|
SUSA
 Susa
{Shush) is 1.17 km north-northwest of Ahwaz via a busy and
sometimes 'dangerous road. Although it is on the Tehran-Ahwaz
railway line, it is not practical to get there by train. Visitors
starting from Ahwaz, normally leave their hotel early in the
morning to arrive in Susa before the worst heat of the day. For
you will find absolutely no shelter of any kind on the site,
neither is there an accommodation or a restaurant for compared
with Esfahan very few people ever come here, but tourists who do
not visit Susa and the more immediately appealing ziggurat at
Chogha Zanbil are missing a crucial experience of Iran.
Although an Englishman, W K Loftus was the first archaeologist,
in 1852, unquestionably to identify the modern Shush with the
classical Susa and the Biblical -Shushan, it is to a succession of
French archaeologists, Dieulafoy, de Morgan, de Mecquenem,
Ghirshman and Perrot, that credit is due for the systematic
excavation of the site. Loftus, following the stories of travelers
like Rawlinson (of Bisotun fame), Sir Austen Layard (of Nineveh
fame), and the Russian Baron de Bode, started trial digs and
discovered that his friend General Williams had come across a
palace similar to those of Persepolis. Cuneiform inscription
proved that the palace was actually built by Darius I. Loftus
describes the city as it must have been in the great days of the
Achaemenians:
It is difficult to conceive a more imposing site than Susa, as it
stood in the days of its Kayanian splendor -its great citadel and
columnar edifices raising their stately heads above groves of
date, konar and lemon trees -and backed by rich
pastures and golden seas of corn and the distant snow-clad
mountains. Neither Babylon nor Persepolis could compare with Susa
in position -watered by her noble rivers, producing crops without
irrigation, clothed with grass in spring, and within a moderate
journey of delightful summer clime.
There is no treasure in the sense of jewels or adorning. On the
spot, the site is very disappointing for those who seek fine
ruins. The visitor to Susa will drive first up to the castle that
tops the acropolis on one of the four tappehs, or mounds, on which
Susa was built.
Marvelous painted
pottery from Susa I the earliest Phase -was discovered here and
can be seen in the castle storerooms to the Mission (and possibly
more conveniently in the Louvre). Pottery dating back to the
fourth millennium BC proves that Susa was one of the oldest cities
in the world.
In fact a prehistoric settlement from at least the forth
millennium BC, and an important Elamite city from about the middle
of the third millennium, Susa reached its first peak under the
reign of Untash Gal, who built Shush as his administrative capital
and founded Chogha Zanbil as his religious center. Shush was burnt
around 640 BC by the AssYrian A, at about the same time he
destroyed Zanbil, but it came back to prominence and its Golden
Age began with the advent of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the
Achaemenian Empire of Iran.
Standing as it did between the Aryans of the east and the Semites
of the west, Susa was a far more convenient administrative center
for the new and rapidly growing Empire than was Pasargadae. Cyrus
the Great probably hastened the revival of the city, which became
the winter capital of the Achaemenians, while Darius land
Artaxerxes Mnemon built great palaces there.
It was from: Susa that Xerxes set out on his great expedition
against Greece. Although he failed in his attempt to subjugate the
whole of Greece, he succeeded in despoiling both Delphi and
Athens, and he deposited their wealth in his treasury at Susa on
his return there.
Alexander the Great captured the town in 33 I BC. After this the
Sassanian Artaxerxes land Shapur I were the only monarchs before
modern times to take an interest in Susa. The town prospered under
the latter, becoming an important center of Christianity in the
4th century AD (later extirpate by Shapur 11) as well as the
Arabs, but steadily declined after the Mongol invasion of Iran.
Many fine examples of pottery from various periods showing the
development of the typically Persian highly stylized animal motifs
as well as bronzes have been found here, and some examples are on
display at Tehran's National Museum of Iran, while a famous 4th
century bull's- head capital from Shush is now in the Louvre.
The site is built on four small mounds. If you enter at the gate
from the street, you cannot fail to notice the fortress on top of
the tallest mound, the Acropolis. This castle, quite unlike any
other archaeological camp, was built by the French Archaeological
Service at the end of the 19th century as a necessary defense
against the unpacified Arab tribes of the region, and is now
probably the most imposing structure at Susa. Almost nothing
remains of the buildings of the Acropolis on which the castle
stands, which was the site of the earliest pre- historic
settlement and later of the main Elamite royal buildings and then
of the Achaemenian citadel.
Next to the Acropolis is the largest mound, the Royal Town, once
the quarter of the court officials, which has revealed the remains
of many periods from the Elamite to the Arab. Northwest of the
Royal Town is the Apadana, where Darius I built his residence and
two other palaces. Two very well preserved foundation tablets
found beneath the site of Darius' Palace one in Elamite and the
other in Babyloian record the noble ancestry of its founder and
the far-flung origins of its materials and workers -from as far
east as India to as far west as Abyssinia -as a piece of
propaganda to show the might of the Achaemenian Empire at the
time. The tablets are now in the Tehran's National Museum of Iran.
After giving praise to the supreme God, Ahura Mazda, Darius said:
I constructed this palace. its decoration was brought from afar
The ground was dug out until came to the firm soil and a ditch was
made and the gravel that was thrown in, and the bricks that were
molded -they were the peop/e of Babylon who did this work. The
wood ca/led naucina {cedar) was brought from a mountain called
Lebanon.
This inscription shows that Darius drew not only his
materials, but also his workmen from all parts of his vast empire.
During the reign of Darius, many roads were constructed to serve
Susa the great Royal Road all the way west via the Tigris below
Arbela and Harran to Sardis and Ephesus in Asia Minor; the road
north through Lurestan to Hamadan; and a third east to the sacred
city of Persepolis and Pasargadae, a part of stone-paved surface
of which can be seen near Behbahan.
The remains of 72 columns and bulls'-head capitals here show that
the palace was built on the same lines as that at Persepolis,
constructed soon afterwards.
The Artisans' Town mound dates from the Parthian and Seleucid
eras. Traces of an Arab mosque were found here, but little else of
substance remains.
The museum between the entrance and the Acropolis was closed for
renovation in the past years. It's open from 7 am to about 2.30 PM
(7 am to noon on Thursday), daily except Friday.
Susa Shrine
|
.