The inscriptions at Persepolis were the first to attract attention. The ruins where they were found had excited curiosity long before their discovery by European travellers, and many legends had arisen to account for their origin. It was variously reported that they were the remains of a palace of Solomon, or of Cai Caius, a predecessor of Cyrus, or of the great national hero Jamshid. The literary classes described them as the Takht-i-Cai Khusrau, or Throne of Cyrus; and later on as the Khaneh-i-Dara or Mansion of Darius. The early travellers, however, learned that the popular name for them was Chehel Minar, or Forty Minarets, from the lofty columns that form their chief architectural characteristic. But during the eighteenth century Jamshid triumphed over all his competitors, and since then they have been more generally known as the Takht-i-Jamshid, or Throne of Jamshid. The question of their origin was not indeed finally settled till the inscriptions were interpreted. Chardin, at the end of the seventeenth century, and Heeren, a hundred years later, still supported the claims of Jamshid. Although it no longer admits of doubt that the buildings were erected by Darius and Xerxes, there is even yet no complete unanimity as to their original design. The more common belief is that they were the actual palaces of the sovereign, and that one of the buildings was the scene of the conflagration ordered by Alexander. Their dimensions and construction offer considerable difficulties to the supposition that they were the actual residence of the great king, though they may have been adapted for official receptions and other ceremonial purposes.