Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/260

 250 History of Art in Antiquity. atesh-gah figured on the bas-reliefs of PersepoHs. Objects of small weight, permanent seats, or basins for ablutions, were placed at the farther side of the court, which ¥ras lightly gravelled." ^ Unaided by a plan (shortly to be published), the above descrip- tion conveys no very definite notion of the monument. In this Susian building, however, we catch glimpses of some of the dis- positions Coste has ascribed to the atesk-gah of GhGr ; be it in the raised altar, the ramps, notably the porch, which, though on a smaller scale, recalls the Propylsea of the Persepolitan palaces, save that in the sanctuary uncovered by Dieulafoy the upper platform of the central block, that upon which stood the priests who attended to the fire, was seemingly less elevated than the dependencies surrounding it. The eUesk-gak is, therefore, the sole monumental type and representative of the religious architecture of Persia, one which is encountered all over the country, but we are by no means sanguine that fresh researches will lead to the discovery of another. We have here the true national type created for the supreme rite of Magism, that in which its whole cultus was summed up. Nor was its ceremonial interrupted by the Macedonian conquest On a coin posterior to Alexander, of which we had occasion to speak above (tail-piece, end of chapter iii.),* is figured a monument, by the side of which a king stands in the attitude of prayer. A glance suffices to show that we are in face of an aiesk-gah* Three altars with very salient horns rise upon a block of masonry, whose base and entablature the engraver has indicated ; between the pillars at the angle, two parallel flights approach laterally the landing-place that led to the platform. On the right appears an object, supposed by some to be a banner ; might not it be a poker to stir the fire with ? If during the Parthian domination the Mazdian temple thus preserved its traditional form, it was not likely to lose it with the Sassanidae, when Mazdaism became the state leligion. Some have thought to recognize an aiesJk-gah of the Sassanid period in the built tower at Feruz that still measures twenty-eight metres in height. It rises in the middle of the area representing the site of the ancient town of Ardeshir-Khurreh (GhUr), which covered the bed ' Dieulafoy, Deuxiime Rapport {Rnme ArM,t ^ s^ie, torn. viiL pp. ati6-27o). ' Hist, of Art, tom. v. pb 635. Digitized by Google