150 
ROCKY PLATFORM OF BE-SITOON. 
huge mass of crags, which rises so stupendously over our present 
quarters, from the spot where I stood to view its ancient chisel¬ 
ling, presents a nearly perpendicular face of fifteen hundred *feet. 
The lower part of it, (at heaven knows how distant a time,) has 
been smoothed to a height of one hundred feet, and to a breadth 
of a hundred and fifty; beneath which projects a rocky terrace 
of great solidity, embracing the same extent from end to end, 
of the smoothed cliff above, and sloping gradually in a shelving 
direction to the level of the ground below. Its base, to someway 
up, is faced with large hewn stones ; and vast numbers of the 
same, some in a finished and others in a progressive state, lie 
scattered about in every direction, evidently intended to build 
up, and complete the front perpendicularly to its higher level. 
The observations I made on the several elevated terraces on the 
smoothed mountain-base at Persepolis, lead me to think, that 
this unfinished projection from the rock was begun, not as a 
foundation for a palace, (which is the idea of the natives, and 
that Khosroo Purviz erected it for his beloved Shirene,) but as 
a platform for a temple; it being too circumscribed for the va¬ 
riously diverging apartments of the one, but amply sufficient for 
the usual space allotted to the other. And besides, I should 
deem it of a date far anterior to the Sassanian monarch. Amongst 
these evident materials for building some great structure, it is 
said that no remnants of a columnar shape have ever been found ; 
and a peculiarity so singular, in a country where the finest ar¬ 
chitectural fragments of the sort are seen on almost every spot 
reputed to have been an ancient site, might, probably, suggest 
to the natives the distinguishing name of Be-Sitoon “ without 
pillars.” 
* See Plate LIX. 
