CHAPTER II

NIEBUHR TO DE MORGAN. A.D. 1765-1897

It was more than sixty years before any farther contribution was made to the knowledge of Persepolis. In 1761, however, the King of Denmark, Frederic V., fitted out an expedition chiefly for the purpose of exploring Arabia. Five commissioners were nominated, to each of whom a special branch of inquiry was assigned. Among them was Carston Niebuhr, the father of the writer whose historical works agitated the early part of last century. They left Copenhagen in January of that year, and reached Constantinople after an adventurous voyage. From thence they went to Egypt, and finally to Yeman, where they arrived in 1763. Here three out of the five explorers died, and the two survivors left for Bombay in 1764. Soon afterwards another died, and Niebuhr, the sole survivor, determined to return home, and to take Persia and the Euphrates Valley on his way. He received many courtesies from the English merchants settled at Bushire and Shiraz, especially from Mr. Hercules, the agent of the East India Company, in whose house he lived at Shiraz. Through his influence Niebuhr went on to Persepolis, furnished with the best introductions to the chiefs of the neighbouring villages. He arrived on the 13th of March, 1765, and remained till the 3rd of April. He afterwards returned for two days to compare his sketches with the original. He wrote in German, and the French translation appeared in 1780.[81]

The magnificent views of Persepolis given to the world by Chardin, and the very useful plan drawn to scale by Kaempfer, had already afforded ample material for forming a tolerably accurate conception of the general aspect of the ruins. Little remained now to be done except to work for the archæologist, to whom the minutest attention to detail was the first necessity. Niebuhr, unfortunately, cannot claim to have accomplished this difficult task, so far at least as his drawings are concerned. He has, however, contributed ten plates of illustrations of considerable artistic merit. Following the example of Kaempfer, he begins with a ground plan on which the various edifices are distinctly indicated by letters. This is followed by a general view looking towards the west; three plates are devoted to the sculptured stairs; one to the mysterious animals on the porch that continued so long a stumbling-block; the Palaces of Darius and Xerxes each occupy a plate, and two others portray the seated figures in the Hall of the Hundred Columns. He was so satisfied with this achievement that he thought even the student would have no need of any farther assistance from the artist’s pencil.[82] This is, however, so far from the case, that even the general reader has some cause to complain.[83] Niebuhr has conveyed an entirely false conception of the appearance of the sculptured terrace by the omission of the broken line of sculpture, of which one half still remains above the other two. He has also had the temerity to represent the figures as though they were perfect, though he states in the text that the larger number on one side are so mutilated that they are without their heads.[84] It would be impossible in his drawings to distinguish the different nationalities; it is difficult even to detect the ‘Kaffir,’ as he calls the famed Ethiopian.[85]

On the other hand, the description he has given of the ruins has the merit of being more concise than that of Chardin, and we follow him throughout with clearness. He was disposed to accept the theory that the edifice was originally a temple, the seat of an ecclesiastical chief, comparable to the Roman Pontiff, who had gradually passed into a secular prince. He did not doubt that it finally became the residence of the Achaemenian Kings, and was the edifice destroyed by Alexander.

It is not necessary to refer to many of his criticisms. He had little hesitation in deciding that the animals on the Porch were griffins (licornes), and that a double griffin ornamented the capital of the columns. Besides griffins, he fancied he discerned women among the bas-reliefs, especially in the Palace of Xerxes.[86] He, however, made the important observation that in the Columnar Edifice or Hall of Xerxes the columns of the central cluster are four feet lower than those at the side, and that there are the remains of four walls that seem to indicate an entrance from the north. He did not consider that the evidence was sufficient to conclude, as was generally done, that this edifice must have been necessarily open at the top; on the contrary, he suggests the possibility that the central group of columns supported a second stage, and the side colonnades a terrace.[87] He thought it probable that the whole assemblage of columns—seventy-two in number—had originally formed one immense building, which would have exceeded in size the Hall of the Hundred Columns. With regard to the latter, he had no doubt that it also had been roofed, and he observed numerous fragments of columns both in the great hall and in the portico. Della Valle had long ago traced the bases of thirty-six columns in the Palace of Xerxes; Niebuhr now adds the observation that there are four in each of the side rooms. He was also the first to observe the third tomb to the south of the others near Persepolis that has been left incomplete.[88]

But his principal merit lies in the great service he has rendered towards the solution of the mystery of the cuneiform letters. It is true he neglected to furnish a complete copy of all the inscriptions, which, with the time at his disposal, he might perhaps have accomplished; but the contributions he did make are of great value.

(1) He copied the inscription on the west end of the sculptured terrace, 25 lines, known as Inscription A.

(2) The six-line inscription in three tablets over the king in the Palace of Darius: B, C, D.

(3) The corresponding inscription in the Palace of Xerxes: E, F, G.

(4) He also copied the large inscriptions in four tablets on the outside south wall of the platform: H, I, K, and L. They each fill twenty-four lines, and an idea of the size of the letters may be formed from the fact that the original covers a space twenty-six feet long by six feet high.

Of these Le Bruyn had already copied the A inscription in the drawing he gives of the stairs, the six-line inscription of Darius (B, C, D), and a line of the inscription of Xerxes from the royal robe; while Kaempfer copied one tablet (L) of the inscription on the south terrace.[89] The others now appear for the first time. It has already been observed that Kaempfer was the first to draw the characters with a bold and steady hand; in this he has been followed by Niebuhr, so that his copies differ in no respect from those produced in the present day. The few remarks he has made upon the subject are of peculiar value and very materially assisted later scholars. He was the first to observe that the inscriptions are written in three different ‘alphabets,’ and that these always recurred together.[90] So slow is the progress of discovery, however, that he never seems to have advanced to what might appear to be the obvious conclusion that the three tablets are repetitions of the same text in different languages. He noted that the ‘alphabet’ in one of the tablets of the series was comparatively simple, and consisted of no more than forty-two different signs.[91] These he copied out, and they appear in Plate 23. He thus limited the first step in decipherment to the interpretation of a comparatively small number of signs. Till then the greatest confusion was produced by the appearance of detached portions of inscriptions, selected indifferently from all the three kinds of writing, a process that inspired the fear that the number of signs to be mastered was practically unlimited. Having clearly detected each separate letter from among the number of confused signs in a line of inscription, he farther assisted the student by marking off each separate letter by a full stop or colon in the copies he made of the inscriptions themselves.[92] From the division of the signs into letters he does not seem to have made the next step and apprehended the division of the lines into words by the diagonal wedges in the Persian column. He, however, directed attention to two different copies of the same inscription, where in one the letters that end the third line are in the other the first that occur in the fourth line; he pointed out that this practically settled the direction in which the writing should be read.[93] He also showed that the lines supposed by Chardin to be written from top to bottom are not in reality upright, but should be placed on their side, and when horizontal the letters correspond to those already known.[94]

Before leaving the neighbourhood of Persepolis, Niebuhr visited Istakhr and Naksh-i-Rustam, but he did not go on to Murgab. At Istakhr he saw two columns still standing, and he noted the massive blocks of the gateway.[95] He made no attempt to enter any of the tombs, which he says could not be done ‘without the risk of losing one’s life.’ That risk, such as it was, was, however, undertaken in the following year by Mr. Hercules, who had provided himself with tools in the case of necessity; but he found that some earlier visitor had pierced a hole through the top, and that there was nothing but dust remaining. Niebuhr has not noticed the inscription on the Tomb of Darius; but his accurate copies of the Pehlevi made at this spot and at Naksh-i-Rejeb opposite were the first that enabled Silvestre de Sacy to translate that language.

We shall see in a future chapter that before the close of the century the writings of Le Bruyn and Niebuhr had attracted a fair share of attention among European scholars; and the copies they had made of the inscriptions became the object of sedulous study, especially in the North. In Göttingen, the interest excited by the description of the ruins of Persepolis gave rise to an extremely heated controversy between Heeren and Herder. The former, in an early edition of the ‘Historical Researches,’ maintained that they were of Achaemenian origin. Persepolis, he says, ‘as the residence and place of sepulture of the Persian kings, was considered in the light of a sanctuary, and held to be the chief place in the kingdom.’ Herder, on the other hand, contended for its Jamshid origin, and supported his opinion in a series of very acrid ‘Persepolitan Letters.’[96] The question was of more importance than might at first sight appear, for upon its decision depended the royal names that should be looked for in the inscriptions. George Grotefend, a student in the University, who made the first successful attempt to decipher them in 1802, adopted the opinion of Heeren, and his investigations were largely based upon the conviction that the names of Darius and Xerxes could not fail to be found hidden in the cuneiform characters.

Meanwhile the new century opened with a continuance of the explorations, and one of the most fruitful discoveries was the inscription of Cyrus found by Morier at Murgab. For some time previous the disturbed state of the country had led to a complete suspension of diplomatic relations between Persia and European countries. Foreigners, who had been so cordially welcomed by Shah Abbas became almost unknown. Englishmen were gazed upon in the streets of the capital as ‘monsters of an unknown genus,’ and thought to be Chinese.[97] At length Captain (afterwards Sir John) Malcolm was sent by the Indian Government to solicit an alliance for common action against the Afghans. The French, however, viewed this friendly alliance with jealousy, and in 1805 they sent M. Jaubert, a well-known Orientalist, to detach the Shah from the English alliance.[98] The French envoy was successful; a Persian mission visited France, and concluded a treaty with Napoleon, in May 1807; an embassy under General Gardanne followed. These intrigues were, however, immediately met by a special mission from England, headed by Sir Harford Jones; and James Morier was appointed secretary. Morier was descended from a Huguenot family who, after leaving France, settled first in Switzerland and afterwards in Smyrna, where they engaged in business. Here James was born, about 1780. Not long after, his father came to England, became a naturalised subject, and sent his sons to Harrow. A reverse of fortune compelled him to return to Smyrna, where James again resided till about 1800. His father was appointed Consul at Constantinople in 1804, and died there of the plague in 1817. He had, however, the good fortune to secure appointments for three of his sons in the diplomatic service, and a commission in the navy for a fourth. Morier reached Bushire at the end of 1808, but upon this occasion he only spent a few months in the country. He returned in 1810, once more filling the position of secretary to an embassy of which Sir Gore Ouseley was chief. Ouseley brought his brother William with him in the capacity of private secretary and Mr. Gordon, a brother of Lord Aberdeen, was also attached to the mission. While the party was detained at Shiraz, in 1811, they scattered in pursuit of archæological discovery. Morier revisited Persepolis; Sir W. Ouseley went to Fasa, which was then considered to be the ancient Pasargadae; while Gordon undertook the dangerous journey to Susa.[99] Morier remained in Persia for six years, devoting himself to study; and he has secured a lasting fame as author of ‘Hajji Baba.’ Upon the occasion of his first visit in 1809, he spent only two days at Persepolis, and he added nothing to the knowledge already existing with reference to it. He, however, went to Naksh-i-Rustam, and his friend Captain Sutherland succeeded, as Mr. Hercules had done before, in entering the tomb farthest to the left.[100] He afterwards continued his journey along the valley of the Polvar, ‘between mountains whose brown and arid sides presented nothing to cheer or enliven the way.’ When he had travelled, as he supposed, about forty miles, and was still some two miles from Murgab, he turned from the direct route to view the ruins known in the country as ‘Mesjid Madre Suleiman,’ or Tomb of the Mother of Solomon. He observed the three pilasters of what is now termed the Palace of Cyrus, and conjectured at once that they belonged to a Hall, ‘the interior of which was decorated with columns.’ They were surmounted by a short inscription, of which he made a copy. He next observed a ‘building of a form so extraordinary that the people of the country often call it the court of the deevis or devil.’ He gives an excellent drawing of the well-known tomb, and adds: ‘if the position of the place had corresponded with the site of Passagardae as well as the form of this structure accords with the description of the Tomb of Cyrus, I should have been tempted to assign to the present building so illustrious an origin.’ He shows that the plain in which it stands was once the site of a great city, ‘as is proved by the ruins with which it is strewed’; the cuneiform inscriptions indicate that it was of the same ‘general antiquity’ as Persepolis; the two structures correspond in description, and in fact the only evidence on the other side is the absence of the inscription which Aristobulus declares he saw upon it. The place had been visited twice before, once by Barbaro in the fifteenth century, and again by Mandelslo in 1638. Mandelslo, indeed, gives an admirable drawing of it, which later artists have scarcely excelled. But till it was seen by the imaginative Morier no one had suggested that it was the Tomb of Cyrus. The opinion was readily accepted by Grotefend,[101] and it guided him to no small extent in the decipherment of the name of Cyrus in the inscription brought from the immediate vicinity.[102] When, however, Morier paid his second visit to Murgab in 1811, he was so overawed by the ponderous learning of his travelling companion Ouseley, that he tacitly allowed the subject to drop. On this occasion he succeeded in gaining access to the interior, but found nothing worthy of mention. He also noticed for the first time a very remarkable bas-relief of a winged human figure, and over it a repetition of the inscription he had already copied.[103]

Kaempfer had set the example of collecting specimens, and we fear the gentlemen of the embassy were only too ready to follow in his steps. They even went so far as to bring stone-cutters with them, provided with the requisite tools to carry their design into effect. We afterwards hear rather ominously of ‘the specimens in the possession of Sir Gore Ouseley and Lord Aberdeen.’[104] Morier published in 1812 the account of his ‘First Journey,’ containing the famous Cyrus inscription, and in 1818 the account of his ‘Second Journey’ followed. These works were well received, and can still be read with interest, but the fame of the author rests on his ‘Hajji Baba,’ which appeared in 1824.

Ouseley, who accompanied the embassy, was a very learned Orientalist, who was perhaps somewhat oppressed by the weight of his own accomplishments.[105] He was born in Ireland, in 1771, and after serving for a time in the army, he retired in 1794, and devoted himself wholly to his favourite pursuits. He became a thorough Persian scholar, and the author of many books bearing on Persian history and antiquities. He was therefore well qualified to accompany the embassy, and it was a source of keen pleasure to him to visit the country under such advantageous circumstances.

We have said that he turned aside from Shiraz to visit Fasa or Pasa, in the hope of finding the tomb of Cyrus; but, like Della Valle, he discovered nothing except a venerable cypress tree, which ‘is said to have been for above one thousand years the boast and ornament of the place.’[106] He finally came to the conclusion that Pasargadae and Persepolis were one and the same place, and firmly opposed the claim put forward by Morier on behalf of Murgab. Ouseley seems to have spent five days in all among the ruins of Persepolis, and he made excellent use of his time. He added another to the increasing number of general views (Pl. 40), and contributed a few small sketches of various parts of the building (Pl. 41). He rendered considerable service by the accurate copy he made of the cuneiform inscription round the window frames of the Palace of Darius. He found it repeated no less than eighteen times, and by a careful collation he was able to present a complete reading of the mutilated text.[107] He finally dispelled the erroneous idea that it was to be read from the top downwards; and he pointed out that certain of the characters found on bricks and gems from Babylon are never to be seen at Persepolis.[108] His description of the ruins is painstaking, but the subject was now almost exhausted. He agrees with Niebuhr that the Hall of Xerxes was roofed, and also that it may have supported another stage. He went farther and suggested the comparison with the façade of the tombs, an idea which Fergusson afterwards turned to excellent account.[109] But the chief value of his narrative consists in the full account he gives of Murgab and the illustrations that accompany it. Mandelslo and Morier had, as we have seen, both sketched the tomb; Ouseley adds a third sketch and by no means the best; but his other drawings are quite new, and from them the reader gains his first impressions of the plain of Murgab. They afford excellent views of the principal remains—the terrace, the square building, the palace, the caravansary, and the winged figure. He gives a satisfactory account of each, and when he comes to the palace, we find it described simply as ‘a cluster of pillars and pilasters.’ Notwithstanding all his prepossessions, he could not fail to be struck by the strange likeness of the Murgab tomb to the description given of the tomb of Cyrus, and he adds: ‘I should not have hesitated to believe it the tomb of Cyrus had the discovery of it rewarded my researches in the vicinity of Pasa or Fasa, or if, as Mr. Morier says, its position had corresponded with the site of Passagardae.’ As it was, he even ventured to express the opinion that it was a building of ‘doubtful antiquity.’[110] He visited it just an hour after Morier had made his sacrilegious entry; the startled female custodian had meanwhile returned, locked up the sacred shrine, and fled; so he was unable to satisfy his curiosity by a near inspection. He copied the Cyrus inscription from a solitary monolith to the north of the palace, and there were thus three independent versions of the same inscription taken from three different parts of the ruins.[111] The copy made by Ouseley was sent to the Director of the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg and through him it fell under the notice of Grotefend. Ouseley succeeded in making a magnificent collection of Persian manuscripts, especially relating to history and geography. His later years were spent in France, and he died at Boulogne, in 1842.[112]

Two hundred years had now elapsed since Gouvea called attention to the ruins of Persepolis. A considerable amount of literature had accumulated on the subject, and large numbers of plans and drawings of the principal objects were taken, which materially assisted the student. On looking back over these, however, it was curious to observe how widely the descriptions differed from each other, and how irreconcilable were the various views of the same monument. The explanation was not far to seek. Most of the travellers could only spare a few days from more pressing occupations to devote to the work. They were afterwards compelled to complete from memory the hasty sketches they had made on the spot, and although many of them display considerable skill in the use of their pencil, only a few had any professional knowledge of drawing. They were, moreover, all alike at the mercy of the engraver, and some thought they had good reason to complain of the treatment they received at his hands. But there was another cause that led to inevitable discrepancies. Few of them aimed to produce the minute accuracy of a photograph, or could resist the temptation of idealising the work before them: on the one hand, Le Bruyn exaggerated the ruin wrought by time; on the other, Niebuhr repaired its ravages. According to the one, the sculptured staircase is a confused mass of mutilated figures; according to the other, it appears as perfect as when first completed by the sculptor. Nor was it only in the drawings that inaccuracies were to be detected. The measuring tape itself seemed to yield different results in different hands. It was impossible to find agreement even as to the number of steps in the great staircase. According to one, there were only ninety-five (Herbert); according to another, one hundred and thirteen (Kaempfer); and other accounts ranged between these two extremes.

It was with the professed object of giving a final and authoritative representation that would satisfy the curiosity of the minute student that Sir Robert Ker Porter undertook to go over the old ground once more. He was an accomplished artist and he consequently possessed qualifications many of his predecessors were without. He arrived at Murgab on June 12, 1818, and left Persepolis on July 1, so that he was not more than eighteen days engaged in the study of the numerous antiquities in the neighbourhood. At the conclusion of his stay, he congratulates himself upon finding that: ‘I had drawn nearly every bas-relief of consequence, had taken a faithful plan of the place, and copied several of the cuneiform inscriptions.’[113] His industry during the time must certainly have been extraordinary. He surveyed the sites of Murgab and Persepolis, and made two ground-plans of both places. The former was now made for the first time, but the latter had been taken as early as the days of Kaempfer. He took two drawings of Murgab, four of the Achaemenian remains at Naksh-i-Rustam, six of the Sassanian sculptures, and two of the same period at Naksh-i-Rejeb. In addition to this he made twenty-four drawings of the monuments of Persepolis—some of them upon a large scale—and copied inscriptions that occupy four plates: that is to say, he accomplished in eighteen days work that now fills forty-two plates of engravings. This is certainly wonderful, but if he had executed less than one-quarter, the result would perhaps have been more satisfactory. In addition to the drawings, he measured the various buildings and the more important objects in each; and took notes for his very elaborate description of the dress, the arms, and other minute details of the various figures in the numerous bas-reliefs. Herbert had long ago expressed the opinion that ‘a ready Lymmer in three moneths space can hardly (to do it well) depict out all her excellences,’ and certainly the twelve days (from June 22 to July 1), which were all that Porter actually spent at Persepolis, were wholly inadequate for the purpose. In looking through Porter’s drawings, we find indeed ample evidence of haste, and of the absence of that minute accuracy which it was his special object to achieve. Yet his book is still perhaps the best that exists upon the subject in English. The drawings of his competitors are certainly not more accurate, and his careful and minute descriptions are quite unrivalled. His merit lies in the thorough investigations he made upon the ground itself, in the painstaking and, upon the whole, accurate measurements he took of each monument, and in the clear and explanatory account he has given of the various subjects depicted on the bas-reliefs. The care with which his investigations were made was rewarded by the discovery of the remains of the second edifice at Murgab, which had escaped the notice of Morier and Ouseley. His visit to Naksh-i-Rustam resulted in the earliest drawings we possess upon an adequate scale of the façade of a tomb, and it was completed by a ground plan of the interior.[114] He expressed his conviction that the third tomb with the long cuneiform inscription was in all probability that of Darius, an opinion afterwards proved to be correct.[115] The long debate as to the nature of the enigmatical animals on the Great Porch at Persepolis was still undecided. Even Mr. Morier adhered to the notion that they were horses, but Porter’s keen eye at once identified them with the bull, which subsequent discoveries at Nineveh has confirmed.[116] He also showed that the capital of the columns was composed of two half bulls, but he does not seem to have recorded that they are elsewhere varied by half griffins.[117]

Porter had no doubt that the Takht-i-Jamshid represented the ruins of the palaces of Persepolis, although the subject had not yet passed beyond the region of controversy. He inclines, however, to the compromise favoured by Niebuhr, and dwells upon the pontifical character of the sovereign, especially after the death of Zoroaster, when, he says, Darius assumed the title of Archimagus. He accepted Morier’s suggestion that Murgab was the site of Pasargadae and its principal monument the tomb of Cyrus.[118] He had a thorough belief in the decipherment of Grotefend. He not only accepted his recognition of the names of Darius and Xerxes, but he followed him when he traced their descent from Jamshid. That hero was, he thought, none other than Shem, whom sacred writ planted in that very region of Persia, and possibly Persepolis bore his name from the very earliest ages.[119] Porter did not himself advance our knowledge of the inscriptions. He copied the inscription at Murgab, but that had been previously done by Morier and Ouseley, and, as he candidly remarks, he ‘found that we all differed in some of the lines from each other.’[120] He also copied a portion of the inscription (A) on the sculptured staircase, of which Niebuhr had already given a satisfactory rendering;[121] and finally he took the trouble to execute an extremely imperfect copy of the four tablets of inscriptions on the south wall, which had also been much better done by Niebuhr.[122]

Notwithstanding its many defects, his book continued for thirty years to be the chief authority on the subject.[123] Heeren popularised the general result in the fourth edition of his ‘Researches’ (1824), and it thus became equally well known to German readers. Texier complained, in 1842, that there was absolutely no book in French upon the subject, and he had to refer to Porter for his information.[124] It was not till after the publication of the elaborate works of Texier and Flandin, which did not appear till 1849-51, that Porter was in any way superseded. Even then the form in which the great French authorities are published has rendered them inaccessible except to students in a great public library. The general reader would have remained in complete ignorance of the results but for the opportune publication, in 1851, of Fergusson on the ‘Palaces of Persepolis,’ and Vaux on ‘Nineveh and Persepolis.’

Within this long period, the area of discovery widened. Hamadan was identified with Ecbatana by D’Anville and Rennell, and it soon became an object of curiosity. The city stands 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, in a plain at the foot of Mount Elvend (the Orontes), and is surrounded by vineyards, orchards and gardens. Morier visited it in 1813, and discovered in the outskirts of the city a base of a small column of the identical order found at Persepolis, and near it he observed a large irregular terrace, perhaps the foundation of the Palace. Rawlinson afterwards detected five or six other bases of the same type. Three years before Morier’s visit, Kinneir had observed an inscription some seven miles distant, carved on the surface of the rock on a steep declivity of Mount Elvend.[125] ‘It consists,’ says Morier, ‘of two tablets, each divided into three longitudinal compartments, inscribed with the arrow-headed character of Persepolis. These inscriptions are called by the Persians Genj-nameh, or “Tales of a Treasure.”’[126] When Porter passed through Hamadan, he also went in search of the mysterious stone which he heard bore unintelligible writing. After a fruitless ascent of one of the highest peaks of Mount Elvend, he was fortunate enough in the course of his descent to come across the object of his expedition. The stone, he says, consists of ‘an immense block of red granite of fine texture,’ and the inscription is in excellent preservation. The natives believe that whoever succeeds in deciphering it will find a key that will enable him to discover a large treasure in the mountain, and hence the name they give it. Porter only reached it when the day was far advanced, and he had not time to make a copy.[127] Bellino, of whom we shall hear later, made another attempt, in 1820, but unfortunately he was attacked by fever at Hamadan, and died without accomplishing his object.[128] At length Mr. Stewart and M. Vidal, the consular dragoman at Aleppo, obtained copies about 1827, and communicated them to M. Schulz, who was then at Van. Professor Schulz of Hesse had been commissioned by the French Foreign Minister to undertake a scientific journey to the East, and he reached Van in July 1827, where he made copies of no less than forty-two cuneiform inscriptions. Long afterwards they were found to be written chiefly in the old Armenian language; but one was in the three varieties adopted by the Achaemenian kings. It was engraved on a large square tablet escarped on the precipitous face of the rock about sixty feet above the ground. It was divided into three columns, each column consisting of twenty-seven lines. Unfortunately, Schulz was murdered in 1829, and his papers ultimately found their way into the hands of M. Lajard of Paris, by whom they were sent to M. St. Martin for publication.[129] St. Martin, as we shall see, had early busied himself with cuneiform inscriptions, but in consequence of his early death, the papers of Schulz fell into the possession of the very eminent Orientalist Burnouf, by whom they were used with singular ability. The inscriptions found at Mount Elvend and at Van[130] became the subject of his ‘Mémoire sur deux Inscriptions,’ which appeared in 1836, and which marked the first great advance in cuneiform decipherment that had taken place since the memorable effort of Grotefend thirty-four years before.

Till the publication of Burnouf’s essay in 1836, the task of decipherment had made but small progress, and so far as we are aware, no copy of a Persian inscription had yet been published that had been taken by anyone with the smallest knowledge of the meaning of the characters. Mr. Rich, the British Resident at Bagdad, was, however, a zealous student of Grotefend, and in constant correspondence with him. He kept him supplied with copies of the few inscriptions that were then brought to light from the ruined mounds of Mosul and Hillah. His German secretary Bellino, who was also much interested in cuneiform discoveries, generally acted as the medium of communication; and Grotefend’s later pamphlets are full of recognition of the services he had received from both scholars. Rich was a man of very unusual attainments.[131] When still quite a boy, he mastered several Oriental languages, and in later years, amid the pressure of official life he never lost his interest in these subjects. He collected large numbers of Oriental manuscripts, and his mind was filled with the lore they contained. His house at Bagdad became the rendezvous of all the more eminent travellers who passed that way in the early years of the century. His hospitality acquired a reputation not inferior to that of Père Raphael at Ispahan during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Rich was equally ready to place his vast stores of Oriental knowledge at the disposal of his guests, and his official position enabled him to afford them substantial assistance. It was peculiarly fortunate that so eminent a man should have held that office at a time when public interest was first awakened to the archæology of the ancient cities of the East. He was himself able to render important services in this field of inquiry, and he made a collection of antiquities, afterwards acquired by the British Museum, which, though limited, as it is said, to a single small case, was still unequalled then in Europe, and was the beginning of the vast collection that now fills the Babylonian and Assyrian rooms. In the summer of 1821, he found himself at Bushire on official business, and well-nigh overpowered by the excessive heat. He accordingly decided to make a short trip to Shiraz, where a friend, who had just returned, gave him the refreshing intelligence that ‘the climate even then, in July, was so cold that one was obliged to put on a fur jacket and actually suffered from cold.’[132] Mr. Rich had, however, no cause to complain of the cold. The usual temperature, he found, was 90° at the hottest time, but it fell during the nights to 71°, which he considered ‘deliciously cool without being chilly.’[133] It was impossible for him to be so near Persepolis without gratifying his curiosity. ‘My expectation,’ he says, ‘was greatly excited. Chardin, when I was a mere child, had inspired me with a great desire to see these ruins.’ He was, however, merely travelling for health; and he had no intention of undertaking the onerous duties of an itinerant antiquarian. There was indeed no longer any necessity. ‘The ruins have been so accurately described, measured, and delineated by our friend Porter that nothing remains to be done; and I can abandon myself entirely to the luxury of imagination, of which the line, compass and pencil, and the intolerable labour they bring on, are eminently destructive.’[134]

On August 17, 1821, he enjoyed the first view of the ruins from his resting place, a mile distant, and with unusual philosophy he repressed his curiosity and continued his march to Murgab. ‘I took,’ he writes, ‘a capricious kind of pleasure in not going to them, and forcing myself to be contented with this general survey.’ He passed the little nook of Naksh-i-Rejeb and the ruins of Istakhr, and at length encamped before the ‘Meshed i Mader i Suliman.’ It will be recollected that the learning of Ouseley had decisively negatived the sagacious intuition of the more brilliant Morier, and the subsequent discovery of the name of Cyrus on the inscriptions at Murgab was as yet far from being accepted as decisive of the matter. The true site of the tomb of Cyrus was therefore still in dispute, and Rich could only venture to write that he ‘began to think that this in reality must be the tomb.’[135] He hoped, however, to be able to contribute something to the settlement of the question, but when he left he confessed, after all, that he was still unconvinced.[136] He, however, made another copy of the now celebrated inscription. After a stay of only one day, Rich retraced his steps towards Persepolis, and pitched his tent on the top of the great staircase, beneath the shadow of the Entrance Porch.

His resolution to abstain from antiquarian labour entirely broke down in presence of the inscriptions. He employed workmen to clear away the rubbish which in some places concealed them, and he disclosed for the first time the inscription on the south stairs leading to the Palace of Darius,[137] and the one opposite on the façade of the stairs of the Palace of Ochus. ‘I was actually diligent enough,’ he writes, ‘to fall to work at copying the inscriptions; and during the six days we remained at Persepolis I copied all the inscriptions except one. I have found much to corroborate Grotefend’s system, and have admired his sagacity. The labour I have gone through will greatly assist him.’[138] Indeed the result of his industry, combined with that of his predecessors, was to leave little more to be done by the copyist at Persepolis. The inscriptions over the animals on the Porch, and the long inscription at Naksh-i-Rustam seem indeed to be the only ones that remained.

1. He copied the three tablets of inscriptions of Xerxes on the Anta of the Palace of Darius, which had been imperfectly done by Le Bruyn (Table 131).[139]

2. The three tablets of inscriptions of Xerxes on the Anta in his palace—now first taken.[140]

3. The three tables of inscriptions of Xerxes, consisting of four lines over the king’s head on the east portal of his palace.[141] This is the same inscription as Niebuhr had copied from the north portal (his E, F, G).

4. Fragmentary inscriptions of Xerxes found in his palace.[142]

5. The three inscriptions of Xerxes on the south stairs of the Palace of Darius[143]—now first taken.

6. The central inscription of Artaxerxes Ochus on stairs to Palace of Ochus[144]—now first taken.

7. His Seyid copied the three tablets of the inscription of Xerxes over the colossal animals on the east walls of the Porch.[145] Mr. Rich was unfortunately unable on account of giddiness to remain at a height; and on this account he deputed the task to his Seyid, who had some experience of the cuneiform letters found at Babylon. This inscription was now first taken, but the copy turned out to be practically useless; and the first adequate rendering was made by Westergaard.

Coming from Babylon, where all the inscriptions he had seen were unilingual, he was much struck by the repetition of each inscription at Persepolis in three distinct modes of writing. ‘Every inscription in Persepolis,’ he says, ‘even the bits on the robes of the king, are in the three kinds. When an inscription is round a door or window, the first species is on the top, the second on the left hand running up, the third on the right, running down. I speak as looking at the door.’ ‘If one under the other, the first (or Zend) is always in the upper tablet; if side by side over a figure, it is the one over the head of the king; if on his robes, it is on the front fold; if on the face of a platform, it is in the centre, with the figures on each side facing towards it.’ ‘The other two species always preserve their order: the third (or Babylonian) in the place of least consideration.’[146] He called special attention to the inscriptions upon the tomb at Naksh-i-Rustam. ‘They are,’ he said, ‘the longest of all the cuneiform inscriptions I have ever seen. In fact, there is a prodigious quantity of writing upon them, but so small and so high up and so much worn that I should think it impossible to copy them.’[147] He was neither surprised nor disappointed by his visit, but the impression left was not one of unmixed admiration. The general view presented by the ruins he declared to be grand; the colonnade to be fine, and the execution and finish very beautiful; but he thought the portals at the landing place were much too narrow, all the doors too narrow and the windows too small, yet ‘formed of blocks that would build a mole.’ There is no correspondence between the object and the means, which gives to many parts of these remains, at least as they now appear, rather a heavy, crowded and crushed effect, ‘proceeding from the disproportionate application of vast materials, which is, after all, a foolish ambition.’[148]

Shortly after leaving Persepolis, he was struck down by cholera, and his death at the early age of thirty-five removed a man exceptionally qualified to render important service to his country and to learning. It had been his intention to send his valuable copies of the inscriptions to Grotefend, who was probably less qualified than Rich imagined to make a satisfactory use of them. As it was, they were not published till 1839, when the progress of cuneiform studies had deprived them of much of their importance.

Soon after the publication of Rich’s book, in 1839, the Danish scholar Westergaard visited Persepolis, and completed the transcription of the whole of the inscriptions. He was, as we shall see, fully qualified for the task by his technical knowledge of the subject. Only two new inscriptions, however, remained for him to copy: the one on the Porch that Rich was unable to reach (Inscr. D), and the great inscription on the tomb at Naksh-i-Rustam, which proved it to have been the sepulchre of Darius (Inscr. NR).

Only one Persian inscription of first-rate importance now remained to reward the zeal of the copyist. This was the famous one engraved in an almost inaccessible position upon the rock of Behistun. It is situated on the road from Hamadan to Kermanshah, about twenty miles before reaching the latter place. The rock forms an abrupt termination to a long range of barren hills, and presents a most remarkable appearance, rising in perpendicular form to the height of 1,700 feet. As it lies on the direct route to Media by the Holwan Pass, it was well known from the earliest times. According to Greek legend the hill was dedicated to Zeus; and Semiramis, on the occasion of an expedition against the Medes, caused a portion of the face of the rock to be polished and her own effigy to be carved upon it, surrounded by a hundred of her guards. She added an inscription in Assyrian characters, commemorating her triumphant march.[149] Whether any inscription of the kind ever existed is doubtful, but if so, all traces of it have disappeared. The inscription that has been recovered appears to have been executed in the fifth or sixth year of the reign of Darius; and it gives a lengthy record of the suppression of the revolts with which his reign opened. It occupies a surface of about 150 feet in length by 100 feet in height.[150] The tablets rest upon a narrow ledge of the rock, 300 feet from the ground, and the engraver could only have executed his task from a scaffolding erected for the purpose. Major Rawlinson tells us that the mere preparation of the surface of the rock must have occupied months. Where a flaw occurred, a piece was inlaid by embedding it in molten lead, and this tedious work was so carefully executed that it can only be detected by close scrutiny. After the letters were engraved, the whole received a coat of silicious varnish, in order to impart clearness of outline and to protect the surface against the action of the weather. ‘The varnish,’ he says, ‘is of infinitely greater hardness than the limestone beneath it.’[151] Notwithstanding all this elaborate preparation, many fissures have been made in the rock by the percolation of water, and the writing is defaced in many places. The inscriptions are grouped round a central tablet decorated with sculpture. The principal figure is Darius the King. He has one foot placed on the prostrate form of a vanquished foe; behind him are two attendants, and in front stand nine captives chained together. The last of the series is evidently a later addition made after the original work was accomplished; and he is distinguished from the rest by the peculiarity of his pointed cap. Close to each figure is a short inscription, giving the name and a relation of the evil deeds of the individual; by which means they are identified with the leaders of the rebellion. The prostrate form is no less a personage than Gaumates, the Magian. Above is the winged figure which is now known to be a representation of Ormuzd himself.[152] Rawlinson considers the execution of the figures as inferior to that of the bas-reliefs at Persepolis. ‘The effigies of Darius and his attendants alone exhibit that grace of outline and studied finish of detail which may place them at all upon an equality with the Persepolitan sculptures.’ The figure of the King is six feet in height, but the others are of diminutive stature, designed no doubt to mark their inferiority of position.[153] The artist seems to have even taken the trouble to represent them as repulsive in appearance. This part of the work is covered by no less than thirty-three short inscriptions—eleven in Persian, twelve in Median or, as it is now called, Susian, and ten in Babylonian. To the left of the sculptured tablet, and upon the same level, in a position exceptionally difficult of access, are two large tablets in the Babylonian style. To the right are four tablets—two in Susian and two in Babylonian—which were added later, and refer to the events connected with the figure with the pointed cap. This portion is so much defaced that it is difficult to do more than conjecture its meaning. It seems, however, to relate to a revolt in Susiana which, according to M. Oppert, occurred before the twelfth year of the reign of Darius.[154] Its chief was captured and hanged upon a cross. The main body of the inscription lies below the sculptured tablet. Immediately beneath it are four columns in Persian, each twelve feet high, and containing ninety-six lines of cuneiform writing; and a fifth, half that length, relating to the events of the more recent rebellion. To the left, below the large Babylonian inscription, are three columns in Susian. It is calculated that the whole contains nearly a thousand lines of cuneiform writing, of which no less than 416 are in Persian. It is said to comprise ten times as many words as all the rest of the shorter texts put together.[155]

The French traveller Otter seems to have been the first to call attention to Behistun, about the year 1734, and it is also noticed in the travels of Olivier.[156] Kinneir passed it in 1810, and he describes ‘a group of figures in the form of a procession sufficiently perfect to show that they are of the same age and character as those of Persepolis.’[157] In 1818, Porter at length succeeded in getting sufficiently near to sketch the figures.[158] He confirms Kinneir’s conjecture as to their resemblance to those at Persepolis; and he recognises the winged figure as ‘the floating intelligence in his circle and car of sunbeams, so often remarked on the sculptures of Naksh-i-Rustam and Persepolis.’ He remarked that there was a cuneiform inscription above the head of each figure and below ‘eight deep and closely written columns in the same character.’ Notwithstanding the facility Porter had already acquired in copying inscriptions at Persepolis, he was at too great a distance from these to make the attempt. He calculated it would require a month to complete the task, and adds that ‘at no time can it ever be attempted without great personal risk.’

The extremely inaccessible position of the inscriptions long baffled the zeal of explorers. M. Flandin, as we shall see, though specially commissioned by the French Government to examine Persian antiquities, retreated in dismay from the perilous task, which was left as usual to the private enterprise of an Englishman to accomplish. So long indeed as the history of cuneiform decipherment is remembered, the name of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson will continue to be associated with Behistun. He was not only the first to surmount the very considerable physical difficulties of approaching the inscriptions, but he succeeded, while in a position that was highly inconvenient, if not positively dangerous, in making so accurate a copy that few errors or omissions of importance were afterwards detected. The first copy appears to have been made entirely with the pen—the process of taking paper casts being employed on a later occasion—and it was a task that called for the display of extraordinary patience and most scrupulous care. He had to transcribe, or more properly to draw, vast numbers of signs of multitudinous and fantastic shapes, without at that time having the smallest clue to their meaning—a knowledge that would have served to check the accuracy of his work as he went along. Soon afterwards indeed he became the most skilful of decipherers. He cannot indeed claim to have been the first to solve the difficulties of the Persian alphabet; but his translation of the Behistun inscription was by far the greatest contribution ever made to a knowledge of that language; and he rendered scarcely less remarkable service in unravelling the mysteries of the third, or Babylonian, column.

Rawlinson was born at Chadlington Park, Oxfordshire, in 1810.[159] His family was recognised for centuries among the principal country gentry of Lancashire; but his father sold his ancestral estate and settled in Oxfordshire. He enjoyed the supreme distinction of winning the Derby in 1841 with Coronation, an achievement that no doubt afforded him scarcely less pleasure than the triumphs of his two illustrious sons, Henry and George.

Henry was the seventh child of a family of eleven. He was educated at Ealing School, which at that time enjoyed a great reputation, and had recently numbered the two Newmans among its pupils. Here he acquired a sound knowledge of the classical languages, so that in after life he could master the contents of almost any Latin or Greek prose author with facility. Indeed when he left he was first in Greek and second in Latin of the whole school. He grew to be six feet high, broad-chested, strong limbed, with steady head and nerve. He was fond of field sports, a taste which he had every opportunity of indulging at Chadlington and which he retained throughout the whole of his busy life. At sixteen he obtained a nomination to the Indian Service, and after six months spent in the study of Oriental languages under a private tutor at Blackheath, he sailed for India, where he arrived in October 1827. He had the good fortune to go out in the same ship with Sir John Malcolm, who had just been appointed Governor of Bombay. He devoted himself to the acquisition of the native languages and Persian, and also to various studies, particularly that of history. On the voyage out he edited the paper that was started for the amusement of the passengers, and this early connection with the press he afterwards continued, so that at the age of nineteen we find him contributing articles and short poems to the Bombay newspapers. But he never forgot that he was a soldier, and that it was no less part of his duty to cultivate physical activity. He accordingly passed much time in hunting and shooting, and in various athletic games, and one of his great achievements was an extraordinary ride that might now incur the humanitarian censure of a less strenuous age. In 1833, when still a lieutenant, he was one of eight officers selected to proceed to Persia to assist in training the army of the Shah. They landed at Bushire, where they were delayed for some months by the heavy snow on the mountains between that port and Shiraz. Rawlinson’s interest in archæological subjects was already awakened, and he took the first opportunity of visiting Shapoor and Persepolis, and making numerous sketches of both places. He was stationed at Tabriz during the summer of 1834, and with characteristic energy he endeavoured to reach the top of Mount Ararat, but he was prevented by the great depth of snow. In the following spring (1835) he was nominated by the Shah to act as Military Adviser to the King’s brother, who was Governor of Kurdistan and resided at Kermanshah. On his way he visited Hamadan, and copied the cuneiform inscription at Mount Elvend (April 1835). At Kermanshah he was within twenty miles of Behistun, which, as his biographer observes, ‘has been in the Providence of God the great means by which the ancient Persian, Assyrian, and Babylonian languages have been recovered, and a chapter of the world’s history that had been almost wholly lost once more made known to mankind.’ He passed his leisure time during 1835-37 in transcribing as much of the inscriptions as he could reach, and in the endeavour to fathom their meaning. Sometimes he ascended and descended the slippery rock three or four times a day ‘without the aid of rope or ladder or any assistance whatever.’ The difficulties are, he modestly says, ‘such as any person with ordinary nerves may successfully encounter.’[160] Towards the close of the year 1835, he paid a short visit to Bagdad, to place himself under the care of Dr. Ross; and he there became acquainted with Colonel Taylor, whom he was afterwards destined to succeed as British Resident. In the early spring, he led a native force of three thousand men through the mountains of Luristan, and took the opportunity of visiting Dizful, Suza, and Shuster. By that time his interest was fully aroused in cuneiform studies, and he no doubt heard from Colonel Taylor of the efforts that had been made in Europe to interpret the inscriptions. The vagueness of his information upon the subject is evident from the prominence he accords to the abortive speculations of St. Martin. We find him, in March 1836, lamenting over the destruction of the famous black stone of Susa, for he had hoped by its means to ‘verify or disprove the attempts which have been made by St. Martin and others to decipher the arrow-head characters.’[161] His mind was also occupied with geographical subjects, in which he afterwards attained to great distinction. He wrote to his brother for particulars of the expedition of Heraclius, and thought he had solved the mystery of the two rivers at Susa, which was probably the same as that afterwards announced by Mr. Loftus. He began to look forward to his three years’ leave of absence, which he hoped to spend in ‘a nice cheap lodging’ at Oxford or Cambridge ‘for the sake of consulting the classical and Oriental works which are there alone procurable.’ Meanwhile he had ordered out books from England, and for the present he found life tolerable enough. ‘I am,’ he says, ‘in a country abounding with game and antiquities, so that with my gun in hand I perambulate the vicinity of Shuster, and fill at the same time my bag with partridges and my pocket-book with memoranda.’ It was not till the autumn of that year (1836), during a short visit to Teheran, that he became acquainted with the alphabets of Grotefend and St. Martin, and learned the progress that had been made by them in Germany and France.

He returned to his post at Kermanshah for the winter of 1836-7, and once more directed his attention to the inscriptions at Behistun. During all this period he continued to be practically the governor of the extensive province of Kermanshah and the commander of a large portion of the army stationed in it. In the summer of 1837, he was relieved of these duties, and received a mark of the Shah’s favour by being appointed Custodian of the Arsenal of Teheran. He passed that winter (1837-8) in the capital, and when the British Envoy, Sir J. McNeill, accompanied the army of the Shah to Herat, he found himself left in ‘quasi political charge.’ Soon afterwards, the progress of political events led to the withdrawal of the Mission from Persia, and Rawlinson found himself at Bagdad towards the close of the year 1838, where he remained till October 1839.

While at Kermanshah (1835-7) he was able to make a nearly correct transcript of the entire first column of the Persian text, together with the opening paragraph of the second, ten paragraphs of the third column and four of the detached inscriptions, amounting altogether to two hundred lines, or one half of the whole inscription.[162]

The outbreak of the Afghan war, in 1839, summoned him to a very different sphere of activity. He was recalled to Bombay in October of that year, and in January 1840, he was ordered to Candahar, where he filled the important office of Political Agent throughout the whole of that trying period. It was due in a measure to his energy and prudence, acting in combination with the military talent of General Nott, that the town was saved, and a portion of the disaster at Kabul retrieved. The evacuation of Candahar took place in August 1842, and by the end of the year Rawlinson was back in India. He had been present at three battles and on each occasion was honourably mentioned in despatches; in addition to these services, he accompanied the General as aide-de-camp during the hard fighting on the march to Cabul and the Sutlej. An accidental meeting on board a steamer with Lord Ellenborough, who was then the Governor-General, ripened into friendship, and procured for the young officer an offer of the ‘Residency in Nepaul’ or of ‘the Central India Agency’; but these were declined. Rawlinson had set his heart on completing his cuneiform studies, which had now been suspended by three years of adventure; and although these appointments were of much greater dignity and emolument, he eagerly seized upon the opportunity of returning to Bagdad as ‘Political Agent in Turkish Arabia,’ in succession to Colonel Taylor. Here he arrived in December, 1843, to ‘work out the Babylonian puzzle’ and to spend ‘twelve weary years of his life doing penance in order to attain a great literary object.’[163]

As soon as he could spare time, in the early summer of 1844, he returned to Behistun, accompanied by Mr. Hester and Captain Jones, R. N.[164] It will be remembered that up to that time he had only secured two hundred lines of the Persian column, or about one half of the whole. A week of continuous work now enabled him to transcribe the whole of the Persian, the whole of the Susian, and the whole of the detached Babylonian epigraphs. The Babylonian version of the Great Inscription was still found to be inaccessible without more elaborate appliances, and it was abandoned for the present. He spent the year 1845 in completing a Memoir on the subject, which he had begun to prepare in 1839, before the outbreak of the war. The new materials he had just collected rendered it advisable to rewrite the whole work, though the translation he had attempted of the earlier portion remained substantially unaltered. This task involved transcribing four hundred lines of cuneiform, which was a work of no ordinary labour in that climate and among many other conflicting claims upon his time. He began as soon as possible to transmit instalments of his Memoir to England; and in May 1846 we learn by the Report of the Asiatic Society that ‘the extraordinary discoveries of Major Rawlinson are now passing through the press and will be shortly published.’

Meanwhile the great discoveries of Botha and Layard had transferred the interest of scholars from the Persian to the Babylonian column, for the latter was seen to bear a close analogy to the inscriptions coming to light with such startling rapidity on the banks of the Tigris. It was evident that the possession of the long inscription at Behistun would greatly increase the knowledge of this language; it covered no less than a hundred and ten lines, and the Persian version, which was by this time practically understood, would materially assist the translation. Accordingly, in September 1847, Rawlinson returned to Behistun with ladders, planks, ropes, and various other contrivances. But his chief dependence was upon a wild Kurdish boy, who squeezed himself up a cleft in the rock and drove in a wooden peg. To this he fastened a rope, and endeavoured to swing himself across the inscription to a cleft on the other side. This he failed to accomplish on account of the projection of the rock. ‘It then only remained for him to cross over to the cleft by hanging on with his toes and fingers to the slight inequalities on the bare face of the precipice; and in this he succeeded, passing over a distance of twenty feet of almost smooth perpendicular rock in a manner which to a looker-on appeared quite miraculous.’[165] He then drove a second peg, and the rope connecting the two enabled him to swing right across. To it he attached a ladder like a painter’s cradle, and then, under Rawlinson’s direction, he took paper casts of the whole Babylonian text. The work occupied ten days, but unfortunately the inscription was found to be sadly mutilated. ‘The left half, or perhaps a larger portion even, of the tablet is entirely destroyed, and we have thus the mere endings of the lines throughout the entire length of the whole inscription.’[166] On his return to Bagdad, he applied himself to the difficult task of deciphering and translating his new acquisition. In this investigation he could as yet derive no assistance from other scholars. Those who were beginning to study Assyrian in Europe, of whom Dr. Hincks and M. de Saulcy were the most notable, had not as yet made farther progress than himself. He devoted the whole of 1848 and part of 1849 to this laborious pursuit, and at the same time added Hebrew to the number of his accomplishments. His ‘Second Memoir’ was, however, completed in time to despatch to London in 1849, and he prepared to return himself in order to superintend its publication. The ‘Memoir on the Babylonian Translation of the Great Inscription at Behistun’ finally appeared in the fourteenth volume of the ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society,’ 1851.

Rawlinson had made the rock of Behistun his own; and although many complaints were heard of the delay that occurred before he could give the results to the world, no one attempted to undergo the dangers he had faced in order to dispute his title to possession. It is to him, therefore, that we owe the recovery of this Memorial of Darius. It afforded a few not very important additions to history, and it was valuable by confirming the veracity and accuracy of Herodotus, which some writers were still disposed to impeach. But its chief importance lay in the length of the text, which for the first time presented sufficient materials to enable the student to acquire a competent knowledge of the old Persian language. Once in possession of this key, he could apply it to the solution of the more difficult problems afforded by the other two columns, and in this manner three ancient and forgotten languages were restored to knowledge.

We have now come to the time when the enterprise of individual travellers was about to be superseded by commissioners sent by foreign Governments to collect information in an official capacity. We cannot say that the general reader has cause to be thankful. We now part company with the modest volume that could be purchased and handled with comparative ease. In its place we have massive folios, which an enterprising student may indeed find in the ‘large room’ of the British Museum, but which are beyond the power of a private library to acquire. No one untainted by African gold could contemplate their possession, and indeed it would be necessary to build an addition to an ordinary house to find them accommodation. They are not adapted for study, for they tax too severely the physical endurance of the reader. The writer who is employed to fill in the blanks between the magnificent illustrations, is probably sensible of this, and one of them, M. Flandin, afterwards republished his text in a more convenient form. These vast folios are designed, we should think, mainly for the glorification of the Government who has paid for them, and for the benefit of the various mechanical persons employed in their fabrication. Sumptuously bound in red morocco, with richly gilt edges, they serve only to be rolled into the room of a palace in order that the pretty pictures that adorn them may be idly scanned amid the chatter of a tea-table.

The first of these great compilations that comes under our notice was made by Charles Texier, who had already gained fame and experience by his ‘Description de l’Asie Mineure,’ published between 1838-48. He was a Government Inspector of Public Works, and he subsequently became Professor of Archæology at the Collège de France (1840). He obtained a grant of 160,000 francs to enable him to publish his book, a sum afterwards reduced to 100,000. He does not seem to have regarded this measure with as much satisfaction as the reader, for he was compelled upon this occasion to restrict his publication to only two folios; and he complains that he had to suppress a considerable portion of his vast collections. In 1839 he set out for Persia, and the account of his travels was published by instalments between the years 1842 and 1852. In 1849 very few of the plates referring to Persepolis had appeared, and no text,[167] but Fergusson was able to use a considerable part of the drawings, in 1850, for his ‘Nineveh and Persepolis.’

Texier set out upon his enterprise, as Porter had done before, with a desire to aim at the most scrupulous accuracy; but his fatal passion for ‘restorations’ has made sad havoc of his moral aspirations.

He began the Persian portion of his work at Van, and travelled steadily round to Persepolis. Like Flandin, who followed closely on his track, he was prevented by the disturbed state of the country from visiting Susa. He devoted two days (January 12-14, 1840) to Murgab, and gives six drawings. He was fully convinced that the famous tomb was that of Cyrus, though the winged figure may be only ‘a prince or magus in the attitude of devotion.’[168] He confessed he could make nothing of the general disposition of ‘the Palace’; it consists, as he candidly admits, of ‘a certain number of pillars, of which the relations cannot be easily established; a large column and remains of walls.’ The second palace noticed by Porter seems to have escaped his observation. Persepolis occupied him for about ten days, and resulted in twenty-four drawings. His general views have nothing of the artistic merit afterwards displayed by Flandin, and they are probably in no degree more accurate. He observed from the _débris_ at the bottom of the outside wall of the Terrace that it had been originally ornamented by a parapet; and he considered there were distinct traces of a triple wall of defence on the hill at the back, which may in some degree account for the description given by Diodorus. He thought that nearly all the buildings had been left incomplete, an opinion that has since gained ground. He maintained that the central group in the Columnar Edifice was intended to be enclosed by a wall and roofed; and he suggested that the design on the tombs, with a stage above, was a correct representation of the architecture of the palaces, a view afterwards supported by the authority of Sir James Fergusson. He was fully convinced that the bas-reliefs had been originally coloured; and one of the chief objects of his journey was to collect evidence on this point. It is singular to find that the writer completely ignores the results already achieved in decipherment, and that he still describes the Palaces of Darius and Xerxes as the Hareem and the Baths: an eccentricity into which M. Flandin also falls. Texier excels in measurements; they agree substantially with those of Flandin and Coste, and differ by about ten per cent. from those of Porter.[169] The work of Texier was from the first almost completely superseded by that of Flandin, who passed over the same ground only a few months later (October 1840) and who, as we have said, has wisely republished his narrative in a comparatively portable form.

When the English mission to which Rawlinson was attached withdrew from Persia, the Shah made overtures to Louis Philippe with a view to replace the English by military instructors from France.[170] The French king judged this a favourable opportunity to reopen diplomatic relations with Persia, and he accordingly despatched the Count de Sarcey on a mission to the Shah. The ambassador was accompanied by a numerous staff, each member being charged with the investigation of a particular subject. The embassy assumed the character of an exploring expedition quite as much as that of a political mission. One attaché was required to make a special study of the geology, another of the arts, a third of the industry, as if the country had been hitherto wholly unexplored by Europeans. The proposed adventure excited much interest, and the two Academies of Inscriptions and Beaux Arts solicited permission to send representatives. This was duly accorded, and MM. Flandin and Coste were elected by the suffrage of the members of the Academies: the one in the capacity of artist, the other in that of architect.

M. Coste was already familiar with the East, and was known by a work on the Arabian monuments of Cairo. M. Flandin was apparently unused to the inconveniences of Oriental travel, and his book presents us with a harrowing picture of the sufferings he endured. It is indeed wonderful that he survived his cook, whom he describes as a ‘véritable empoisonneur,’ or the numerous lacerations of soul he underwent as, one by one, his friends returned to the shade of the boulevards and left him behind a prey to the tortures of the Persian sun. Still more wonderful that he should have escaped alive from so many perils. At one time, he and his horse roll together into a trench from which there seemed no visible escape; at another, the enthusiastic artist is seen scrambling up the rock of Behistun with bleeding feet and hands to find his toil and peril fruitless, and to accomplish a descent backwards by a ‘véritable gymnastique de lézard’;[171] or again his excitable temper involves him in personal encounters with the natives, in which blows are freely exchanged on both sides, and on one occasion he received a stab with a poniard. These adventures, however amusing to himself and his readers, unfortunately involved his antagonists in shocking punishments by flogging, which the courtesy of the Persian officials thought it necessary to inflict, although Flandin is not always free from the blame of having been the first to give provocation.

The embassy left Toulon on October 30, 1839, but it was not till the following June that the two artists settled down before the rock of Behistun, where they found numerous traces of ruins in the plain on both sides of the river, which indicate the former existence of a very considerable town; but there was nothing that pointed to an earlier date than the Greek and Sassanian periods. The only exception is the cuneiform inscription on the rock itself. Three years before, Major Rawlinson had succeeded, as we have said, in obtaining paper casts of about two hundred lines of this inscription. M. Flandin does not seem to have been aware of this achievement, otherwise he would have been less willing to declare that it is impossible to approach. After having ‘done all that was possible,’ the two travellers went on to Kermanshah. M. Coste proceeded to Sar-i-Pul-i-Zohab, where he copied a bas-relief, which was afterwards found to be of Medic origin; and Flandin was left alone to accomplish the task of copying the Sassanian inscriptions at Takht-i-Bostan.[172] After eighteen days of solitude, he returned once more to Behistun in a more resolute frame of mind. Upon this occasion he brought ladders to assist him to scale the rock; but these turned out to be too short. He declared that without a scaffolding made expressly for the purpose, it would be impossible to accomplish his object, and even then he foresaw great difficulties in its erection. As it was, he was without rope, or wood, or workmen. He, however, made one last effort, and succeeded at some risk in scrambling up to the ledge at the base of the tablet. He found the inscriptions were even then beyond his reach, and it was impossible to recede a sufficient distance to obtain a tolerable view. He ascertained that they consisted of seven columns, each of ninety-nine lines, and that there were also tablets above the figures.[173] It must be admitted that the result was extremely unsatisfactory, considering the official position of the explorer. He abandoned the enterprise and left the honour to Major Rawlinson, who, as soon as political events permitted, revisited the scene and completed the task he had already begun. Flandin and Coste returned to Ispahan in August, and after a period of rest they proceeded, early in October, to Murgab. Here they remained for two days. M. Flandin hesitates to accept the identification of the ruins with those of Pasargadae, and prefers Fasa: an impression which, however, wears off later, when he had visited that place.[174] He describes the ruins of the principal palace at Murgab to consist of three pillars and a column. ‘There are,’ he adds, ‘no means of obtaining sufficient data to reconstruct the plan. Nothing is to be found except the foundations of columns and pillars, which lead to the belief that it was formerly the site of some important structure.’ Not more satisfactory is his notice of the Terrace, which, he says, is the remains of an edifice of which it is impossible to recognise the character. These descriptions scarcely prepare us for the very elaborate plans that appear in the plates, upon which the modern ideas of the place are chiefly based.[175] From Murgab they proceeded to Naksh-i-Rustam, where they again allowed themselves to be baffled by difficulties that they should certainly not have treated as insuperable. They observed the long inscription on one of the tombs, which they made no effort to copy, because it happened to be in a position which they considered inaccessible. They reconciled themselves to the omission the more easily on account of its mutilated condition, which they thought would defy the perseverance of the decipherer; otherwise indeed it might be found to record ‘the life of the illustrious dead intombed within.’[176] Less than two years after they had left, this very inscription was copied by the Dane Westergaard; and in 1843, or seven years before Flandin published his book, it had been deciphered by Lassen, who found that it declared the tomb on which it was inscribed to be that of Darius Hystaspes. From their quarters at Husseinabad they visited various objects of archæological interest, and made drawings and plans of them. They finally removed their camp to Persepolis on October 25, and remained there to December 8. During that period of forty-three days they made upwards of a hundred magnificent drawings of the place, which will always remain a striking proof of the industry no less than the talent of the two artists. The plates include highly-finished pictures of the Terrace and surrounding country taken from various points of view; admirable drawings of the different buildings, and of all the numerous bas-reliefs they contain; ground plans of the platform and of each of the principal edifices; besides copies of all the inscriptions. The work is farther enlivened by a few pictures of Persepolis before it fell into decay, restored according to the imagination of the ingenious artists. The scale upon which this work is executed may be judged from the number of plates devoted to the more important objects. The sculptured staircase fills no less than twenty-two; the Palace of Xerxes and the Hall of the Hundred Columns occupy twelve each; while sixteen plates are appropriated to inscriptions.

There can be no doubt of the high artistic merit of these drawings; but it must have been impossible within the time to complete them upon the spot; and they have no doubt suffered in accuracy by subsequent elaboration. Sir James Fergusson indeed goes so far as to declare that they cannot be relied upon to decide any matter requiring minute accuracy of detail, and he points out several ‘of their many mistakes.’[177] It may be doubted also how far their plans and measurements are absolutely trustworthy. There is certainly the most surprising and singular contrast between the doubt and hesitation expressed in the text and the confidence and minute execution displayed in the plates.[178] The surveys indeed may be due chiefly to M. Coste: and it is possible he may not have communicated all the results of his investigations to his volatile companion. While the latter despairs of detecting the plan of the edifice at Murgab, or those of the Palaces of Darius and Ochus at Persepolis, we find all three set down with the utmost precision upon the plans; and while the one traveller declares that all the tombs at Naksh-i-Rustam contain accommodation for an equal number of bodies,[179] M. Coste was quietly making the plans that refute this statement. It cannot be admitted that the combined work possesses any exceptional authority, or that it suffices to set at rest the many doubtful points that have arisen with reference to these ruins. So far from its having superseded the more careful labours of Porter, it is entirely deficient in the minute and accurate verbal description in which that writer excels.

The copies of the inscriptions made by the two explorers have received the praise of M. Burnouf, and they are certainly wonderful productions, especially when it is considered that neither appears to have had the smallest knowledge of the cuneiform writing. If they had been able to face the perils of Behistun or the difficulties of Naksh-i-Rustam, they might still have anticipated the work of Rawlinson and Westergaard. At Persepolis itself there was little that was now left for them to accomplish. They appear to have been the first in point of time to make a serviceable copy of the inscriptions over the Porch; Rich, it will be recollected, was forced to abandon them to his Seyid, who failed in the attempt. But this inscription was first published by Westergaard, although his copy was made two years after that of Flandin. Flandin seems, however, to have been the first to publish the inscription of Artaxerxes Ochus from the west stairs of the Palace of Darius; but the same inscription occurs also on the Palace of Ochus, and this was already well known through the copy made by Rich. MM. Flandin and Coste have not therefore made any contribution to our knowledge of the cuneiform inscriptions. They, however, carried on somewhat extensive excavations. They employed labourers to clear away the rubbish that had accumulated in the palaces and which obscured the lower portion of the bas-reliefs. By this means they brought to light a Sassanian relief at Naksh-i-Rustam which had hitherto been unobserved, and which they found to be covered with a Pehlevi inscription.[180] At Persepolis they claim to have discovered eight entirely new bas-reliefs, besides disclosing the lower portion of many others.[181] They dug up the statue of a bull near the east stairs of the Palace of Xerxes, the only monument _en ronde_ which has been found among the ruins.[182] They disclosed the head of a bull among the _débris_ of the Porch, and finally set at rest the long debated question as to the nature of the colossal animals. They completed the portraiture of the guards on the façade of the sculptured staircase, by raising the fallen masonry.[183] They were the first to clear away the rubbish that had collected in the Palace of Darius, and to disclose the bases of the columns that had supported the roof.[184] They settled the nature of the monster with which the king is seen to struggle, by unearthing its tail, which proved to be that of a scorpion.[185] They were the first also to show the correct position and number of the columns in the Portico of the Palace of Xerxes. They were also the first to show the former existence of columns in the South-Eastern Edifice.[186] Fragments of columns strewn on the ground within the Hall of the Hundred Columns had been remarked by Kaempfer and by Niebuhr; but they do not seem to have been observed by Flandin and Coste. It was due to their laborious excavations that it was ascertained, after six and a half feet of rubbish had been cleared away, that the edifice had originally contained ten rows of columns of ten in each in the centre, and two rows of eight in the Portico.[187]

In the beginning of the year 1841, they found themselves at Fasa, and speedily recognised that it could not compete with Murgab as the representative of Pasargadae. On their return to Shiraz, they ascertained that Baron de Bode, an attaché to the Russian embassy, had just left for Susa. When at Kermanshah, in the preceding summer, they abandoned an attempt to reach that place from the south through the defiles of Luristan. Such an enterprise would probably not have been very easy even to travellers much better suited to deal with the turbulent tribes; and it would most likely have proved fatal to one of M. Flandin’s excitable temperament. But now an opportunity offered to follow close upon the steps of a traveller protected by the authority of a diplomatic mission, and along a route that circumstances rendered at that time exceptionally secure.[188] M. Flandin finds some difficulty in excusing his neglect to perform a journey which his commission seemed to demand. He tells us that his purse had begun to feel the strain of eight months’ travel, although we find it was still sufficient to support the cost of another year in safer and pleasanter quarters.[189] Having abandoned this project, they returned for a few days to Persepolis, in order to obtain a few plaster casts of the more striking bas-reliefs. They reached Teheran on March 20, where they met Baron de Bode, who had just returned from Susa. The inspection of the antiquities he had collected ‘in that country, the object of our regrets,’ must have excited some mortifying reflections; though they gladly inferred from the drawings that the place ‘offered in reality little of interest.’[190] The excavations of Mr. Loftus, ten years later, dispelled this flattering illusion. After a month spent in the enjoyment of royal favour, they left Teheran (April 24), and proceeded by Tabriz and Urmia to Bagdad, which they reached in July. M. Flandin bade farewell to Persian territory after a free interchange of blows with the people of the frontier village.[191] From Bagdad he paid hurried visits to Hillah and Mosul; and left early in September for Aleppo and Beyrout, where he embarked for France on December 1, 1841.

He revisited the East in 1843, in order to sketch the monuments discovered by M. Botta at Khorsabad. In consequence of this employment, the publication of the results of the Persian journey was greatly delayed. The ‘Voyage en Perse’ was not even written till 1850, and it did not appear till the following year.[192] The folio edition with plates bears no date. A portion of the plates was used by Mr. Fergusson in 1850, for his book on the Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis, but they were not available the year before.[193] They brought home two hundred and fifty-four drawings and thirty-five copies of inscriptions, most of which they profess to have executed on the spot;[194] and the collection forms an extremely valuable addition to our knowledge of the antiquities of Persia. M. Flandin was strongly of opinion that no individual enterprise could hope to compete with the minuteness of research and the untiring industry of an official like himself, who was charged with a Government mission, and invested with the confidence of two academical bodies.[195] A Government can indeed afford to publish a book no one can afford to buy, but it seems unable to imbue its commissioners with the energy so frequently displayed by private individuals. The lamentable failure of Messrs. Flandin and Coste before the rock of Behistun and the tomb of Darius; besides the serenity with which they abandoned even an attempt to reach Susa, afford sufficient evidence of this. M. Coste is scarcely even mentioned in the ‘Voyage’; but we see enough of M. Flandin to recognise that he did not possess the qualities that make a successful explorer. His narrative is interrupted and disfigured by puerile details of personal adventure in which he evinces a complete absence of the coolness, the nerve and the tact requisite for his task. He magnifies to absurd proportions the risks to which he is exposed; he is constantly involved in humiliating personal encounters with the people of the country, in which he displays vastly more temper than courage. The reader might be tempted to regard these conflicts with some complacency, if it were not for the excruciating punishment with which the politeness of the Persian authorities thought fit to visit his assailants.[196]

Very little more now remained to be done to illustrate all that is necessary to know of these Persian ruins. The inscriptions had been successfully recovered and many times copied. The Persian text had been fully translated, and only a few obscure passages awaited farther elucidation. Still the most careful accounts were found to conflict on many points, and neither Porter nor his successors had removed the discrepancies and contradictions that had been so long remarked.

After the lapse of many years, it was determined to appeal to the new art of photography, in order to obtain a degree of accuracy that could not be achieved by the pencil. The first to make the attempt was a Mr. Ellis, but his negatives were entirely destroyed in the course of the rough journey to the sea. At length Herr Stolze made another and very successful effort.[197] He was attached to a German scientific expedition, sent out to the East in 1874, under the direction of Dr. Andreas, to observe the transit of Venus. Stolze spent some time travelling over Persia, and visited among other places Persepolis and Fasa in the winter of 1874; but his real work began in June 1878, a season of the year when the heat is excessive, and when the process of developing the negatives within a closed box involved actual suffering. Notwithstanding these disadvantages he took upwards of three hundred plates between the date of his arrival on June 16 and his departure on July 3. He found the vertical sun of summer better suited for photographing the inscriptions than the bas-reliefs, especially those situated in the deep shade of the doorways. One of his greatest achievements was the photogrammetric plan of Persepolis, which surpasses any previous attempt to arrive at an accurate survey. It is said that no fewer than three hundred and fifty plates were used in the construction of the three metrical plans at the end of his second volume.[198] After a few days spent at Murgab, he hastened back to cooler quarters. His negatives were so carefully packed that they all reached Europe in safety. Unfortunately, one case was opened at the London Custom House, and the plates were replaced so loosely by the bungling official that a few were cracked; but even these have been pieced together without retaining much trace of their ill usage. In the course of his travels he took no fewer than fourteen hundred negatives, and in the spring of 1879 he had the satisfaction to find himself at Berlin with his treasures. In September 1881, he submitted a few of the completed photographs to the Fifth Oriental Congress, and they sanctioned the publication of those relating to the Achaemenian and Sassanian periods. The result was the appearance, in 1882, of ‘Die Achaemenidischen Denkmäler von Persepolis,’ photographed by Stolze and edited by Noeldeke; and two more ponderous and magnificent folios were thus added to the growing mass of inaccessible lore. Persepolis alone occupies ninety-nine plates, and the scale on which the work is executed may be judged from the devotion of twenty-one views to the Palace of Darius, eighteen to the Palace of Xerxes, twelve to the Hall of the Hundred Columns, and twelve to the Hall of Xerxes. Nine plates (106-14) are devoted to Naksh-i-Rustam and eleven (127-37) to Murgab. It is doubtful how far the photographic process will assist the student of the inscriptions. Noeldeke fears it will be of little value as regards the Pehlevi; and certainly little can be made out of the cuneiform except by the constant and painful use of a powerful magnifying glass. They may, however, be occasionally useful to decide disputed points: as, for example, the photograph of the inscription on the Anta of the Palace of Darius proves that the transcription of Westergaard is correct, and that of Rich wrong (Plate XIII.). Another photograph shows that the error in one of Niebuhr’s copies is due to a defect in the original.[199] Elsewhere Niebuhr is shown to be even more careful than Westergaard.[200] The photographs of the monuments and bas-reliefs meet with a very varying measure of success. Some are so blurred and indistinct that it is fortunate that they are each labelled in German, French and English; otherwise we might doubt whether they are correctly described.[201] Comparative success is reached more frequently, and excellence occasionally. It is particularly unfortunate that the great sculptured staircase has not been taken on a sufficiently large scale to bring out the figures with distinctness (Pl. 77 ff.); Noeldeke is, however, of opinion that it is the best view of them taken since Ouseley, thus passing over both Porter and the two French artists, Texier and Flandin. Among the most valuable views from Murgab are the two plates showing the Tomb of Cyrus (Pl. 128-9). The series closes with what might pass for a snowy mountain in Switzerland, but which is explained to be fragments of a bas-relief at Pasargadae (Pl. 137). Noeldeke, like Texier, fully believes in the destruction of some of the buildings by fire, and he also considers that few of them were ever thoroughly completed; indeed he attributes to that cause the absence of all traces of walls round the Hall of Xerxes, or of a roof. He thinks there never were any more columns than can now be identified, and that some even of these were left unfinished. The same applies to the Entrance Porch; possibly the gates on the North and South sides (which are supposed to have been part of the general design) were never erected; nor the second pair of columns. At the instigation of Dr. Andreas, a trench was dug into the Central Mound, which had long been the object of so many conjectures, with the disappointing result that it was found to contain nothing but cuttings discarded by the masons.

Three years later, in 1881, these ruins were visited by M. Dieulafoy and his wife, Madame Dieulafoy, who notwithstanding the disabilities of her sex, has been appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and an Officer of the Academy. The journey has resulted in the production of two vast works: one an elaborate treatise on ‘L’Art antique de la Perse,’ in five volumes, petit in-folio, 1884, by Monsieur Dieulafoy; and a single volume of massive proportions descriptive of their travels by the valiant and industrious lady.[202] M. Dieulafoy is one of the best known writers in France on architecture, and his opinions, though at times as fanciful as those of M. Flandin, are always worthy of respect. Madame Dieulafoy displayed marvellous pluck in the course of her adventures, and extraordinary expansiveness in their relation. When the span of life is lengthened to that enjoyed by the patriarchs, there will be time to study her works at leisure. One other traveller should be named who has given an admirable account of Persepolis, and, if detached from its cumbrous surroundings, one more adapted to the pressure of modern times. Lord Curzon visited Persia in 1889-90 and he has devoted a chapter of his Travels (chap. xxi. vol. ii.) to the subject. It is by far the best description we know, and affords all the information that need be sought. He frequently calls attention to the extraordinary contradictions to be found in the various writings on the subject, which, from the days of Porter, it has been the constant aim of successive travellers to remove. In mere matters of opinion there is, of course, no prospect of reaching unanimity in this or in any other subject. Whether the great halls were walled and roofed, or protected only by falling curtains; whether the palaces were ever occupied as residences or reserved only for state ceremonial, and a host of other disputed questions, will remain points of controversy. Each successive traveller with pretensions to originality to establish will continue to put forward new theories, and he will illustrate the beauty of his imagination by elaborate drawings of his conjectural restorations. These are inevitable failings of humanity and must be treated with toleration; but it is different when mere questions of fact are involved. After three centuries of travellers to Persepolis, we have still to reiterate the desire of Fergusson that some one may yet be found ‘who will go there with his eyes open, which does not seem yet to have been the case.’[203] Although the sun itself has been summoned to share in the task, even still there is a conflict of evidence as to the number of windows in the Hall of the Hundred Columns, as to the number and position of the columns in the Palace of Darius, and many other points too tedious to mention. There may indeed be more important questions in the world awaiting solution than even the exact construction of a Persepolitan palace, but it is irritating to find, notwithstanding our painful quest, that Truth evades our grasp in this as in weightier matters.

Persepolis was fully known and its inscriptions translated before any attempt was made to explore the site of Susa. Major Rennell was among the first to identify it with Shus, about fifteen miles S.W. of Dizful.[204] The place was visited in 1810 by Captains Kinneir and Monteith, who were attached to the mission of Sir John Malcolm.[205] The former describes the ruins as lying about seven or eight miles to the west of Dizful and not unlike those of Babylon. He describes it as consisting of a succession of mounds covered with fragments of bricks and coloured tiles extending over nearly twelve miles. Two mounds attracted special attention. The first rises to a height of a hundred feet and is about a mile in circumference. At its base is the reputed Tomb of Daniel, a building that appears comparatively modern. The other mound is not quite so high, but it is nearly two miles in circumference. They are composed of a mixture of brick and clay, with irregular layers of brick and mortar five or six feet thick to serve as a prop. Large blocks of marble covered with hieroglyphics were reported to be occasionally discovered by the Arabs.[206] One of these—the famous ‘black stone’—was seen by Captain Monteith near the Tomb of Daniel, where it had recently been rolled down from the summit of the Citadel Hill. It was not more than twenty-two inches long and twelve broad, but it had a cuneiform inscription on one side, and various sacred emblems represented upon the other. He made a sketch of it and might then have purchased it at a moderate price; but, though not large, it was found impossible at that time to remove it. Shortly afterwards two other Englishmen—the unfortunate Grant and Fotheringham—offered seventy pounds for it, but their intention to take it with them on their return was frustrated by their murder.[207] The value set upon it by the foreigners raised it in the estimation of the natives to such a height that the subsequent effort of Mr. Gordon to get possession of it utterly failed (1812).[208] It was already invested with the mysterious virtue of a talisman, and its loss, it was thought, would involve the country in disaster. To secure its retention resort was had to the singular expedient of blowing it into a hundred fragments by gunpowder. The destruction, however, was not complete, and the fragments were afterwards carefully collected, and secretly built into a pillar in the Tomb of Daniel, where they now are. In 1836 Rawlinson was able to pass two days amid the ruins in the course of his march from Zohab to Shuster. His visit, he thought, had enabled him to ‘unravel the mystery of the two rivers Eulaeus and Choaspes.’ He heard that the ‘black stone’ had been blown to pieces, but he was evidently not informed that the fragments were collected and were then in the Tomb of Daniel. He was rewarded, however, by the discovery of a broken obelisk with ‘a very perfect inscription of thirty-three lines,’ which was afterwards found to be written in Old Susian.[209] Five years later, Mr. Layard penetrated into the tomb disguised in Arab dress, and was told by a dervish that the precious inscription was buried there. In the outer court he was shown one or two small capitals and other vestiges of columns that had fallen from the mound; and also the fragment of a slab with a few cuneiform characters almost obliterated. The mound appeared to him little inferior in size to the Mujelibi, and he found and copied an inscription from a marble slab nine feet long by two feet six inches broad.[210] It was during this visit to Persia that he went to Malamir, in the valley of the Upper Karun, south-east of Susa, where he copied two long inscriptions, in a dialect of the Susian, one of thirty-six lines and the other of twenty-four, and made drawings of the singular bas-reliefs which accompany them.[211]

The first information of importance concerning Susa comes, however, from Mr. Loftus. He was attached as geologist to Sir W. F. Williams’s mission for the delimitation of the Turkish and Persian frontier, between 1849 and 1852. His first visit to Susa was made in May 1850. The ruins, he says, cover an area of about 3½ miles in circumference, within which four separate mounds are distinctly marked. The loftiest he estimated at about 2,850 feet round the summit, and it had evidently been the citadel.[212] To the north is a larger mound at a lower elevation, and here it was that he was rewarded by the discovery of the ancient palace. To the east of these is another, which he calls the Great Platform; it covers sixty acres, and does not exceed seventy feet in height. Beyond it, still farther eastward, may be discerned some remains that indicate the place where the city itself stood (No. 4 on plan).

The excavations were begun in 1851 and at first without decisive result. Three trenches were ‘dug into the citadel mound to the depth of nineteen feet, but failed to discover anything except portions of a brick pavement, fragments of moulded composition-bricks stamped with cuneiform and covered with green glaze.’[213]

It was not till the following year that Mr. Loftus succeeded in excavating a building almost exactly similar to the Columnar Edifice at Persepolis. He determined the position of twenty-one bases of the central group; two bases in each row of the eastern colonnade, and three of the western. On the north he found three bases, all in the inner row, and it is still doubtful if there ever was a second row on this side.[214] He ascertained that the building consisted, as at Persepolis, of a central square of thirty-six columns, surrounded on three sides by a colonnade, and we are indebted to him for the measurements. His opinion is that the central group was roofed, but not enclosed by a wall, and the space between it and the colonnades was open.[215] He searched in vain for the traces of walls such as Fergusson suggested had existed at Persepolis; and was the more convinced that none had ever existed because he found distinct traces of foundations elsewhere. He brought to light a trilingual inscription, repeated four times on the bases of the columns, which were found to have been written by Artaxerxes Mnemon (Inscr. S). They are of more than usual interest, for the King traces his genealogy back to Hystaspes, and confirms thereby the statement of Herodotus. He states also that he built the hall, or, as he calls it, the Apadana, on the site of an earlier edifice erected by the great Darius, and afterwards destroyed by fire during the reign of Artaxerxes I. He likewise invokes Mithra and Anahita for the first time side by side with Ormuzd as tutelary deities. Another evidence of degeneracy is seen in the corruption of the language, which exhibits several grammatical solecisms. Another short trilingual legend of the same king was found round a column in a different part of the mound, and several detached bricks and vases with the names of Darius and Xerxes, but no other trilinguals of importance. On the other hand, the long inscription in thirty-three lines found by Rawlinson on the Citadel Hill, and the two inscriptions found by Layard at Malamir, gave rise to fresh difficulties. It was recognised that the writing was different from any yet known; and the perplexity was heightened when it was farther observed that they differed from one another. Here, then, were two new methods of writing, and possibly two new languages added to those already in hand; and there seemed to be no end to the task imposed on the cuneiform student. For some time little effort was made to grapple with these new problems. The script found on the Citadel Hill received the provisional name of ‘Old Susian,’ and many other specimens of it gradually accumulated. Subsequent investigations have shown that the writing and language found at Susa and Malamir are related to those in the second column of the trilingual inscriptions. It is now ascertained that the Old Susian is the most ancient form; and that the script and language of the second column descends from it, through the medium of the script and language found at Malamir. The Old Susian inscriptions were translated by Oppert in 1876, and those of Malamir by Professor Sayce in 1885. These documents were generally referred to kings contemporary with Sargon and Sennacherib, though others subsequently found were attributed to the fourteenth century B.C. Still later discoveries have proved that the Old Susian was in use at least as early as B.C. 3000. The origin of the ‘New Susian’ of the second column has thus been carried back to a great antiquity; and the existence of a very ancient population in Elam, speaking a Scythic language has been established. The relation between the Scythic of Elam and the Scythic of Southern Babylonia has not yet, we believe, been universally admitted. There are powerful interests at work to dwarf or deny the extension and influence of the Turanian races, both in Elam and in Babylonia, and till these have been surmounted, it will be difficult to estimate correctly the exact state of the evidence.

It was not till thirty-three years had elapsed from the date of Mr. Loftus’s discoveries that Susa was again visited. Upon this occasion (1885) the enterprising traveller was M. Dieulafoy, whom we have already mentioned, and it is to these two travellers that we owe nearly all we know of its Achaemenian remains. Mr. Loftus must always enjoy the honour of being the first to reconstruct the Columnar Hall, and it was he also through whom the two inscriptions of Artaxerxes Mnemon became first known. M. Dieulafoy, on the other hand, has largely increased our knowledge of Persian art by the discovery of the enamelled friezes. The service he has rendered towards the reconstruction of the buildings is more problematical, for a large portion of it depends upon the justness of the imaginative faculty, which is never a very sure guide in such matters. He found three or four bases in the central cluster of the Hall not previously excavated by Loftus; but they add nothing to our knowledge of its construction, which the earlier traveller had already fully determined. M. Dieulafoy’s most successful work was achieved on the occasion of his second visit to Susa, in 1885. At first it was difficult to collect workmen, but a few deserters from the army were attracted, when it became known that the pay offered was about equal to that of their colonel. Before the end of the month nearly three hundred men were collected, and excavations were energetically pursued upon each of the three hills. A double-headed bull, broken into convenient fragments, was found in the eastern colonnade of the great Hall, and the pavement of a terrace on the south was reached.[216] At length (March 21), large quantities of bricks and enamelled tiles were found which, when put together, formed various devices, men and animals of gigantic size, triangles of alternate blue, green and white, palm leaves and other decorative designs, evidently parts of a frieze.[217] The brilliant colours were marvellously preserved from having lain so long face downwards. Soon after, the base of a column, signed by Artaxerxes Mnemon, was found in the larger mound. Meanwhile Madame Dieulafoy supervised the collection of the enamels, and as they were pieced together the floor of her tent was gradually enlivened by the apparition of a magnificent lion set in blue turquoise.[218] Numerous repetitions of the same device were found, indicating a procession of these majestic animals. A few cuneiform letters were also met, tinted with blue. The enamels had clearly fallen from a great height, and had formed the decoration of the upper portion of a wall. It was evident also that the building they came from had been preceded by a still more ancient edifice to which some of the bricks had belonged.[219] Almost as interesting was the discovery close to their camp on the south side of the Apadana of the parapet of a staircase richly ornamented with yellow and blue lotus flowers, set in a rich green foundation.[220] The excavations conducted at two points of the Citadel Hill had as yet proved unproductive. They had occupied fifty men constantly for two months, and had only resulted in the discovery of a few bricks with Susian texts, and some fragments of cut stone. Not much more success had rewarded their attack upon the large mound to the east. Here little was found except immense walls of crude brick and the remains of a cemetery of Parthian times. Farther search had now, however, to be postponed on account of the approach of the hot weather. On April 28 work was suspended and the treasures packed. Fifty-five cases were despatched, containing the lion frieze and the decoration of the stairs. They were, however, seized at the Turkish frontier, and all the attempts of M. Dieulafoy to smuggle them on board a French steamer were frustrated. Fortunately, the head of the lion and many small objects were hidden away in the personal luggage and thus escaped detention. The travellers got back to France in July, and were then informed that the Shah had revoked the firman and would not permit them to return. It appears that the Mollahs at Dizful had discovered that the torrential rains and threatening clouds that had lately visited the country were due to the presence of the foreigners so near the holy Tomb of Daniel. The infidels had disturbed the resting-places of the faithful and removed the talismans buried by the prophets for the protection of Susiana. It was abundantly proved that their unholy presence was always accompanied by signs of divine wrath and followed by terrible plagues. After much negotiation, however, leave to return was obtained, on condition that the French Government would waive the claim to indemnity if, as seemed probable, their agents should perish in their forthcoming visit. This singular condition was subsequently modified, and while the Shah disclaimed all responsibility for the safety of the mission, he renewed the firman for a limited time.[221] It was perhaps partly in consequence of these negotiations, and partly to stimulate the Turkish Government to surrender the fifty-five cases still in their possession, that the travellers re-appeared in the Persian Gulf on board a French man-of-war, which had not been seen in those waters for three years. On their way they stopped at Muscat, and the officers were duly entertained at the Lawn Tennis Club by the ubiquitous English.[222]

M. Dieulafoy resumed operations at Susa on December 13, 1885. The firman was to expire on April 1, and their funds were now reduced to 15,000 francs.[223] They accordingly determined to abandon the hope of a thorough investigation and to content themselves with the humbler task of filling the Museum. They now concentrated all their efforts on the Palace Hill: by the end of the year they had come upon the foundation of the Palace of Darius, which had been buried beneath the ruins of the later Palace of Artaxerxes. At this depth they made their second great discovery of enamelled tiles, bearing the design of the archers, an ornament attached to an earlier structure. It was, however, found sixty metres from the Apadana and could not, therefore, have been a portion of the decoration of the palace.[224] At a little distance, in the plain, they came upon a small Achaemenian building which Dieulafoy declared to be a covered fire temple.[225] By the middle of February the exhausted state of their finances compelled them to dismiss a hundred of their workmen. The clearance of the palace, however, continued. Several more bases were found, and another double bull, which was shattered into portable form by a stroke from the powerful arm of the lady Chevalier.[226] A sketch was also completed of the fortification for two-thirds of its circumference, a work that produces a startling effect upon the reader who looks at Plate 2. Little now remained but the task of collecting their treasures. The process of packing and superintending the removal of such weighty objects occupied the rest of their time, and when they left, at the end of March, they brought away three hundred and twenty-seven cases and forty-five tons of baggage. When the difficult journey to the coast was successfully overcome, they found a man-of-war ready to transport them safely back to France. They had acquired inestimable archæological riches, which are now to be seen among the precious collections of the Louvre. These remains of Achaemenian palaces, as they say, were not torn from some splendid ruin, but called back to life from the hidden embrace of the grave; and they were acquired at the peril of their lives. The Susian mission waged an almost hopeless battle and came off victorious.[227] We fear, however, that a good deal of M. Dieulafoy’s industry was misdirected. If a third plate were to be prepared, marking only the ‘Restorations directes d’après les fouilles,’ and omitting the lines indicating the ‘Restorations calculées’ and the ‘Restitutions hypothétiques,’ the reader would be surprised to see how little of the ‘Acropole de Suse’ remained. The great staircase ascending to the Apadana or Columnar Edifice seems to be also entirely without authority, and his most ingenious speculations are to a great extent completely overthrown by the excavations of his successor.

Since the mission of M. Dieulafoy, a most advantageous concession has been made to France. In 1895 the Shah accorded to that favoured nation an exclusive right to carry on archæological excavations throughout the whole of his dominions. This concession was extended in August 1900, and was rendered perpetual, with the farther privilege of retaining all the artistic objects discovered.[228] M. de Morgan, who had already acquired a great reputation by his travels in Persia and his work in Egypt, was appointed in 1897 to carry on the explorations, and with the protection of a Persian garrison he began his operations in December of that year. They are still in progress, but he has been able to publish an account of his discoveries up to the spring of 1899. He has been described as the Prince of Excavators; and it is indeed a most fortunate circumstance that this work should have fallen into such unusually competent hands. He has ample time at his disposal, and sufficient means to employ no less than five hundred men at a time. He is satisfied to carry out his undertaking in a patient and painstaking manner. He has the merit of keeping his imaginative faculty under severe restraint, and we have little cause to apprehend an apparition of the airy fancies that so many of his predecessors have substituted for solid toil.

In his excavations on the site of the Apadana, he has been unable to verify the existence of the three bases belonging to the inner row of the northern colonnade. They were, however, among the first to be discovered by Mr. Loftus, and as he did not belong to the inventive group of travellers there can be no doubt they are to be found.[229] De Morgan is of opinion that the northern colonnade could never have contained more than a single row of columns, on account of the nature of the ground, which, he says, would not admit of more. His careful excavations between the central group and the lateral colonnades have proved the entire absence of any foundations upon which a solid structure could rest. It is clear, therefore, that the building could never have been enclosed by brick walls, adorned, as so commonly supposed, by enamelled designs. The theory supported by the Book of Esther that it was protected only by hanging curtains gains, therefore, probability, though we do not see that the supposition of its having been surrounded by wood is excluded. Below the foundations of Artaxerxes he found farther remains of the earlier edifice of Darius. Among these were the round base of a column and part of a bull-headed capital.[230] Elsewhere, lying at a still greater depth, he came upon a fluted column of a style entirely different from those in the more modern edifice. His investigations on the southern side have dispelled any hope of finding a sculptured staircase as at Persepolis.[231]

His discoveries have contributed largely to widen the range of information concerning the ancient civilisation of Susiana. He has found upwards of eight hundred bricks bearing the inscriptions of various Elamite kings and patesis written in the Old Susian language; some of these are said to go back to B.C. 3000, or earlier, and a few of them are written, according to M. de Morgan, in Sumerian and others in Semitic. Besides bricks, a bronze bas-relief, and a few archaic tablets and a stele with Susian inscriptions have also been discovered. Other objects not of Elamite origin have been met which it is reasonable to conclude were captured in the course of successful raids. They go back to the earliest days of Babylonian history. One is an obelisk of a King of Kish who lived, it is said, so far back as B.C. 3850.[232] Another is a bas-relief of the famous Naram Sin carried off from Sippara; a third is a brick of the same king, a possible indication that he was at one time the suzerain of the country, and contributed to the embellishment of its temples. In addition to these, many boundary stones have been found, all relating to land in Chaldæa belonging to the late Cossaean period, which prove how successful the Elamites continued to be in removing their neighbours’ landmarks.[233]

Perhaps of greater interest is the glimpse these excavations have afforded of a still more distant past. M. de Morgan found that the Citadel Hill has reached its present altitude of one hundred and twenty feet above the plain entirely by the accumulation of deposit left by successive generations of settlers.

He sank a series of mines of considerable length into the side of the hill, and at various depths, down to 24·90 metres below the surface. The Achaemenian remains reach no farther down than 4·50 metres, and this stratum represents a period extending over 2,500 years. If we assume a similar rate of deposit for the remainder we arrive at more than B.C. 12,000 for the date of the lowest stratum examined. It is very remarkable that it was precisely at this depth, representing in any case an extremely remote period, that he found the most finished pottery, adorned with the most perfect artistic designs; and these, he has no doubt, could not have been produced except in a high state of civilisation.[234] There is some resemblance between these objects and others recently found in Egypt and ascribed to B.C. 6000.[235] This early civilisation seems to have been swept away by the invasion of a people in a much less advanced condition, who occupied the country for a long period of time;[236] it is not till these had disappeared and we ascend to a level of 12·95 metres below the surface that we come to the beginning of the Elamite deposit. It has a thickness of from eight to nine metres, which, according to our estimate, would require about five thousand years to form. It was in this stratum, between 4·50 and 12·95 metres below the surface that he made his principal discoveries. Here he came upon the walls of Elamite palaces and temples, which have enabled him to show that the method of decoration by means of enamelled brick of exquisite colour and design was extensively practised. The quantity of carbonised material leads to the conclusion that wood was largely employed in the construction of these edifices; and the remains of columns prove that the Persians derived their idea of columnar architecture direct from their predecessors. The inscriptions so recently found are still in the hands of Father Scheil, who is now engaged in the work of decipherment. They show, he says, the influence of Semitic speech in Elam at an early period, and the advocates of the antiquity of Semitic civilisation begin to hope they may still have occasion to rejoice.

Very few other inscriptions remain for us to notice. Before the end of the eighteenth century a vase of Xerxes was discovered in Egypt containing a trilingual inscription translated into Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was described by Caylus (after whom it was named), and was long the object of much learned curiosity (Inscr. Qᵃ). Another inscription was found near Suez, in A.D. 1800, and published in the ‘Travels of Denon,’ in 1807. It contains a legend of Darius, and appears to have belonged to a larger monument, afterwards partly recovered, but which has since been entirely destroyed. It was engraved upon a stele and was also quadrilingual: having three cuneiform inscriptions on one side and the Egyptian hieroglyphics on the other. On the Persian side were two human figures with their hands resting upon three cartouches. To the right was the Persian, to the left the Susian, and below the Babylonian text, with the legend ‘Darius the great king, king of kings, king of lands, the king of the wide earth, son of Hystaspes the Achaemenian.’[237] Below, occupying the whole face of the stele, was the longer inscription in twelve lines with the Persian on the top and the others under. Nearly the whole of the Susian was lost, and only a few letters of the Babylonian remained.[238] It begins with the long introductory form, and Darius goes on to say that he has conquered Egypt; and commanded a canal to be dug from the Nile to the ‘sea which is in communication with Persia.’[239] It seems to say that the king ordered the half of the canal toward the sea to be destroyed.[240] It is supposed that this was done in accordance with the advice of the engineers who thought the Red Sea was above the level of the Mediterranean (Inscr. Sᶻ). Two other inscriptions have also been found in Egypt: one on a crystal cylinder now in the British Museum and first described by Grotefend in his ‘Neue Beiträge’ of 1840. It represents Darius in the act of killing a lion. The king is standing upright in a chariot with the tiara upon his head, and carrying a bent bow in his hand. Above him is the winged figure, and in the background a trilingual inscription with the legend ‘I [am] Darius the king.’ The other occurs upon a vase of grey marble, and like the one of Caylus, it is quadrilingual. It was first made known by Longpérier in the ‘Revue Archéologique’ (1844), through an imperfect copy taken by the Abbé Giacchetti, but a complete transcript was afterwards sent by Sir Gardner Wilkinson to Rawlinson. It reads simply: ‘Artaxerxes the great king.’ It is known as the Venice vase, and is preserved in the Museum of St. Mark’s (Inscr. Qᵇ). A few other vases were afterwards found at Susa and at Halicarnassus, but they all repeat the same legend as that found upon the Caylus vase. A short inscription of Darius, containing the long introductory form already described, is also mentioned by Gobineau as having been found near Kermanshah.[241] Two unilingual inscriptions, one of Arsaces and the other of Pharnuches, were also afterwards found on seal cylinders which, with the trilingual of Darius in the British Museum (Nᵃ) raise the number to three in all.[242]