'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎566] (633/714)

666
PERSIA
46-51 a.d . In a later archway excavated in the centre of the original
sculpture, an Arabic inscription, said to be engraved like a palimpsest
over an earlier epigraph, relates the terms upon which the neighbour-
Natur of ing caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). was bequeathed to the people. Some of
the en- the superior sculptures and inscriptions are now illegible
guu undistinguishable, but the main cuneiform inscription is
still almost intact. The great king must certainly have intended to
leave his proclamation for all time in selecting a spot so difficult of
access, where the sculptures can only have been executed by the aid
of scaffoldings. But how laboriously and how conscientiously these
ancient craftsmen worked ! First the surface of the rock was
smoothed, then every crevice or unsound place was either stopped
with lead or filled with inlaid stone so nicely fitted that the joining
escapes the eye. Then the characters were chiselled with an
accuracy and a regularity quite marvellous. Finally, over all was
spread a coating of siliceous varnish as a protection from the ravages
of the climate; its broken or denuded flakes being even now
infinitely harder than the rock itself.
Further to the east, in a mountain gorge of Mount Elvend, near
Hamadan, are two other tablets with trilingual inscriptions, known
Ganjna- as Ganjnameh (History of a Treasure), 1 relating the names
meh and titles of Darius son of Hystaspes and of his son
taoiets , #
Aerxes and an invocation to Ormuzd, which first afforded
a clue to the interpretation of the cuneiform alphabet.
Hnally, I turn to Hamadan, in the province of Irak-Ajemi, but
more naturally falling for purposes of description under the western
H un id in P r0Vlnce s—a city which, both from its historical interest
and its present state, cannot be omitted in any account of
the Persian dominions. Planted at the foot of Mount Elvend 2 (the
()rontes of the ancients) from which it derives an abundant water
supply, and in a plain thickly besprinkled with vineyards, orchards,
and gardens, but whose elevation is 6,000 feet above the sea, it en
joys one of the finest situations in Persia. Its streets are narrow and
filthy, and its inhabitants are not more than 20,000, but its bazaars
1 T ide Texier, L'Armenie, &c., vol. i. pis. 60-1; and Flandin and Coste, vol. i.
pis. 24, 26. All Pehlevi or cuneiform inscriptions are supposed by the peasants
and nomads in Persia to signify the whereabouts of buried treasure. Hence the
suspicion with which they regard the scientific visitor with his photographic
camera or squeezes or spade.
Tide an Account of Exped. to Karaghan and Elvend, by J. E. Polak (1882),
in Mitth. d. Geogr. Gesellsch. in Wien, 1883.