Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/52

 Nomenclature of Monuments to be studied. 37 The province now called Persian Kurdistan corresponds with a f>ortion of old Media ; it stretches east and west of Elwend among the valleys of the Zagros range, where traces of the Achxmenidae, Arsacidx, and Sassanidae are met with everywhere (Fig. 4). There is the temple of Kan^ovar, a vast iemaios, wholly sur- rounded by colonnades, with a sanctuary in the centre. Did altars exist here upon which the sacred fire was kept burning } To what deity, if not to Anahita, was the temple dedicated } On East of G'-eef'^'f^ '♦r'^O 46" Fig. 4.— Map of the disitrict of Kcnnans'nh. Reclus, Noui'cUe Giographit, torn. ix. p. 288. these questions no literary document has yet shed any light, and, as a modern town has risen on the site of the old edifice, soundings would not be easy. It is possible that the public rites celebrated here led back to hoary antiquity. As to the monument itself, to judge from the apparent parts, we should say that the entire fabric was reconstructed in the time of the Macedonians or the Parthians, so that there will be no necessity to deal with the remains of a building due to one or other of the numerous Greek architects in the employ of Asiatic sovereigns after Alexander.' A little beyond Ecbatana, on the main road which, through the elevated valley of the Kharkar, or Choaspes, led to the plains of Chaldaea, the traveller sees shooting up before him the colossal Plates XX.-XXI1I. bis. ; and Tdxier, Plates LXII.-LXVIII. d by Google
 * With regard to the Kangovar temple, see Fi.andin and Coste's Ptrse ancienne.