‘are wholly unknown, and are no doubt more ancient than those of the Hebrews, Chaldeans and Arabians, with which they have no relation; and their resemblance to those of the Greeks and Latins is still less.’ The ruins of the Palace of Xerxes seem to have escaped his notice; but he visited the Hall of the Hundred Columns. It covers, he says, a square of a hundred paces, the ground in the centre being thickly strewn with fallen columns. It looks more like an accumulation of several ruins than the remains of a single edifice. Here also were bas-reliefs upon the walls, larger than life and representing ‘furious combats with terrible and ferocious animals; some resembling winged lions and others serpents.’ He noticed the two famous sepulchres on the side of the mountain overhanging the ruins, above the space enclosed by the walls of the terrace. He observed that they were formed by a wall of black marble thirty feet square, covered with figures in white marble. On the top appears a man of authority, possibly a king or prince, seated on a throne, with several figures standing round him. Before him is an altar with fire burning upon it. Near it is a coffer cut into the rock, which seems to have been the sepulchre. It is seven or eight feet long by three feet wide. The tombs are separated forty to fifty paces from each other but are of similar design. It might, he thought, be at first supposed, as Gouvea seems to have imagined, that the splendid ruins below were intended only as an ‘ornament’ for the tomb of the Great King: but further reflection convinced the writer that they were none other than the Palace and Citadel of the Persepolis described by ancient authors; and indeed there is distinct evidence of the conflagration due to the impetuosity of Alexander.