'A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816. With a journal of the voyage by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. Together with an account of the proceedings of His Majesty's embassy under Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart. K.L.S. With two maps, and engravings from the designs of the author.' [‎267] (318/516)

THE ANCIENT ECBATANA.
and Rennel *, that Hamadan occupies the site of the ancient Ecbatana;
and that the mountain of Alwend is the Orontes of the ancient geography.
Such observations as we were enabled to make on the spot, have tended
to confirm their decision. The situation of Hamadan, so much unlike
that of other Persian cities, would of itself be sufficient to establish its
claim to a remote origin, considering the propensity of the ancients to
build their cities on elevated positions. Ispahan, Shiraz, Teheran,
Tabriz, Khoi, are all built upon plains; but Hamadan occupies a great
diversity of surface, and like Rome and Constantinople, can enumerate
the hills over which it is spread Its locality agrees with that of Ecba
tana, built on the declivity of Orontes, according to Polybiusf, and is
also conformable to Herodotus, who, in describing its walls rising in
circles one above the other, says, this mode of building was favoured by
the situation of the place, which was on a hilly ground,—loV.ij:
L assiette du lieu, qui seleve en colline of Larcher, better expresses
the nature of the ground than a gently rising ground, which Beloe has
adopted in his translation.
At about seven miles from our camp, carved on the surface of the
rock, on a steep declivity of the mountain of Alwend, are to be seen
two tablets, each of which is divided into three longitudinal compart
ments, inscribed with the arrow-headed character of Persepolis. These
inscriptions are called by the Persians, GenJ nameh, or tales of a trea
sure. Close to the foot of the rock runs a stream that issues from the
mountain, and higher up, above the two tablets, is to be traced the com
mencement of others.
Another monument of positive antiquity, we discovered casually in
exploring the northern skirts of the city. It consists of the base of a
small column, of the identical order of the larger bases of the columns
at Persepolis, and appears to be of the same sort of stone. This led to
* Anc. Geo. Media v.
f Lib. x. 24.
Geo. Sys. Herod, p. 272.
% Clio, 98.
m m 2