Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/31

2 Jamshid. The literary classes described them as the Takht-i-Cai Khusrau, or Throne of Cyrus; and later on as the Khaneh-i-Dara or Mansion of Darius. The early travellers, however, learned that the popular name for them was Chehel Minar, or Forty Minarets, from the lofty columns that form their chief architectural characteristic. But during the eighteenth century Jamshid triumphed over all his competitors, and since then they have been more generally known as the Takht-i-Jamshid, or Throne of Jamshid. The question of their origin was not indeed finally settled till the inscriptions were interpreted. Chardin, at the end of the seventeenth century, and Heeren, a hundred years later, still supported the claims of Jamshid. Although it no longer admits of doubt that the buildings were erected by Darius and Xerxes, there is even yet no complete unanimity as to their original design. The more common belief is that they were the actual palaces of the sovereign, and that one of the buildings was the scene of the conflagration ordered by Alexander. Their dimensions and construction offer considerable difliculties to the supposition that they were the actual residence of the great king, though they may have been adapted for official receptions and other ceremonial purposes.

They lie on the south-east slope of a hill overlooking the plain of Mervdasht about forty miles north of Shiraz. Many other remains belonging to the same period are found on both sides of the neighbouring river Polvar. Three miles further up are the ruins of the fortress city of Istakhr; and four miles across the river are the Tombs of Naksh-i-Rustam. Doubtless the great city of Persepolis included within its circuit the whole of these isolated ruins, though the name has become restricted to those that now specially engage