Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/375

 hundred feet above the stream (Ab-i Mihr) which pushes its way in and out among the bases of the mountains. The ascent of the height, steep at the best, was found easiest on the west- ern side, and along the rude trail were seen fragments of pot- tery, though none were decorated or showed any markings that might allow any deduction as to their age. The top of the mountain was found to be of an elongated form, roughly re- sembling a pear ; the general direction of its axis was north and south, and the surface of the ground was everywhere strewn with stones. The sole remaining portion of the build- ing which crowned the northeast corner of the summit was a wall, or parapet, overhanging a precipitous declivity. The structure was of stones, a foot or a foot and a half each in dimensions, taken from the valley and the river below, and set without being specially dressed. Masses of them had fallen with a fragment of the crest that had broken off and slid down the hillside. The point at the extreme north of the summit was a slight projection, somewhat lower, but not particularly marked. At the northwest corner of the elevation there were traces of stones again, and at the southwest edge remnants of a sort of parapet, while the southern side, steep and sheer, was without any added structure.

Herodotus (1.131) says that the Persians erected their altars on the topmost hills, and the present site would certainly have been an ideal one to choose. As already indicated in the text and in the footnotes, I have a certain amount of hesitation in assuming that the ruin on Mount Mihr, just described, actually marks the site of the Burzin Mihr Fire, the fire most sacred in the eyes of the laboring classes, and the third of the three most famous Zoroastrian pyraea.^ Nevertheless, I do believe that on this spot in early times there must have stood a famous sanctuary, at least a Dar-i Mihr, or ' Shrine of Mithra,' which has perpetu- ated its name in the hill and in the neighboring village of Mihr on the highroad. The photographs which we took have, 1 On these three fires see Jackson, Zoroaster^ pp. 98-100, 222.

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