Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/348

 The Hall of a Hundred Columns. 329 ' cedar, walnut, or cypress has been carried up to the architrave, the sombre tints of which were married to the radiant hues of metal and ivory. Everywhere else the lower portion of the wall is covered with tapestry, whilst above three rows of squares of enamelled day, frieze-like, repeat the scenes and the groups which the chisel has carved on the stone of the stairs and the Persepolitan gateways. It has been shown that Persian art is distinguished by a module, that is to say, a correspondence more or less defined between the various parts of the building.^ Hence, although the columns are all broken or overturned, it has been possible to arrive at a suffi- ciently near estimate respecting their height The bases measure I m. 75 c, and the shaft is 94 centimetres in diameter.' Adopting the proportions yielded by the Propylaea and the hypostyle hall of Xerxes, we get a column of close upon 1 1 m. 50 c. in height. We need not hesitate to place here the most complex capital, that which inserts inverted bell, brackets, and basket between the shaft and the crown. Fragments of all these members have been found among the ruins.' Our perspective view of the interior (Plate VIII.), a section effected behind the first row of pillars, is intended to show forth the effect the building would produce upon the visitor when, raising the veil, he stood at the threshold and allowed his eye to travel down the aisles, in and out of those hundred columns, arranged in sets of five each. The impression he then received would be of so deep a nature as never to be effaced. Excepting Kamac, there is no building in the ancient world which enclosed so vast an area as this, one whose roof was upheld by so many pillars, or the splendour of whose decoration was in better correspondence with the enormous dimensions.^ At on^ sur- prised and entranced, his eye looked down upon those long files of ■ In the view of the ruins engraved by Coste (Perse anctenne^ Plate CXLVIII.) are the fragments of the member which we have juxtaposed with the head of a palm, a member likewise seen in the foreground of two photographs published by Stdie (Plates LIIL, LXVIII.). This same collection contains a fragmentary bracket outwardly curled into volutes (Plate LXVIL). Coste {^loc cit.f p. lax) had already declared the existence of volutes. ' The hypostyle hall at Kamac has a sttper6cies of 5702 square metres, and the number of its columns is 134. The suiiaoe occupied by the Persepolitan throne* room is 4335 metres. Digitized by Google
 * Ifisf. of Art, torn. v. pp. 458-460. ' Costc, mnnuscript.