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 l iiR Platform at Persepolis. (Fig. 20, Plates lU., X.).' There is no attempt at ornament excepting a plinth and a crown. The plinth, visible on many a point, wherever it is not hidden under stones that have fallen from the top, rather resembled that of the GabrCi As to the crowning members, they have wholly disappeared ; nevertheless, we can affirm that a continuous entablature was carried round the whole summit of the wall.' To^ay the topmost bed is broken off just below the level of the platform ; the exposed face is covered with sealing-holes, proving that this is not the real face, but that it was originally rev^ted. Then, too, when the work was in its pristine state, difference of level was redeemed by a frieze and comice,and the two architectural mem- bers constituted a parapet around the esplanade (Plates 1 1 1., X.) Some rare fragments of the frieze are still in place towards the southern ex- tremity of the Takht. They are blocks that formed a horizontal course towards the top of the plain wall, slightly overhanging it ; but the frankly salient plat- band enframing them helped still further to single them forth (Fig. 144). The projecting cornice, however, was much more exposed, hence it has everywhere broken away ; but there are stones in the rubbish banked up at the foot of the wall that look very much as if they had come from the cornice of the royal tombs. Mouldings and profiles are identical. Seek not among them, however, remains of the entablature of the palaces, and suppose that they broke away or were thrown over the edge of the plat- form when the edi6ces fell in, or later, whilst the work of destruc- tion was going on, which here extended over centuries. Not that by itself the thing would have been impossible. Has not many a p!f ce of architecture and sculpture been found in the rubbish, • which 'until lately concealed the external base of the Athenian ' Hist, of Art, torn. v. pp. 471, 47a. ' DiKULAFOY, VArt antiqvet toin. L pp. 17, 181. Fig. 144.— Persepolis. Stnoe from the frieze of wall of phtform. DiEULAFOY, VArt«mti^Met torn. ii. Fig. 13.