Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/223

 Z12 History of Art in Antiquity. The apartment was formerly approached by an exterior flight of steps, the marks and foundations of which are still visible ; they are restored in our section and entrance view, after Dieulafoy (Figs. IOC, loi). His restitution is based on the fact, seemingly unnoticed before him, that in the depth of the slab forming the threshold, were contrived two parallel slides on an inclined plane to facilitate the introduction of some heavy load into the apart- ment (Fig. I go), which he argues could be no other than a coffin. How the operation was managed is shown in Fig. loi. The doors have left the marks of their movement in the stone floor ; whilst the grooves for the pivots, cut both at the bottom and the top, where they were fastened to the sides of the walls, are quite distinct* Some have thought that these towers were irvpaCBtia, or fire- temples.* The hypothesis cannot stand, and does not deserve being argued at length. Fire-worship was neither celebrated within well-dosed chambers such as that of our illustration, nor on its roof, whose slope on the four sides, though slight, is sufficiently marked to preclude the idea of an altar having stood on it (Fig. 102). On the other hand, the thickness of walls, roof, and ponderous stone doors, with which the apartment was originally closed, would a>incide with our notions of those treasuries at Pasaigads and Persepolis, within which, historians tell us, the kings of Persia accumulated and preserved enormous quantities of the precious metals which flowed into their hands as tribute from the whole of Asia.* At first sight the conjecture is certainly £siscinating.* If* nothing can be urged either way in regard to Pasargads,* would it not be passing strange that the treasury of Persepolis, instead of being comprised within the area where rose the royal residences, should have been more than three miles away, right in the middle of the Mervdasht plain (Fig. 103) ? A treasury which was to supply the private expenditure of the prince must have been at the very gate of his palace and one of its annexes. The two monuments were certainly places of burial, but we 1 Dieulafoy, L'Ar/ antique, iii. p. a, n. a. Ker Porter had also noticed grooves and marks left by the stone doors {Travels, ^ol. i. p. 56). Digitizeu l> ^oogle
 * T&CIER, Destription, torn. li. pp. 149, 150. Morier was of the same opinion.
 * Arrian, Atuikuis, iii. 18, 19.
 * Rawunsom, Tke Ifvt MoMffvkiett vol iii. p. 350, n. 6.
 * The passage in question does not occur at the place refeired to. — Ttis.
 * Because of its ruinous complete state.— Tas.