Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/253

 Religious Architecture. 243 mountain bearing the same name. In front of the houses rise rough, steep rocks, and liigh up above a peak which dominates the valley below. The summit is levelled out into a platform some hundred paces from north to south, and al)Out three metres wide. The blocks of stone composing it are unsquared and of great size, and brought to the mind of the explorer the Pelasgicon at Athens and the walls of Tyrins.' The esplanade, narrow, away from any sprinijf, destitute alike of cisterns and traces of human habitations, cannot mark the site of a stronghold. Besides, why have sought to defend a ridge the possession of which would have been of no material advantage ? But everything becomes clear if we look upon it as a Median high-place, an area prepared for those sacrifices which the Persians loved to offer " on the highest mountains." The summit commanded an extensive view, with the snowy head of Demawend in the distance ; what better site could be chosen for the accomplishment of those rites wherein prayers were addressed to the visible immensity of the luminous space Up to the present nothing of this kind has been found in Persia ; in many places, however, monuments have been noticed to which the name of atcsh-gah (fire-places) is applied by the natives. The shape and aspect of these atcsh-gah admirably coincide with the function popular fancy imputes to them. But for their dimensions, that are on a larger scale than those of the altars figured in the upper division of the royal tombs, crowned with sacrificial fire, they might be taken as replicas of these (Plate I.). Among these ancient fire-sanctuaries, that which rises at Naksh- i-Rustem has a more primitive appearance than the rest (Fig. 1 16). The plain was broken here by a rocky mass some four metres high. Excepting a flight of three steps on the right leading to the platform, the base of the stony knoll was left more or less in its natural state. The top, however, had been cut in such a fashion as not only to leave a level carefully smoothed over, but two altars of unequal size,' with gentle upward slope, have been carved out of the solid rock as well. On the four faces the chisel has traced semi-circular arches that seem to repose on four engaged columns at the angles of the monument (Fig. 11 7), whose upper floor forms a square, enframed in a row of triangular merlons . * The altar to the right is i m. 75 c high, and its neighbour i m. 56 c Digitized by Google
 * Hist. tk$ Perses^ ton. I pp. 31, 32.