Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/477

 the larger one and the tenor of the inscriptions involved.^ This view may, however, be open to correction by some one who re-examines the spot; but I have in its favor the support of Major Sykes's statement in a letter which he wrote me from Mashad, dated December 3, 1908, to the effect that ' both of these tombs were brought in from outside.' The larger one, though broken, is a heavy stone of a bluish gray color, measur- ing over six feet in length (or, more exactly, seventy-six inches long, by sixteen broad, and fifteen high) ; and it lay, as we saw it, directly beneath the dome, resting north and south. The other stone, a fragment, lay to the left of this, at an angle point- ing northwest and southeast ; but the position of either block is likely to be changed at any moment, for there was no evidence of anything to show permanence in the way that they were placed. So far as the inscriptions could be deciphered. Major Sykes kindly wrote me, the one records, ' This is the tomb of the high protection of Saidism and nobility, the richly-endowed ; the deceased, forgiven. . . * ; and the other reads, ' This is the tomb of her Highness, the bounteous lady, the hidden Mavtash Khanum, daughter of the noble. . .' Neither of these in- scriptions, so far as legible, seems to contribute anything that

iO'Donovan,Jtferu Oasts, 2. 16, spoke the cofl&n, to judge from the appear-

of these stones as ' the two fragments ance of the fractured parts, was of

of a stone cofl&n, which had been remote date, probably effected by the

rudely smashed in a longitudinal direc- fall of some part of the building during

tion. The top and sides are carved the earthquake shock which ruined it.

with finely executed inscriptions, It is now completely empty, and there

verses from the Koran. My guide, an are marks, evidently of a recent date,

old Turkoman, told me that this coffin as of an iron wedge forced in after

had been broken open only two years some preliminary chipping with a

previously by Russian travellers who chisel.' This description seems to

visited the place, and who carried require correction so far as the inscrip-

away with them two inscribed marble tions afford evidence that two separate

tablets which had been inserted, one tombs appear to be concerned, and

in the northern, the other in the certainly needs revision as to the

southern wall. I myself saw the two notion that the blocks formed part of

vacant spaces in which these tablets a regular coffin instead of a cenotaph

had been, the wooden pegs at the rear over some grave in which the body

still remaining ; but the demolition of was interred.

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