Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎580v] (1175/1814)

164
PERSIA
may not inaptly be compared with the pillared hall of Karnak on the
Nile ; audit must, in my judgment, have been a more artistic structure,
since, in spite of the cumbrous disproportion of its capitals, and its lack
of the varied sculptures that adorn the surface of the Egyptian pillars,
its superficial area was less crowded, and its interlacing vistas were
consequently less obstructed than in the temple of the Thothmes.
There remain two important questions that are suggested by the
Hall of Xerxes, and that have hitherto been solved in accordance with
Problem the preconceived theories of writers, rather than from data
of walls collected on the spot. The first is that of the walls, the
second is that of the roof. Was the central hall surrounded by walls ;
and was it connected by walls with the porticoes, so as to form one
o-reat quadrilateral ? Fergusson thus conceives it. Round the hall,
and framing the porticoes at either end, he places in his restoration
a wall of crude brick eighteen feet thick with windows and niches
similar in shape to those which we shall presently observe in the
Palace of Darius. The angles at either end of the north portico he fills
with imaginary guard-rooms, similarly constructed. Now it is true, so
far as I know, that there is no other instance, in Persia or elsewhere
(but amid what a paucity of cognate remains), of porticoes standing m
entire independence of the central fabric to which structurally they
belong. To this, extent may we regard with suspicion the restorations
of Coste and Chipiez. It is also true that the majority of the
remaining buildings on the platform appear to have had walls. But
the very fact that the indestructible remnants of these walls there
survive ; that, though mud and brick have wasted to nothing, yet
the stone portals, and window cases, and niches, m every case remain
in situ ; whilst in the Hall of Xerxes there is not the faintest vestige
of window, niche, or door—is to my mind an unanswerable argument
ao-ainst the construction at any time of a similar enclosure with stone
fittino-s here. It is inconceivable that, if such had existed, it could have
wholly disappeared. Fergusson meets this difficulty by supposing a
wall of mud bricks only, faced with enamelled tiles. Not the least
trace of either has however been discovered ; and there seems no
reason why stone should have been employed m all the other walls, and
not in this. Furthermore, walls of such a character and dimensions
would have deprived the building of the particular individuality which
it appears to have claimed, and would have interfered with its mam
. np-lndes bv savico- : ‘ Taken all in all, Milan Cathedral is, perhaps, the building
that resembles it most, both in style and the general character of the effect it
1 f ha vp nroduced on the spectator.’ This is the kind of appreciation that
^Id only have been written bv a critic who had never seen the place he was
describing, and was a slave to his own theories of reconstruction. As profitably
might we compare Westminster Abbey with the 'iaj at Agra.
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