Identifier: travelsingeorgia02port (find matches)
Title: Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. : during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820
Year: 1821 (1820s)
Authors: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Subjects: Porter, Robert Ker, Sir, 1777-1842
Publisher: London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown
Contributing Library: Tisch Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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executed pediment, particularly engaged myattention; and sufficient was left, to give me a pretty fair ideaof the whole. With some pains, I partially traced the generaldimensions of the ground on which the structure to which ithad belonged must have stood; and I found it to have been asquare of twenty-eight feet, forming a solid platform of polishedstones nicely put together, and raised eight feet above the com-mon level of the rock. From the numerous capitals, andbroken shafts of columns lying on all sides of it, I should con-clude that a colonnade had stood round the whole ; or rather,perhaps, that they may have composed four pedimented placesof entrance to the quadrangle described: their remains, indeed,are traceable on all the sides. The columns measure in diameterabout twenty-seven inches, are without flutings, and of a veryelegant composite order, in some instances fancifully enriched intheir details, with a variety in almost every column. Sometimes ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENTS. 627
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4l ? 628 CASTLE OF TIRIDATES. the friezes, &c. are composed of twisting tendrils, honeysuckles,and many other leafy twining flowers, divided at intervals bylions heads. Such, indeed, appears to have formed the characterof the frieze which surrounded the whole structure, but thelatter ornaments do not occur amongst the decorations of thepediments. From the foregoing observations, I am led to conclude thatthe platform, and its columned appendages, constituted a temple,and not any habitable part of the palace. There are considerablemasses of stones, foundations, &c., near it, and which stretch tothe north and west, but no ornamented fragments are visibleamongst them. A singular circumstance in forming anyportion of what we are told was the magnificent palace of theArmenian king. The whole area within the embattling wallsis not very extensive, extending from south to north not morethan a hundred yards, and from west to east about a hundredand twenty. Here is certainly space enough

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