which has accumulated at its base.  Its fragments are peculiarly grand and massive, while its sculptures are in strong and bold relief.  There can be little doubt but that it was originally, like the hall and portico of Darius, surrounded on three sides by chambers.  These, however, have entirely disappeared, having probably been pulled down to furnish materials for more recent edifices.  Like the palaces of Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus, and unlike the palace of Darius, the building faces to the north, which is the direction naturally preferred in such a climate.  We may suppose it to have been the royal residence of the earlier times, the erection of Cyrus or Cambyses, and to have been intended especially for summer use, for which its position well fitted it.  Darius, wishing for a winter palace at Persepolis, as well as a summer one, took probably this early palace for his model, and built one as nearly as possible resembling it, except that, for the sake of greater warmth, he made his new erection face southwards.  Xerxes, dissatisfied with the size of the old summer palace, built a new one at its side of considerably larger dimensions, using perhaps some of the materials of the old palace in his new building.  Finally, Artaxerxes Ochus made certain additions to the palace of Xerxes on its western side, and at the same time added a staircase and a doorway to the winter residence of Darius.  Thus the Persepolitan palace, using the word in its proper sense of royal residence, attained its full dimensions, occupying the southern half of the great central platform, and covering with its various courts and buildings a space 500 feet long by 375 feet wide, or nearly the space covered by the less ambitious of the palaces of Assyria.

Besides edifices adapted for habitation, the Persepolitan platform sustained two other classes of buildings.  These were propylaea, or gateways—­places commanding the approach to great buildings, where a guard might be stationed to stop and examine all comers—­and halls of a vast size, which were probably throne-rooms, where the monarch held his court on grand occasions, to exhibit himself in full state to his subjects.  The propylaea upon the platform appear to have been four in number.  One, the largest, was directly opposite the centre of the landing-place at the top of the great stairs which gave access to the platform from the plain.  This consisted of a noble apartment, eighty-two feet square, with a roof supported by four magnificent columns, each between fifty and sixty feet high.  The walls of the apartment were from sixteen to seventeen feet thick.  Two grand portals, each twelve feet wide by thirty-six feet high, led into this apartment, one directly facing the head of the stairs, and the other opposite to it, towards the east.  Both were flanked with colossal bulls, those towards the staircase being conventional representations of the real animal, while the opposite pair are almost exact reproductions of the winged and human-headed bulls, with which the Assyrian discoveries have made us so familiar.  The accompanying illustration [PLATE XLVII., Fig. 1.], which is taken from a photograph, exhibits this inner pair in their present condition.  The back of one of the other pair is also visible.  Two of the pillars—­which alone are still standings appear in their places, intervening between the front and the back gateway.