Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/153

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CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

inscription.[1] At Persepolis they claim to have discovered eight entirely new bas-reliefs, besides disclosing the lower portion of many others.[2] They dug up the statue of a bull near the east stairs of the Palace of Xerxes, the only monument en ronde which has been found among the ruins.[3] They disclosed the head of a bull among the debris of the Porch, and finally set at rest the long debated question as to the nature of the colossal animals. They completed the portraiture of the guards on the façade of the sculptured staircase, by raising the fallen masonry.[4] They were the first to clear away the rubbish that had collected in the Palace of Darius, and to disclose the bases of the columns that had supported the roof [5] They settled the nature of the monster with which the king is seen to struggle, by unearthing its tail, which proved to be that of a scorpion.[6] They were the first also to show the correct position and number of the columns in the Portico of the Palace of Xerxes. They were also the first to show the former existence of columns in the South-Eastern Edifice.[7] Fragments of columns strewn on the around within the Hall of the Hundred Columns had been remarked by Kaempfer and by Niebuhr; but they do not seem to have been observed by Flandin and Coste. It was due to their laborious excavations that it was ascertained, after six and a half feet of rubbish had been cleared away, that the edifice had originally contained ten rows of columns of ten in each in the centre, and two rows of eight in the Portico.[8]

In the beginning of the year 1841, they found themselves at Fasa, and speedily recognised that it could not

  1. Flandin, ii. 98, 106-10.
  2. Ib. i. 493.
  3. II. 186. Fergusson, p. 117.
  4. Ib. p. 160.
  5. Ib. p. 177;
  6. Flandin, ii. 179.
  7. Ib. p. 187; Fergusson, p. 132.
  8. Flandin, p. 196; Fergusson, p. 176 ; Ouseley,ii. 239; Niebuhr, ii. 121.