Susa

Susa

شوش
Tepe of the Royal city (left) and of the Acropolis (right), seen from the Hill mound of the Apadana in Susa.
Shown within Iran
Location	Shush, Khuzestan Province, Iran
Region	Zagros Mountains
Coordinates	32°11′26″N 48°15′28″E / 32.19056°N 48.25778°E / 32.19056; 48.25778Coordinates: 32°11′26″N 48°15′28″E / 32.19056°N 48.25778°E / 32.19056; 48.25778
Type	Settlement
History
Founded	Approximately 4200  BCE
Abandoned	1218 CE
Site notes
Condition	In ruins
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Susa
Criteria	Cultural: i, ii, iii, iv
Reference	1455
Inscription	2015 (39th Session)

Susa (/ˈsuːsə/; Persian: Šuš; [ʃuʃ]; Hebrew: שׁוּשָׁן Šušān; Greek: Σοῦσα [ˈsuːsa]; Syriac: ܫܘܫ‎ Šuš; Middle Persian: 𐭮𐭥𐭱𐭩 Sūš, 𐭱𐭥𐭮 Šūs; Old Persian Çūšā) was an ancient city of the Proto-Elamite, Elamite, First Persian Empire, Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires of Iran, and one of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (160 mi) east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers. The site now "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."^[1]

The modern Iranian town of Shush is located at the site of ancient Susa. Shush is the administrative capital of Shush County in Iran's Khuzestan province. It had a population of 64,960 in 2005.^[2]

Name[edit]

In Elamite, the name of the city was written variously Ŝuŝan, Ŝuŝun, etc. The origin of the word Susa is from the local city deity Inshushinak.

Literary references[edit]

Map showing the area of the Elamite kingdom (in orange) and the neighboring areas. The approximate Bronze Age extension of the Persian Gulf is shown.

Susa was one of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East. In historic literature, Susa appears in the very earliest Sumerian records: for example, it is described as one of the places obedient to Inanna, patron deity of Uruk, in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.

Biblical texts[edit]

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. According to these texts, Nehemiah also lived in Susa during the Babylonian captivity of the 6th century BCE (Daniel mentions it in a prophetic vision), while Esther became queen there, married to King Ahasueurus, and saved the Jews from genocide. A tomb presumed to be that of Daniel is located in the area, known as Shush-Daniel. However, a large portion of the current structure is actually a much later construction dated to the late nineteenth century, ca. 1871.^[3] 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.

Excavation history[edit]

Site of Susa

Assyria. Ruins of Susa, Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection

The site was examined in 1836 by Henry Rawlinson and then by A. H. Layard.^[4]

In 1851, some modest excavation was done by William Loftus, who identified it as Susa.^[5]

In 1885 and 1886 Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy and Jane Dieulafoy began the first French excavations.^[6]

Jacques 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.^[7][8][9] To supplement the original publications of De Mecquenem the archives of his excavation have now been put online thanks to a grant from the Shelby White Levy Program.^[10][11]

Roman Ghirshman took over direction of the French efforts in 1946, after the end of the war. Together with his wife Tania Ghirshman, he continued there until 1967. The Ghirshmans concentrated on excavating a single part of the site, the hectare sized Ville Royale, taking it all the way down to bare earth.^[12] The pottery found at the various levels enabled a stratigraphy to be developed for Susa.^[13][14]

During the 1970s, excavations resumed under Jean Perrot.^[15][16]

History[edit]

Early settlement[edit]

In urban history, Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region. Based on C14 dating, the foundation of a settlement there occurred as early as 4395 BCE (a calibrated radio-carbon date).^[17] At this stage it was already very large for the time,^{[citation needed]} about 15 hectares.

The founding of Susa corresponded with the abandonment of nearby villages. Potts suggests that the settlement may have been founded to try to reestablish the previously destroyed settlement at Chogha Mish.^[18] Previously, Chogha Mish was also a very large settlement, and it featured a similar massive platform that was later built at Susa.

Another important settlement in the area is Chogha Bonut, that was discovered in 1976.

Susa I period[edit]

Shortly after Susa was first settled over 6000 years ago, its inhabitants erected a monumental platform that rose over the flat surrounding landscape.^[19] The exceptional nature of the site is still recognizable today in the artistry of the ceramic vessels that were placed as offerings in a thousand or more graves near the base of the temple platform.

Susa's earliest settlement is known as Susa I period (c. 4200–3900 BCE). Two settlements named by archeologists Acropolis (7 ha) and Apadana (6.3 ha), would later merge to form Susa proper (18 ha).^[18] The Apadana was enclosed by 6m thick walls of rammed earth (this particular place is named Apadana because it also contains a late Achaemenid structure of this type).

Goblet and cup, Iran, Susa I style, 4th millennium BC – Ubaid period; goblet height c. 12 cm; Sèvres – Cité de la céramique, France

Nearly two thousand pots of Susa I style were recovered from the cemetery, most of them now in the Louvre. The vessels found are eloquent testimony to the artistic and technical achievements of their makers, and they hold clues about the organization of the society that commissioned them.^[20] Painted ceramic vessels from Susa in the earliest first style are a late, regional version of the Mesopotamian Ubaid ceramic tradition that spread across the Near East during the fifth millennium BC.^[20] Susa I style was very much a product of the past and of influences from contemporary ceramic industries in the mountains of western Iran. The recurrence in close association of vessels of three types—a drinking goblet or beaker, a serving dish, and a small jar—implies the consumption of three types of food, apparently thought to be as necessary for life in the afterworld as it is in this one. Ceramics of these shapes, which were painted, constitute a large proportion of the vessels from the cemetery. Others are coarse cooking-type jars and bowls with simple bands painted on them and were probably the grave goods of the sites of humbler citizens as well as adolescents and, perhaps, children.^[21] The pottery is carefully made by hand. Although a slow wheel may have been employed, the asymmetry of the vessels and the irregularity of the drawing of encircling lines and bands indicate that most of the work was done freehand.

Copper metallurgy is also attested during this period, which was contemporary with metalwork at some highland Iranian sites such as Tepe Sialk.

Susa II and Uruk influence[edit]

Globular envelope with the accounting tokens. Clay, Uruk period (c. 3500 BCE). From the Tell of the Acropolis in Susa. The Louvre

Susa came within the Uruk cultural sphere during the Uruk period. An imitation of the entire state apparatus of Uruk, proto-writing, cylinder seals with Sumerian motifs, and monumental architecture, is found at Susa. According to some scholars, Susa may have been a colony of Uruk.

There is some dispute about the comparative periodization of Susa and Uruk at this time, as well as about the extent of Uruk influence in Susa. Recent research indicates that Early Uruk period corresponds to Susa II period.^[22]

D. T. Potts, argue that the influence from the highland Iranian Khuzestan area in Susa was more significant at the early period, and also continued later on. Thus, Susa combined the influence of two cultures, from the highland area and from the alluvial plains. Also, Potts stresses the fact that the writing and numerical systems of Uruk were not simply borrowed in Susa wholesale. Rather, only partial and selective borrowing took place, that was adapted to Susa's needs. Despite the fact that Uruk was far larger than Susa at the time, Susa was not its colony, but still maintained some independence for a long time, according to Potts.^[23] An architectural link has also been suggested between Susa, Tal-i Malyan, and Godin Tepe at this time, in support of the idea of the parallel development of the protocuneiform and protoelamite scripts.^[24]

Some scholars believe that Susa was part of the greater Uruk culture. Holly Pittman, an art historian at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia says, "they [Susanians] are participating entirely in an Uruk way of life. They are not culturally distinct; the material culture of Susa is a regional variation of that on the Mesopotamian plain". Gilbert Stein, director of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, says that "An expansion once thought to have lasted less than 200 years now apparently went on for 700 years. It is hard to think of any colonial system lasting that long. The spread of Uruk material is not evidence of Uruk domination; it could be local choice".^[25]

Susa III period[edit]

Susa III (3100–2700 BCE) is also known as the 'Proto-Elamite' period.^[26] At this time, Banesh period pottery is predominant. This is also when the Proto-Elamite tablets first appear in the record. Subsequently, Susa became the centre of Elam civilization.

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[edit]

In the Sumerian period, Susa was the capital of a state called Susiana (Šušan), which occupied approximately the same territory of modern Khūzestān Province centered on the Karun River. Control of Susiana shifted between Elam, Sumer, and Akkad. Susiana is sometimes mistaken as synonymous with Elam but, according to F. Vallat, it was a distinct cultural and political entity.^[27]

Susiana was incorporated by Sargon the Great into his Akkadian Empire in approximately 2330 BCE.

Silver cup from Marvdasht, Iran, with a linear-Elamite inscription from the time of Kutik-Inshushinak. National Museum of Iran

Kutik-Inshushinak[edit]

Susa was the capital of an Akkadian province until ca. 2100 BCE, when its governor, Kutik-Inshushinak, rebelled and made it an independent state and a literary center. Also, he was the last from the Awan dynasty according to the Susa kinglist.^[28] He unified the neighbouring territories and became the king of Elam. He encouraged the use of the Linear Elamite script, that remains undeciphered.

The city was subsequently conquered by the neo-Sumerian Third Dynasty of Ur and held until Ur finally collapsed at the hands of the Elamites under Kindattu in ca. 2004 BCE. At this time, Susa became an Elamite capital under the Epartid dynasty.

Middle Elamite period[edit]

Around 1500 BCE, the Middle Elamite period began with the rise of the Anshanite dynasties. Their rule was characterized by an "Elamisation" of Susa, and the kings took the title "king of Anshan and Susa". While, previously, the Akkadian language was frequently used in inscriptions, the succeeding kings, such as the Igihalkid dynasty of c. 1400 BCE, tried to use Elamite. Thus, Elamite language and culture grew in importance in Susiana.^[27]

This was also the period when the Elamite pantheon was being imposed in Susiana. This policy reached its height with the construction of the political and religious complex at Chogha Zanbil, 30 km (19 mi) south-east of Susa.

In ca. 1175 BCE, the Elamites under Shutruk-Nahhunte plundered the original stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi and took it to Susa. Archeologists found it in 1901. Nebuchadnezzar I of the Babylonian empire plundered Susa around fifty years later.

Neo-Assyrians[edit]

Ashurbanipal's brutal campaign against Susa in 647 BCE is recorded in this relief. Flames rise from the city as Assyrian soldiers topple it with pickaxes and crowbars and carry off the spoils.

In 647 BCE, Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal leveled the city during a war in which the people of Susa 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 that 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."^[29]

Assyrian rule of Susa began in 647 BCE and lasted till Median capture of Susa in 617 BCE.

After Persian conquest[edit]

Statue of Darius the Great, National Museum of Iran

Archers frieze from Darius' palace at Susa. Detail of the beginning of the frieze

The 24 countries subject to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius, on the Statue of Darius I.

Achaemenid period[edit]

Susa underwent a major political and ethnocultural transition when it became part of the Persian Achaemenid empire between 540 and 539 BCE when it was captured by Cyrus the Great during his conquest of Elam (Susiana), of which Susa was the capital.^[30] The Nabonidus Chronicle records that, prior to the battle(s), Nabonidus had ordered cult statues from outlying Babylonian cities to be brought into the capital, suggesting that the conflict over Susa had begun possibly in the winter of 540 BCE.^[31]

It is probable that Cyrus negotiated with the Babylonian generals to obtain a compromise on their part and therefore avoid an armed confrontation.^[32] Nabonidus was staying in the city at the time and soon fled to the capital, Babylon, which he had not visited in years.^[33] Cyrus' conquest of Susa and the rest of Babylonia commenced a fundamental shift, bringing Susa under Persian control for the first time.

Under Cyrus' son Cambyses II, Susa became a center of political power as one of 4 capitals of the Achaemenid Persian empire, while reducing the significance of Pasargadae as the capital of Persis. Following Cambyses' brief rule, Darius the Great began a major building program in Susa and Persepolis. During this time he 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."^[34] Susa continued as a winter capital and residence for Achaemenid kings succeeding Darius the Great, Xerxes I, and their successors.^[35]

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.

Events mentioned in the Old Testament book of Esther are said to have occurred in Susa during the Achaemenid period.

Macedonian, Parthian and Sassanid periods[edit]

The marriages of Stateira II to Alexander the Great of Macedon and her sister, Drypteis, to Hephaestion at Susa in 324 BCE, as depicted in a late-19th-century engraving.

Susa lost much of its importance when Alexander of Macedon (Alexander the Great) conquered it in 331 BCE and incorporated the first Persian Empire. The Susa weddings was arranged by Alexander in 324 BCE in Susa, where mass weddings took place between the Persians and the Macedonians.

Approximately one century after Alexander, Susa fell to the Seleucid Empire. After Seleucia, it was the biggest city under Seleucid control at the time.^{[citation needed]} Susa used Charax Spasinou as its port. It retained a considerable amount of independence and retained its Greek city-state organization well into the ensuing Parthian period and seems to have gained independence under a dynasty whose kings bore the name of Kamnaskires in the 1st century CE. ^[36]

When the Parthian Empire gained its independence from the Seleucid Empire, and took control of much of its eastern provinces, Susa was made one of the two capitals (along with Ctesiphon) of the new state.

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 AD (Susa was briefly captured only by Roman emperor Trajan in 116 CE and never again would the Roman Empire advance so far to the east).^[37] Typically, the Parthian rulers wintered in Susa, and spent the summer in Ctesiphon.

Post-Islamic period and degradation[edit]

Susa was destroyed at least three times in its history. The first was in 647 BCE, by Ashurbanipal. The second destruction took place in 638 CE, when the Muslim armies first conquered Persia. In 1218, the city was razed by invading Mongols. The city further degraded in the 15th century when the majority of its population moved to Dezful and it remains as a small settlement today.^[38]

Susa had a significant Christian population during the first millennium, and was a diocese of the Church of the East between the 5th and 13th centuries, in the metropolitan province of Beth Huzaye (Elam).

Gallery[edit]

• 

  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.

• 

  Glazed clay cup: Cup with rose petals, 8th–9th centuries

• 

  Anthropoid sarcophagus

• 

  Lion on a decorative panel from Darius I the Great's palace

• 

  Marble head representing Seleucid King Antiochus III who was born near Susa around 242 BC.^[39]

• 

  Glazed clay vase: Vase with palmtrees, 8th–9th centuries

• 

  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.

• 

  Archers frieze from Darius' palace at Susa. Detail of the beginning of the frieze, left. Louvre Museum

• 

  Ribbed torc with lion heads, Achaemenid artwork, excavated by Jacques de Morgan, 1901

• 

  Shush Castle, 2011

• 

  Children in Susa

• 

  Herm pillar with Hermes, from the well of the "Dungeon" in Susa.

See also[edit]

• Abulites
• Achaemenid architecture
• Choqa Zanbil
• Cities of the Ancient Near East
• Elam
• History of Iran
• List of oldest continuously inhabited cities
• Monsieur Chouchani
• Short chronology timeline

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Jean Perrot, Le Palais de Darius à Suse. Une résidence royale sur la route de Persépolis à Babylone, Paris, Paris-sorbonne.fr, 2010
• Lendering, Jona. "Susa, capital of Elam". The Iranian Chamber. Retrieved 2010. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• Vallat, François (1999). "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. p. 490. ISBN 0-521-56496-4. World Archaeology Series.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Susa.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Susa (Iran).

• "Early Works on the Acropolis at Susa" Expedition Magazine 10.4 1968
• Livius.org pictures of Susa
• Aerial views of Susa at the Oriental Institute
• 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.
• Audio slideshow at Jadidonline.com (6 min 31 sec)
•  "Susa" . The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.