Susa
| Ancient Mesopotamia |
|---|
| Euphrates · Tigris |
| Sumer |
| Eridu · Kish · Uruk · Ur Lagash · Nippur · Ngirsu |
| Elam |
| Susa · Anshan |
| Akkadian Empire |
| Akkad · Mari |
| Amorites |
| Isin · Larsa |
| Babylonia |
| Babylon · Chaldea |
| Assyria |
| Assur · Nimrud Dur-Sharrukin · Nineveh |
|
Chronology
|
| Mesopotamia |
| Sumer (king list) |
| Kings of Elam Kings of Assyria Kings of Babylon |
| Enûma Elish · Gilgamesh |
| Assyrian religion |
| Sumerian · Elamite |
| Akkadian · Aramaic |
| Hurrian · Hittite |
Susa (Persian: Ŝuŝ, pronounced [ʃuʃ]; also Armenian (Shushan); Greek: Σοῦσα [sousa]); Syriac: ܫܘܫ (Shush); Old Persian Çūšā-; Biblical Hebrew שׁוּשָׁן (Shushān); was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (150 miles) east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers.
The modern Iranian town of Shush is located at the site of ancient Susa. Shush at the site of ancient Susa is the administrative capital of the Shush County of Iran's Khuzestan province. It had a population 64,960 in 2005.[1]
Contents |
History
In historic literature, the city appears in the very earliest Sumerian records, e.g. in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta it is described as one of the places obedient to Inanna, patron deity of Uruk. Susa is also mentioned in the Ketuvim of the Hebrew Bible by the name Shushan, mainly in Esther, but also once each in Nehemiah and Daniel. Both Daniel and Nehemiah lived in Susa during the Babylonian captivity of Judah of the 6th century BC. Esther became queen there, and saved the Jews from genocide. A tomb presumed to be that of Daniel is located in the area, known as Shush-Daniel. The tomb is marked by an unusual white, stone cone, which is neither regular nor symmetric. Many scholars believe it was at one point a Star of David. Susa is further mentioned in the Book of Jubilees (8:21 & 9:2) as one of the places within the inheritance of Shem and his eldest son Elam; and in 8:1, "Susan" is also named as the son (or daughter, in some translations) of Elam.
Proto-Elamite
In Urban history, Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region and indeed the world, possibly founded about 4200 BCE (See List of oldest continuously inhabited cities); although the first traces of an inhabited Neolithic village have been dated to c 7000 BCE. Evidence of a painted-pottery civilization has been dated to c 5000 BCE. Its name in Elamite was written variously Ŝuŝan, Ŝuŝun, etc. The origin of the word Susa is from the local city deity Inshushinak.
Like its Chalcolithic neighbor Uruk, Susa, began as discrete settlements in the Susa I period (c 4000 BCE). Theses two settlements called Acropolis (7 ha) and Apadana (6.3 ha) by archeologists would later merged to form Susa proper (18 ha).[2] The Apadana was enclosed by 6m thick walls of rammed earth. The founding of Susa corresponded with the abandonment of nearby villages. It is possible the founding of the city was an attempt to reestablish the previously destroyed settlement at Chogha Mish.[3] Susa was firmily within the Uruk cultural sphere during the Uruk period. In fact, an imitation of the entire state apparatus of Uruk, proto-writing, Cylinder seals with Sumerian motifs, and monumental architecture is found at Susa. It is theorized that Susa may even have been a colony of Uruk. As such, the periodization of Susa corresponds to Uruk; therefore, Early Middle and Late Susa II periods (3800–3100 BCE) correspond to Early, Middle, and Late Uruk periods.
By the middle Susa II period the city had grown to 25 ha.[4] Susa III (3100–2900 BCE) corresponds with Uruk III period. Ambiguous reference to Elam (Cuneiform; 𒉏 NIM) appear also in this period in Sumerian records. Susa enters history during the Early Dynastic period of Sumer. A battle between Kish and Susa is recorded in 2700 BCE.
Elamites
In politics, Susa was the capital of a state called Šušan, which occupied approximately the same territory of modern Khūzestān Province centered on the Karun River. Control of Šušan shifted between Elam, Sumer, and Akkad. Šušan is sometimes mistaken as synonymus with Elam, but it was a distinct and separate cultural and political entity.[5] Šušan was incorporated by Sargon the Great into his Akkadian Empire in approximately 2330 BC. It remained capital of an Akkadian province until ca. 2240 BC, when its governor, Kutik-Inshushinak, rose up in rebellion and liberated it, making it a literary center. However, following this, the city was again conquered by the neo-Sumerian Ur-III dynasty, and held until Ur finally collapsed at the hands of the Elamites under Kindattu in ca. 2004 BC. At this time Susa became an Elamite capital under the Epartid Dynasty.[6] The Elamites under Shutruk-Nahhunte plundered the original stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi in ca. 1175 BC and took it to Susa, where it was found in 1901. However, Nebuchadnezzar I of the Babylonian empire managed to plunder Susa in return, around fifty years later. Susa was the capital of the Elamite Igihalkid Dynasty (c 1400 BCE), who "Elamazied" Šušan.[7]
Assyrians
In 647 BCE, the Assyrian king Assurbanipal leveled the city during a war in which the people of Susa apparently participated on the other side. A tablet unearthed in 1854 by Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh reveals Ashurbanipal as an "avenger", seeking retribution for the humiliations the Elamites had inflicted on the Mesopotamians over the centuries:
"Susa, the great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered. I entered its palaces, I opened their treasuries where silver and gold, goods and wealth were amassed... I destroyed the ziggurat of Susa. I smashed its shining copper horns. I reduced the temples of Elam to naught; their gods and goddesses I scattered to the winds. The tombs of their ancient and recent kings I devastated, I exposed to the sun, and I carried away their bones toward the land of Ashur. I devastated the provinces of Elam and on their lands I sowed salt."[8]
The city was taken by the Achaemenid Persians under Cyrus the Great in 538 BCE. Under Cyrus' son Cambyses II, the capital of the empire moved from Pasargadae to Susa. Darius describes his new capital in the DSf inscription: "This palace which I built at Susa, from afar its ornamentation was brought. Downward the earth was dug, until I reached rock in the earth. When the excavation had been made, then rubble was packed down, some 40 cubits in depth, another part 20 cubits in depth. On that rubble the palace was constructed."[9]
The city forms the setting of The Persians (472 BCE), an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus that is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre.
The city lost some of its importance when Alexander of Macedon conquered it in 331 BCE and destroyed the first Persian Empire. After Alexander, Susa fell to the Seleucid Empire and was renamed Seleukeia.
Parthian, Sassanian and Arab periods
Approximately one century later when the Parthian Empire gained its independence from the Seleucid Empire, Susa was made one of the two capitals (along with Ctesiphon) of the new state. After Seleucia it was the biggest city in Mesopotamia at the time.[10] Susa used Charax Spasinou as its port. It retained a considerable amount of independence and retained its Greek city state organization well into the Parthian period and seems to have gained independence under a dynasty whose kings bore the name of Kamnaskires in the 1st century CE.[11]
Susa became a frequent place of refuge for Parthian and later, the Persian Sassanid kings, as the Romans sacked Ctesiphon five different times between 116 and 297 CE (Susa was conquered only by Roman emperor Trajan in 116 AD and never again would the Roman Empire advance so far to the east).[12] Typically, the Parthian rulers wintered in Susa, and spent the summer in Ctesiphon.
Susa was destroyed at least three times in its history. The first was in 647 BCE, by Assurbanipal. The second destruction took place in 638 CE, when the Muslim armies first conquered Persia. Finally, in 1218, the city was completely destroyed by invading Mongols. The ancient city was gradually abandoned in the years that followed.
Susa had a significant Christian population during the first millennium, and was a diocese of the Church of the East between the fifth and thirteenth centuries, in the metropolitan province of Beth Huzaye (Elam).
Archaeology
The site was examined in 1826 by Henry Rawlinson and then by A. H. Layard. In 1851, some modest excavation was done by William Loftus, who identified it as Susa.[13] In 1885 and 1886 Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy and Jane Dieulafoy began the first French excavations.[14]
Jaques de Morgan conducted major excavations from 1897 until 1911. These efforts continued under Roland De Mecquenem until 1914, at the beginning of World War I. French work at Susa resumed after the war, led by De Mecquenem, continuing until World War II in 1940.[15] [16][17]Archaeological results from the later period were very thinly published and attempts areunderway to remedy this situation.[18]
Roman Ghirshman took over direction of the French efforts in 1946, after the end of the war. He continued there until 1967. Ghirshman concentrated on excavating a single part of the site, the hectare sized Ville Royale, taking it all the way down to bare earth.[19] The pottery found at the various levels enabled a stratigraphy to be developed for Susa.[20][21]
During the 1970s, excavations resumed under Jean Perrot.[22][23]
Images
 Letter in Greek of the Parthian king Artabanus III to the inhabitants of Susa in the 1st century CE (the city retained Greek institutions since the time of the Seleucid empire). Louvre Museum. |
 Islamic art: Cup with rose petals, 8th–9th centuries |
 Anthropoid sarcophagus |
 Lion on a decorative panel from Darius I the Great's palace |
 Islamic art: Vase with palmtrees, 8th–9th centuries |
 Susa section, Louvre museum, Paris |
 Winged sphinx from the palace of Darius the Great at Susa. |
 Tomb of Daniel |
 Ninhursag with the spirit of the forests next to the seven spiked cosmic tree of life. Relief from Susa. |
 19th century engraving of Daniel's tomb in Susa, from Voyage en Perse Moderne, by Flandin and Coste. |
See also
- Choqa Zanbil
- Cities of the Ancient Near East
- Code of Hammurabi
- Elam
- History of Iran
- Khuzestan
- Monsieur Chouchani
- Roman Ghirshman
Notes
- ↑ World city populations: Susa
- ↑ Potts, 1999
- ↑ Potts, 1999
- ↑ Potts, 1999
- ↑ Vallat, 2010
- ↑ Vallat, 2010
- ↑ Vallat, 2010
- ↑ "Persians: Masters of Empire" ISBN 0-8094-9104-4 p. 7-8
- ↑ Lendering, 2010
- ↑ Hill (2009), p. 219.
- ↑ Hill (2009), p. 222.
- ↑ Susa and Trajan
- ↑ Google Books, William K. Loftus, Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana, Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana: With an Account of Excavations at Warka, the "Erech" of Nimrod, and Shush, "Shushan the Palace" of Esther, in 1849-52, Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857
- ↑ Gutenberg.org, Jane Dieulafoy, Perzië Chaldea en Susiane De Aarde en haar Volken 1885-1887, 1886
- ↑ Archive.org, Jacques de Morgan de Morgan, Fouilles à Suse en 1897-1898 et 1898-1899, Mission archéologique en Iran, Mémoires I, 1990
- ↑ Archive.org, Jacques de Morgan, Fouilles à Suse en 1899-1902, Mission archéologique en Iran, Mémoires VII, 1905
- ↑ Robert H. Dyson, Early Work on the Acropolis at Susa. The Beginning of Prehistory in Iraq and Iran, Expedition, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 21-34, 1968
- ↑ Harvard.edu Shelby White - Leon Levy Program funded project to publish early Susa archaeological results
- ↑ Roman Ghirshman, Suse au tournant du III au II millenaire avant notre ere, Arts Asiatiques, vol. 17, pp. 3-44, 1968
- ↑ Hermann Gasche, Ville Royal de Suse: vol I : La poterie elamite du deuxieme millenaire a.C, Mission archéologique en Iran, Mémoires 47, 1973
- ↑ M. Steve and Hermann H. Gasche, L'Acropole de Suse: Nouvelles fouilles (rapport preliminaire), Memoires de la Delegation archeologique en Iran, vol. 46, Geuthner, 1971
- ↑ Jean Perrot, Les fouilles de Sus en 1975, Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran 4, pp. 224-231, 1975
- ↑ D. Canal, La haute terrase de l'Acropole de Suse, Paleorient, vol. 4, pp. 169-176, 1978
References
- Jean Perrot, Le Palais de Darius à Suse. Une résidence royale sur la route de Persépolis à Babylone, Paris, Paris-sorbonne.fr, 2010
- Hill, John E. (2009). Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, First to Second Centuries CE. BookSurge. ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
- Lendering, Jona. "Susa, capital of Elam". The Iranian Chamber. http://www.iranchamber.com/history/susa/susa.php. Retrieved 2010.
- Vallat, François. "The History of Elam". The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS).
- Potts, Daniel T. (1999). The archaeology of Elam: formation and transformation of an ancient Iranian state. Cambridge University Press, 1999. pp. 490. World Archaeology Series. ISBN 0521564964. http://books.google.com/books?id=mc4cfzkRVj4C&source=gbs_navlinks_s.
External links
- Darius Palace in Susa
- Susa
- Livius.org pictures of Susa
- Aerial views of Susa
- Digital Images of Cuneiform Tablets from Susa - CDLI
- Hamid-Reza Hosseini, Shush at the foot of Louvre (Shush dar dāman-e Louvre), in Persian, Jadid Online, 10 March 2009, Jadidonline.com.
Audio slideshow: Jadidonline.com (6 min 31 sec).
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