[Illustration:  PLATE XLVII.]

The walls which enclosed this chamber, notwithstanding their immense thickness, have almost entirely disappeared.  On the southern side alone, where there seems to have been a third doorway, unornamented, are there any traces of them.  We must conclude that they were either of burnt brick or of small blocks of stone, which the natives of the country in later times found it convenient to use as material for their own buildings.

An edifice, almost exactly similar to this, but of very inferior dimensions, occupied a position due east of the palace of Darius, and a little to the north of the main staircase leading to the terrace in front of the palace of Xerxes.  The bases of two pillars and the jambs of three doorways remain, from which it is easy to reconstruct the main building.  Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance to the structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great mound (M on the Plan) east of Darius’s palace, and north of the palace of his son.  The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with the more eastern of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be described presently.

A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern hall, at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico.  This building is more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its dimensions are open to some doubt.  On the whole, it seems probable that it resembled the great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from the plain rather than the central propylaea just described.  Part of its ornamentation was certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed or not cannot be determined.

The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace of Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the great stairs leading up from the plain.  Its dimensions were suited to those of the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it was placed.  It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea, and about half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it.  The bases of the four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the proportions thus obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is tolerably certain.

We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan buildings—­the Great Pillared Halls—­which constitute the glory of Arian architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of Western art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres, Moorish palaces, Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals.  Of these pillared halls, the Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly differing in their design, but presenting many points of agreement.  They bear the character of an earlier and a later building—­a first effort in the direction which circumstances compelled the architecture of the Persians to take, and the final achievement of their best artists in this kind of building.