127 



plaiu are several artificial mounds, one of which may be com- 

 pared with the great mound at Shush [the ancient Sushan], 

 near Disful^ in height. It lies about three-fourths of a farsang 

 to the east of some natural caves in the hills ; the inter- 

 vening space, both in the plain and up the face of the 

 mountain, bearing traces of former habitation." In these 

 caves are a curious series of sculptures of divinities and 

 attendant worshippers, and a long inscription, in which 

 (Layai'd's Inscriiotions, 36-37) the kings assume the title of 

 Kings of Ansan. Its close proximity to Sush, the ancient 

 Susa, which afterwards became the residence of the Persian 

 kings (Esther i. 2), would give it more claim to be the Ansan 

 of the Elamite and Babylonian inscriptions than the plain of 

 Ram Ormuzd. In his valuable paper on this cylinder of 

 Cyrus [Journal Royal Asiatic 8oc., vol. xii., New Series, p. 76 

 et seq.), Sir Henry Rawlinson records a curious tradition 

 respecting this region Ansan. He says: — '^ The Greek and 

 Roman writers are entirely silent as to the country and city 

 of Ansan, in Western Persia." There is, however, a notice 

 of Ansan, or Assan, in a very early and learned Arabic writer, 

 Ibn-el-Nadim, who had unusually good information as to 

 genuine Persian traditions. This writer ascribes the inven- 

 tion of Persian writing to Jamshid, son of Virenghan (who, 

 with the Zoroastrians, was the eponym of the Persian race), 

 and adds that Jamshid dwelt at Assan, in the district of 

 Tuster, the modern Shuster'^ [Kitah al Fihrist, p. 12, 

 line 22). 



These facts lead us, therefore, to look for the royal city of 

 Cyrus in the region of Mai Amir. The rise of this sub- 

 Persian, if we may so call it, kingdom, founded by Tiespes, 

 the Akhasmenian, would seem to be, judging by generations 

 about synchronous with the fiill of the Assyrian empire, and 

 was no doubt the result of the weak state of the Elamite 

 empire after the overthrow of that kingdom by Assurbanipal. 

 In these events we may see perhaps an explanation of the 

 prophecies of Jeremiah regarding the land of Elam : — " The 

 word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, the prophet, against 

 Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of 

 Judah" (B.C. 598) ; " Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, 

 the chief of their might;" ''and I will set my tliroue in Elam, 

 and will destroy from thence the king and princes, saith the 

 Lord" (Jer. xlix., 34-39). In these regions Cyrus and his 

 ancestors would be brought in close contact with the Turanian, 

 Shamanistic creeds of the Elamites, the Proto-Medes, and 

 the other nations of this region, and their creed would 

 assume i-ather the aspect of Magianism, in contradistinc- 



