which they came, and he accompanies his dissertation with much learned commentary. He thought the Columnar Edifice had originally consisted of twelve rows of ten columns, or one hundred and twenty in all; and he is quite sure he counted three rows with ten in each. He noted also that ‘the capitals are different, not only in their ornamentation but also in the fact that some are single and others double.’ The conflict between men and animals depicted on the side doors he thought represented the struggle of heroes with different nations, which, as in the Book of Daniel, were symbolically represented by animals. He considered the stately personage under the parasol united in his own person the offices of both priest and king. The winged figure seemed to him to represent the soul ascending to heaven, amid the clouds of sacrifice; and he rejected the impious conjecture that it denoted a serpent or satyr or worse. He was fully convinced that the ruins were those of a temple and that the Columnar Edifice had been the ‘choir’ where the victims were immolated. The great difficulty of supposing that the principal buildings had ever been roofed favoured the supposition of its ecclesiastical character. He reviews at great length the different opinions as to its origin; some ascribe it to the period before the Deluge, others to Solomon; but he finally decides in favour of Jamshid, the fourth King of Persia, who, he ascertained, had flourished about the time of the descent of Jacob into Egypt.[58] This opinion as he takes care to emphasise, would throw back the construction of the edifice many centuries before Darius. The idea that the ruins represented the castle and palace of Persepolis was first advocated by Don Garcia, but it had long lost its popularity and the rival opinion first put forward by Della Valle, that they were the remains of a temple had already secured the adhesion of Daulier and Thévenot. Chardin now gave it the support of his authority, and he affected to scout the opposite view as ‘a vain and ridiculous tradition,’ although later investigation has affirmed its truth. He was followed by Kaempfer, and encouraged by the English traveller Fryer, who qualified the opinion that it was ‘Cambyses’ Hall’ with the doubt that it might after all ‘be the ruins of some heathen temple.’[59]