( 47 ) CHAPTER II. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSIAN ARCHITECTURE. Materials. As soon as the Persians, thanks to Cyrus, found themselves undisputed masters of Anterior Asia, they must have aspired to raise buildings that should be the visible expression of their wealth and power throughout the Iranic plateau, notably in that province of Fars, the cradle of their kings. The nature of the ground favoured their ambition. In a mountainous country like Persia, the architect, no matter the site he fixed upon, found every- where to his hand the natural stone which failed him in Chaldaea. ^ < It was a limestone of good quality ; indeed, some varieties are so ^ | fine, hard, and dose grained as almost to deserve the name of , marble. These rocks vary in colour from light to deep grey, with here and there yellowish and dark^brown tones. Such differences were taken advantage of to provide certain important parts in the better class of buildings — die decorative figures, for example — with more power of resistance and a finer cut, or to obtain contrasts and happy effects of colouring. The native limestone is found in thick strata, so that it can be cut in blocks of great size.*
- The dose-grained limestone in queition forms the upper geological stratum of
the Iranic plateau, on the southward of Teheran ; with it were built Pasargadx, Persepolis, and Susa. It might almost be denominated " monumental limestone." The bas-reliefs at Behistun, Shapur, and Malamir are sculptured towards the crests of these same limestone fonnatiotts which command the plain ; whilst in (heir flanks 'are excavated the Naksh-i-Rustem sepulchres, as well as those at Persepolis. Persia his no other good building material. The houses of Shusler are made of sandstone found in the plains ot Susiana; but it is very frial)le, and could not have furnished materials for constructing vast and sohd edifices, ihe action of time has so disfigured a Sassanid statuette of this soft sandstone belonging to the CoUecticm Dieulafoy, in the Louvre, as to render it a shapeless mass. Of volcanic rocks Digitized by Gt)
