Imperial Iran: An Artistic Melting Pot
As it is today, Ancient Iran was situated at a geographical crossroads, exposing its artists to diverse cultural traditions of Mesopotamia, India, Central Asia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Syria. The art of Ancient Iran reflects this melting pot of cultures and influences, but is still often recognizable as distinctly Iranian. In the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian eras, artistic production and exchange were further enhanced by court patronage and the forcible resettlement of foreign artisans.
The Achaemenid kings saw their accumulation of far-flung artistic styles as a testament to their incomparable power. At Susa, an ancient Elamite city reimagined by Achaemenid builders, Darius I (r. 522-486 BC) proclaimed this ideal in an Old Persian inscription incised in clay and marble:
"This palace which I built at Susa, from afar its ornamentation was brought.
[That] the sun-dried brick was molded, the Babylonian people -- they did (it).
The cedar timber, from a mountain called Lebanon was brought. The Assyrian people, they brought it to Babylon; from Babylon the Carians and the Ionians [Greeks of western Anatolia] brought it to Susa. The yakâ-timber was brought from Gandara and from Carmania [northwestern Iran].
The gold was brought from Sardis and from Bactria . . . The precious stone lapis lazuli and carnelian which was wrought here, this was brought from Sogdiana [modern Uzbekistan]. The precious stone turquoise, this was brought from Khoresmia [modern Kazakhstan] . . .
The silver and the ebony were brought from Egypt. The ornamentation with which the wall was adorned, that from Ionia was brought. The ivory . . . was brought from Ethiopia and from Sind [the Indus Valley] and from Arachosia [southern Afghanistan]. . . .
Darius the King says: At Susa a very excellent (work) was ordered, a very excellent (work) was (brought to completion)."
To build a city, Darius I elicited contributions from every corner of the world as he knew it. This truly global effort combined the skills, styles, and resources of non-Iranian traditions to create something distinctly Iranian. Very few ancient societies had the capacity or sheer might to orchestrate such a project.
Look below to see further examples of early Iranian art and its dialogue with the diverse artistic traditions of the Ancient World.
Rock Reliefs of Royal Victory
Centuries before the Achaemenids came to power, the Akkadians of Mesopotamia built what many historians consider the first empire in world history. They did so in the last centuries of the 3rd millennium BC in a series of infamously brutal conquests that they commemorated in cliff reliefs like this one, which celebrates the destruction of the Lullubi, a small and poorly documented kingdom in the modern Iranian province of Kermanshah. A century and a half later, a Lullubi king named Anubanini proclaimed his kingdom's resurgence by emulating Akkadian art. The clear similarities between the two reliefs show how a local dynasty of Iran appropriated for itself the artistic conventions of Mesopotamia. Note how Anubanini stylized himself after the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (r. 2254-2218 BC): they each carry an axe and a bow and stand in a nearly identical pose, trampling their enemies.
Lamassu: Mythological Guardian Figures
The imitation and adaptation of Mesopotamian images of power is also evident in the depiction of guardian figures in the Achaemenid palaces. The lamassu, a mythological bull or lion with the wings of an eagle and the bearded face of a man, was a central feature of Assyrian art placed at entrances to cities, temples, and palaces to ward off evil spirits and remind subjects of their king's great power. In both Neo-Assyrian and Achaemenid art, lamassu are easily recognizable, but also characterized by variation in their headgear, facial hair, and anatomy. Persian lamassu most often had the bodies of bulls and somewhat rounded beards - which were typical in Achaemenid art - as opposed to Assyrian beards, which are consistently square. In the view of some art historians, Neo-Assyrian lamassu were designed to express combativeness, while Persian lamassu were meant to appear calm and meditative. Achaemenid artists, like their distant predecessors in the Kingdom of Lullubi, borrowed symbols from the dominant power at the time, adopting its general symbolism while adapting it to reflect their empire's unique image.
Rhytons: Animal-Headed Drinking Vessels
Animal motifs, popular throughout the Ancient World, appear in many shapes and forms across Ancient Iranian art. One prominent example of ancient animal art is the tradition of the rhyton, a class of drinking horns with animal-shaped heads which were widely used across ancient Iran, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the eastern Mediterranean. Rhytons were most often emblems of the elite: since the bottom of the vessel is designed for decoration and not balance, attendants often held the rhytons (plural rhyta) when not in immediate use. Rhytons survive from all periods of the history of Ancient Iran, from the Bronze Age to the Sasanian period, showing a remarkable continuity of use across more than a millennium.