COLUMNS OF THE PALACE. 
635 
were intended to be connected, is made evident by those on the 
fronts of the tombs at Nakshi-Roustam. But as the ruins that 
lie scattered near these divisions, seem, by far the greater part, 
to consist of fragments of the fallen columns themselves, I 
should be of opinion that the superstructure was of different 
materials; probably some sort of timber overlaid exteriorly with 
a thin covering of stone to defend it from the weather. A no in¬ 
considerable degree of resemblance appears to exist between the 
general disposition of these colonnades, and the palace of Solomon, 
called in the book of Kings, the House of the Forest of Lebanon ; 
and in the account of that building, we find that “ the foundation 
was of costly stones, even great stones, stones of ten cubits ; and 
above were costly stones, after the measure of hewn stones, and 
cedars. And it was covered with cedar above, upon the beams, 
that lay on forty-five pillars, fifteen in a row.” I make this 
extract, to shew the use that was made in the East, of different 
sorts of timber, in the connecting parts of the noblest structures, 
even so much anterior to the age of Cyrus, as the reign of 
Solomon. Had the cavities between the bulls’ necks, in the 
capitals I have just described, been filled with connecting blocks 
of stone, some fragments of it would certainly be found attached 
to some of them, even at this day; but all I saw were perfect^ 
void. Had they supported statues, which, on many accounts, is 
improbable, some marks must have been traceable : remnants 
adhering to the capital, or the capital fractured in breaking the 
figures away; the lower extremities of those embellishments being 
usually cramped to the pedestal or pillar on which they stood, by 
masses of iron ; therefore, a foot at least, from amongst seventy- 
two statues, which number would have occupied all the columns 
in question, must surely have survived any sweeping wreck along 
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