Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

Tl6 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
There can be little doubt that these halls were once
covered by a wooden roof, the double-bull capital
being admirably adapted to support the ends of the
beams. Indeed the use of such capitals is perfectly
evident, from the copy in stone of a timber roof
observable in the famous tomb of Darius at Nakhsh-i-
Rustam.
The architectural controversy, as to what the walls
round this gigantic room were made of, need not
be discussed; the more so as it must be confessed,
that all the theories proposed involve grave difficulties.
Judging from other cases, had the walls been of
stone, we should expect to find some traces of
them; while, on the other hand, it is hard to believe
such a builder as Xerxes, with an unlimited supply of
stone close at hand, would have used bricks, which
were a necessity for the Assyrians and Babylonians,
as for them stone had to be brought from a
considerable distance. After all, the most probable
an account
description is that in Esther, evidently
of a summer throne-room. "And when those days
were expired, the king made a feast unto all the
people that were present in Shushan the palace,
unto great and small, seven days, in the court of
the garden of the king's palace ; where were white,
green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine
linen, and purple to silver rings, and pillars of marble ;
the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of
red, blue, and white and black marble V The heat of
an ordinary Persian summer, suggests the probability
of such an arrangement, indeed, Loftus,
1 Esther i. 5-6.
in his notice