WorldWide

080

Vigilant guards stood near the entrance to the palace of the Persian king Darius the Great (522–486 B.C.) at Susa (in modern Iran). With spears in hand, bows unsheathed and quivers slung over their shoulders, the guards are well equipped to defend the king’s residence.

Because stone was scarce in the Susiana plain, the palace walls were faced with brick, often decorated with reliefs and glazed with brilliant enamels. The guards were apparently part of a two-tier frieze depicting a military procession: The brick remains of at least 18 of these figures, with slight variations in clothing, were discovered scattered about a courtyard outside the palace entrance. The original arrangement of the reliefs remains uncertain. As shown in this reconstruction, the rows of guards may have converged on a glazed-brick inscription of Darius recovered nearby.

Susa and the surrounding region of Elam fell to the Assyrians in 646 B.C. and came under Persian control about 100 years later. With Persepolis as his primary capital, Darius turned the Elamite capital of Susa into a flourishing administrative center where he maintained his winter residence. The splendid royal fortress of Persian Susa, called Shushan in the Bible, is the setting for the Biblical story of Esther, the beautiful fifth-century B.C. Jewish queen, and her Persian husband, King Ahasuerus (Xerxes).

Vigilant guards stood near the entrance to the palace of the Persian king Darius the Great (522–486 B.C.) at Susa (in modern Iran). With spears in hand, bows unsheathed and quivers slung over their shoulders, the guards are well equipped to defend the king’s residence. Because stone was scarce in the Susiana plain, the palace walls were faced with brick, often decorated with reliefs and glazed with brilliant enamels. The guards were apparently part of a two-tier frieze depicting a military procession: The brick remains of at least 18 of these figures, with slight variations in clothing, were discovered […]