The frieze of the archers (fig. 136) represents a procession of warriors in relief, like those on the marble slabs of Persepolis; this is the most wonderful specimen of polychrome Persian enamelling. The materials of which the composition is formed, instead of being, as in the lion frieze, baked bricks in the form of elongated parallelopipeds, are little squares, of which each side is 1 ft. 1 in. long, and 3 in. thick, made of artificial concrete, which combines the whiteness of plaster with the resistance of limestone. The soldiers are represented in profile and on the march. They carry on the left shoulder a bow coloured yellow, and a quiver of reddish brown. They hold in their hands a pike, the shaft of which ends in a silver knob. Their tunics, the colour of which alternates from one figure to another, is golden yellow or white; the shape of it is the same for all,--narrow, open at the side, with very broad gathered sleeves; it falls to the ankles and shows a certain variety of ornament; the stuff is spangled sometimes with green or blue daisies, sometimes with designs in the form of lozenges; the border is embroidered. A greenish turban, twisted into rolls, is placed on the head of these oriental soldiers, who wear bracelets, ear-rings, and yellow or sky-blue leather boots; their beard and hair are dressed in ringlets, in the Assyrian fashion. This is doubtless the rich costume which provoked the declamations of Greek rhetoricians against the effeminacy and corruption of the Persians. According to the testimony of Herodotus (vii. 83), the twisted turban on the hair, the golden ornaments, and the silver knob on the javelin, were the distinctive marks of the thousand knights and the ten thousand immortals who formed the escort of the “king of kings.” There can be no doubt, then, that we are in presence of a group of this famous troop of janissaries, whom the Achæmenpi monarchs recruited in great part from among the blacks of India; a certain number of the figures on the frieze acquired by M. Dieulafoy actually have a skin coloured of a deep brown. [Illustration: Fig. 137.--Polychrome decoration of the palace of Artaxerxes (Louvre).]