235 – Al-Hasan ibn Jahur narrated to me; al-Haytham—meaning Ibn ʿAdi—reported, on the authority of some learned men, that they were digging a canal in the land of Isfahan when their excavation reached a huge, immovable rock. A number of people gathered around them and together they turned the rock over, whereupon they found a chamber containing four golden couches.

On the first couch lay an old man with an enormous head, bald and long-bearded, clad in sumptuous robes and turbaned with a band stitched with emeralds. On the second couch was a handsome young man wearing three garments, a crown suspended above his head. On the third couch lay a lad just reaching puberty; in his ears were two pendants and two earrings, each set with a pearl. On the fourth couch reclined a maiden radiant as the sun, dressed in many layers, with an armlet and two bracelets of emerald.

At the head of each of them stood a tablet written in Persian. They summoned one of the Persian scholars, who read them aloud.

At the head of the first it read: “I am Rustam, king of these lands. I was given the might of giants and a luxury no king before me ever possessed. I subdued armies and blunted iron, yet I never found a cure for death.”

At the head of the second it read: “I am Shapur, son of the king. Death spoiled my youth and wore out my vigor. Had death accepted a ransom from me, I would have paid the highest price.”

At the head of the boy ⦗181⦘ it read: “I am Bahram, scion of kings. Death is inevitable; if any human being were to live forever, we would have been the ones.”

At the head of the maiden it read: “I am Mandahāt, daughter of the king. I departed in the height of my pride, snatched away in the bloom of my beauty. Let not the world deceive you.”

The narrator concluded: The people of Isfahan found in that chamber immense treasures.