Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/209

 exact duplicate made of it, ornamented with gems from his own treasury, thus leaving two 'Peacock Thrones' to dispose of.^ Nadir Shah was murdered in 1747 by a rebel band of Kurds, who had been transplanted to Khurasan ; and an old Kurd told Frazer, in 1822, that ' when that king was murdered, and his camp plundered, the peacock throne and the tent of pearls fell into our hands and were torn in pieces and divided on the spot, although our chiefs themselves knew little of their value. '^ In this way, if we can trust the Kurd, Lord Curzon believes that possession disappeared from the scene. The other (as Curzon was informed by his correspondents), whether the facsimile or 'the original throne of Nadir Shah {i.e the survivor of the two facsimiles), was discovered in a broken-down and piece- meal condition by Agha Mohammed Shah, who extracted it along with many other of the conqueror's jewels by brutal torture from his blind grandson. Shah Rukh, at Meshed, and then had the recovered portions of it made up into the throne of modern shape and style, which now stands at the end of the new museum in the palace at Teheran.^ In this chair, therefore, are to be found the sole surviving remnants of the Great Moghul's Peacock Throne.' *
 * the real Peacock Throne, or one of the two,' in Nadir Shah's

While Lord Curzon's arguments are presented with con- summate skill, and the statement on the authority of the former Grand Vizir and the Minister for Foreign Affairs seems most convincing, nevertheless there appear to me to be some flaws in the chain of reasoning so as to open the question again for further consideration.

1 Malcolm, History of Persia, 2. 37, heran. In the palace there is still an- ref erred to by Curzon, Persia, 1. 320. other throne, the Takht-i Marmar, or

2 Fraser, Narrative of a Journey 'Marble Throne,' described by Cur- into Khorasdn, Appendix, p. 43. zon, 1. 312-313, and shown in an illus-

3 This throne was locked up in a tration in the volume by Benjamin, special part of the treasury, so I did Persia and the Persians, p. 222, Lon- not see it, but I believe it to be repre- don, 1887. — A.V. W. J.

sented by the photograph of the ch air- * Curzon, Persia, 1. 322.

like throne which I purchased in Te-

�� �