform. To the right is an immense wall of the finest masonry, and of the most massive stones: to the left are other walls equally well built, but not so imposing. On arriving at the summit of the staircase, the first objects, which present themselves directly facing the platform, are four vast portals and two columns. Two portals first, then the columns, and then two portals again. On the front of each are represented in basso-relievo figures of animals, which, for want of a better name, we have called sphinxes. The two sphinxes on the first portals face outwardly, i. e. towards the plain and the front of the building. The two others, on the second portals, face inwardly, i. e. towards the mountain. From the first (to the right, on a straight line) at the distance of fifty-four paces, is a staircase of thirty steps, the sides of which are ornamented with bas-reliefs, originally in three rows, but now partly reduced by the accumulation of earth beneath, and by mutilation above. This staircase leads to the principal compartment of the whole ruins, which may be called a small plain, thickly studded with columns, sixteen of which are now erect. Having crossed this plain, on an eminence are numerous stupendous remains of frames, both of windows and doors, formed by blocks of marble of sizes most magnificent. These frames are ranged in a square, and indicate an apartment the most royal that can be conceived. On each side of the frames are sculptured figures, and the marble still retains a polish which, in its original state, must have vied with the finest mirrors. On each corner of this room are pedestals, of an elevation much more considerable than the surrounding frames; one is formed of a single block of marble. The front of this apartment seems to have been to the S. W. for we saw few marks of masonry on that exposure, and observed, that the base of that side of it was richly sculptured and ornamented. This front opens upon a square platform, on which no building appears to have been raised. But on the side opposite to the room which I have just mentioned, there is the same appearance of a corresponding apartment, although nothing but the bases of some small columns and the square of its floor attest it to have been such. The interval between these two rooms (on those angles which are the furthest distant from the grand front of the building) is filled up by the base of a sculpture similar to the bases of the two rooms; excepting that the centre of it is occupied by a small flight of steps. Behind, and contiguous to these ruins, are the remains of another square room, surrounded on all its sides by frames of doors and windows. On the floor are the bases of columns: from the order in which they appeared to me to have stood, they formed six rows, each of six columns. A staircase cut into an immense mass of rock (and from its small dimensions, probably the escalier derobé of the palace) leads into the lesser and enclosed plain below. Towards the plain are also three smaller rooms, or rather one room and the bases of two closets. Every thing on this part of the building indicates rooms of rest or retirement.
In the rear of the whole of these remains, are the beds of aqueducts which are cut into the solid rock. They met us in every part of the building; and are probably therefore as extensive in their course, as they are magnificent in construction. The great aqueduct is to be discovered among a confused heap of stones, not far behind the buildings (which I have been describing) on this quarter of the palace, and almost adjoining to a ruined staircase. We descended into its bed, which in some places is cut ten feet into the rock. This bed leads East and West; to the Eastward its descent is rapid about twenty-five paces; it there narrows, so that we could only crawl through it; and again it enlarges, so that a man of common height may stand upright in it. It terminates by an abrupt rock.
Proceeding from this towards the mountains, (situated in the rear of the great hall of columns) stand the remains of a magnificent room. Here are still left walls, frames and porticoes, the sides of which are thickly ornamented with bas-reliefs of a variety of compositions. This hall is a perfect square. To the right of this, and further to the southward are more fragments, the walls and component parts apparently of another room. To the left of this, and therefore to the northward of the building, are the remains of a portal, on which are to be traced the features of a sphinx. Still towards the north, in a separate collection, is the ruin of a column, which, from the fragments about it, must have supported a sphinx. In a recess of the mountain to the northward, is a portico. Almost in a line with the centre of the hall of columns, on the surface of the mountain is a tomb. To the southward of that is another, in like manner on the mountain’s surface; between both (and just on that point where the ascent from the plain commences) is a reservoir of water.
These constitute the sum of the principal objects among the ruins of Persepolis, some of which I will now endeavour to describe in more detail. The grand staircase consists of a Northern and a Southern ascent, which spring from the plain at the distance of forty-six feet from each other. Each again is divided into two flights; the first, terminated by a magnificent platform, contains fifty-four steps on a base of sixty-six feet six inches, measured from the first step to a perpendicular dropt from the highest at the landing place: the second, to the extreme summit of the whole, consists of forty-eight steps on a base of forty-six feet eight inches. Each step is in breadth twenty-six feet six inches, and in height three inches and a half. So easy therefore is the ascent, that the people of the country always mount it on horseback. The platform, where the two grand divisions meet, is thirty-four feet from the ground, and in length seventy. From the front of this platform to the portals behind is likewise seventy feet.
Persepolis.
Drawn by James Morier Esqr.
Published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Paternoster Row, May 1, 1811.
The portals are composed of immense oblong blocks of marble; their length is twenty-four feet six inches, breadth five feet, and distance from one another thirteen feet. The two first are faced by sphinxes; the remaining parts of whose bodies are delineated in a basso-relievo on the interior surface of the portal. In passing through these, the next objects before the more distant portals are two columns, but (as there is a sufficient space for two others, and as the symmetry would be defective without such an arrangement) I presume that the original structure was completed by four columns. The second portals correspond in size with the former, but differ from them not only in presenting their fronts towards the mountain, but in the subject of the sculptures with which they are adorned. The animals on the two first portals are elevated on a base. From the contour of the mutilation, the heads appear to have been similar to those of horses, and their feet have hoofs; on their legs and haunches the veins and muscles are strongly marked. Their necks, chests, shoulders, and backs, are encrustated with ornaments of roses and beads.
The sphinxes on the second portals appear to have had human heads, with crowned ornaments, under which are collected massive curls, and other decorations of a head-dress, which seems to have been a favourite fashion among the ancient Persians. Their wings are worked with great art and labour, and extend from their shoulders to the very summit of the wall. The intention of the sculptor is evidently, that these figures (emblematical perhaps of power and strength) should appear to bear on their backs the mass of the portico, including not only the block immediately above each, but the covering also, which, though now lost, certainly in the original state of the palace, connected the two sides and roofed the entrance. In these, as in the first portals, the faces of the animals form the fronts, and the bulk of their bodies, (called forth to a certain extent by the basso-relievo on the sides) is supposed to constitute the substance of the walls.