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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [607v] (1229/1814)
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.
208 PERSIA
shafts have been dug to the lower surface ; and the accumulation of
their contents, alongside of the already existing debris, makes such a
litter of stones and rubbish as can scarcely be imagined. Here and
there is a fragment of wall built of larger stones, so fiimly welded
together that it has resisted the shock of centuries. These are the
ruins of the city of Shapur. I had heard and read a great deal, how
ever^ of the valley of Shapur, and of the river dancing merrily through
it and of the sculptures overhanging its banks, and began to wonder
where these could be ; when suddenly the northern cliff, which is here
a great sloping face of bare rock, opened abruptly, and disclosed a
gorge, a little over a hundred yards in width, cloven right through it
from top to bottom. Down the fissure came glancing and tumbling
the Shapur river, occupying a stony bed between lofty banks, fringed
on either side with a dense growth of reeds, plumy grasses, and
flowering trees. Already above its further bank I could discern the
famous sculptures of the Sassanian monarch. The goige, which is known
as the Teng-i- Chakan, at its inner or further end widened to 400 yards,
and then expanded into a valley, round which the mountains formed an
amphitheatrical rampart, with a sheer rock-face in many parts of several
hundred feet in height.
Though Istakhr or Persepolis was the theoretical metropolis of the
Sassanid sovereigns, and long retained its ceremonial importance as
The Sis- cen ^ re ^ ie revived national religion, yet, like their
sanian city Achiemenian predecessors, the monarchs of this dynasty
shared the Oriental fondness for change of residence and for ^separate
evidences of royal sumptuousness and display. Ctesiphon, the Parthian
capital, was a secondary abode of the kings. In later times, under
Chosroes II., we read of a splendid palace at Dastagird, also in the
Chaldsean plains. Allusion is made elsewhere to the ruined palaces of
Sarvistan and Firuzabad. Hone, however, of the Sassanian monarchs
gratified, to the same extent as the first Shapur or Sapor, the taste for
building on a large scale. His were the great works at Shushter, of
which I shall speak later ; his the city between Dizful and Shushter,
whose ruins are now known as Jund-i-Shapur. To him is attributed
by some the bridge of Dizful. At Naksh-i-Pustam we have seen the
bas-reliefs that record his. victories and his splendour ; and now, on a
site to which he gave his own name , 1 we have come to the royal city
which he founded and adorned as the most enduring monument of his
reign. Persian tradition, of course, ascribes a more remote and
fabulous origin to the place, and relates that the ancient city was
destroyed by Alexander, and only rebuilt, rather than founded, by
1 Shah-pur (the classical Sapor) is a contraction of Klishayatlriya, shah oi
king, and ymtr, son, he. king’s son, or prince.
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 [607v] (1229/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213848.0x00001e> [accessed 6 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