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nexed diagram (fig. 26.) will give the reader some notion of the style of the architecture of

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Persepolis. The diagram (fig. 27.) exhibits a specimen of a column and capital. Fig. 28. is a capital from one of the tombs. The walls forming the revêtement of the great esplanade are wonderfully perfect; and appear still capable of resisting equally the attacks of time and barbarism. The surface of the platform, generally, is unequal, and was of different levels: the whole seems to have been hewn from the mountain, from whence m the marble has been extracted for constructing the edifices: hence the pavements appear masses of marble, than which nothing more durable or beautiful can be conceived. No cement appears to have been used, but the stones seem to have been connected by cramps, whose removal, however, has neither deranged the courses from which they have been removed, nor I affected their nice fitting to each other; they are, indeed, so well wrought that the AND CAPITAL joints can scarcely be perceived, so close that the thinnest plate of metal could not be introduced between them.

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Fig. 28.

CAPITAL FROM A TUMH

50. No person can look at the style of composition and details of Persepolis without a conviction of some intimate connection between the architects of Persia and those of Egypt.

The principles of both are identical; and without inquiring into the exact date of the monument whose description we have just left, there is sufficient to convince us that the theory started in respect of the Cyclopean architecture, of the arts travelling in every direction from some central Asiatic point, is fully borne out; and that the Egyp

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Cambyses; but we think they are answered by the similarity of arrow-headed characters used therein to those of ancient Babylon, whereof an example is here given (fig. 29.) from one of the portals of Persepolis. A few miles to the south of Persepolis, the excavated hill of Nakshi Rustân (fig. 30.) presents a number of sculptured

tombs, the highest supposed to be coeval with Persepolis, and formed for the sepulture of the early kings of Persia. The lower tombs seem to have belonged to the Parthian Sassanide dynasties.

51. The present architecture of Persia much resembles that of other Mahometan countries. The city of Ispahan, in its prosperity, is said to have been surrounded by a wall twenty miles in circuit. When visited by Chardin, in 1666-7, the walls were so completely covered with houses as to be scarcely discernible; and he observes, that from whatever side the city is beheld it resembles a wood, where only domes are to be seen, with lofty slender towers attached to them. The houses are generally mean in external appearance: they commonly consist of a large square court surrounded with rooms of varying dimensions for different uses, the sides of the area being planted with flowers, and refreshed by fountains. Distinct from this is a smaller court, round which are distributed the apartments belonging to the females of the family; and almost every dwelling has a garden attached to it. The interior apartments of the richer classes are splendidly finished, though simply furnished. Those inhabited by the governor, public officers, and opulent merchants, may almost vie with palaces. Nearly all of them are constructed with sun-dried bricks, the public edifices only being built with burnt bricks: the roofs are mostly flat, having terraces, whereon the inhabitants sleep during several months of the year. According to the author above quoted, there were in his time within the walls 160 mosques, 48 colleges, 1802 caravanseras, 273 baths, 12 cemeteries, and 38,000 houses. But since that period the city has fallen into great ruin. The Shah Meidan, however (figs. 31. and 32.), or royal square, is still one of the

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largest and finest in the world.

PLAN OF THE SHAH MEIDAN.

It is 440 paces in length, and 160 in breadth. On its south side stands the royal mosque, a magnificent building, erected by Shah Abbas, in the

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sixteenth century, and constructed of stone, covered with highly varnished bricks and tiles, whereon are inscribed sentences of the Koran. On another side of the Meidan is a Mahometan college called the Medresse Shah Sultan Hossein. The entrance is through a lofty portico decorated with twisted columns of Tabriz marble, leading through two brazen gates, whose extremities are of silver, and their whole surface sculptured and embossed with flowers,

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and verses from the Koran. Advancing into the court, on the right side is a mosque, whose dome is covered with lacquered tiles, and adorned externally with ornaments of pure gold. This, and the minarets that flank it, are now falling into decay. The other sides of the square are occupied, one, by a lofty and beautiful portico, and the remaining two by small square cells for students, twelve in each front, disposed in two stories. In the city are few hospitals; one stands, however, beside the caravanserai of Shah Abbas, who erected both at the same time, that the revenue of the latter might support the proper officers of the hospital. That the reader may have a proper idea of one of these inns of the

East, if they may be so called, we have here given the plan of that just above named (fig.

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33.). The palaces of the kings are enclosed in a fort of lofty walls, about three miles in circuit; in general the front room or hall is very open, and the roof supported by carved and gilded columns. The windows glazed with curiously stained glass of a variety of colours; each has a fountain in front. The palace of Chehel Sitoon, or forty pillars, is placed in the middle of an immense square, intersected by canals, and Towards planted with trees. the garden is an open saloon whose ceiling is borne by eighteen columns, inlaid with mirrors, and appearing at a disto consist entirely of glass. The base of each is of marble, sculptured into four lions, so placed that the shafts stand on them. Mirrors are distributed on the walls in great profusion, and the ceiling is ornamented with gilt flowers. An arched recess leads from the apartment just described into a spacious and splendid hall, whose roof is formed into a variety of domes, decorated with painting and gilding. The walls are partly of white marble, and partly covered with mirrors, and are moreover decorated with six large paintings, whose subjects are the battles and royal fêtes of Shah Ismael and Shah Abbas the Great. Though of considerable age, the colours are fresh, and the gilding still brilliant. Adjoining the palace is the harem, erected but a few years ago. The bazaars are much celebrated; they consist of large wide passages, arched, and lighted from above, with buildings or stores on each side. One of these was formerly 600 geometrical paces in length, very broad and lofty. From these being adjacent to each other, a person might traverse the whole city sheltered from the weather. In Ispahan, we must

Fig. 33.

CARAVANSERAI OF SHAH ABBAS.

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not forget to notice that some fine bridges exist, which cross the river Zenderond.

SECT. V.

JEWISH ARCHITECTURE.

52. We are scarcely justified in giving a section, though short, to the architecture of the Jews, since the only buildings recorded as of that nation are the Temple of Jerusalem constructed by Solomon, and the house of the forest of Lebanon. The shepherd tribes of Israel, indeed, do not seem to have required such dwellings or temples as would lead them, when they settled in cities, to the adoption of any style very different from that of their neighbours. Whatever monuments are mentioned by them appear to have been rude, and have been already noticed in the section on Druidical and Celtic architecture. When Solomon ascended the throne, anxious to fulfil the wish his father had long entertained of erecting a fixed temple for the reception of the ark, he was not only obliged to send to Tyre for workmen, but for an architect also. Upon this temple a dissertation has been written by a Spaniard of the name of Villalpanda, wherein he, with consummate simplicity, urges that the orders, instead of being the invention of the Greeks, were the invention of God himself, and that Callimachus most shamefully put forth pretensions to the formation of the Corinthian capital which, he says, had been used centuries before in the temple at Jerusalem. The following account of the temple is from the sixth chapter of the First Book of Kings. Its plan was a parallelogram (taking the cubit at 1824 ft., being the length generally assigned to it) of about 109 ft. by 363 ft., being as nearly as may be two thirds of the size of the church of St. Martin's in the Fields. In front was a pronaos, or portico, stretching through the whole front (36) ft.) of the temple, and its depth was half its extent. The cell, or main body of the temple, was 543 ft. deep, and the sanctuary beyond 36 cubits; the height of it being equal to its length and breadth. The height of the middle part, or cell, was 544 ft.; and that of the portico the same as the sanctuary, that is, 36 ft.,-judging from the height of the columns. In the interior, the body of the temple was surrounded by three tiers of chambers, to which there was an ascent by stairs; and the central part was open to the sky. The ends of the beams of the floors rested on corbels of stone, and were not inserted into the walls, which were lined with cedar, carved into

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cherubims and palm trees, gilt. In the sanctuary two figures of cherubs were placed, whose wings touched each other in the centre, and extended outwards to the walls. were 10 cubits high. In the front of the portico were two pillars of brass, which were cast by Hiram, "a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali," whose "father was a man of Tyre," and who "came to king Solomon and wrought all his work." These two pillars of brass (1 Kings, vii. 14, 15.) were each 18 cubits high, and their circumference was 12 cubits; hence their diameter was 3.82 cubits. The chapiters, or capitals, were 5 cubits high; and one of them was decorated with lilies upon a net-work ground, and the other with pomegranates. From the representation (fig. 34.) here given, the reader must be struck with their resemblance to the columns of Egypt with their lotus leaves, and sometimes net-work. In short, the whole description would almost as well apply to a temple of Egypt as to one at Jerusalem. And this tends, Fig. 34. though slightly it is true, to show that the Phoenician workmen who were employed on the temple worked in the same style as those of Egypt.

53. The house of the forest of Lebanon was larger than the temple, having been 100 cubits in length, by 50 in breadth; it also had a portico, and from the description seems to have been similar in style.

54. Phænician Architecture. That part of the great nation of Asia which settled on the coasts of Palestine, called in scripture Canaanites, or merchants, were afterwards by the Greeks called Phoenicians. Sidon was originally their capital, and Tyre, which afterwards became greater than the parent itself, was at first only a colony. From what we have said in a previous section on the walls of Mycene, it may be fairly presumed that their architecture partook of the Cyclopean style; but that it was much more highly decorated is extremely probable from the wealth of a people whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were the honourable of the earth. Besides the verses of Euripides, which point to the style of Phoenician architecture, we have the authority of Lucian for asserting that it was Egyptian in character. Unfortunately all is surmise; no monuments of Phoenician architecture exist, and we therefore think it useless to dwell longer on the subject.

SECT. VI.

INDIAN ARCHITECTURE.

55. Whence the countries of India derived their architecture is a question that has occupied abler pens than that which we wield, and a long period has not passed away since the impression on our own mind was, that the monuments of India were not so old as those of Egypt. Upon maturer reflection, we are not sure that impression was false; but if the arts of a country do not change, if the manners and habits of the people have not varied, the admission of the want of high antiquity of the monuments actually in existence will not settle the point. The capitals and columns about Persepolis have a remarkable similarity to some of the Hindoo examples, and seem to indicate a common origin; indeed, it is our opinion, and one which we have not adopted without considerable hesitation, that though the existing buildings of India be comparatively modern, they are in a style older than that of the time of their erection. Sir William Jones, whose opinion seems to have been that the Indian temples and edifices are not of the highest antiquity, says (3rd Discourse), "that they prove an early connection between India and Africa. The pyramids of Egypt, the colossal statues described by Pausanias and others, the Sphinx and the Hermes Canis (which last bears a great resemblance to the Varáhávatár, or the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of a boar), indicate the style and mythology of the same indefatigable workmen who formed the vast excavations of Canárah, the various temples and images of Buddha, and the idols which are continually dug up at Gayá or in its vicinity. The letters on many of these monuments appear, as I have before intimated, partly of Indian and partly of Abyssinian or Ethiopic origin; and all these indubitable facts may induce no ill-grounded opinion that Ethiopia and Hindustan were peopled or colonised by the same extraordinary race." In a previous page (fig. 27.), the reader will find a Persepolitan column and capital; we place before him, in fig. 35., an example from the Indra Subba which much resembles it in detail, and at the Nerta Chabei at Chillambaram are very similar examples. Between the styles of Persepolis and Egypt a resemblance will be hereafter traced, and to such an extent, that there seems no reasonable doubt of a common origin. The monuments of India may be divided into two classes, the excavated and constructed: the former being that where a building has been hollowed, or, as it were, quarried out of the rock; the latter, that built of separate and different sorts of materials, upon a regular plan, as may be seen in those buildings improperly called pagodas, which ornament the enclosures of the sacred edifices, of

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Fig. 35. A COLUMN OF

THE INDRA SUBBA.

which they are component parts. The class first named seems to have interested travellers more than the last, from the apparent difficulty of execution; but on this account we are not so sure that they ought to create more astonishment than the constructed temple, except that, according to Daniel (Asiat. Res. vol. i.), they are hollowed in hard and compact granite. 56. The monuments which belong to the first class are of two sorts; those actually hollowed out of rocks, and those presenting forms of apparently constructed buildings, but which are, in fact, rocks shaped by human hands into architectural forms. Of the first sort are the caves of Elephanta and Ellora; of the last, the seven large pagodas of Mavalipowram. It will immediately occur to the reader that the shaping of rocks into forms implies art, if the forms be imposing or well arranged: so, if the hollowing a rock into well-arranged and well-formed chambers be conducted in a way indicating an acquaintance with architectural effect, we are not to assume that a want of taste must be consequent on the first sort merely because it cannot be called constructive architecture. And here we must observe, that we think the writer in the Encyclopédie Méthodique (art. Arch. Indienne) fails in his reasoning; our notion being simply this, that as far as respects these monuments, if they are worthy to be ranked as works of art, the means by which they were produced have nothing to do with the question. It must, however, be admitted, that what the architect understands by ordonnance, or the composition of a building, and the proper arrangement of its several parts, points which so much engaged the attention of the Greeks and Romans, will not be found in Indian architecture as far as our acquaintance with it extends. Conjectures infinite might be placed before the reader on the antiquity of this species of art, but they would be valueless, no certain data, of which we are aware, existing to lead him in the right road; and we must, therefore, be content with enumerating some of the principal works in this style. The caves at Ellora consist of several apartments; the plan of that called the Indra Subba (fig. 36.) is here given, to show the species of plan which these places

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exhibit; and fig. 37. is a view of a portion of the interior of the same. The group of temples which compose these excavations are as follow:

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