Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎586r] (1186/1814)

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PERSEPOLIS, AND OTHER RUINS 173
the building was originally raised, or was only restored, or added to by
him, it is impossible to say. From the fact that this building faced
the Palace of Darius, and that, as I have pointed out, the accommoda
tion of the latter would appear to have been inadequate for a laro- e
household, it has been called by some the House of the Women. There
is nothing, however, positively to justify such a designation, and the
remains consist only of a number of bases of columns, represented by
Ker Porter as two rows of five, preceding three rows of four ; but by
Flandin and Coste as an irregular number (three only are marked on
their plan), preceding four rows of four. By them the ruin is described
as No. 4 ; by others as the south-west edifice.
To the east of this building, and in continuation of the main upper
platform, on which it is the most elevated of all the Persepolitan
Palace Of remains, are the ruins of what must originally have been
Xerxes the third largest structure of the entire palace-group. The
inscriptions on its staircases and doorways, and on its lofty an<d e -
piers , 1 reveal that, like the Propyljea and the Great Audience-HaR, it
was the work of Xerxes, whence it has not unnaturally been con
jectured to represent the palace of that monarch. Its structural
arrangements, indeed, bear a marked resemblance to those of the
palace of his father, with the exception that the fabric faced towards
the north, and that each component part was on a considerably larger
scale. In front was a platform, to which access was gained by a
quadruple flight of steps, which appears in my photograph on the
east , 2 and by a double flight on the western side. They are sadly
ruined. Mounting the stairs, we find the remains of the main or
entrance-portico of the palace, in the shape of the bases of two rows
of columns of six each. This opened by doorways into a central
pillared hall, the roof of which was sustained by thirty-six columns,
in six rows of six each, covering a square surface of eighty-seven and
a half feet each way. Their circular bases alone survive. Down the
centre of this hall runs at a slight distance below the surface, but now
exposed to view, a subterranean aqueduct, which procured for it from
Texier the somewhat precipitate title of the Baths. There is no ground
for connecting the building with such a purpose ; nor is there the
faintest trace of any of the requisite dispositions ; and there can be
the inscriptions occur in a greater variety of situations in this palace than
elsewhere: (1) in panels on both the east and west staircases; (2) round the
doorways; (3) in tablets above the king and parasol; (4) on the folds of the
king s robe in the north and east doorways ; (5) round the windows ; (6) on the
big angle-pier.
At the summit of the east staircase are four great substructures, or blocks of
stone, which Fergusson conjectures, but without sufficient reason, to have been
the bases of a porch or Propylsea, similar to those before the Hall of a Hundred
Columns and the Hall of Xerxes.