نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٥‎٥‎٦] (١٨١٤/١١٢٤)

PERSEPOLIS, AND OTHER RUINS
127
tablet:
Ormuzd
and
Ardeshir
visits of Europeans. If the bas-reliefs of Naksh-i-Rejeb had escaped
the earlier violence of the Arab invaders, to this barbarous ruffian may
perhaps be attributed their cruel fate. Nevertheless, they still present
one portrait-group of unsurpassed excellence, and have been preferred,
by some writers, to the tablets of Naksh-i-Rustam, and by others have
been ranked as equal with those of Shapur.
On the right-hand wall of the recess, the first tablet repeats the
familiar scene of the investiture of Ardeshir by the god Ormuzd. 1
First Its dimensions are 21 feet in length, and 9-t feet in
height. The two horsemen meet in the centre of the
panel j and Ormuzd, wearing, as before, the mural crown
extends the cydaris to the king. Here, however, are no
prostrate figures beneath the horses’ hoofs. The costumes and draperies
have been almost obliterated by wanton outrage, and the head of
Ardeshir has well-nigh disappeared.
The middle panel depicts a similar scene, in which, however, the
principal actors are on foot, and other accessories are introduced. 2 It
Second is 18 feet long, and 10 feet high. The central figures, of
Ormtzd colossal size, are again Ormuzd and Ardeshir, who stand
and confronting each other, holding the circlet in their right
hands. The deity wears the mural crown, and carries a
baton or sceptre in his left hand. The king, on the left, is crowned
with the inflated globe. Between the two, but nearly destroyed,
appear two diminutive figures, seemingly those of children, whom con
jecture has identified with two sons of Shapur, born before he ascended
the throne. Behind the king are two attendants, one holding a fly-flap,
the other being a bearded bodyguard, all but effaced. Behind Ormuzd,
but in a separate panel, which may perhaps have an independent con
nection, are two other figures, with their backs turned upon him and their
hands lifted to their faces. The beardless contour of these has led to
the belief that they are women, and one commentator has gone so far
as to recognise in one of the pair the daughter of Artabanus and
mother of Shapur, and in the other the wife of Ardeshir’s vizier. I
am far from ready to accept the hypothesis that any of the earlier
Sassanian sculptures contain the likenesses of women, and am more
disposed to attribute a smooth face and braided hair to the palace
eunuchs. To the left of the main tablet, on a fragment of the rock, is
the bust of a figure, pointing with his finger to a Pehlevi inscription at
1 Texier, vol. ii. pi. 140; Flanclin and Coste, vol. iv. pi. 192 bis Stolze, vol. ii.
pi. 100 .
2 Texier, vol. ii. pi. 141 ; Flandin and Coste, vol. iv. pi. 192 ; Stolze, vol. ii.
pi. 101 ; Dienlafoy, pt. v. pi. 17. The two latter photographs are obscure and
unsatisfactory. But so, it may be said, is the original.