نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٦‎٦‎٩] (١٨١٤/١٣٥٤)

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THE SOUTH-WESTEBN PROVINCES 313
priests and worshippers in an attitude of supplication, and being
explained by an inscription of thirty-six lines in a complicated
cuneiform character. 1 The above sculptures are either Susian or
AchaBmenian in origin, and date from the eighth or ninth centu
ries B.c. and later. (5) In a neighbouring gorge, called Hong, are
some Sassanian sculptures, the central figure of which is a monarch
with the familiar bushy mop of hair.
About twenty miles to the north-west of Mai Amir, and on
the right bank of the Karun, is the small plain of Susan. The
recurrence of this name, the presence here of a second,
OUSclll ^ # '
but even more insignificant, Tomb of Daniel, and the
stories that were told him by the Lurs of wonderful ruins in the
neighbourhood, led Rawlinson, who did not visit the locality him
self, to think that here, rather than at Susa, might be the Shushan
of the ancients. Layard, who visited the spot under circumstances
of great difficulty and hardship, 2 reduced the patriotic hyperbole of
the Lurs to its proper dimensions. Some insignificant remains
of roughly-hewn stone, the probable foundations of a Sassanian
building, were called by them Musjid-i-Suleiman, or the Temple
of Solomon, a monarch much venerated in Lur tradition; some
further heaps of old masonry were similarly designated Mal-i-
Wiran, or Ruined Settlement. As the Karun enters this valley
from the east, it is flanked on either side by the paved causeway,
attributed to the Atabegs, which I have mentioned; and a little
below are the remains of the famous bridge of Harah-zad, which
here spanned the torrent, and was regarded as one of the wonders
of the ancient world. 3 In mid-stream are two huge masses of brick
work, probably Sassanian, that supported the arches; on the
mountain sides are visible the earlier Kaianian abutments, from
which they sprang. The occurrence of these numerous relics of
1 Also printed by Layard, ibid., pis. ?l- 2 , and deciphered by Sayce, Actes, fyc.,
pp. 653, 699. De Bode made drawings of two sculptures in an adjoining cavern,
which were published by Flandin and Coste, vol. iv. pi. 228. The natives call the
inscriptions Khat-i-Feringhi, or European writing, and are much disappointed
when a foreigner cannot read them. Their belief, which would seem to be an
unconscious corroboration of the Asiatic-Aryan theory, is that the ancient inhabi
tants of Persia, upon migrating to the west, buried their treasure with instructions
as to the site, sculped in a language which their modern European descendants
must naturally know.
2 Journal of the R.G.S., vol. xvi. pp. ?A-2] Early Adventures, vol. i. pp. 415-28.
, 3 So called from the mother of Ardeshir, the first Sassanian king. There is a
long account of it in the Athar el beldan, fyc., of Zak. Mohammed Kazvim.