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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [574r] (1162/1814)
The record is made up of 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios). It was created in 1892-1924. It was written in English, Urdu and German. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
PERSEPOLIS, AND OTHER RUINS
155
head of the staircase, stand the imposing remains of what we know,
from the cuneiform inscriptions upon it, to have been the Porch of
Porch of Xerxes. This was a structure consisting of three parts : a
huge bull-flanked portal, facing the plain, an interior hall
or court whose roof was sustained by four great columns, and
a further bull-flanked portal facing in the opposite direction or
towards the mountains. From its character and dimensions, not less
than from the terms of the inscription, we can be certain that this
structure filled no other purpose than that of a ceremonial approach
or doorway to the great hall, which the same monarch built a little
farther on, although its orientation is at right angles to the latter.
The first objects that greet us in this portal are an unmistakable
reminder of the Assyrian forerunners of Achannenian art, and might
almost have been borrowed from the halls of Nimrud or Khorsabad.
They are two great figures of bulls, whose fore feet, sturdily planted on
pedestals five feet above the ground, and the fronts of whose bodies face
the spectator, being sculped in bold
projection
Any method by which the earth’s curved surface may be transposed (or projected) on to a flat surface.
from the piers of the
gateway. On the inner walls of the passage the hinder parts of their
bodies and flanks project similarly from the surface, but in lower relief,
while their hind legs, in contrast with the solid repose of their fore
members, stride proudly forwards . 1 Earlier travellers used to declare
that these great quadrupeds were monoliths ; but it is obvious from
a cursory inspection that they are built up of four courses of stone.
Their dimensions are seventeen and three-quarter feet in height and
nineteen feet in length, the total height of the piers whose lower parts
they adorn being thirty-five and a half feet, length twenty-one
feet, thickness six feet, and the breadth of the corridor between being
twelve feet. The head of the monster on the right hand of the
spectator has completely disappeared ; the neck of that on the left
survives, but the whole fore part of its head has been hacked off beyond
all possibility of recognition. Round its neck hangs a collar of roses.
On the chests and between the fore legs of both beasts, as also on their
shoulders, ribs, and flanks, are masses of hair in tightly frizzed and
rounded curls . 2 Although the ingenuity of the early travellers was
severely strained in the effort to reconstruct the absent features of
these colossi, and to explain the rival pair in the eastern gateway , 3
1 This is a point of difference from the Assyrian monsters, which invariably
have five legs, a fifth being introduced behind the fore legs, so that, when viewed
in profile, all four legs may be visible, and the verisimilitude of movement may be
sustained.
2 Some of the older writers curiously mistook these for bosses of armour.
3 P. della Valle thought they were compounded of horse, man, and griffin;
Herbert, of elephant, rhinoceros, Pegasus, and griffin; Mandelslo, of horse and lion;
D. Deslandes, of elephant; Chardin, of horse, lion, rhinoceros, and elephant;
About this item
- Content
These two volumes are George Curzon's own personal annotated copies of both volumes of his book Persia and the Persian Question , which was published in 1892. Alongside the volumes are various loose papers relating to Persia [Iran], consisting of the following: received correspondence; newspaper cuttings; publishers' press releases; cuttings from various booksellers' catalogues; various journal and magazine articles; two items of printed official British correspondence; several prints of photographs and sketches; and a few handwritten notes by Curzon.
In most cases these papers, which range in date from 1892 to 1924, relate to the chapters in the book where they were originally inserted, suggesting that they were kept by Curzon with the intention of using them to inform a revised edition of the book.
Of particular note among the small amount of correspondence are two letters received by Curzon in 1914 and 1915 from retired schoolmaster and Islamic scholar Sayyid Mazhar Hasan Musawi of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India (ff 5-9 and ff 44-53). These letters, which are written in Urdu and are accompanied by English translations, discuss in detail several inaccuracies found in the Urdu version of Persia and the Persian Question .
The various prints of photographs and sketches, which were originally inserted into volume two, are of different locations in the Gulf region. Several of these appear to have been produced in preparation for the publication of the second volume of John Gordon Lorimer's Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , Oman and Central Arabia (i.e. the 'Geographical and Statistical' section) in 1908, as they are identical to the versions found in that volume.
Also of note among the loose papers are an illustrated article from Country Life dated 5 June 1920, entitled 'The People of Persia' (ff 36-37), and a printed family tree of the Shah of Persia [Aḥmad Shah Qājār], produced in preparation of his visit to Britain in 1919 (f 233).
Volume one of Persia and the Persian Question contains a map of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan [Balochistan], which is folded inside the front cover (f 1).
The German language material consists of a publisher's press release for two books authored by German archaeologist Ernst Emil Herzfeld (ff 29-30).
- Extent and format
- 2 volumes with inserts (898 folios)
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: this shelfmark consists of two physical volumes. The foliation sequence commences at the first folio of volume one (1-463), and terminates at the last folio of volume two (ff 464-898); these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio. Each volume contains a large number of loose leaves, which have been foliated in the order that they were inserted into the volume; for conservation reasons, these loose folios have been removed from the volume and stored separately. The foliation sequence does not include the front and back covers of the two volumes.
Pagination: the file also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Urdu and German in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [574r] (1162/1814), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, Mss Eur F111/33, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100157213847.0x0000a3> [accessed 10 July 2026]
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- Reference
- Mss Eur F111/33
- Title
- Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Questionby George Curzon, with Inserted Papers
- Pages
- 54r:135v, 147r:149v, 158r:180v, 183r:221v, 224r:224v, 227r:246v, 248r:257v, 259r:260v, 268r:362v, 364r:364v, 367r:388v, 390r:400v, 402r:416v, 419r:432v, 434r:444v, 448r:462v, 464r:471v, 475r:481v, 483r:513v, 516r:525v, 527r:544v, 546r:563v, 566r:598v, 600r:622v, 624r:656v, 658r:665v, 667r:675v, 678r:684v, 687r:688v, 691r:691v, 693r:693v, 695r:708v, 711r:721v, 724r:726v, 728r:729v, 731r:736v, 742r:742v, 746r:757v, 759r:761v, 763r:763v, 765r:765v, 772r:777v, 780r:789v, 793r:794v, 797r:809v, 811r:821v, 825r:840v, 843r:898v
- Author
- Curzon, George Nathaniel, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
- Usage terms
- Public Domain