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Achaemenid Village I at Susa and the Persian Migration to Fars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

David Stronach
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Extract

Among his other interests Sir Max Mallowan has always held a lively affection for the history and archaeology of south-western Iran, and in this year in which we celebrate his 70th birthday it may be appropriate to offer him these notes on certain problems connected with the final stages of the Persian migration. It is perhaps apt also that I should take u p an Achaemenian topic since it was Sir Max, now thirteen years ago, who first encouraged me to excavate at Pasargadae, the capital of Cyrus the Great.

The route by which the Persian tribes reached the region of Fars remains in dispute. According to one time-honoured theory the Persians entered Iran by way of the land bridge of the Caucasus and made their first halt c. 850 B.C. in a northerly locality, Parsua, to the west or south-west of Lake Urmia. From there at some date after Sargon of Assyria's eighth campaign in the year 714 B.C., it has been suggested that they may have struck due south, arriving first in Khuzistan, where they settled at Susa, Masjid-i Sulaiman and Bard-i Nishandeh, before they proceeded eastwards to the locality of Pasargadae.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 36 , Issue 1-2 , October 1974 , pp. 239 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1974

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References

1 See Ghirshman, R., Persia from the Origins to Alexander the Great (1964), (hereafter Persia), 129Google Scholar.

2 Ghirshman, R., Village Perse-Achéménide. Memoires de la Mission archélogique en Iran XXXVI (Paris, 1954), (hereafter MDP 36), 75Google Scholar; and idem, Persia, 130–1. Cf. also Stronach, D., “Excavations at Pasargadae, First Preliminary Report,” Iran 1 (1963), 20 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where, in my first report on the excavations of the British Institute of Persian Studies at Pasargadae, I follow the lines of Professor Ghirshman's reconstruction of the Persian migration.

3 I am much indebted to Mrs. O. R. Gurney for preparing the map which illustrates this article; to Mr. Pier Steensma for his original drawing of the Persepolis rhyton (Plate LIII, 4), as well as for his other drawings of plain and painted pottery and the Pazyryk “shabrack”; and to Professor T. Cuyler Young Jr . for permission to reproduce his Triangle Ware illustration which appears here as Plate LI.

4 MDP 36, 54 f. On the subdivisions of the Giyan I4–I1 sequence, see Young, T. Cuyler Jr., “A Comparative Ceramic Chronology for Western Iran, 1500–500 B.C.”, Iran 3 (1965)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, (hereafter Young, 1965), 62–68, and Fig. 14.

5 Ibid., 20 and 72.

6 Cf. E. Porada's review of MDP 36, in Artibus Asiae 18 (1955), 213–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Young, 1965, 53 fGoogle Scholar.

8 Ibid., 68–70 and 82.

9 Ibid., Fig. 13, col. 5.

10 Dyson, Robert H. Jr., “Problems of Proto-historic Iran as seen from Hasanlu”, JNES 24 (1965), Fig. 7, top rowGoogle Scholar.

11 Ghirshman, R., Fouilles de Sialk près de Kashan II (1939)Google Scholar, (hereafter Sialk 2), Pl. 21, 3.

12 Cf. the Neo-Babylonian/Achaemenian goblets from Ur. SirWoolley, Leonard, Ur Excavations IX, The Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods, pottery type 116Google Scholar, p. 96 and Pl. 46.

13 E.g. MDP 36, Pl. 30, G.S. 1206a and G.S. 1205.

14 Contenau, G. and Ghirshman, R., Fouilles du Tépé-Giyan près de Néhavand, (Paris, 1935)Google Scholar, (hereafter Giyan), Pl. 11, tomb 19, n. 3; Pl. 15, tomb 37, n. 2; and Pl. 16, tomb 42, no. 4.

15 Particularly since grey ware pottery is not recorded from Achaemenid Village I and only appears to return to favour in Levels II and III (MDP 36, 27–8 and 54).

16 Giyan, Pl. 8, tomb 3, no. 1 (Young, 1965, Fig. 13, col. 6).

17 MDP 36, Pl. 31, G.S. 863.

18 Giyan, Pl. 9, tomb 6, no. 1 (Young, 1965, Fig. 13, col. 6).

19 This last jar could be related in shape and design to a painted, lugged jar of Neo-Elamite manufacture from sondage B/1 on the Ville Royale. See Ghirshman, R., “Suse au Tournant du IIIe au IIe Millénaire avant Notre Ère,” Arts Asiatiques 17 (1968), 6, and Fig. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Giyan, Pl. 39.

21 MDP 36, Pls. 3a, G.S. 787 and 38, G.S. 1221c.

22 From the Tall-i Takht, room 90, floor 1 (post-Achaemenian, before 280 B.C.).

23 Sialk 2, Pls. 18, 1 and 74, S. 913.

24 MDP 36, Pls. 35, G.S. 1270 and 39, G.S. 1176.

25 Excavated examples are known from both Parthian Shahr-i Qumis and Tepe Nush-i Jan III; thereafter the “square shouldered” pilgrim flask begins to dominate.

26 Cf. Young, 1965, Fig. 13, cols. 1 and 7.

27 Ibid., Fig. 12, cols. 1 and 4.

28 Personal communication from Professor Dyson dated March 26th, 1973.

29 See MDP 36, 54.

30 R. H. Dyson, op. cit., 207; and Young, T. Cuyler Jr., “The Iranian Migration into the Zagros”, Iran 5 (1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, (hereafter Young, 1967), 27.

31 See Dyson, op. cit., 205, n. 25.

32 Personal information contained in a letter dated 19th January, 1974. See also Meade, C. Goff, “Luristan in the first half of the First Millennium B.C.”, Iran 6 (1968), 124Google Scholar, and Fig. 11, 8–28.

33 Ibid., 124.

34 Ibid., loc. cit. In addition, the 7th-century sequence at Baba Ja n has since revealed three “squatting levels” (Baba Jan II), each without any Festoon Ware. Thus there is no longer a 7th-century gap which could accommodate a Festoon Ware phase.

35 Stronach, D., “Excavations at Tepe Nush-i Jan 1967”, Iran 7 (1697), 16Google Scholar, and Figs. 6, 1–11 and 4, 1–3.

36 Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C., Excavations at Tepe Yahya, Iran 1967–1969, (1970), 22Google Scholar, and Fig. 8.

37 Ibid., 22.

38 Information kindly supplied by Professor C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky.

39 MDP 36, Pls. 32–4.

40 Ibid., 38 f.; and Pls. 20, 1 and 32, G.S. 788.

41 Ibid., 25. Cf. Plates LIII, 1 and LII, 9.

42 Ibid., 39 f.

43 Ibid., 48–9.

44 Ibid., 47–8 and Pl. 23, 1.

45 Cf. Persia, 288.

46 Dyson, op. cit., 205, n. 25.

47 Cf. MDP 36, 42, and Pls. 21–2. For a number of Graeco-Persian seals with animal figures in “full gallop” from Susa itself, see Amiet, P., “Glyptique Élamite. À propos de Documents Nouveaux,” Arts Asiatiques 26 (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Pl. 17, Figs. 75 a–e.

48 Cf. Rudenko, S. I., Frozen Tombs of Siberia, the Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970), Pl. 176Google Scholar. On the probable date of the burial of the Pazyryk carpet c. 400 B.C., see ibid., p. xxvi. Cf. also the saddle cloths carried by the royal grooms on the north wing of the eastern stairway of the Apadana at Persepolis (Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis I (1953), Pl. 51Google Scholar).

49 I am most grateful to Mr. A. Tadjvidi for allowing me to publish this important object in advance of his forthcoming monograph on the Iranian excavations at Persepolis. For a toy clay horse of post-Achaemenian date, see also Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis II, (1957), Pl. 89, 1Google Scholar.

50 MDP 36, Pls. 25–6.

51 These last shapes appear to be related in a general sense at least to certain of the characteristic mid-seventh century pottery forms which have been found at Choga Zanbil. Cf. MDP 36, 66, and Pl. 24, 5; and Ghirshman, R., Tchoga Zanbil I (1966)Google Scholar, Pl. 64, 6–7.

52 Persia, 289. Cf. MDP 36, 79–82; and, most recently, Lambert, M., “Shutruk-Nahunte et Shutur-Nahunte”, Syria 44 (1967), 51Google Scholar.

53 It is worth remembering that the Ville des Artisans is the largest of the four mounds at Susa and that the full extent of the “Achaemenid Village” remains to be determined.

54 As we have seen little is added to the repertoire of painted patterns in either Level II or III.

55 See notes 21–5 above. In addition, two other distinct pottery shapes from Village I, a bowl with an everted rim and a horizontally ridged upper body (MDP 36, Pl. 29, G.S. 1210b) and a small bottle with an everted rim and narrow neck (ibid., Pl. 33, 6), find useful parallels at Pasargadae and, as M. Remy Boucharlat has kindly informed me, at the Chaour Palace of Artaxerxes II at Susa.

56 Ibid., Pl. 47, G.S. 1132b.

57 Cf. Schmidt, E. F., Persepolis II, 46 fGoogle Scholar.

58 MDP 36, Pl. 43, G.S. 962.

59 From the Tall-i Takht, Room 53.

60 Cf. Sialk a, Pl. 56, S. 595, S. 601 and S. 794. Moreover, both fibulae (MDP 36, Pl. 48, G.S. 2248 and G.S. 859) and trilobate arrowheads (ibid., Pl. 43, except for G.S. 962) are as much at home in Achaemenian, as in immediately pre-Achaemenian, Iran. For Achaemenian examples see especially E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis II, Pl. 46, 5 and 6 and Pl. 76, 7–16.

61 MDP 36, Pl. 30, G.S. 1208b.

62 Contra Adams, R. McC., Land Behind Baghdad (1965)Google Scholar, Fig. 13, where sherds with impressed palmettes are classed as Achaemenian. See also Dyson, S. L., The Excavations at Dura-Europos IV (1968), 52, Fig. 21, 65–84Google Scholar; and D., and Oates, J., “Nimrud 1957: the Hellenistic Settlement”, Iraq 20 (1958)Google Scholar, Pls. 21, 19 and 22, 1, where similar stamped designs are assigned to the 3rd or 2nd centuries B.C. at the earliest.

63 MDP 36, Pl. 47, G.S. 1132a.

64 Excavated from Site V in 1971 and not yet published.

65 See note 8 above.

66 At the present time little other pottery in this time range is published from Susa, although, as A. Labrousse has informed me, one sealed deposit of pottery from the newly excavated Chaour Palace is dated by coins to c. 200 B.C.

67 MDP 36, Pl. 38, G.S. 1235b.

68 Ibid., Pl. 40, G.S. 1248c. On the possible chronological limits of clinky ware, which run from at least 150 B.C. to A.D. 50, see Stronach, D., Iran 7 (1969), 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also “Ware 3D”in Young, T. Cuyler Jr., “Survey in Western Iran, 1961”, JNES 25 (1966), 232–3Google Scholar. (The name “cinnamon ware”, proposed in my Iran article, is renounced herewith in favour of my original survey label “clinky ware” which has remained the more popular term with most of those working on Parthian sites.)

69 R. de Mecquenem, MDP 25, Fig. 70, 9 pp. 223–4. Cf. also part of a painted animal rhyton (ibid., Fig. 70, 3) and one unpublished sherd from de Mecquenem's excavations, shown to me through the courtesy of M. Pierre Amiet, which is from a bowl and which combines the highly burnished surface of the Persepolis rhyton (Pl. LIII, 4) with the painted concentric circles that appear inside a large number of Festoon Ware bowls (e.g. Plate LV, 6–8).

70 Information kindly supplied by Professor Ghirshman, who tells me that the date of the piece in question may be close to 150 B.C.

71 Herzfeld, E., Iranische Denkmäler I (1932), Fig. 3Google Scholar.

72 Ibid., loc. cit.

73 Ibid., 24.

74 The sherd illustrated in Plate LV, 7, no doubt like that in Plate LV, 6, comes from the inside of a flat bottomed bowl with gently curved sides.

75 MDP 36, 75; Persia, 131.

76 Ibid., loc. cit.

77 In the case of Masjid-i Sulaiman the greater part of the present stone façade is thought to be Parthian. (Oral communication from Professor Ghirshman made to me in March 1970.)

78 Cf. the fine stone head of Achaemenian origin found in 1971. Ghirshman, R., “Masjid-i Solaiman” in “Survey of Excavations in Iran during 1970–71”, Iran 10 (1972), Pl. VIIbGoogle Scholar.

79 Ibid., 171.

80 Herzfeld, E., Archaeological History of Iran (1935), 32Google Scholar.

81 Ibid., loc. cit.

82 Berghe, L. Vanden, Memo from Belgium (1968), 28Google Scholar; Persia, 132.

83 Boardman, J., “Chian and early Ionic architecture”, The Antiquaries' Journal 39 (1959), 215, n. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Personal observation.

85 Cf. Nylander, C., Ionians at Pasargadae (1970), 53 fGoogle Scholar.

86 Berghe, L. Vanden, Vorderasiatische Archäologie (1964), 243 f.Google Scholar; and Stronach, D., “Excavations at Pasargadae, Second Preliminary Report”, Iran 2 (1964), 28–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Nylander, C., “Clamps and Chronology (Achaemenian problems II),” Iranica Antiqua 6 (1966) 130 fGoogle Scholar.

88 Persia, 131.

89 Ibid., loc. cit.

90 Nylander, C., Ionians at Pasargadae, 89–91Google Scholar.

91 I am much indebted to Dr. William Sumner for the information that the identity of Malyan and Anšan is confirmed by tablets of Middle Elamite date found in the excavations of 1972. Cf. also an inscribed brick of Middle Elamite date which mentions the construction of a temple at Anišan and which is reported to come from the region “between Shiraz and Persepolis”, Lambert, M., “Hutélutush-Insushnak et le pays d'Anzan,” RA 66 (1972), 61 f.Google Scholar; and the article of Dr.Hansman, John, “Elamites, Achaemenians and Anshan,” Iran 10 (1972), 101 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar., in which the identity of Malyan and Anšan was first proposed. Cf. now Reiner, E., RA 67 (1973), 57 ffGoogle Scholar.

92 Cf. Young, 1967, 31, where it is suggested that the Iranian tribes of the Iron I period (c. 1300–1000 B.C.) entered Iran from the north-east rather than the north-west.

93 Cameron, G., History of Early Iran (1936), 158–65Google Scholar; and Hinz, W., Das Reich Elam (1964), 116–24Google Scholar.

94 For references to Sargon II's activities in and near Parsua during his famous eighth campaign, see F. Thureau Dangin, Huitième Campagne de Sargon, col. I, 38, 73.

95 See Levine, L. D., “Studies in the neo-Assyrian Zagros II,” Iran 12, (1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, sub Parsua, forthcoming.

96 Luckenbill, D. D., The Annals of Sennacherib (1923), 43, l. 43Google Scholar; 91, l. 9; 88, l. 44.

97 AfO 7 (1931), 4, l. 7Google Scholar.

98 Cyrus names his father, grandfather and even his great-grandfather, Teispes, as successive rulers of Anšan. Pritchard, J., ANET (1955), 316Google Scholar.

99 In the Nabonidus Chronicle Cyrus is referred to as “king of the country of Anšan” in c. 550 B.C. (col. II, sixth year, ibid., 305), while in 547 B.C. he is called “king of the country of Parsu”, i.e. Parsa, (col. II, ninth year, ibid., 306).