Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/120

His industry during the time must certainly have been extraordinary. He surveyed the sites of Murgab and Persepolis, and made two ground-plans of both places. The former was now made for the first time, but the latter had been taken as early as the days of Kaempfer. He took two drawings of Murgab, four of the Achaemenian remains at Naksh-i-Rustam, six of the Sassanian sculptures, and two of the same period at Naksh-i-Rejeb. In addition to this he made twenty- four drawings of the monuments of Persepolis—some of them upon a large scale—and copied inscriptions that occupy four plates: that is to say, he accomplished in eighteen days work that now fills forty-two plates of engravings. This is certainly wonderful, but if he had executed less than one-quarter, the result would perhaps have been more satisfactory. In addition to the drawings, he measured the various buildings and the more important objects in each; and took notes for his very elaborate description of the dress, the arms, and other minute details of the various figures in the numerous bas-reliefs. Herbert had long ago expressed the opinion that 'a ready Lymmer in three moneths space can hardly (to do it well) depict out all her excellences,' and certainly the twelve days (from June 22 to July 1), which were all that Porter actually spent at Persepolis, were wholly inadequate for the purpose. In looking through Porter's drawings, we find indeed ample evidence of haste, and of the absence of that minute accuracy which it was his special object to achieve. Yet his book is still perhaps the best that exists upon the subject in English. The drawings of his competitors are certainly not more accurate, and his careful and minute descriptions are quite unrivalled. His merit lies in the thorough investigations he made upon the ground itself, in the