_PERSIAN ART._
[Illustration: Fig. 119.--Median cylinder (after Menant).]
The most ancient[52] monuments of Persia date from no earlier period
than the reign of Cyrus (B.C. 549-529). If any Persian art existed in
the previous epoch, when the country was no more than a satrapy of the
Median empire, its traces have not yet been found. Median art is
scarcely known at all, except by a cylindrical seal at the British
Museum, bearing a Medic inscription, upon which a rider is seen fighting
with a lion: the rider’s high tiara is characteristic, but the lion is
copied from a Ninevite cylinder (fig. 119). No doubt this monument would
not be enough by itself to prove that Median art was tributary to
Assyrian art; but the description given us by Herodotus of the fortress
of Ecbatana confirms the hypothesis. On the other hand, it is natural to
suppose that the Persians, who were the vassals and consequently the
political and religious heirs of the Medes, should have borrowed from
the latter certain artistic traditions, if Median art had any
originality of its own. Now, while a threefold foreign influence--that
of the Chaldæo-Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Ionic Greeks, is
conspicuous in Persian works of art, there is nothing that can be
referred to Media.
The monuments of the Achæmenid dynasty are gathered together upon three
principal sites, the ruins of which have been explored in a fairly
complete manner: Susa, where the Achæmenids, including Darius and his
successors, erected their palaces at the spot on which the old capital
of Elam, destroyed by Assurbanipal, formerly stood; Persepolis, the
imposing remains of which form two groups, called at the present day
Takht-i-Jemshid and Nakhsh-i-Rustam; lastly, the pile of ruins at
Meshed-Murgab and Madar-i-Soleiman, two Persian villages in the valley
of the Polvar, on the road from Ispahan to Shiraz, where, without doubt,
the ancient city of Pasargadæ must have been.
§ I. CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.
When Cyrus had his new capital, Pasargadæ, built in the valley of the
Polvar, he had completed the destruction of the kingdom of Crœsus,
finished the conquest of Asia Minor, and made himself master of Babylon.
The precise date of the monuments of Meshed-Murgab is fixed by the
cuneiform inscriptions, which, while they are all composed in honour of
Cyrus, are written in three versions, Persian, Medic, and Assyrian, and
consequently we cannot place them earlier than the conquest of Chaldæa
in B.C. 538. In his victorious expeditions through regions remote from
the table-land of Fars, his native country, such as Mesopotamia, Lydia,
and the coasts of Asia Minor, Cyrus had the opportunity of observing
monuments which must have astonished him by their architecture, and
palaces which seemed to him far finer than those inhabited hitherto by
his ancestors, princes of proverbial austerity and simplicity. He
conceived the idea of constructing for himself a royal residence as
sumptuous as those of Crœsus and Nabonidus, and of importing into the
heart of Persia the architecture of Babylon and the Hellenic
architecture of Asia Minor. His military successes assisted him
wonderfully in this undertaking. The prisoners of war whom he captured
at Babylon and in the Greek cities of Ionia became the workmen who built
his palaces; and he allured the architects, whom he could not carry away
by force, by loading them with wealth and honours. The successors of
Cyrus continued, like him, to appeal to the artists of Greece, whose
voluntary exile from their native country has often been remarked by
historians. Pliny, for instance, cites a worker in bronze, Telephanes of
Phocæa, who passed among his contemporaries as a worthy rival of
Polycletus, Myron, and Pythagoras, and whom the kings of Persia, Darius
and Xerxes, attracted to their court, where he exercised his craft
during the greater part of his career.[53]
The structures begun by Cyrus at Pasargadæ, which were never finished on
account of his death, which abruptly ended the work, receive their
inspiration both from Greek and Assyrian art; there is nothing to be
referred to the architectural types of Egypt, not yet invaded by the
Persian conquerors. The palaces stand upon platforms like those of
Nineveh and Babylon; but these substructures follow the Greek method of
building.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.--Platform of the palace of Cyrus (after
Dieulafoy).]
The monument called by the modern Persians _Takht-i-Madar-i-Soleiman_
(“throne of the mother of Solomon”) is nothing more than the platform of
Cyrus’ palace (fig. 120). It is a structure built of large stones, in
which mortar is replaced by iron clamps. The facings are seldom trimmed,
but only rough hewn, and surrounded by a double moulding like rusticated
stonework with marginal draftings. The courses are alternate rows of
headers and stretchers. The nucleus of the structure is a mass of blocks
arranged in horizontal layers, always level with the facing courses. M.
Dieulafoy[54] observes that the Lydians practised this method of
building from the eighth century before our era. The Assyrians did not
proceed in the same manner. At Khorsabad, for instance, no clamps bind
the stones of the facing to one another; the wall is straight and
absolutely vertical, while in the Takht-i-Madar-i-Soleiman the upper
courses recede from one another like steps, in order to give greater
thickness to the base. Over the greater part of the facing, position
marks have been detected, carved upon them by the stone-cutters, in
order to know the place of each hewn stone. These marks are conventional
signs, which do not belong, it is true, to any alphabet, but which--a
matter worthy of remark--are the same as those discovered in Greek
buildings.
[Illustration: Fig. 121.--Basement at Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste, _Perse ancienne_).]
The palaces of Persepolis were erected by Darius and Xerxes only fifty
years after those at Pasargadæ; but in this short interval Egypt had
been conquered by Cambyses; and after that event the monuments of the
Pharaohs were destined, for the same reason as those of Assyria and Asia
Minor, to exercise a direct influence upon Persian art. The latter,
however, could never fuse these heterogeneous elements together and
assimilate them to its own character, but could only group them in a
hybrid style. The buildings of Persepolis are still standing to a
considerable extent, and its ruins, rising in the midst of a vast
amphitheatre of grey marble rocks, are an object of enthusiastic
admiration to all travellers. The palaces rest upon a platform built on
the model of that of Takht-i-Madar-i-Soleiman. The outer coating of this
basement is formed of carefully trimmed ashlar, and the blocks, fitted
together without mortar, are fixed by iron clamps. Better preserved
[Illustration: Fig. 122.--Gate and windows of the palace of Darius
(after Dieulafoy).]
than the ruins of Pasargadæ, those of Persepolis enable us to
reconstruct more perfectly the principal forms of Achæmenid
architecture. The platform of the Persepolitan palaces was ascended by a
flight of a hundred and eleven steps, broad enough to be mounted by ten
men abreast; a gently inclined roadway, formed on one side of the
platform, enabled carriages to reach the summit: here we have precisely,
except in point of material and manner of construction, the platform of
the Assyrian palaces. The summit of the terrace was crowned, as at
Khorsabad, with a row of battlements. The peculiarity of the artificial
mound called Takht-i-Jemshid by the Persians is that it is only an
immense basement supporting three other terraces of smaller area upon
it. These terraces are of unequal height, and communicate with one
another; they are reached by stone staircases. The grand staircase,
leading to the second platform, is adorned with a colonnade and flanked
by gigantic human-headed bulls, similar to those at Nineveh. Upon the
highest of these three platforms were built four palaces, upon the walls
of which the names of Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus have been
found.
In the buildings at Persepolis and Susa, the doorways and window-frames
take the form of a rectangular parallelogram, and in their architectural
decoration, besides the traditional influence of Chaldæa and Assyria,
the new exotic element, that we have indicated above, may be recognised;
it is the intrusion of Pharaonic art. The doors, framed in three
Græco-Ionian architraves, projecting one beyond the other, are
surmounted, as well as the windows, by an Egyptian ornament above a line
of alternate ovals and disks. In the thickness of the doorway sculptures
in relief, copied from those of the Chaldæo-Assyrian palaces, show us
the king in close combat with a lion or fantastic animal, or else the
king sitting on his throne rendering justice at his palace gate, or
again the prince solemnly advancing, surrounded by his officers and
dressed in his ceremonial robes.
M. Dieulafoy[55] recognised that the greater number of the windows were
condemned to lessen the air and light in the interior of the rooms;
these windows filled up by a thinner wall, formed, on the exterior,
niches which broke the uniformity of the façade. Doors, windows,
staircases and the pilasters arranged at the corners, are of white
limestone or of grey porphyry with blue veins; but the walls in which
these architectural features occur are of baked brick coated with
enamelled tiles.
[Illustration: Fig. 123.--Persepolitan capital (after Dieulafoy).]
The architecture of the Achæmenid palaces includes the pier and the
column as the supports of the structure. Among the ruins of Pasargadæ at
present only three piers and one column, the height of which still
exceeds 36 feet, are standing. But at Persepolis and at Susa, the
Persepolitan capital, with all its elegance and
[Illustration: Fig. 124.--Plan of the _Apadâna_ of Artaxerxes (after
Dieulafoy).]
originality, has been studied in all its varieties. It is found in every
part, but notably in the great state saloon or _apadâna_ of the palaces.
It is thirteen times as high as its diameter at the base: its slender
form reveals the imitation in stone of an original structure supported
by light trunks of trees. The apadâna of the palace of Xerxes at
Persepolis, situated on the middle platform, covered an area of nearly
an acre and a quarter, and its roof was sustained by a hundred columns.
Before the anterior façade rose a portico guarded by two gigantic bulls
with human heads, partly built into the structure like those in the
Assyrian edifices. The apadâna of the palace of Artaxerxes at Susa (fig.
124) was of no less gigantic proportions, and had a double portico on
three of its sides; it covers an area of an acre and a half. The columns
are not less than 18 feet 4 inches in diameter; slightly conical in
shape, they are composed of long cylindrical drums, placed end to end,
the base and capital being separated from the shaft. Two varieties may
be distinguished.[56] The simplest type is to be seen in the interior
halls of the palace of Xerxes at Persepolis. The base is formed of two
tori placed one above the other on a square pedestal; the shaft is
decorated all round with forty-eight flutings; the capital includes a
series of ornaments borrowed from the architecture of Egypt; it is
[Illustration: Fig. 125.--Susian capital restored (Louvre).]
developed in a succession of bells and inverted volutes, above which two
bulls’ heads are arranged, even with the intercolumniations; this is the
bicephalic capital, characteristic of the Achæmenid architecture, which
has never been employed except in Persia. Other columns differ, but only
in the base, from that which we have just described; the double torus
supporting the shaft is sometimes placed, not on a square pedestal, but
on a cylindrical drum, decorated with twenty-four vertical lines and
growing gradually broader in the lower part, so as to present the form
of a much elongated ogee or of a bell. At Susa, instead of lines, the
ornament of the base is sometimes formed of elegant inverted foliage
(fig. 126). The comparative study of the Achæmenid column, together with
the monuments of Egypt and Greece, has led M. Dieulafoy to conclude that
the outlines of the Persepolitan column are Egyptian, but that its
structure is composed of Græco-Ionian elements. These volutes, strings
of ovals, and tori at the base, had already become classical in the
Hellenic world long before Cyrus, since they are found everywhere, at
Mycenæ, Segesta and Selinus, in Attica and in Ionia: here again we are
forced to recognise that the architect, even when he copies motives
derived from Egypt or Assyria, is imbued with the principles of Hellenic
art.
[Illustration: Fig. 126.--Base of a column (after Dieulafoy).]
Besides columns, the Persepolitan and Susian palaces had pilasters
placed at the extremities of the porticoes, as continuations of the
façades. In the façades of the palace of Darius at Persepolis two square
pilasters of porphyry are seen, so perfectly preserved that in the upper
part they still have holes, cut to receive the ends of the entablature.
They would suffice to prove, if any proof were wanting, that in these
structures, the columns, which are placed at long intervals and are
tall and slender, did not support stone but wooden architraves. These
were enormous beams which formed a line even with the tops of the
columns, and, running from capital to capital, and placed in grooves
contrived with this object, contributed to give homogeneity and solidity
to the structure. Upon these great beams the rafters of the roof were
arranged, and then a flat ceiling supporting neither a terrace nor a
second story.
[Illustration: Fig. 127.--Façade of the _Apadâna_ of Artaxerxes
(restoration by M. Dieulafoy).]
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the palaces, the
elements of which we have just described, constitute an official kind of
architecture implanted in Persia by the “kings of kings” who were
pleased with the monuments that they had observed in Egypt, Assyria, and
Asia Minor. Springing from the caprice of sovereigns, this foreign
architecture never took root in the country, and was not required by the
nature of the ground and the necessities of existence on the mountainous
table-land of Persia; it disappeared with the Achæmenid dynasty. But by
the side of this conventional architecture there was that created by the
natives of the country, because it had been imposed upon them as a
condition of life. As well as the people of Chaldæa and Assyria, the
Persians must have known how to build vaulted houses, alone capable of
protecting them from the rays of a too ardent sun; they also built, at
least in the cantons of Susiana, houses with terraces, supported by palm
beams and trellis-work arranged over the rooms which were narrow like
passages. Strabo tells us this while speaking of Susiana: “To protect
the rooms from the excessive heat, the roofs are covered with two
cubits’ depth of earth; the weight of this earth obliges the people to
build all the houses long and narrow, because, although the beams must
not be very long, nevertheless the rooms must be spacious; otherwise the
people would be stifled.” Even at the present day, since the climatic
conditions of the country have not changed, the method of building
houses is the same as that practised by the ancient inhabitants of Iran.
Travellers find houses, according to the wealth of the owner, surmounted
by vaults, domes, and terraces, wonderfully suited to local
requirements. It is, then, quite certain that the Iranians in the time
of the Achæmenids knew the vault and the cupola as well as their
neighbours on the banks of the Tigris.
But have the vaults and domes of Persia, more fortunate than those which
rose above the Mesopotamian edifices, come down to us, at least in a few
instances? M. Dieulafoy believes so. The ruins held to be of the
Sassanian epoch at Sarvistan, Firuzabad, and Ferashbad, would date, in
his opinion, from the Achæmenid period. A certain reserve, however, is
required, from the chronological point of view, in speaking of these
monuments in which the traveller can still see brick cupolas supported
by pendentives,[57] these cupolas being 97 ft. high and 49 ft. in
diameter, semicircular vaults, pointed vaults nearly similar to those of
our Gothic churches of the thirteenth century--in short, all the
elements of Sassanian and Byzantine architecture. On the other hand, the
decoration of these buildings seems to have been remarkably poor; at
Sarvistan the interior columns are heavy and badly hewn, the cornice
placed at the foot of the vaulting is composed of nothing but a serrated
ornament; the interior walls must have been coated with red paint; the
exterior walls were smooth, and even the façade showed no decoration
except groups of half-columns buried in the masonry. Not the smallest
trace has been remarked among these ruins of bricks, whether enamelled
or bearing figures in relief, or of those slabs imitating the wall
sculptures of Assyria which were such characteristic elements of
Achæmenid art. The same reflections are applicable to the monument of
Firuzabad, the architectural decoration of which has preserved, perhaps
only by tradition, elements of Persepolitan origin.
§ II. SCULPTURE.
In sculpture, even more than in architecture, the triple influence,
Chaldæo-Assyrian, Egyptian and Græco-Ionian, which is dominant among the
works of the Achæmenids, is to be traced. Like the
[Illustration: Fig. 128.--Cyrus. Bas-relief (after Dieulafoy).]
sculptures of Ninevite palaces, those of Pasargadæ and Persepolis are in
low relief, the figures being always placed in profile, and arranged for
the purpose of lining the lower portion of the walls. In the execution,
however, the chisel of a Greek artist is felt, or at least of one who
has studied under Greek masters. M.L. Heuzey[58] reminds us that an
archaic Greek school existed in Thessaly, which was remarkably
flourishing, and the productions of which, such as the bas-relief known
under the name of the Exaltation of the Flower, were closely analogous
in the details and the finish of the work to the Persepolitan and Susian
sculptures; there are the same draperies with broad flat folds, and the
same methods of treatment in the muscles of the face and limbs. The most
ancient Persian sculpture known is the famous bas-relief in which the
full-length portrait of Cyrus himself has been preserved for us (fig.
128). Cyrus, of Iranian origin, has a face like that of an European; he
has nothing in common with Egyptian and Assyrian faces; the top of his
head is bald or shaved, his beard is slightly curled, his hair is short
and matted. But everything else in this royal figure is of foreign
importation. His head is crowned with a triple disk surrounded by Uræi,
in the fashion of Egyptian deities; the king is furnished with wings,
like the genii of Assyria and Chaldæa, and these wings, with rows of
well-marked feathers, are like those of the Ninevite monsters. Even the
border of the robe is decorated with a broad Assyrian fringe; finally,
the king holds in his right hand a statuette, the headdress of which is
surmounted by the Egyptian Uræus.
[Illustration: Fig. 129.--Bas-relief at Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste).]
After the portrait of Cyrus in chronological order
[Illustration: Fig. 130.--Bas-relief at Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste).]
come the bas-reliefs of Persepolis. These are sometimes episodes in the
Chaldæo-Assyrian epic of Izdubar, which, imitated not only in Persia but
also in the Greek world, gave birth to the legends of Heracles and
Theseus, so often represented on archaic Greek monuments. In other
bas-reliefs the court-officers walk in procession with the tributary
satraps, or else (fig. 129) the “king of kings” himself, calm and
impassive like a Colossus whom nothing can terrify, plunges his dagger,
without moving a muscle
[Illustration: Fig. 131--Bas-relief from Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste).]
of his face, into the heart of a lion, a bull or a fantastic animal,
which rises erect upon its hind legs, ready to devour him. Do not the
exaggerated muscles of the beast betray a servile copy of the Assyrian
monsters? Elsewhere, on the wall which borders the staircase of the
palace of Darius, a lion devours a bull (fig. 130); he bites him on the
thigh, and furiously digs his powerful claws into his haunches. Though
the lifelike attitude of the two animals strikes us, it reminds us, at
the same time, of the Chaldæo-Assyrian cylinders in which a similar
subject is reproduced. Farther on, on the same wall of the staircase,
servants appear to mount the stairs, with their hands loaded with
presents of all kinds which they are about to offer to the “king of
kings”; Assyrian sculptures contain analogous scenes. The same must be
said of the bas-relief of the central door
[Illustration: Fig. 132.--Bas-relief at Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste).]
of Darius’ palace, in which the prince is seen attended by two servants,
one holding the umbrella and the other the fly-flap (see fig. 122); how
many times this subject is repeated on the Ninevite walls, with the same
naïve representation of the king, like a Greek hero, as of colossal
stature in comparison with the persons of his suite, in order to exhibit
his superiority and strength! On one of the walls of the apadâna of
Xerxes’ palace, the prince sitting on a high throne, with a canopy above
his head and his feet upon a footstool, is seen surrounded by his
guards. He is receiving a personage of high rank, doubtless a satrap,
who is bringing on his shoulder the tribute of his
[Illustration: Fig. 133.--Bas-relief at Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste).]
province. In the compartments below rows of Persian soldiers are drawn
up in line, probably those that composed the famous guard of the
_Immortals_; they carry lances, bows and quivers, and have swords at
their sides. The throne is of a truly Assyrian form. “The canopy, made
of woven stuff,” says M. Dieulafoy,[59] “is decorated with a very
curious design. Each strip is composed of two similar bands heavily
embroidered. A band covered with rosettes is followed by a band adorned
with bulls like those which decorate the cornice of the royal tombs; in
the centre appears the winged emblem of Ahura-Mazda. The lower band ends
in a trimming covered with rosettes, and a thick fringe; round patches
adorn the angles. The position of the winged emblems on the top give
this piece of drapery the appearance of an Egyptian tent, but the
procession of bulls, the trimmings, the fringes, and the rich embroidery
are of Assyrian origin.”
[Illustration: Fig. 134.--Portico at Persepolis (after Flandin and
Coste).]
The symbolic figure of Ormuzd, with his winged disk, is a reproduction
of the similar divine figure so often seen hovering over the king and
his soldiers on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Scenes of most significant
cruelty also passed from Chaldæo-Assyrian sculpture into Persian
sculpture. On the bas-relief which Darius caused to be carved upon the
rock of Behistun, to recount his exploits to distant posterity, the king
is holding his bow as Sennacherib does, and placing his foot on the
breast of a prisoner who holds out his hands in supplication, while nine
other kings stand bound with chains, with their hands behind their
backs and cords around their necks[60].
Like the porticoes of Ninevite palaces, those of Persepolis are
garnished with human-headed bulls; the latter have preserved the walking
attitudes, the curled hair, and often even the high tiara decorated with
rosettes and feathers, which characterise their elder brothers on the
banks of the Tigris. Only, while the Assyrian bulls are sometimes placed
even with the surface of the façade and facing one another in the
doorway, the Persepolitan bulls, on the contrary, are always placed
parallel on each side of the opening and look outwards, facing the
terrace. Finally, in the sculpture of these gigantic monsters the
Persian artist shows himself superior to the Assyrian artist: while
preserving the animals in the same hieratic posture, he has had the
skill to soften the modelling of the limbs, and to give to the wings a
more elegant and graceful curve; the bulls have only four legs instead
of five; their flanks are more supple and plumper; the horns, emblems of
strength, which surround the head of the Ninevite monsters, are
suppressed; the anatomical forms and the respective proportions of the
different parts of the body are more closely studied; we have here
Assyrian art interpreted by artists formed in the school of the Greeks.
§ III. PAINTING AND ENAMELLING.
The art of enamelling brick, invented by the Chaldæans, did not perish
with Babylon. The Achæmenids
[Illustration: Fig. 135.--The lion frieze; restoration by M. Dieulafoy
(Louvre).]
adopted it, and seem to have brought it to perfection; the same is true,
as it seems, of that ingenious and delicate process which consisted of
stamping scenes in relief upon bricks, a number of which thus formed an
enamelled frieze, intended to replace the sculptured slabs of Nineveh.
It was at Susa that this system of decoration seems to have reached its
ideal perfection; at any rate, it is only among the ruins of this
capital that we can study it in detail, thanks to the discoveries of M.
Dieulafoy, which add a new chapter to the history of art. It has been
possible to reconstruct at the Louvre two entire friezes disinterred at
Susa before the façade of the apadâna of the palace of Artaxerxes
Mnemon. That of the lions (fig. 135) is composed of bricks in relief, 1
ft. 2 in. long by 7 in. high and 9 in. thick. The lions, nine in number,
are each 11 ft. 3 in. long by 5 ft. 6 in. high. The ground, on which the
figures stand out, is a flat surface of a turquoise-blue colour; the
lions, which are, for the most part, of a greyish-white colour, have
certain parts of their body, for instance the mane, of a watery greenish
blue; and others, for instance the swell of the muscles, of a deep
yellow. They are treated in the Assyrian manner, to such an extent that,
if it were not for the relief, they would exactly resemble the enamelled
lions on flat bricks at Khorsabad. As at Nineveh, the muscles are
exaggerated, the head and forepart of the lion too small. The procession
of wild beasts is framed in several lines of elegant symmetrical
designs: rows of chevrons, of Egyptian palmettes, and of Assyrian
daisies.
[Illustration: Fig. 136.--Susian archer (Louvre).]
The frieze of the archers (fig. 136) represents a procession of warriors
in relief, like those on the marble slabs of Persepolis; this is the
most wonderful specimen of polychrome Persian enamelling. The materials
of which the composition is formed, instead of being, as in the lion
frieze, baked bricks in the form of elongated parallelopipeds, are
little squares, of which each side is 1 ft. 1 in. long, and 3 in. thick,
made of artificial concrete, which combines the whiteness of plaster
with the resistance of limestone. The soldiers are represented in
profile and on the march. They carry on the left shoulder a bow coloured
yellow, and a quiver of reddish brown. They hold in their hands a pike,
the shaft of which ends in a silver knob. Their tunics, the colour of
which alternates from one figure to another, is golden yellow or white;
the shape of it is the same for all,--narrow, open at the side, with
very broad gathered sleeves; it falls to the ankles and shows a certain
variety of ornament; the stuff is spangled sometimes with green or blue
daisies, sometimes with designs in the form of lozenges; the border is
embroidered. A greenish turban, twisted into rolls, is placed on the
head of these oriental soldiers, who wear bracelets, ear-rings, and
yellow or sky-blue leather boots; their beard and hair are dressed in
ringlets, in the Assyrian fashion. This is doubtless the rich costume
which provoked the declamations of Greek rhetoricians against the
effeminacy and corruption of the Persians. According to the testimony of
Herodotus (vii. 83), the twisted turban on the hair, the golden
ornaments, and the silver knob on the javelin, were the distinctive
marks of the thousand knights and the ten thousand immortals who formed
the escort of the “king of kings.” There can be no doubt, then, that we
are in presence of a group of this famous troop of janissaries, whom the
Achæmenpi monarchs recruited in great part from among the blacks of
India; a certain number of the figures on the frieze acquired by M.
Dieulafoy actually have a skin coloured of a deep brown.
[Illustration: Fig. 137.--Polychrome decoration of the palace of
Artaxerxes (Louvre).]
It is observed, from a technical point of view, that all the figures of
one frieze came out of the same mould, and that they are exact
repetitions one of another, though variously coloured. The vitreous coat
is transparent and iridescent, like the enamel on porcelain; the gamut
of the colours is poor: blue, green, yellow, black, and white. These
decided tints must, on account of their brilliancy, have produced a
striking effect; and under the hot sun of Susiana, the portico walls of
Artaxerxes’ palace sparkled more marvellously than even the richly
decorated tiles of Mussulman mosques and palaces. The interior of the
apadâna seems to have been simply coloured by means of a red monochrome
stucco, almost completely concealed, however, by the rich carpets and
embroidered draperies with which the walls of all the chambers were
hung.
§ IV. RELIGIOUS AND SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.
Ormuzd (Ahura-Mazda), the great deity of the Persians, was not to have,
according to the regulations in the Avesta, either temples or statues.
The conception of the supreme and only God, perfect in all things, was
too vast to suggest any shelter for him except the vault of heaven in
which he dwelt. Herodotus did not fail to observe this characteristic of
Mazdeism and this absence of temples among the Persians: “The custom of
the Persians,” he says, “is not to raise statues, temples and altars to
the gods; on the contrary, they treat those who do so as madmen: in my
opinion, this is because they do not believe, like the Greeks, that the
gods have a human form.” However, Ormuzd is often represented on the
monuments of the Achæmenid dynasty; he has the form of a man crowned
with the tiara and enclosed in a winged disk (fig. 141). This is
exactly, except in the modifications brought about by the progress of
art, the figure of the deity in the Assyrian monuments.[61] Thus this
symbol, borrowed from Mesopotamia, is a transgression of the precepts
of the Avesta, and an act of tolerance which only penetrated into the
monumental sculpture of palaces and tombs, and into the glyptic art. The
only symbol admitted by the Avesta is the all-purifying flame. Hence the
cultus of the sacred fire and the fire-altars, called pyrea or
_atesh-gahs_, erected in the open air on heights. The atesh-gahs are the
only monuments which represent the religious architecture of the
Persians. Their remains are numerous, but they do not present many
features of archæological interest. Several of them are seen at a short
distance from Nakhsh-i-Rustam which seem to be earlier than the time of
Cyrus. On a platform reached on all sides by a few steps, an altar is
erected in the form of a truncated pyramid, with four sides. At the
corners small columns, attached to the structure, support semicircular
arches, which sustain the stone slab on which the sacred fire was
lighted.
[Illustration: Fig. 138.--The tower of Jur. Restoration by M.
Dieulafoy.]
After the conquest of Asia the Achæmenids generally gave to the
fire-altars the form of Græco-Lycian chapels. In the sculptures of a
royal tomb at Nakhsh-i-Rustam we see a king in adoration before Ormuzd,
and a fire-altar, which has the form of a square block of masonry with
projections in imitation of pilasters, supporting an entablature formed
of three steps one above the other; the highest, larger than the other
two, forms the platform on which the fire is lighted (fig. 141).[62]
The architectural influence of Assyria is manifest in the construction
of certain fire-altars. Near Firuzabad are the ruins of Jur,
particularly interesting on account of the remains of an _atesh-gah_
ninety-one feet high, described by travellers, and apparently a copy of
the staged towers (_zikkurat_) of Chaldæa and Assyria, a type of which,
the most complete in existence, is here handed down to us. M. Dieulafoy
remarks that the atesh-gah at Jur resembles the minaret of the mosque of
Ibn Tûlûn, one of the oldest Mussulman edifices. Thus types of religious
architecture invented by the Chaldæans exercised their influence even on
the modern art of the East.[63]
The funeral rites imposed by the Avesta had another consequence--that of
creating a kind of architecture unknown in any country besides Persia.
Human corpses might neither be committed directly to the ground, nor
burnt, nor thrown into the river, for this would have caused pollution
to water, earth, and fire. Cities of the dead had been established in
remote and deserted spots: these were tall round towers called
_dakhmas_, built of masonry, and showing no architectural ornament even
round the top. These towers supported a wooden trellis-work on which the
corpses were laid; birds of prey came and tore these abandoned bodies to
pieces: they often carried off separate limbs to a distance, where wild
beasts devoured what was left of them. That which remained in the
charnel-house was buried, but previously covered with wax to avoid all
direct contact with the ground. Herodotus has preserved a reminiscence
of these distressing practices. “The corpse of a Persian” he says, “is
not buried until it has been torn to pieces by dogs or birds of prey....
The Persians cover the dead body with wax, after which they inter it.”
There is still at the present day in Persia a certain number of ruins of
the sepulchral towers of the Mazdeans, and one of the best known is not
far from Teheran.
But the dakhmas only served for popular burials; for the Achæmenid
kings, at any rate, broke the Mazdean law, which perhaps itself made in
practice an exception in favour of the royal family. The tombs of the
Achæmenid princes can be divided, from the architectural point of view,
into two large classes, according as they are or are not anterior to the
conquest of Egypt. The former are conceived according to the style and
plan of Græco-Ionian tombs, the latter according to the Egyptian
hypogæa.
In the valley of Polvar-Rud, two and a half miles to the south of
Takht-i-Madar-i-Soleiman, stands a small rectangular edifice, the
probable burying-place of Mandane, the mother of Cyrus; the Persians
call it Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman, “tomb of the mother of Solomon” (fig.
139). The archaic Greek character of this monument is striking.
Constructed of large blocks in regular courses, without mortar, the
stones being cut and fitted with the greatest exactness, it is provided
with a triangular pediment, the only one ever observed in a monument of
ancient Persia; it is reached by six steps running all round the little
building. The roof is formed of flat slabs, sloping on each side
according to the inclination of the pediment. Round the roof is a
cornice composed of a reversed ogee enclosed within two fillets, an
architectural decoration found repeated round the door, the double frame
of which is copied from that of the Greek buildings in the Ionian style.
The inner chamber measures scarcely six square yards. Round
Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman was a courtyard surrounded by a portico; the
chapel was not exactly in the centre of the courtyard, but stood at the
bottom of it; so that an open space was left in front.
[Illustration: Fig. 139.--The Gabr-i-Madar-i-Soleiman (after
Dieulafoy).]
Not far from this is the tomb of Cambyses the First, the father of
Cyrus. It is so dilapidated that only one façade is almost intact; this
is enough, however, to enable us to compare it with another tomb at
Nakhsh-i-Rustam in a good state of preservation. Both of them were
square towers, constructed of fine and regular masonry, the mortar being
replaced by iron clamps. The tower, solid at the base, contains in its
upper part a chamber, the ceiling of which is formed of large slabs
fitted together; a staircase built outside gave access to a small door.
The exterior façade is furnished on its four sides with false windows;
the idea has even been adopted of building the back of these niches of
black basalt, in order to give them the appearance of true apertures.
The summit of the edifice is composed of a cornice adorned with a row of
denticulations.
When to all these details we add the rustication of the stones and the
position-marks found on the blocks, it will be recognised that the
architect and workmen came from Asia Minor and copied in servile fashion
the sepulchral structures of that country. The architectural form of
these towers reminds us of the Lycian tombs at Telmessus, Antiphellus,
Aperlæ, and Myra, and above all of the celebrated Harpy tomb at Xanthus.
[Illustration: Fig. 140.--Tomb of Cambyses I. (Restoration by M.
Dieulafoy).]
The descriptions given by Strabo (x. 3, 7), and Arrian (vi. 29),
following Aristobulus, of the tomb of Cyrus, enable us to assert that it
was like the square towers of Meshed-Murgab and Nakhsh-i-Rustam: “The
tomb stood in the middle of the king’s gardens; it was surrounded by
trees, running water and soft turf. It was a square tower, low enough to
be hidden under the thick trees which surrounded it. The base was solid
and composed of large cubical blocks. In the upper part was the
sepulchral chamber, covered with a stone roof. It was entered by a
narrow door. Aristobulus saw in it a golden couch, a table with cups
for libations, a gilded tub for washing and bathing, and a quantity of
garments and ornaments. There was a communication, by means of an inner
staircase, with the chamber in which lived the priests who guarded the
tomb.” It is not permissible, then, to doubt that, in the time of Cyrus,
the kings of Persia had tombs built like those of Lycia, and that the
towers which we have described preserve for us specimens of them.
[Illustration: Fig. 141.--Façade of tomb at Nakhsh-i-Rustam (after
Flandin and Coste, _Perse ancienne_).]
But after the conquest of Egypt, Darius, who, as we saw, admired the
monuments in the valley of the Nile, resolved to have a sepulchral cave
hewn for himself, in the form of a speos, in the side of the rock, and
analogous to the sepulchral hypogæa of the Pharaohs. His successors
acted like him. The caverns of Darius and the princes of his dynasty,
which are to be seen in the rocks of Nakhsh-i-Rustam and
Takht-i-Jemshid, near Persepolis, differ in all points from the tombs of
Cambyses I. and Cyrus: while the latter are square towers of masonry,
those of the second Achæmenid dynasty are cut out side by side in the
vertical wall of the mountain, and the façade, like that of the hypogæa
at Beni-Hassan, is decorated with bas-reliefs. To reach these chambers
it was necessary in the time of the Achæmenids, as in our own day, to be
hoisted by ropes to a level with the aperture. The exterior sculptures
are interesting. A colonnade with bicephalic capitals supports an
architrave, the frieze of which is adorned with a procession of lions
and surmounted with bas-reliefs. Two rows of soldiers fully armed raise
their hands to sustain a sort of platform, the borders of which are
decorated with two symbolical figures of lions provided with bulls’
horns. These Persian warriors remind the spectator of the Assyrian
soldiers who form the decoration of Sennacherib’s throne. On the
platform stands Darius on a pedestal in steps, dressed in the _persis_
described by Herodotus, crowned with the _cidaris_, resting the end of
his bow on the ground and stretching out his hand. Opposite him is a
lighted fire-altar and the image of Ormuzd. Round this bas-relief and
serving as its frame stand the figures of the satraps who helped Darius
to slay Gaumates. The door of the cave is opened in the central
intercolumniation. The interior of the chambers was as severe as
possible; the roof is hewn into the form of a vault; in obedience to the
law of Ormuzd there is no trace anywhere of painting or inscription. The
cavities for the sarcophagi are formed in the side walls, as in the
sepulchral caverns of Egypt, Palestine, and Phœnicia.
§ V. ENGRAVED GEMS AND ORNAMENTS.
The glyptic art and the jewellery of the Persians maintain nobly and
without any sign of decadence the artistic traditions of Chaldæa and
Assyria. Assurbanipal and Nebuchadnezzar, when they made expeditions
into the most distant provinces of Persia, Media, and Armenia, had
spread through all these countries the productions of Assyrian industry
and the taste for luxury and works of art; their artists recruited their
disciples there: like Alexander, they carried the torch of civilisation
everywhere by their arms, and when the Achæmenids took up their
residence at Susa and Ecbatana, they found the inhabitants profoundly
impregnated with Chaldæo-Assyrian ideas and customs. To as high a degree
as the Babylonians, the Persians love full dress and ornaments: each
citizen of distinction has his cylinder or his seal hung from his neck;
he is covered with bracelets, rings, necklaces; his tiara is decorated
with pearls and sparkling stones; his tunic, delicately embroidered, is
encrusted with gems. In his house he displays a luxury in furniture
which, handed on to the Parthians, will astonish the Romans and
Byzantines: cups of gold and silver enriched with crystal and coloured
glass, and adorned with figures in relief; chairs, couches and tables
overlaid with silver, gold, and carved ivory. In short, everything
begotten of the passion for luxury among the Chaldæans in the matter of
tapestry, embroidery, and goldsmiths’ work, is also found among the
Persians.
Only, the Persians were not servile imitators; they could give an
original turn to the productions of their industry, even when they
copied the Assyrians. There is in their cylinders and their seals a dry
and nervous execution which characterises them as distinctly as the
bulls of Persepolis are distinguished from the Ninevite monsters. It
goes without saying also that the inscriptions and the details of
costume give an absolutely precise character to the classification of
the productions of the glyptic art under the Achæmenids. Here is, for
instance, the cylinder of Darius, preserved at the British Museum. The
whole scene is evidently copied from Assyrian seals, but the figure of
the rampant lion and those of the horses are quite different in
treatment from Ninevite art; the denticulated tiara of the prince, the
disk of Ormuzd hovering in the air, and finally the inscription traced
with mathematical regularity, complete the proofs of Persian origin in
this fine cylinder.
[Illustration: Fig. 142.--Cylinder of Darius (after J. Menant).]
As we remove ourselves chronologically from the origin of the art, more
perceptible modifications are introduced into the _technique_, and new
foreign influences are revealed in Persian work. A cylinder (fig. 143),
which belongs to a Russian collector, represents a scene which might be
supposed to be imitated from the bas-relief at Behistun. Darius is here
seen slaying with his lance a kneeling enemy, whose head-dress is
Egyptian.
[Illustration: Fig. 143.--Persian cylinder (after J. Menant).]
[Illustration: Fig. 144.--Persian seal. Conical.]
[Illustration: Fig. 145.--Seal of Artaxerxes (Louvre).]
[Illustration: Fig. 146.--Persian seal. Conical.]
The special distinctions of the productions of the gem-engraver’s art
under the Achæmenid dynasty are the sobriety and exactness of the work
and the conventional character of the figured scenes; besides this, in
consequence of the influence of Egypt and Phœnicia, the fashion
spreads more and more of substituting for cylinders conical, rhomboidal
or spherical stones, flattened on one side, in order to form a field for
the engraving. On these cones of chalcedony or agate the most common
subjects are: the “king of kings” standing or kneeling, crowned with the
denticulated tiara or
[Illustration: Fig. 147.--Persian seal (Cabinet des médailles).]
cidaris, and drawing his bow--a type analogous to that of the coins
known under the name of Daries; the king stabbing a lion which stands
erect before him; a pontiff before the fire-altar, adoring Ormuzd;
sphinxes and gryphons which remind us of the Assyrian _kirubu_. An opal
seal (fig. 145) obtained at Susa by M. Dieulafoy, shows two sphinxes
crowned with the tiara of Upper Egypt in adoration before the winged
disk of Ormuzd; in the centre, in a little medallion, is the portrait of
the Achæmenid prince, no doubt Artaxerxes Mnemon. The delicate execution
of the royal portrait is striking, and the elegant forms of the sphinxes
are no less worthy of remark. As among the Assyro-Chaldæans, it is in
the representation of animals--lions, deer, antelopes, sphinxes, and
gryphons--that the genius of the Persian engraver reveals its full
strength. The winged and horned gryphon found on an engraved gem (fig.
147) is significantly analogous to a small limestone bas-relief in the
De Luynes collection (fig. 148) which shows in what fashion Persian art
interpreted the Assyrian _kirubu_, and the modifications which it
required. The monster has the body and fore paws of a lion; his hind
legs, armed with powerful claws, are those of an eagle; he has the ears
of an ox and the horns of a wild goat; his eye, face, and half-open beak
belong to the falcon; a bristling mane adorns a neck proudly arched like
that of a horse; he has a lion’s tail; his great wings with well-marked
feathers resemble in their development those of the Persepolitan bulls.
We know nothing in Persian art superior to this figure, the symbol of
strength and power, in which so many discordant elements are combined
with so fortunate a harmony.[64] At Susa and Persepolis, as at Nineveh
and Babylon, minor sculpture was not inferior to sculpture on a grand
scale, and the style of the engraver sometimes produced as noble and as
striking effects as the chisel of the statuary: the copy did not yield
to the model.
[Illustration: Fig. 148.--De Luynes’ bas-relief (Cabinet des
médailles).]