The palace of Susa, exhumed by Mr. Loftus and General Williams, consisted of a great Hall or Throne-room, almost exactly a duplicate of the Chehl Minar at Persepolis, and of a few other very inferior buildings.  It stood at the summit of the great platform, a quadrilateral mass of unburnt brick, which from a remote antiquity had supported the residence of the old Susian kings.  It fronted a little west of north, and commanded a magnificent view over the Susianian plains to the mountains of Lauristan.  An inscription, repeated on four of its pillar-bases, showed that it was originally built by Darius Hystaspis, and afterwards repaired by Artaxerxes Longimanus.  As it was so exactly a reproduction of an edifice already minutely described, no further account of it need be here given.

From the palaces of the Persian kings we may now pass to their tombs, remarkable structures which drew the attention of the ancients, and which have been very fully examined and represented in modern times.  These tombs are eight in number, but present only two types, so that it will be sufficient to give in this place a detailed account of two tombs—­one of each description.

The most ancient, and, on the whole, the most remarkable of the tombs, is almost universally allowed to be that of the Great Cyrus.  It is unique in design, totally different from all the other royal sepulchres; and, though it has been often described, demands, and must receive, notice in any account that is given of the ancient Persian constructions.  The historian Arrian calls it “a house upon a pedestal;” and this brief description exactly expresses its general character.  On a base, composed of huge blocks of the most beautiful white marble,1 which rises pyramidically in seven steps of different heights, there stands a small “house” of similar material, crowned with a stone roof, which is formed in front and rear into a pediment resembling that of a Greek temple. [PLATE LI., Fig.3.] The “house” has no window, but one of the end walls was pierced by a low and narrow doorway, which led into a small chamber or cell, about eleven feet long, seven broad, and seven high.  Here, as ancient writers inform us, the body of the Great Cyrus was deposited in a golden coffin.  Internally the chamber is destitute of any inscription, and indeed seems to have been left perfectly plain.  Externally, there is a cornice of some elegance below the pediment, a good molding over the doorway, which is also doubly recessed—­and two other very slight moldings, one at the base of the “house,” and the other at the bottom of the second step. [PLATE LI., Fig. 2.] Except for these, the whole edifice is perfectly plain.  Its present height above the ground is thirty-six feet, and it may originally have been a foot or eighteen inches higher, for the top of the roof is worn away.  It measures at the base forty-seven feet by forty-three feet nine inches.