Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/65

 the fire, the sunne and a serpent.' He also mentions 'Nasci Rustam.' the monument of Rustam, situated, he says, five miles west of Persepolis.

Herbert gives an engraving of the ruins, which is the first general view ever taken of Persepolis in modern times. It only occupies a portion of a small folio page, and it is scarcely possible to imagine any drawing more inaccurate and grotesque. We ascend to the platform by a series of about fourteen steps leaning straight up against it, at right angles to the line of the terrace. At the summit there is not a trace of the Porch, but we pass through a narrow opening with posts on either side. On the top of one of these appears an elephant with its proboscis stretched out in a menacing attitude. On the top of the other post we observe an unpleasant creature leaning forward, possibly intended for a tiger. When we have made our wav through these inhospitable guardians and gained the platform, we find the whole of it on the left-hand side occupied by columns. Facing the entrance, at some distance from it, we see three doors and the high wall of a roofless building, and behind it a lofty and ragged mountain. Behind the columns on the left at a great elevation we observe a kneeling figure, worshipping a serpent coiling round a cross, and beyond, an altar on which fire is burning. To the right, on the same level, we observe a human-headed centipede. This misleading picture is reproduced evidently from the same plate in the second edition of 1638. It was not till the appearance of the second edition that he thought it worth while to notice the existence of the cuneiform letters. 'In part of this great roome,' he says, referring to the Palace of Darius '(not farre from the portall) in a mirrour of polisht marble wee noted above a dozen