252 History of Art in Antiquity. to have attracted the attention of travellers/ Masoudy, however, who visited Fars in 910 or thereabouts, formally states that the Beit-en-N&r (fire-temple) 'built by Ardeshir stood upon a knoU an hour beyond the town of Ghilr ; near it was a very curious spring, around which was celebrated a yearly festival. But, as we have seen, the ruin in question is in the middle of a flat level, and represents the swamp formerly drained by Ardeshir, bounded on either side by an arm of the river ; whilst throughout the canton no other spring is met with except that which jets up and gushes forth in front of the palace, five kilometres hence in a northern direction.* Consequently the site of the temple seen by Masoudy should be sought on one of the spurs of the range which overhangs the palace.' As to the ruin figured on the preceding page, may not it be the " lofty tower," the fortress which, according to Tabari. went by the name of ierbdl, tower, and which Ardeshir had built in the middle of the town ? Masoudy does indeed mention it, but he adds that it had been destroyed by the Muslims. It was, perhaps, a watch-tower, of which the exterior staircases leading to the platform and the outer works were destroyed by the Arabs, and reduced to its present fragmentary state, which justified the epithet used by the historian. We fear, then, that tlie notion of a temple built by a Sassanid prince must be abandoned as illusory. All we know is that the sacred fire continued to ascend to heaven throughout the duration of the second empire, precisely as it had done during the first. Fire-altars frequently appear on the coins struck by the Sassanidae; their forms are at once less simple and more attenuated than those of a former age.* As to the disposition of the buildings by which they were supported and enframed, no opinion can be advanced, save that wc know nothing about it. From the day of the triumph of Islam over Magism, the followers of Zoroaster have been compelled to wander forth from ' Tabari, Geiman trauslation by Noeldeke, p. 11 ; French ditto, by Zottenbeig, ii. 7a; Masoudy, transUiion by Baibier de Meynard, torn. iv. p. 78; Karnamak, German translation by Noeldeke^ p. 48 ; Barbisr de Mbynard^ Diawnnaire Gm- ffraphique de la Perse, p. 175.
- Flanuin and Coste, Pci se atuuntu, p. 34, for chart of plain.
' It u just possible that the ruin known as Kaleh Dfick-h4ftr (the Maiden's Castle), said by Coste to stand above the dell of Khuinailigan, which he designates as "ruined fortress," might throw some light on the question.
- OUULAFOV, L'Ar/ antique^ iii. p. 9, Figs. 5-7.
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