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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [591v] (1197/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
182
PERSIA
from the roofs of the palaces, and surplus water in general from the
platform. A more extended examination of these passages might not
be fraught with valuable consequences, but is nevertheless desirable.
I have before mentioned that, in digging into the big mound behind
the palace of Darius, Messrs. Stolze and Andreas found little beyond
Unfinished remains of masons’ unfinished work, indicating that the
work structures on the platform never reached completion, but
were suspended either by caprice or war, or, more likely, by the fall
of the monarchy itself. Similar evidences exist on other parts of
the platform. Tablets gape blankly for the inscriptions that were never
engraved upon them ; there are staircases on which the sculptures were
only in part executed. Fragments of stone may be seen on which the
chisel had only wrought half of its work. Stolze even hazards the
conjecture that all the columns of the Hall of Xerxes may not have
been set up, because of the almost complete disappearance of the ex
pected wealth of ruin. To the caprice of Oriental sovereigns, as I have
more than once argued, quite as much as to political vicissitudes, I
should be disposed to attribute this phenomenon.
The contents of the platform do not, however, exhaust the interest
of Persepolis. Just as Darius and three of his successors selected the
Royal cliff now known as Xaksh-i-Rustam for their rock-hewn and
tombs inaccessible sepulchres, so did three other sovereigns of the
same line, but doubtless later in date, make similar choice of the
Kuh-i-Pvahmet, in immediate proximity to the palaces where they had
reigned and feasted. One of these royal mausoleums stales fiom the
rock immediately behind the Hall of a Hundred Columns, but has an
outlook inclined rather more to south than west; the second is in a
recess of the mountain a little to the south-east of the platform ; the
third, which was never completed, is on the outer edge of the sloping
rock, nearly three-quarters of a mile to the south. The mountain back
ground here being neither so lofty nor so precipitous as at Naksh-i-
Pustam, there are necessary differences between the two groups. At
Persepolis the sepulchre is not hewn high up in the a ertical cliff,,
impenetrable save by ropes or machines. On the contrary, it is now
easy of access from below, although, in the case of the north tomb, an
attempt was made to render approach from the platform more difficult
by means of a wall built up of big polygonal stones in five tiers or
terraces from the lower level. The dimensions of the Persepolitan
tombs also differ slightly from their predecessors, being (as calculated
from the visibffi parts of the cruciform cutting in the mountain) i
height, seventy-nine feet, breadth of the upper limb, thirty-three feet,
breadth of the transverse limb, containing the tomb-chamber, fifty-
four and a half feet. A third and instructive difference, pointing to a
later and more ornate period of art, is perceptible in the sculptured
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [591v] (1197/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213847.0x0000c6> [accessed 5 June 2026]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain