154 
SECOND ANCIENT SCULPTURE 
cut out of the foot of the mountain, evidently intended to sup¬ 
port a temple. But at a point something higher up than the 
rough gigantic forms just described, in a very precipitous cleft, 
there appeared to me a still more interesting piece of sculpture, 
though probably not of such deep antiquity. 
Even at so vast a height, the first glance shewed it to have 
been a work of some age accomplished in the art; for all here 
was executed with the care and fine expression of the very best 
at Persepolis. I could not resist the impulse to examine it 
nearer than from the distance of the ground, and would have 
been glad of queen Semiram is’s stage of packs and fardles. To 
approach it at all, was a business of difficulty and danger ; how¬ 
ever, after much scrambling and climbing, I at last got pretty far 
up the rock, and finding a ledge, placed myself on it as firmly as 
I could; but still I was farther from the object of all this peril, 
than I had hoped ; yet my eyes being tolerably long-sighted, and 
my glass more so, I managed to copy the whole sculpture with 
considerable exactness. 
It contains fourteen figures, one of which is in the air. This 
personage, and also the rest of the group, have been strangely 
misunderstood by two former travellers, Mr. Otter, and Mr. 
Gardamme; the one mistaking the aerial form for an armorial 
bearing; the other for a cross, and the figures beneath for the 
twelve apostles. As this relic has hitherto been but slightly 
sketched or described, I shall be rather particular in noticing its 
details ; and that, I hope, with the accompanying Plate LX., will 
convey a tolerably accurate impression to my reader. 
The first figure (to our left in facing the sculpture) carries a 
spear, and is in the full Median habit, like the leaders of the 
