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 Sponsors

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the generous support given by the

following sponsors of this publication:

• Mohammed Afkhami
• Ata and Lida Ahsani
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• The family of the late Mr Cooverji Hormusji Bhabha of Bombay, India
• Ali Reza Erfan
• Aligholi and Emanuela Hedayat
• Iran Heritage Foundation
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 The Authors

Pierre AMIET | Honorary Inspector General of the Museums of France • ch. 11

Béatrice ANDRÉ-SALVINI | General Curator, Director of the Department of
Oriental Antiquities, Musée du Louvre
Rémy BOUCHARLAT | Director of the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée,
Lyon • ch. 11 & ch. 13
Pierre BRIANT | Collège de France • ch. 1
Annie CAUBET | Honorary General Curator of the Musées Nationaux • ch. 10
Nicole CHEVALIER | Musée du Louvre, Department of Oriental Antiquities • ch. 3
Noëmi DAUCÉ | Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris 1 • ch. 10
Constance FRANK | Oriental Archaeology Department, University of Lyon 2 • ch. 11
Hermann GASCHE | Archaeologist, University of Ghent • ch. 13
Albert HESSE | Senior Researcher, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 6 • ch. 5
Daniel LADIRAY | Researcher, National Centre for Scientific Research [cnrs] • ch. 6
Jean PERROT † | Director of the Archaeological Mission to Susa • ch. 4, ch. 7 & ch. 14
Jean SOLER | Historian of Religions • ch. 4
François VALLAT | Assyriologist, National Centre for Scientific Research [cnrs]
ch. 2, ch. 9 & appendix
Jean YOYOTTE † | Honorary Professor at the Collège de France • ch. 8

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 Acknowledgements
Jean Perrot

B
efore thanking those, from near and from far, who have contributed to
the preparation of this publication, I would like to recall the memories my
colleagues and I have of our past at Susa, thirty or forty years ago with
Iranian workmen and archaeologists by our side. The workmen were without equal.
Every year they would come down in teams with their village headman from
their snow-covered mountains to make themselves available to the mission and its
master mason, Abbas Ettemadi: a man who could impart his passion for the re-
discovery of Darius’ Palace and the glorious past of their country. This was an
adventure lived through the vision of the young archaeologists and technicians
whom Firouz Bagherzadeh, director of the Centre for Archaeological Research at
the Iranian Museums, would send to us (with the constant support of the highest
government authorities).
The concept of a book accessible to the wider public through its illustrations
was encouraged by Louis Faton who, for a long time, had shown his interest
in Iran’s past, with the intention of extending the knowledge of archaeological
discoveries as widely as possible.
This work was able to profit from the enthusiasm of all those archaeologists,
historians, epigraphists, technicians and artists asked to contribute to its pub-
lication; in particular Rémy Boucharlat and the Franco-Iranian archaeological
mission at Pasargadae and Persepolis. It benefited from the advice and attention
of Geneviève Dollfus, notably in the presentation of the bibliography, a thankless
task which is much appreciated. Thanks are due especially to Loïc Thirion-Lopez
and Peter Rupp (Héritage Virtuel) for the care and attention brought to digital
imagery, as well as to the photographic service of the National Museum in Tehran
for its images.
The difficulties of publication were overcome thanks to support from in-
stitutions and individuals whom I thank without being able to name them all;

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 x T he Palace of Dari u s at S usa

and to encouragement from a network of people whose goodwill I have often

exhausted. My heartfelt thanks go to Danielle Saffar for her precious counsel, and
to Sophie Linon-Chipon who, under the direction of François Moureau, took
dynamic charge of the final phase of publication at the Presses de l’Université
Paris-Sorbonne.
Finally, the realisation of this book owes much to my wife, Manijeh, whose
contribution is marked by her aesthetic sense.

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 Foreword
Jean Perrot

The events of human life, either public or private, are so intimately linked
to architecture that the majority of observers can reconstruct nations and
individuals in all their habits from the remains of their public monuments or
by the examination of their domestic relics. Archaeology is, to social nature,
as comparative anatomy is to taxonomy. A mosaic reveals an entire society, as
much as an ichthyosaur skeleton implies a whole creation […] From this, no
doubt, stems the prodigious interest which an architectural description inspires,
when the author’s fantasy does not obscure the facts. Cannot everyone with a
bit of deduction use it to call up the past? And, for man, the past resembles the
future singularly. Is not telling him what was, almost telling him what will be?
honoré de balzac, the quest of the absolute

T
his book brings together and presents the current state of knowledge on Susa
in the period of the great Achaemenid Persian kings through the building
works of Darius and his successors. The contribution of archaeology is still
necessary here. Other than the inscriptions of Darius and the administrative and
economic tablets of Persepolis, we suffer from a severe lack of literary resources,
even indirect ones. Under Darius i, Herodotus was not yet born. The period
from 522 bc to 486 bc is of exceptional interest, as it saw the finishing touches
to the formative years of what one might call the Achaemenid period. The new
archaeological data allows us to better understand Darius’ personality, all too
often imbued in a generic way with traits common to all the Great Kings. The
data allow us also to define and expand the vision we have of Susa, and its place
and role in the organisation and functioning of the Persian Empire.
The discovery of Susa goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century.
Indeed, the memory of a palace of the Achaemenid kings had remained strong
in the mind of humanity through biblical tales (Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah,

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 x i i T he Palace of Dari u s at S usa

Daniel), the theatre (Aeschylus’ The Persians, Racine’s Esther) and Greco-Roman
literature. In the Middle Ages, great travellers such as Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela
made their way to Susa and admired its ruins. The British archaeologist William
K. Loftus was the first to dig at Susa in 1852; then, from 1884 to 1886, Marcel
and Jane Dieulafoy uncovered a gigantic capital and elements of a frieze in glazed
brick which were, in 1888, the glory of the oriental galleries in the Louvre. From
1897 the excavations of the palace recommenced in a haphazard way, becoming
bogged down in an architectural complex which the imagination of successive
excavators had trouble in mastering.
It would take luck and the circumstances occasioned by the preparations
for the commemoration of the 2,500th anniversary of the monarchy in Iran in
1969, to relaunch interest in the great Achaemenid sites (Pasargadae, Persepolis,
Susa). From 1969 to 1979, excavation and research brought Susa to life in all its
greatness, with its defensive system and dependencies, a residential palace which
had no equal in its time in oriental architecture (Ecbatana’s has still not been
discovered and the terrace at Persepolis has no residential palace).
Susa, today called Shush-i Daniel, in Khuzestan, was founded 6,000 years ago
at a spot where the Iranian plateau widens onto the Mesopotamian plain, north
of the Persian Gulf. It had for a long time been the capital of a powerful Elamite
kingdom that had united Susiana and the high country of Anshan, which would
later become Fars. Destroyed by the Assyrians in 646 bc, the city had little by
little disappeared from the political horizon. By the sixth century, it was no more
than a staging post from Persia (Fars, Pasargadae, and the region of Persepolis) on
the way to Babylonia. Its position, however, remained important strategically, and
Darius could not ignore this when planning the great routes of the empire.
It is thanks to the support and encouragement of the Iranian authorities that
restoration work was soon followed by systematic excavations that were able
to be conducted at Susa from 1969 to 1979 on the Apadana tell. Preliminary
reports were published regularly in the Cahiers de la Délégation archéologique
française en Iran (DAFI), and also in Persian, in the series of the Iranian Centre
for Archaeological Research (ICAR) actively directed by Firouz Bagherzadeh.
Students, members of ICAR and of Tehran Museum participated in each season
of excavations. Articles also appeared in numerous French and foreign journals as
and when discoveries were made.
The events of 1979 led to research being interrupted and the teams breaking
up. This affected continuity in the production of excavation reports. Meanwhile,
from 1981 to 1984, a Franco-American programme led to a preliminary evaluation
of the results, which were presented in 1985 during a Rencontre Assyriologique
Internationale organised in France under the auspices of the Centre National de
Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
An account was published in Paléorient (vol. ii/2, 1985) and Assyriologists and
Elamite scholars (centred around M.-J. Steve) managed to bring together a general
survey in the columns of the Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible; while 1996
saw the masterly work by Pierre Briant (From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the
Persian Empire).
Nonetheless, there was a feeling among the researchers and technicians of the
Susa Archaeological Mission of incompletion, and of a debt owed to a country
which had welcomed them and entrusted them with the exploration of its pro-
digious past.
It was at this point, in 2007, that the idea was born of a work, which, while
answering to the needs of the diverse disciplines which archaeological research
has spawned, would also be highly illustrated to render it accessible to a wider
interested public. The present volume therefore represents the results of recent

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 fore word x i i i

excavations by placing them in the context of earlier work and the interpretations
to which it gave rise.
These results have enabled, in a certain measure, a survey of the techniques
and methods of Middle Eastern architecture at the cusp of the sixth to fifth
centuries bc. In iconographic studies they have advanced our understanding
of the way traditional forms of religious symbolism were substituted for a new
imagery translating royal ideology. Archaeology here compensates for deficiencies
in literary sources and, through Darius’ statue, clarifies the singular relationship
between Persia and Egypt.

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 x iv T h e Pa l ac e of Da r i us at S u s a

i
Column capitals of the north portico of the Hypostyle Hall
sculptor Pascal Coupot; reconstruction by Héritage Virtuel

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 Introduction
John Curtis, OBE, FBA
Keeper of Special Middle East Projects, The British Museum

Whether we regard it in a geographical, historical, or scriptural point of view,

there are few places throughout the East more replete with interest than … Susa.
william kennett loftus 1857

W
ell before the first excavations at the site, the name of Shushan or
Susa was very familiar to readers of the Bible. This was principally
because the events described in the Book of Esther took place in
Susa. According to the story, after Queen vashti displeases King Xerxes she is
deposed and a young Jewish girl, Esther, is selected in her place. In this privileged
position, Esther manages to prevent a threatened massacre of the Jews in Persia
orchestrated by Haman, a bitter rival of Esther’s guardian, Mordecai. The annual
festival of Purim commemorates this deliverance. Also, it was at Susa that Daniel
had his dream about the ram and the goat – ‘In my vision I saw myself in the
citadel of Susa in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal’
(Daniel 8:2), and Nehemiah was at Susa when he received the news that the walls
and gates of Jerusalem had fallen into disrepair (Nehemiah 1:1).
It was also known from the testimony of Classical authors such as Herodotus,
Xenophon, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius and Arrian that Susa was
an important capital city of the Achaemenid Persians.
Because of the notoriety of the place, there was keen interest in the early
nineteenth century in locating it. There were at least three candidates to be the
ancient city of Susa: modern Shushtar, on the left bank of the River Karun, where
there are impressive ancient waterworks; modern Shush, on the River Shaur; and
modern Susan, on the upper reaches of the River Karun, just over 50 km to the
east of Masjid-i Suleiman and more than 150 km from Shush. Amongst the early
travellers to the site was John MacDonald Kinneir, later to become British envoy
to the Persian court 1826–30, who visited Shush in March 1810 and concluded

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 x v i T H E pA L AC E OF DA R I u S AT S u S A

that it was probably ancient Susa. He wrote in his Geographical Memoir of the
Persian Empire published in 1813:

About seven or eight miles to the west of Dezphoul (Dezful) commence the
ruins of Shus … like the ruins of Ctesiphon, Babylon and Kufa (they) consist of
hillocks of earth and rubbish, covered with broken pieces of brick and coloured
tile … These mounds bear some resemblance to the pyramids of Babylon; with
this difference, that instead of being entirely made of brick, they are formed of
clay and pieces of tile … Large blocks of marble, covered with hieroglyphics,
are not unfrequently here discovered by the Arabs, when digging in search of
hidden treasure; and at the foot of the most elevated of the pyramids stands the
Tomb of Daniel, a small, and apparently a modern building, erected on the spot
where the relics of that prophet is believed to rest.

Despite its potential importance, the site did not make a good impression on
MacDonald Kinneir: ‘The site of the city of Shus is now a gloomy wilderness,
infested by lions, hyaenas, and other beasts of prey. The dread of these furious
animals compelled Mr Monteith and myself to take shelter for the night within
the walls that encompass Daniel’s Tomb.’
When Austen Henry Layard visited Shush in 1841 he had no doubt that it was
the ancient city of Susa. In his Early Adventures he wrote: ‘The vast mound which
marks the site of the ancient city of Susa, the capital of Susiana and Elymais, was
visible in the distance, and as we drew near it appeared to me to be little inferior
in size to the Mujelibi, the principal ruin of Babylon. we rode first to the tomb
– the principal object of my visit’. A little later he adds ‘There cannot be any
doubt … that the great mound and the remains which surround it … occupy the
site of the ancient capital of Susiana; and, consequently, it may be presumed, of
Shushan the palace, of the Book of Daniel’. He also visited Susan in the Bakhtiari
Mountains, which Colonel H.C. Rawlinson believed to be the site of Shushan the
Palace, where Daniel had had his vision, but Layard dismissed this identification,
and it is Layard’s description of Susan (not Shush) that is quoted below in this book.
Nevertheless, the identification of Shush with ancient Susa was not resolved
beyond all reasonable doubt until the commencement of excavations there.
The site of Susa is about 100 km north of Ahvaz, in Khuzistan in south-
western Iran. It consists of three gigantic mounds, occupying an area of about one
square kilometer, known as the Apadana mound, the Acropolis mound, and the
ville Royale (royal town) mound. The Acropolis rises 36m above the level of the
plain. To the east of this cluster of mounds is the so-called ‘Tell of the Artisans’.
To the west of this complex of mounds, at a distance of about 200m, is the small
River Shaur. The space in between was originally filled by the village of Shush,
which has now expanded to the north and south and across the river to become
a large town of more than 50,000 inhabitants. The tomb of the prophet Daniel is
in the centre of the old village, close to the river. Like many similar shrines in the
Middle East there is no evidence of a foundation earlier that the medieval period.
To the west of the River Shaur is an Achaemenid palace, and further west again,
at a distance of several kilometers across a flood-plain, is the River Karkheh.
In May 1850, William Kennett Loftus, a geologist with the Turco-Persian
Frontier Commission, accompanied by the artist Henry A. Churchill, made a
plan of the ruins. They returned in January 1851 with Lieutenant-Colonel W.F.
Williams, the British Commissioner on the Frontier Commission, and in a brief
excavation hit upon the Apadana or audience hall of the great palace built by
Darius and restored by Artaxerxes ii.
In a two-month season from February–April 1852, this time on behalf of the
British Museum, Loftus not only reconstructed the plan of the Apadana but dug

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 I N T RODuC T ION x v i i

trenches in all the three main mounds of the site. Amongst other things he found
in the south-west corner of the ville Royale mound about 200 terracotta figurines
of a semi-naked woman from the Middle Elamite period and in the north part
of the Acropolis mound a large collection of fragments of alabaster vase inscribed
with the name of Xerxes in Old persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian.
Despite these interesting results, at the conclusion of the excavation Rawlinson,
then the British Consul in Baghdad, reported that Loftus had ‘turned the mound
of Susa topsy-turvey without finding much’, and the British Museum decided not
to continue with the excavations.
More than 30 years were to elapse before excavations were resumed at Susa, now
by the French archaeologists Marcel and Jane Dieulafoy, who in 1885 and 1886
found many of the wonderful glazed brick friezes from Darius’s palace showing
lions and Persian archers that are now in the Louvre. The academic reports on the
work were by Marcel Dieulafoy, but his wife was obviously a spirited and feisty
woman who did much to contribute to the success of the enterprise. As well as
a detailed daily record of the excavations at Susa, she published a fascinating
and informative account of their journeys in the Middle East in 1880–1 under
the title La Perse, La Chaldée and La Susiane. In 1897 responsibility for the
excavations at Susa was given to Jacques de Morgan, and he remained in charge
until 1912. During this time, talented people involved in the excavations included
Roland de Mecquenem and the architect Maurice Pillet, who has left for posterity
some charming watercolour reconstructions. Originally the French archaeologists
were operating under the authority of a firman signed by Nasir ed-Din Shah
in 1884, but in 1900 after five years of negotiation a convention was signed by
Muzaffar ed-Din Shah granting France exclusive excavation rights in the whole
of Iran and authorizing the excavators to take all the finds from Susa to France.
The only stipulation was that there would have to be financial compensation for
gold and silver objects. This convention remained in force until 1927 when the
country opened up to other excavators and a division of finds at the end of every
season was introduced. It was also during the time of de Morgan that a massive
castle (‘le château’) was built on the northern spur of the Acropolis mound. This
building was partly for the use of the dig-team and their equipment, but it also
had a defensive purpose as Susa was still subject to attacks from marauding tribes
at that time. The result is a building that still dominates the site of Susa and is by
far the grandest archaeological expedition house in the Middle East.
After an interruption because of the First World War, de Mecquenem super-
vised intermittent excavations until the Second World War and then from
1946–67 Roman Ghirshman was in charge of the project. He had already made
his name through the excavation of Iranian sites such as Tepe Sialk, just outside
Kashan, and Tepe Giyan, near Nahavand in Luristan. Then in 1969 a new
programme involving Iranian as well as French archaeogists was initiated under
the direction of Jean Perrot. This continued until the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
It is to Jean Perrot, of course, that we are indebted for the present book, which
serves as a magnificent legacy to his work at Susa. Professor Perrot deserves great
credit for initiating and editing this publication, which is a full record of the
Achaemenid period at Susa that lasted from 550 bc until 331 bc. The book was
first published in French in 2010, and this English translation has been undertaken
by Gerard Collon with the assistance of Dominique Collon. Although this book
is primarily concerned with Achaemenid Susa, the excavations at the site have
also revealed much about pre- and post-Achaemenid levels, and we will briefly
discuss these next.
Susa has been inhabited since the Neolithic period, perhaps as far back as
7000 bc. In the millennia that followed, successive civilisations at Susa produced
splendid pottery decorated with a range of geometric and figural designs. From

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 x v i i i T H E pA L AC E OF DA R I u S AT S u S A

about 3000 bc onwards Susa was one of the main centres of the Elamite civil-
ization that was based in the highland and lowland areas of south-western Iran.
History begins at Susa in the so-called Proto-Elamite period (c.3100–2700 bc)
when the burgeoning economic situation necessitated the recording of trans-
actions in the form of clay tablets inscribed with a pictographic writing system that
is still not completely understood. In the Old Elamite period (c.2700–1500 bc),
Elam was politically and culturally dominated by powerful dynasties in
Mesopotamia to the west, but in the Middle Elamite period (c.1500–1100 bc)
local traditions predominate. From this period there are many cuneiform tablets
written in the Elamite language, and works in bronze such as the statue of
Queen Napirisha weighing 1750 kg, now in the Louvre, testify to the wealth
of Susa. Such was the strength of Elam at this time that in 1168 bc the king
Shutruk-Nahhunte was able to invade southern Mesopotamia and bring back
to Susa many important Babylonian pieces including the Code of Hammurabi
which is also now in the Louvre. Dating from the Neo-Elamite period (c.1100–
550 bc) are interesting rock reliefs at places such as Shikaft-i Salman and Kul-i
Farah on the edge of the Izeh plain, but Susa itself was destroyed by the Assyrian
king Ashurbanipal in 647 bc. For the next 100 years, until the beginning of
the Achaemenid period, little is known about Susa, but Elamite civilization
apparently continued to flourish..
In 550 bc an event occurred that was to have a profound effect on the history
of the Middle East. In that year, Cyrus the Great deposed the Median king
Astyages and proclaimed himself king over the now united Medes and Persians.
So began the Achaemenid dynasty so called after Achaemenes, named by Darius
as the eponymous founder of the dynasty. In a historic battle in 547 or 546 bc
Cyrus defeated Croesus of Lydia which brought much of central and western
Turkey under his control. Then in 539 bc he captured Babylon and the former
Babylonian empire stretching as far as the Mediterranean coast fell into his
hands. He was now master of most of the Ancient Near East. Cyrus built for
himself a new city, at Pasargadae in Fars, and he was eventually buried there in
a splendid stone-built tomb that survives to this day. His son Cambyses added
Egypt to the rapidly expanding Persian Empire, but following his premature
death there was a short period of civil war from which Darius (522–486 bc),
arguably the greatest of the Persian kings, emerged victorious. Under Darius
the Persian Empire reached its greatest extent, stretching from North Africa to
the Indus valley and from Central Asia to the persian gulf. Towards the end
of Darius’ reign there was even an invasion of Greece, initiating the so-called
graeco-persian wars that were carried on by his successor Xerxes. In line with
his territorial ambitions, Darius was also an energetic builder. He launched at
least two grandiose building programmes, notably at persepolis and Susa. Of
the two schemes, persepolis, which was continued by Xerxes, was the more
ambitious, but probably the two centres were intended for different purposes
which are not entirely clear to us. In any case, they served different constituencies:
Persepolis was on the Iranian plateau in the heart of the modern province of
Fars, whereas Susa was in the lowlands, facing Mesopotamia. The building works
of Darius at Susa were extensive, as we shall see from this volume, and Xerxes
made some effort to complete them, but Darius’ enthusiasm for the site does not
seem to have been shared by all his successors. It is recorded that his palace was
burned down in the reign of Artaxerxes i (465–424 bc) and the only king after
Darius and Xerxes who we know for certain to have sponsored building work
at Susa was Artaxerxes ii (404–359 bc). Nevertheless, it is likely that Susa
remained an important centre down to the end of the Achaemenid period.
Indeed, it is sometimes suggested that Susa was the main treasury of the Persian
Empire.

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 I N T RODuC T ION x i x

Darius’ palace at Susa consisted in part of a columned hall with column

capitals in the form of bulls, and this type of columned hall or as it is often
but erroneously called Apadana, has come to typify Persian architecture of this
period. Whether the columned hall was an Iranian invention is not entirely
clear, but certainly the Achaemenid columned hall had its direct antecedents
in North-West Iran in the late second or early first millennium bc. In the
Achaemenid period it appeared as a monumental public building in an area
which had previously been dominated by the large mud brick palaces of Assyria
and Babylonia. But this was not the only innovation at this period. Persian
art was eclectic, that is to say forms and motifs were deliberately drawn from
contemporary or near contemporary cultures such as Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt
and Elam, and combined with native Persian features to produce a new and
highly distinctive art style. There were also other innovations, for example the
worship of Ahuramazda, the introduction of Old persian cuneiform, a vast
improvement in land, sea and canal communications, and the wider use of
coinage. It can fairly be claimed, therefore, that the Achaemenid period was a
time of change, and the evidence for many of the new practices can be found
at Susa.
The Achaemenid period was brought to an end by Alexander’s invasion of the
Ancient Near East. Following a string of victories over the armies of the Persian
king Darius iii, Alexander reached the gates of Susa in late 331 bc. He entered
the city without a struggle, and proceeded to loot the royal treasury. This event
is graphically described by a number of classical authors including Arrian in his
Anabasis of Alexander, who wrote

Alexander reached Susa in twenty days from Babylon; he entered the city and
took over the treasure, up to fifty thousand talents of silver, and all the rest
of the royal belongings. A good deal was captured there in addition, all that
Xerxes brought back from Greece, notably bronze statues of Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, which Alexander sent back to the Athenians.

In the ensuing Hellenistic (Seleucid) period, Susa remained an important city

known as Seleucia on the Eulaeus. A Greek inscription on one of the reused
Achaemenid column bases is a memorial to Arreneides, the governor of Susa.
As the Palace of Darius had not been destroyed by Alexander it presumably
continued to be occupied during the Hellenistic period and probably later, but
archaeological evidence for this is scant. During the Parthian and Sasanian
periods, when Iranian dynasties reasserted themselves, Susa was an important
centre, and throughout this time coins were minted here. This continued even
after Susa was captured by the invading Arabs in ad 638, and the wealth of the
city at this time is shown by the discovery of Ummayad coins, glass vessels and
pottery. Almost certainly the grand Achaemenid buildings would have collapsed
by this time and they would have been covered up by successive Islamic occupation
levels. There were also flourishing Christian and Jewish communities. From the
fifteenth century onwards however the city was in decline, and eventually the
dwindling population moved from the high archaeological mounds to the area
around Daniel’s Tomb on the banks of the river Shaur.
In this sumptuous volume, the excavations of the Achaemenid buildings and
levels at Susa are described mainly by Jean Perrot himself, Daniel Ladiray and
Rémy Boucharlat. Dominating the site, on the Apadana Mound, was the Palace
of Darius, consisting of a columned hall, built in the Iranian style, to one side of a
vast mud brick building owing more to the Mesopotamian tradition. In this way
there was a neat fusion of highland and lowland, new and old. In an inscription
in Old persian, Darius provides an account of how the palace was built. He

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 x x T H E pA L AC E OF DA R I u S AT S u S A

describes in detail how the foundations were dug, and relates how materials and
workmen were brought from different parts of the empire. Amongst the materials
were cedar wood from the Lebanon, ivory from Ethiopia, lapis lazuli and
carnelian from Sogdiana, and gold from Sardis and Bactria, while the specialist
workmen included Ionians, Sardians, Medes, Egyptians and Babylonians. The
columned hall was first stumbled upon by Williams and Loftus, and Loftus was
able to reconstruct a ground plan with commendable accuracy. In the central
hall, measuring about 58m square, there had been 36 columns in six rows of six,
on square bases, with porticoes on three sides. Each portico had two rows of six
columns on circular bases, giving a grand total of 72 columns in all. The bases
would have supported fluted stone columns surmounted by bull-shaped capitals.
Perrot estimates that the columns would have stood to a height of 20m. Four of
the column bases in the central hall had inscriptions recording that the palace
was originally built by Darius, had burnt down in the time of Artaxerxes i, and
was rebuilt by Artaxerxes ii. While this hypostyle hall is likely to have been used
for formal receptions and affairs of state, the adjoining palace was apparently resi-
dential and administrative. It is an enormous building, measuring 246 x 155 m
and constructed from mud brick. Essentially, the rooms are arranged around
three large courtyards, very much in the Assyrian and Babylonian style.
On the south side of the west court there are two large rooms that have long
been interpreted as the royal apartments. These two rooms both have pilasters
near the four corners, a distinctive plan that leads to such rooms being known as
‘salles à quatre saillants’. It is usually suggested that the purpose of these pilasters
is to enable large rooms to be covered over with mud brick vaults. In fig 217
on p. 211, Hermann Gasche shows in an interesting sketch how this worked –
the pilasters would have supported transverse vaults at either end of the room
and a barrel vault for most of the length of the room between the two pairs of
pilasters. This distinctive plan of a hall with four pilasters can be traced back
beyond the middle of the second millennium bc at Susa, and although examples
are lacking from the intervening period, this may be due to the inadequacy of
the archaeological evidence. Interestingly, a similar plan with two long rooms
opening into a smaller room, and with the same doorways, is found at Babylon,
in buildings that are usually attributed to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar
(604–562 bc). It is often supposed that Babylon provides the inspiration for the
occurrence of the ‘salles à quatre saillants’ plan at Susa, but Gasche rejects this
possibility. For him, the tradition is Elamite, and Darius’ builders are drawing
on a longstanding local practice. How, then, to explain the similarities with
the palaces at Babylon? Gasche concludes that the west part of the Southern
Palace at Babylon was constructed or at least remodeled in the Achaemenid
period, possibly even by Darius himself, as was the Northern Palace and the
Summer Palace at Babylon. There would, then, be more evidence for Achaemenid
building activity at Babylon than the very small columned building known as
the ‘perserbau’ tacked on to the west side of Nebuchadnezzar’s Southern palace.
This is an attractive theory, but it remains hypothetical; it is unfortunate that it
cannot be supported by inscriptional evidence or the presence of more material
of Persian date in the palaces at Babylon.
The French excavators conclude that the rooms in the Residency would have
had vaulted mud brick roofs generally around 12–13 m above floor level but
possibly as high as 20 m, that is the same as the hypostyle hall, in the case of the
royal apartments and the great halls to the south of the East Court.
Although built in mud brick the Residence was not devoid of decoration.
There were red plaster floors in the private area of the Residence, and there was
glazed brick decoration principally in the courtyards. This must originally have
been very extensive: we learn from Annie Caubet’s chapter that there are now no

Susa prelims aw.indd 20 20/05/2013 12:23

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