Chapter I (3)

An agent of the East India Company, Mr. S. Flower, made a collection of various inscriptions, and among others of ‘one consisting of two lines in the nail character, or pyramidal shape, such as is impressed on some bricks lately found in the neighbouring countries.’ These appeared in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ of 1693, and were reproduced by Dr. Hyde, who, quoting Flower, says that the characters are not found except at Persepolis, though some missionaries say they are known and in use in Egypt. He adds that they appear to be written from left to right. The inscription as copied in Hyde is punctuated after each letter,[52] and exhibits a miscellaneous collection of characters selected from the three descriptions of writing.

From what has been said it will be seen that down to the end of the seventeenth century, or a hundred years after the visit of Gouvea to Persepolis, the chief authorities upon the subject were still Don Garcia and Della Valle. Herbert perhaps enjoyed a wider popularity, but so far as his account was correct he depended chiefly upon other writers. The description given by Mandelslo and Daulier added little to the knowledge already acquired. Mere verbal descriptions, however, even by the most graphic writer, could never convey so vivid an impression to the mind as a pictorial representation. The drawings made by Don Garcia were not reproduced by his translators, and if they enriched the original Spanish edition, that work is so little known, that it has not even yet found its way to the British Museum. The drawings of Della Valle had not then[53] and, we believe, have never since been published. Mandelslo gave a tolerable drawing of the tomb at Murgab; but his view of Persepolis is little better than the plates in the earlier editions of Herbert. The English translator omitted them, and it is little likely that a book written in German and published in the remote town of Schleswig ever enjoyed a wide circulation. The engraving given by Herbert, even in his latest edition, is still grossly incorrect. It was executed by an artist who had never visited the spot, and Herbert was himself entirely unable to convey a true idea of the appearance and position of the different ruins. Daulier Deslandes at length made a great advance upon all his predecessors, and placed the student in a position to form a tolerable conception of the general aspect of the buildings.

Still less progress had yet been made towards the reproduction of the cuneiform letters. Della Valle had given five of the characters in the Italian edition of his Travels, but his French translators omitted them. Herbert contributed three lines; Daulier gave a short inscription taken from an arch; and Flower had quite recently increased the available material by two lines. They were all very imperfectly copied, but it was known that large numbers of similar inscriptions appeared in various parts of the ruins. Dr. Hyde, the learned Orientalist, concluded that they were not letters at all, but simply designed as ornamentation. He entirely repudiated the suggestion, which was already current, that they had any resemblance to Chinese.[54] He went so far as to upbraid the artist for having been the cause of so much torment to critics and men of learning. The whole matter was, he declared, beneath his notice, and he would not have alluded to it if he had not feared that his silence might be misconstrued.[55]

This opinion was occasionally repeated both in France and Germany down to the close of the eighteenth century. Early in that century, however, the materials for forming a more accurate judgment began rapidly to accumulate. The three travellers Chardin, Kaempfer and Le Bruyn all made important contributions to the subject. Chardin was the son of a rich jeweller in Paris, and early in life he was sent on business to Persia and India. On his return in 1681 he settled in England and was knighted by Charles II., who afterwards sent him to Holland as his ambassador. Chardin’s three visits to Persepolis were made as far back as 1666, 1667 and 1674, but his account of it did not appear till 1711. It was published at the same time in two different forms: in three volumes quarto and in ten volumes duodecimo, but with the same text and plates. This edition was somewhat expurgated to avoid giving offence to the Catholics, but another came out in 1735, which included the suppressed passages. Chardin died in London in January 1713, two years after the publication of the complete edition of his Travels, but before he had time to finish the most cherished work of his life, which was a Commentary on the Bible, based upon his knowledge of Oriental customs. It is said he was assisted in the composition of his works by Charpentier, a Member of the French Academy, and the magnificent drawings, twenty-three in number, made of Persepolis, are the work of M. Grélot, whom he brought with him for the purpose.[56] They convey a most admirable impression, and the student can for the first time realise the splendour of the ruins: which he could never have grasped from the confused description of travellers.

They include two general views upon a large scale. In the first a few inaccuracies detract somewhat from its value. We observe birds of a highly imaginative design perched upon the columns of the Porch; but whether they are designed to represent portions of the capital, or merely temporary visitors, does not appear. The sculptured stairs are incorrectly represented, showing only a single ascent, and without the projecting flight in the centre—a deficiency removed in the description given in the text. The columns are massed too closely together; the Palace of Darius is placed on the south-west extremity of the platform, in the position that should be left vacant for the Palace of Ochus; and the stairs appear on the north instead of on the south side of the Palace. On the other hand, we find the Hall of the Hundred Columns correctly placed for the first time on the same elevation as the Porch. The second view is more valuable. It is taken from about the same place as Niebuhr subsequently selected. The eye first rests upon the Hall of the Hundred Columns with the cistern and entrance porch to the right. Looking southwards, the Columnar Edifice is seen to occupy a prominent position, and beyond it lies the Palace of Darius, standing upon its own terrace, but, by an unaccountable error, with the façade turned to the east instead of the south. It appears unduly cramped between the columns and the Palace of Xerxes, which rises upon its terrace at an apparent elevation considerably higher than that of Darius. The double stairs leading to it on the east, and the straight flight down to the southern terrace are given. Under the hill we see a tolerable representation of the south-east edifice, and as we turn back to the Hall of the Hundred Columns we observe a poor representation of the Central Edifice. There is a tendency to represent the ruins in too perfect a condition: the lower portion of the massive piers at the entrance have the appearance of being intact; the eastern stairs of Xerxes are also represented as far too well preserved, and the artist has entirely omitted the great mound opposite the Central Edifice. Apart from these defects, the drawing gives an intelligent design of the place, and it will enable the reader to recover from the nightmare into which he may have fallen after reading the account of Thévenot, and even the description of Chardin himself. The other plates are devoted to separate drawings of the more remarkable objects. One (Plate 54) makes the first attempt to reduce the platform to scale; but the buildings are not indicated upon it. Another gives the Great Staircase (Plate 55); two are devoted to the Porch (Plates 56 and 57); two to the Sculptured Stairs (Plates 58 and 59); two to the Columns of the Hall of Xerxes (Plates 60 and 61). The bas-reliefs are treated with special attention. Besides those on the Porch and the Sculptured Stairs, we are shown the King walking beneath the parasol (Plate 62); seated upon the chair of state above the five rows of guards (Plate 63); and again over the three rows of suppliants (Plate 64). Special plates are devoted to his contests with wild animals (Plate 65), and to the guards at the entrance to the Palaces (Plate 66). A plate is devoted to each of the Tombs on the hill (Plates 67 and 68), and another to a general view of the tombs at Naksh-i-Rustam. By means of these admirable drawings the Persepolitan ruins received their first adequate illustration. Daulier had indeed contributed a general view of some excellence; but the few and insignificant sketches he attempted of the bas-reliefs were the only drawings that had yet appeared. It is doubtful whether anything much better has since been produced than the magnificent views of the sculpture on the Great Portal of the Hall of the Hundred Columns and the drawing of the Tombs overhanging the Platform. The sculptured staircase is drawn upon an immense scale. It fills two plates, one opening out in length equal to twelve pages of the book, and the other to five or six pages. The execution is admirable as a work of art, and as such it has perhaps never been surpassed. In point of fidelity to the subject it may not be more in error than many of its successors. At that period the sculptures were no doubt in a more perfect condition than they since became after a lapse of a century or two, and Chardin describes them as being in his day ‘still so complete and so sharply defined that the work appears to have only just come from the sculptors’ hands.’ The plates are no doubt far from reaching photographic accuracy; but this objection applies, if not equally, to the later drawings of Porter and Flandin. When we look at the general view of the platform and observe the remarkable precision with which the various ruins are marked upon it, we are surprised to find the description in the text so complicated and confused.[57] The pencil of the artist seems to have followed with perfect clearness the relation to each other of the various parts of the ruins; but in Chardin’s account of them, from the point where he leaves the Columnar Edifice, we become lost in his description of a perfect maze of apparently isolated structures. When we advance from ‘the marvellous temple choir,’ as he calls that edifice, and proceed to follow his ‘straight line,’ we can only very dimly recognise where we are going. It is not, indeed, till we arrive at the Tombs that we once more recover consciousness of our position. While nothing can be learned of the general disposition of the ruins from the account of Chardin, he has furnished a careful description of detached portions of the edifice. From him we learn that there are inscriptions over the animals on the Porch. He gives a long and minute description of the bas-reliefs on the sculptured staircase. He shows that the dress and arms of the various figures are intended to indicate the countries from which they came, and he accompanies his dissertation with much learned commentary. He thought the Columnar Edifice had originally consisted of twelve rows of ten columns, or one hundred and twenty in all; and he is quite sure he counted three rows with ten in each. He noted also that ‘the capitals are different, not only in their ornamentation but also in the fact that some are single and others double.’ The conflict between men and animals depicted on the side doors he thought represented the struggle of heroes with different nations, which, as in the Book of Daniel, were symbolically represented by animals. He considered the stately personage under the parasol united in his own person the offices of both priest and king. The winged figure seemed to him to represent the soul ascending to heaven, amid the clouds of sacrifice; and he rejected the impious conjecture that it denoted a serpent or satyr or worse. He was fully convinced that the ruins were those of a temple and that the Columnar Edifice had been the ‘choir’ where the victims were immolated. The great difficulty of supposing that the principal buildings had ever been roofed favoured the supposition of its ecclesiastical character. He reviews at great length the different opinions as to its origin; some ascribe it to the period before the Deluge, others to Solomon; but he finally decides in favour of Jamshid, the fourth King of Persia, who, he ascertained, had flourished about the time of the descent of Jacob into Egypt.[58] This opinion as he takes care to emphasise, would throw back the construction of the edifice many centuries before Darius. The idea that the ruins represented the castle and palace of Persepolis was first advocated by Don Garcia, but it had long lost its popularity and the rival opinion first put forward by Della Valle, that they were the remains of a temple had already secured the adhesion of Daulier and Thévenot. Chardin now gave it the support of his authority, and he affected to scout the opposite view as ‘a vain and ridiculous tradition,’ although later investigation has affirmed its truth. He was followed by Kaempfer, and encouraged by the English traveller Fryer, who qualified the opinion that it was ‘Cambyses’ Hall’ with the doubt that it might after all ‘be the ruins of some heathen temple.’[59]

Passing to the tombs, he rightly conjectured that the round object above the fire altar represented the sun, ‘the great divinity of the Persians.’ More adventurous than Thévenot, he effected an entrance into the northern tomb over the Hall of the Hundred Columns, and describes it as a square space of twenty-two feet and twelve feet high. At the side he noticed two tombs of white marble sixty-two by twenty-six inches and thirty inches high, both full of water. Chardin thought that the entire façade of the tomb was concealed after its construction by a covering of earth. It was the common belief of the country people that Nimrod had been buried in the first of these tombs and Darius in the second, but Chardin thought that both had been occupied long before the time of Darius.

He mentions the column in the plain three hundred paces from the platform, perfect except the capital. From this spot across to Naksh-i-Rustam ruins may be seen scattered over the whole plain and it was here he thought the city of Persepolis had stood, with the Temple to the east and the Tombs to the west. It reached northwards between the hills where fallen columns, pieces of architraves and bas-reliefs might be observed, and he was told that there were traces of ruins within a circuit of ten leagues.

Chehel Minar is honeycombed by subterranean passages, possibly drains or aqueducts, and Chardin explored several of them. He found one of sufficient height to walk through upright, and he advanced nearly a mile, when he was forced to return. The people of the country told him it extended for six leagues and leads to subterranean tombs. A similar passage connects the temple with Naksh-i-Rustam.

Chardin noted many inscriptions among the ruins, sometimes even upon the robes of the figures.[60] He observes that the strange characters are sometimes three inches in height, and there can be no doubt that some of them, especially the capitals, were gilt. This was in fact the opinion of several of the early travellers, such as Mandelslo and Daulier Deslandes; while Herbert saw gilding on the bas-reliefs themselves. The writing is composed of only two kinds of characters: one resembles an oblique triangle, the other a pyramid. The first has ‘la pointe ou angulaire, ou en bas ou en travers.’ The second may assume six postures: ‘when perpendicular, the pointed end may be either top or bottom; when horizontal, either to left or right; when diagonal, it may point either way.’ It may be read not only from left to right, but also from top to bottom like Chinese. Some consider the writing is purely hieroglyphical, but Chardin thinks it is a true writing like our own—but it will be impossible ever to tell whether it has vowels, or anything else about it. In order to illustrate his opinion concerning the various directions in which the characters might be read, he made a copy of the inscription that runs round the window of the Palace of Darius. This is the first complete inscription ever copied, and unfortunately it contributed much to impede the progress of decipherment.[61] Although consisting of only one line, it is in three different scripts, and its inspection served at once to confirm the opinion of Chardin that the wedges might be turned in any direction—for to the left of the window we see the thick end of the wedge at the bottom; on the right of the window it is in the reverse position; while on the top it is turned to the left. It was long before it was discovered that this inscription was to be read, like the legend running round a coin—the line to the left being written running up; and the line to the right running down; so that in reality the wedge always preserves the same direction.

He visited Naksh-i-Rustam, and was the first to give an account of the Inscriptions on the second tomb. The one above consists, he says, of fifteen lines; the other near the cornice and the door is shorter. He induced his valet, by an offer of three crowns, to explore the interior, and he was probably the first European who ever accomplished the task. He was encountered at the narrow entrance by an immense flight of pigeons, at first mistaken for demons, who were terrified by his intrusion and hastened to make their escape. He reported that the cave measured forty paces in a straight line from the entrance and thirty on either side. Facing the entrance he noticed the lids of three sarcophagi upon the ground, and to right and left were four tombs each six feet long.[62]

The general impression left upon his mind by the contemplation of Persepolis was that the ruins were the most magnificent he had ever seen.[63] Although not without fault, they are, taken as a whole, characterised by excellent taste and worthy of admiration for the amount of labour that lies concealed as well as for that which is displayed. He attributed the destruction of the building more to the religious zeal of the Mohamedans than to time. Istakhr early became the seat of a Viceroy of the Khalifs, and since then the work of demolition has never ceased. Even Shah Abbas adorned his palace at Ispahan with some of its marbles, and others found their way to Shiraz. Not long before Chardin’s visit the governor of that place gave orders that sixty men should be employed in systematic destruction directed chiefly against the human figures; but fortunately his orders were not fully carried into execution.

The year after the appearance of Chardin’s account of Persepolis Engelbert Kaempfer published his Travels, (1712) which include a description of the same monument.[64] He was a German physician who went to Persia in 1684 in the capacity of secretary to the Swedish Envoy, and he subsequently remained as surgeon to the Dutch fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf. His visit to Persepolis occurred twelve years later than that of Chardin, but unfortunately he was not accompanied by a skilful artist (1686). He treats us to five drawings of Persepolis and three of Naksh-i-Rustam. The former include two general views of the Platform, one taken from the west and the other from the east: the Porch, the sculptured stairs and the great door of the Hall of the Hundred Columns. They are quite unworthy to be compared either in design or execution with those of Chardin. But if it were not for the exceptional excellence of the latter, we should feel more grateful to Kaempfer and his successor Le Bruyn. As it is, Kaempfer’s drawing of the sculptured stairs almost carries us back to the archaic period of art represented by Herbert, and may best be described as grotesque. He is more successful in the treatment of the façade of a tomb at Naksh-i-Rustam. He has, however, merits peculiar to himself. The first attempt to draw the platform to scale was made by Chardin; but Kaempfer improved upon this example by marking the position and outline of the principal ruins upon it; and has thus afforded the student invaluable assistance to guide him through the intricacies of all future descriptions. He has added to its clearness by numbering each of the ruins: a system he has also followed in his general view.

But of still greater importance was the attention he directed to the Inscriptions. It is to him we owe the designation of ‘cuneiform’ from the wedge-like appearance of the signs that compose the groups—a name they have since retained. He considered that the writing was ideographic, as in the Chinese; it was unknown elsewhere, but here it was found cut into the doors, windows, statues and walls, and it was certainly contemporary with the construction of the edifice. He was told that the hollow formed by the excision was formerly filled in with gold, which had been removed by the cupidity of subsequent ages, though he fancied he could still detect traces of it in some places. He was particularly struck by the appearance of an inscription on the south wall of the Terrace. It occupied a slab no less than ten paces in length, and was divided into four tablets, each containing twenty-four lines. He copied the one on his right hand as carefully as the difficulties of the situation would permit; he was unfortunately prevented from copying the others, but he observed that the characters in them varied to a certain extent. The inscription he gave was afterwards known as the ‘L of Niebuhr,’ and belongs to the third or Babylonian system of writing.[65] He has transcribed the whole of the twenty-four lines, and it was by far the longest text that had ever yet been published to the world. Although the copy is defective when compared with the perfection that has since been achieved, yet as a first attempt upon so large a scale it deserves high commendation. He also gives the trilingual inscription round a window in the Palace of Darius, but in this he had been anticipated by Chardin.[66]

He is careful also to direct the reader’s attention to the position of inscriptions in other parts of the ruins. He mentions the inscription over the animals in the Porch (of which, however, we had already heard from Chardin), but he also fixes the position of the inscription in twenty-four lines on the sculptured stairs;[67] of the three inscriptions on the south stairs of the Palace of Darius;[68] of the three inscriptions, each of six lines, over the bas-relief on the great doors of the same edifice,[69] and of the three inscriptions, each of four lines, in the corresponding position in the Palace of Xerxes.[70] Kaempfer favoured the opinion then most generally accepted that the building was a temple rather than a palace, and he considered that the columns were designed to support a roof.[71] He gives the earliest description we have of the central edifice, and he explains clearly the nature of the building. It consists, he says, of the remains of three massive doors and the bases of two columns and although these ruins are few in number he declares they are superb.[72]

He remarked that two months would be scarcely long enough to sketch the principal objects, and he could only spare three days.

Nearly twenty years later the ruins were visited by another traveller who had more time at his disposal. Corneille le Bruyn arrived early in November 1704 and occupied himself for three months in sketching and measuring the various edifices.[73] Unfortunately, the result is scarcely equal to the effort. His book, which was published at Amsterdam in 1718, contains eight plates of Persepolis; but they are greatly inferior to those of Chardin and are executed on too small a scale to assist the student in following the diffuse and confused description given in the text. Two plates are devoted to four general views taken from different points. In these the buildings are indicated by letters, which refer the reader to the text, and they enable him to apprehend some of the more obscure statements made by the writer. One plate is devoted to views of the great stairs and entrance portico. Two others reproduce the figures on the sculptured stairs. Though inferior to the same views given by Chardin, they are immeasurably superior to the one by Kaempfer and fall little short of those subsequently executed by Niebuhr. The remaining plates contain a number of small vignettes, which convey but a poor impression of the objects they are designed to represent. Le Bruyn has, however, devoted one of the plates to Inscriptions and this is the most important work he has achieved in connection with this subject. He has copied five separate inscriptions, four of which were now published for the first time. (1) The Inscription on the Sculptured Stairs.[74] (2) The Inscription on the pilaster in the Portico of the Palace of Darius.[75] It is in three tablets, each tablet containing from thirteen to fifteen lines. (3) The Inscription seen over the King in the same palace.[76] It is also in three tablets, each containing six lines. (4) The Inscription in the folds of the royal robe—of which seven lines are given.[77] (5) Finally, he has reproduced the window Inscription already published by Chardin and Kaempfer, but instead of representing it as it occurs round a window, he has placed the three lines under one another in parallel lines.[78] By this simple change of position he has shown the fallacy of the theory that the lines at the sides may be read from top to bottom: or that the wedge can occur with the point upwards. Le Bruyn is a more accurate copyist than Kaempfer, and in some respects he even excels Ouseley, a hundred years later. With Le Bruyn the cuneiforms assume the bold and regular appearance with which we are now familiar, although he confuses many of the letters by too great compression.

Le Bruyn appears to have been one of the first travellers to attempt to make a collection of these antiquities to send home to Europe. The extreme hardness of the stone severely taxed the strength of his tools, and it was with considerable difficulty that he secured a piece from a window covered with cuneiform characters, and some other smaller objects. These he despatched through the agent of the Dutch East India Company to the Burgomaster of Amsterdam. So far as we know, the only other specimens of cuneiforms that had hitherto been seen in Europe were those picked up by Della Valle on the site of Babylon and sent to the Kircherian Museum.

He was not very happy in some of his criticisms. He described the animals on the Entrance Portico as having a likeness to the Sphinx with the body of a horse and the feet of a lion. He imagined that the animal attacked by the lion on the sculptured stairs was a horse or even an ass. The object that separates the various groups in the same place he describes as a vase. He considered the capital surmounting the columns was the figure of a kneeling camel. He is about the only competent observer, with the exception of Niebuhr, who discerned female figures among the sculptures.[79] He appears to say that there are no less than forty-six of these in the Palace of Darius alone: among them are the King’s attendants bearing the fly-chaser and parasol. He estimates the total of human figures among the ruins at 1300; and, judging by the number of bases, he considered there were originally not less than two hundred and five columns.[80] He gives the measurements of the buildings, the size and number of the figures with a detail that becomes irksome and bewildering. The reader often regrets that he did not make better use of his pen and pencil, and spare him some of the results of the measuring tape. He is by no means too lavish of his praise. He censured the figures as stiff and devoid of animation; the nude he found represented without anatomical skill and the draperies without taste. He admits, however, that the ornamentations, when they occur, are beautiful. He was of opinion that all the stone for the construction of the various edifices came from the neighbouring mountains, where he observed all the various shades found at Persepolis. He had the good sense to reject the foolish theory supported by Chardin as to the Jamshid origin of the ruins; and he could see no evidence that they had ever been used as a temple. On the contrary, he considered that they had been a palace, and his conviction that the columns had originally supported a roof lessens the difficulty of accepting that view. He argues with some force and great diffuseness that it could only have been the Palace of the Achaemenides destroyed by Alexander: an opinion confirmed by later investigation, and one that greatly facilitated the attempt made by Grotefend to decipher the inscriptions.