Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/224

 192 HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Part I. from the indistinct traces left, the stairs must have been one of the most important parts of the design. But they were so situated that they were not buried when the buildings were ruined, and conse- quently have been removed. At Jerusalem, too, we read that when the Queen of Sheba saw "the ascent by which Solomon went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her." Indeed, in all the ancient temples and palaces of this district, more attention is paid to this feature than to almost any other; and from their favorable situation on artificial terraces, the builders were enabled to apply their stairs Avith far more effect than any others in ancient or in modern times. The lower or great staircase at Persepolis is plain, and without any sculpture, but is built of the most massive Cyclopean masonry, and of great width and very easy acclivity. That in front of the great hall is ornamented with sculpture in three tiers, rejiresenting the people of the land bringing presents and the subject nations tribute, to lay at the feet of the monarch, combined with mythological representations ; the whole bearing a very considerable resemblance to the sculptures on the walls of the Assyrian palaces, though the position is different. The arrangement of these stairs, too, is peculiar, none of them being at right angles to the buUdings they aj)proach, but all being double, apparently to permit of processions passing the throne, situated in the porches at their summit, without interruption, and wdthout altering the line of march. One of these flights, leading to the platform of Xerxes' palace, is shown in the woodcut (No. 84). In arrangement it is like the stairs leading to the great terrace, but very much smaller, and is profusely adorned with sculpture. The principal apartment in all the buildings situated on the plat- form is a central square hall, the floor of which is studded with pillars placed equidistant the one from the other. The smallest have 4 pillars, the next 16, then 36, and one has 100 pillars on its floor ; but to avoid inventing now names, we may call them respectively, distyle, tetrastj^le? liexastyle, and decastyle halls, from their having 2, 4, 6, or 10 pillars on each face of the plialanx, and because that is the number of the j)ilhirs in their porticoes when they have any. The building at the head of the gi-eat stairs is a distyle hall, having 4 jiillars supi)orting its roof. On each side of the first public entrance stands a human-headed winged bull, so nearly identical with those found in Assyrian ])alaces as to leave no doubt of their having the same origin. At the op]>osite entrance are two bulls, without wings, but drawn with the same bold, massive proportions which distinguish all the sculptured animals in the i)alaces of Assyria and Persia. The other, or ])alace entrance, is destroyed, the foundation only remaining ; but this, with the foundations of the walls, leaves no room to doubt that