A Great Discovery

Horowhenua Chronicle, 15 November 1915, Page 3

A Great Discovery

- ♦ Some time ago the excavations at Patliputra, the ancient Asokaffcapital near Patna, -which have been going on for years, disclosed among other buildings a ggantic hall containing a number of pillars. The Indian archaeological department lias now evolved the highly interesting theory that the plan of this hall bears a more than striking resemblance to the famous hall of a hundred columns at Persepolie, in Persia, the hall which Omar Khayyam refers to. The ground plan of this ruin, aoeording to Dr Spooner, who has been writing a report upon the excavations, "exhibits a pronounced similarity in essential features with ffiie famous hai! of a hundred columns at Jfersepolis, a nd this, togother with certain other established pqints of similarity would see n at' present*..to indicate a probable connection the two." Continuing tTic reading of Kir "sormon uj stone," Dr-Spooner states that tin's great edifice remained in use for several centuries, probably till about the beginning of the Christian era. Then there came a great flood, caused, noft improbably, by the Ganges changing its course, as it lias a habit of doing when its banks are not trained, andi the result was that eight or nine feet of Kilt was deposited all over the level floor. The destruction of tlie building was apparently completed by a fire which took place about the fifth century.