Bk. IV. Ch. VI. PALACE AT MASHITA. 387 fortunate discovery of a palace erected in Moab by Khosru Purviz, the last great monarch of this line.i As will be seen from the annexed woodcut, the Avhole building is a square, measuring above 500 ft. each way, but only the inner jior- tion of it, about 170 ft. square, marked e e, has ever been finished or •262. Sketch Plan of Palace at Mashlta. inhabited. It was apparently originally erected as a hunting-box on the edge of the desert for the use of the Persian king, and preserves all the featxires we are so familiar with in Sassanian palaces. It is wholly in brick, and contains in the centre a triapsal hall, once siii'inounted by a dome on pendentives like those at Serbistan or P^'irouzabad. On either side were eight vaulted halls Avitli intermediate coui'ts almost iilentical with those found at Eski Bagdad^ or at Firouzabad. So 1 "Tho Land of Moab," by H. B. Tristram. M. A., etc. Murray, 1873. As all the information respecting the pal- ace is contained in that book, pp. 195 to 21.5, and all the illustrations here used are taken from it, it will not be neces- sary to refer to it again. For further information on the subject the reader is referred to that work. - Rich, "Residence in Koordistan," ii. 251 et seq.
