Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/197

 History of Art in Antiquitv. or the bridije of Altun-Kupru thrown across the Altun-SO river, the minor Zab of antiquity ; ' whilst Persian architects continued to employ them through the whole of the Middle Ages, and still employ them. If from the study of the general character of the forms we come to consider ornamental devices, we shall reach the same con- clusion. Thus, the mouldings that make up the oblong case and enframe the semt-ctrcular archway are precisely similar to those manifested in numbers of portals erected during the Roman empire. To confine our examples to Sassanid architecture : the profiles of its archivaults and imposts greatly resemble those of 1 I 1. ■ I t. ■ .1. I ' j e :^ )f 20 ii M Fig. 9J.— FerOz'Abad. Lalcral face Flanoin and COil'l, PtrHomciauu, Plate XLI. the arch at the Takht-i-Gherro ; whilst the panel in the pier at FerQz-Abad (Fig-. 86) crops up at the Tagh-i-Iiostan (Fig. 63), with this difference, that instead of a plain conve.x shape with slight projection beyond the wall, it is enriched liere with a very elaborate scroll.^ At Feruz, in order to break the monotony of the vast lateral faces, recourse was had to blind arcades with intervening semi-pilasters ; the latter are carried up the whole height of the wall to the cornice (Fig. 93). These same pilasters without the arches occur at Sarvistan (Fig. 79).* The general principle of this decoration is akin to the ribs, or vertical toruses, introduced by the architects of Chaldsea and Assyria in their buildings at Warka and Khorsabad. The only difference leudes in the additional arcatures, a form that in the sixth century • Flandin and Coste, Perse aaaentUt Plate CCXXIII. " Ibid,, Plate CCXV. • Jbid., Plate V. • m$i, of Art, torn. ii. pp. 257, 258, Figs. 100, loi. Digitizeu l> ^oogle