Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/173

 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. 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.

His discoveries have contributed largly 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