A TEMPLE TO ARTEMIS. 121 



CHAPTER X. 



KERMANSHAH TO TEHERAN. 



Eemains at Kangavar — The inscriptions at Bisitun — Deciphered by Sir H. 

 Rawlinson — Description of the tablet' above the inscriptions — Ker 

 Porter's surmise — Names and identities — Another inscription — The 

 country between Kermanshah and Hamadan — Hamadan — Population 

 — Trade — The tombs of Esther and Mordecai — The tomb of Avi- 

 cenna — A beautiful mosque — The Ganjnameh — A stone lion — The key 

 to the decipherment of the cuneiform alphabet — Gold — -The question 

 of the site of Ecbatana of Deioces — The debauches of Alexander the 

 Great — The decay of Hamadan — The country between Hamadan and 

 Teheran — Execrable weather — Discomforts of travel — Reach Teheran. 



Between Kermanshah and Hamadan, the next town 

 of importance, there is a good deal of interest. At 

 Kangavar, three days' journey along the road, I noticed 

 many remains of ancient buildings, huge square -cut 

 stones, and in one place portions of colossal round 

 pillars built into a modern mud building, probably 

 portions of the temple to Artemis, which is supposed 

 to have stood here.^ But all else is overshadowed in 

 importance by the world-famed inscriptions of Darius, 

 which stand graven in three languages upon a sheer 

 and inaccessible rock-face of the mountain Piru. Im- 



1 See Layard's ' Early Adventures ' : " Kangowar is supposed to represent 

 the ancient city of Pancobar, where the Assyrian queen (Semiramis) is said 

 to have erected a temple to Anaitis or Artemis, and to have established an 

 erotic cult in which, if her reputation be not belied, she was amongst the 

 most ardent worshippers." — Vol. i. p. 246. 



