752 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893 



The paper molds were most carefully made and the Museum model- 

 ers succeeded in securing excellent casts, as the accompanying plates 

 sliow, 



A Spanish diplomat, Garcias Silva Figueroa, who was sent asambas- 

 sador to Goa, a fortified Portuguese settlement on the west coast of 

 India, about 250 miles from Bombay, by Philip III, had his interest 

 excited by some monkish tradition and stopped on his way back at 

 Peisepolis. "He was on the ground in 1618 and was the first, not only 

 to put on record any descrii)tion of the ruins that even approached 

 sober accuracy, but also to give an account of the strange characters 

 that covered them." (Francis Brown.)* 



In view of this fact it is not without interest that the first mold 

 taken at this place should have been brought back to the United 

 States by an American in the diplomatic service of his country. 



Mr. Blundell's work was eminently successful. In a letter from 

 London, under date of August 30, 1802, he wrote: 



Tbey (tbe moldings) have all arrived safely and they comprise nearly all the best 

 known examples of the bas-reliefs at the group of palaces and halls at Persepolis 

 and the figures of Cyrus at Meshed Murgbeb. 



The inscription on pi. 1 is in the language of Ancient Persia, and 

 is written in the Persian cuneiform character. It was engraved at the 

 command of Artaxerxes (HI) Ochus, Avho reigned 358-344 B. C, or, 

 according to some, from 359-338 B. C. 



Ochus was a ruler of great vigor, and under him the Empire took a 

 new lease of life. Phenicia and Cyprus, wliich had been Persian col- 

 onies, rebelled, but he reduced them to submission. Egypt he recon- 

 quered. The accession of Ochus to the throne was marked by his mur- 

 der of three brothers; according to some, of his entire family. His 

 own death was by poison at the hands of his vizier. 



The inscription is well known and has been frequently translated.! 



Most of the Achiemenian building inscriptions have the same style. 



In Persepolis there are on the north side of Artaxerxes's Palace three 

 identical old Persian inscriptions. The present inscription is, however, 

 that from the west staircase, t 



* His work, De rebus Persarum epistola, was i)ublished at Antwerp in 1620. 



tTheodor Benfey: Die persischeu Keiliuschriiten mit Uebersetzuug und Glossar, 

 Leipzig, 1847, p. 67 ft'. Here it is wrongly ascribed to his predecessor. Oppert, Jour- 

 nal Royal Asiatic Soc, Vol. x, p. 297. Rawlinson, ibid., p. 341. Die altpersischen 

 Keiliuschriften iui Grundtexte, mit Uebersetzuug, Graramatik und Glossar, von F. 

 Spiegel, zweite vermehrte Auflage, Leipzig, 1881, p. 128 f. The most recent transla- 

 tion of the inscription is by F. H. Weissbach and W. Bang. "Die altpersischen 

 Keiliuschriften" Leipzig, Hiurichs, being Vol. x., Pt. 1, of the Assyriologische Bilio- 

 thek of Friedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt, pp. 46, 47. 



t Published by Flandin & Coste, vol. 3, pi. 125. Photographed by Stolze, vol. 1, pp. 

 26, 27, 28, 41, 47, and 48. See Weissbach, p. 9. Spiegel states (p. 128) that tlie inscrip- 

 tion is given by Rich, in Nineveh and Persepolis, PI. xxiii ; on p. 69 in the footnote he 

 says of Rich (Babylon and Persepolis. PI. xxiii) : "The text he employed, however, was 

 not that of Rich, Ijut of a similar inscription on the east wail, copied by VVester- 

 gaard and published by Lassen." 



