Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/312

 170 DAMGHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS

Dukhtaran, * Forty Daughters.* The precise origin of this appellation appears not to be known; but an alternate title, Chihal Saran, * Forty Heads,' seems to imply the story of a martyr band of virgins, * forty ' being the Eastern number for many.^ In shape and style of architecture it resembles the mausoleum already described, though it is slightly less rotund in proportions, and it is surmounted by a rather pointed roof, which somewhat resembles a pineapple cheese. The decora- tive borders are characterized by a design in which an X-figure predominates ; and, as in the other cases, the girdling band of embossed Kufic characters is difficult to decipher. The portal to the right is walled up, and another dome, likewise pointed, adjoins. The date of the mausoleum is the middle of the eleventh century. ^

A little to the east, but close by, stands the third mausoleum, — a particularly sacred shrine, — the tomb of the Imamzadah Jafar, a descendant, in the sixth generation, from Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali. This square edifice, capped by a vaulted cupola, contains the remains of the saint together with a sarcophagus of a much later date (1362). For details regard- ing the interior of this forbidden sanctum, we must refer any one who may be interested to a description by the Moslem writer quoted in Sarre's standard work on Muhammadan archi- tecture in Persia.^

Interesting though these sepulchral monuments may be archi- tecturally and historically, they are not the only characteristics that Damghan has to boast. There is a stir and movement in

1 Compare the remarks by Fraser, entrance, in which Sarre maintains Narrative, p. 314, with V&mb6ry, Life that Khanikoff was more correct in and Adventures, pp. 302-303, London, reading the date as 446 a.h. = 1064 a.d. 1884. than was the author of the Matla^ ash-

2 For a fuller description see Sarre, Shams (op. cit. 3. 278) in considering Denkmdler, Lieferung 4, p. 4, plate the figures to be ' 300 ' a.h. = 912 a.d. Ixxxiv (here reproduced), and the » The authoritative description, same work, Textband, p. 114 ; also p. which is quoted at length by Sarre, 116 for a cut of the portal and for Denkmdler, Textband, pp. 116-116, is comments on the inscriptions at the by the author of the 3fa«a' asA-*S^awt«.

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