The burial-places of the rulers of ancient Persia can still be recognised. Some hundred paces to the east of the remains of the royal palace at Persepolis, towards the rising of the sun, precisely as Diodorus describes the place, are three stone pictures in Mount Rachmed. Sculptures which begin three hundred feet above the ground on the perpendicular front of the mountain form three high façades, with pillars, which present a gateway with woodwork, supporting a large canopy, on which are seen several rows of dogs; the same animals are to be seen on the lower lines of ornamentation. Within this framework are the pictures of the buried sovereigns. In the left hand is the bow without a string; the right is raised in an attitude of prayer, and the figures are standing before an altar of burning fire. The king is supported on a foundation upheld by the arms of several rows of men, who represent the conquered lands. Two leagues to the north of Persepolis are four great sculptures, now called Naksh-i-Rustem, _i.e._ pictures of Rustem, of a similar kind, but beginning only sixty or seventy feet from the ground, deeply cut in the perpendicular wall of two hundred feet in length. Three of these pictures are close together; the fourth is on a spur of the rock, at right angles to the other three. The centre of the three marks the tomb of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. It is the only one among the seven monuments which has inscriptions.[427] The corpses of the princes might have been exposed to the sun, the dogs, and birds on the summit above these pictures. In that case they would merely mark the place of exposure, and these rocks would be burial-places like those of the modern Parsees in Bombay. But behind the sculptures, though not accessible from them, sepulchral chambers have been discovered. From this, and from the description which the Greeks give us of the tomb of Cyrus, we must draw the conclusion that the Persian custom of burial did not agree with the rule of the Avesta--with the exception of the priests, whose corpses, as Herodotus expressly states, were exposed. The Vendidad laments that in certain districts of the East, Arachosia and Chakhra, the dead were burned, or buried.[428] Under the Sassanids exposure was strictly observed both in the East and West, as is clear from the account of Agathias already quoted, and all the statements which relate to this later period.