The Persian Empire

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  Shapur then described his campaigns against three Roman emperors:

  At first we had become established in the empire, Gordian Caesar raised in all of the Roman Empire a force from the Goth and German realms and marched on Babylonia [Assyria] (Asuristan) against the Empire of Iran and against us. On the border of Babylonia at Misikhe, a great “frontal” battle occurred. Gordian Caesar was killed and the Roman force was destroyed. And the Romans made Philip Caesar. Then Philip Caesar came to us for terms, and to ransom their lives, gave us 500,000 denars, and became tributary to us. And for this reason we have renamed Misikhe Peroz-Shapur. And Caesar lied again and did wrong to Armenia. Then we attacked the Roman Empire and annihilated at Barbalissos a Roman force of 60,000 and Syria and the environs of Syria we burned, ruined and pillaged all. In this one campaign we conquered of the Roman Empire fortresses and towns. … In the third campaign, when we attacked Carrhae and Urhai [Edessa] and were besieging Carrhae and Edessa Valerian Caesar marched against us. He had with him a force of 70,000 from Germany, Raetia, Noricum, Dacia, Pannonia, Moesia, Istria, Spain, Africa, Thrace, Bithynia, Asia, Pamphylia, Isauria, Lycaonia, Galatia, Lycia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Phrygia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judaea, Arabia, Mauritania, Germania, Rhodes [Lydia], Osrhoene, Mesopotamia. And beyond Carrhae and Edessa we had a great battle with Valerian Caesar. We made prisoner ourselves with our own hands Valerian Caesar and the others, chiefs of that army, the praetorian prefect, senators; we made all prisoners and deported them to Persis. And Syria, Cilicia and Cappadocia we burned, ruined and pillaged. In that campaign we conquered of the Roman Empire the town of Samosata, Alexandria on the Issus, Katabolos, Aegaea, Mopsuestia, Mallos, Adana, Tarsus, Augustinia, 13. Zephyrion, Sebaste, Korykos Anazarba ([Agrippas]), Kastabala, Neronias, Flavias, Nicopolis, Epiphaneia, 14. Kelenderis, Anemurion, Selinus, Mzdu-[Myonpolis], Antioch, Seleucia, Dometiopolis, Tyana, Caesarea [Meiakariri], Komana Kybistra, Sebasteia, Birtha, Rakundia, Laranda, Iconium, altogether all these cities with their surroundings. And men of the Roman Empire, of non-Iranians, we deported. We settled them in the Empire of Iran in Persis, Parthia, Khuzistan, in Babylonia and in other lands where there were domains of our father, grandfathers and of our ancestors. (Frye: 371–372)

  Ka’ba-ye Zardosht was systematically described in 1970 by Erich F. Schmid, an archaeologist from the University of Chicago, and subsequently was studied by the British archaeologist David Stronach in 1978.

  See also: Ancient Cities: Naqsh-e Rostam; K&Q, Sasanian: Shapur I; Prophets: Kartir; Primary Documents: Document 32

  Further Reading

  Curtis, John. Ancient Persia. London: British Museum Press, 1989.

  Frye, Richard Nelson. The History of Ancient Iran. München: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1984.

  Godard, Andre, and Yedda Godard Maxim Siroux. Asar-e Iran. Translated by Abolhasan S. Moghaddam. Mashhad: Astan-e Quds-e Razavi, 1992.

  Gropp, Gerd. “Ka’ba-ye Zardošt.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kaba-ye-zardost.

  Root, M. Cool. The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art. Acta Iranica 19. Leiden: Brill, 1979.

  Schmid, Erich F. Persepolis III. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.

  Schmitt, Ruediger. Corpus Inscriptionum Irancarum, Part I: Inscriptions of Ancient Iran, Vol. 1, The Old Persian Inscriptions, Texts II: The Old Persian Inscriptions of Naqsh-i Rustam and Persepolis. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 2000.

  Stronach, David. “Pasargadae.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2, edited by Ilya Gershevitch, Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

  Von Gall, Hubertus. “Naqš-e Rostam.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/naqs-e-rostam.

  Kangavar and the Temple of Anahita (Anahid)

  Kangavar, a town in western Iran, is located on the highway linking Central Asia and Iran to Mesopotamia. Today as in ancient times, Kangavar sits on the road that connects Hamedan (ancient Hagmatana or Ecbatana) to Kermanshah. Kangavar served as an important commercial and religious center along the famed Silk Road. Over the centuries, this well-established route allowed the transport of valuable goods from East Asia, Central Asia, and Iran to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Rome. The town of Kangavar is also renowned as home to an ancient structure known as the Temple of Anahita (Anahid). Anahita was the ancient Iranian goddess of waters. The identification of the Kangavar structure as a temple of Anahita is based on a statement made by the first-century BCE author Isidore of Charax. In his short geographical account titled Parthian Stations, Isidore referred to Kangavar as Concobar and identified the city as home to a temple of Anaitis (Anahita). He did not, however, mention the exact date of the temple’s construction.

  The excavations conducted by Iranian archaeologists since 1968 have called into question the identification of the building site as a temple. There is no consensus among the archaeologists and scholars of ancient Iran about the date for the construction of the ancient structure in Kangavar. Some have argued that the original platform was built sometime during the Achaemenid period (550–330 BCE) and later used by succeeding dynasties to build new structures or rebuild some of the existing ones. Others have maintained that the building, which displays Hellenistic influences, was constructed during the reign of the Seleucids, who established their rule over Iran after 305 BCE. Still other scholars have asserted that the structure has the hallmarks of Parthian architecture and was most probably built during the long reign of the Arsacid dynasty (r. 247/238 BCE–224 CE). The most recent scholarship has rejected all of the above-mentioned theories, arguing instead that the structure was most probably built sometime during the Sasanian period (224–651 CE).

  In the 1840s when the English traveler, archaeologist, and diplomat Sir Henry Layard (1817–1894) visited Kangavar, eight columns on the platform remained standing. Throughout the 19th and the 20th centuries the structure was significantly damaged by local inhabitants, who used its stone blocks to build their homes. To protect the structure from further destruction and to excavate the area surrounding the foundation platform, the Iranian government purchased a section of the village and resettled some of the villagers who lived in close proximity to the site. Starting in 1968, a team of Iranian archaeologists directed by Seyfullah Kambakhsh Fard began to excavate the ancient site at Kangavar. This team unearthed a Parthian burial ground outside the walls of the building; fragments of Parthian, Sasanian, and Islamic pottery; a mosque dating back to the Mongol Il-Khanid period (1256–1353); and a shrine from the reign of the Safavid dynasty (1501–1722).

  See also: Peoples: Arsacids; Sasanian Empire; Religion: Anahita

  Further Reading

  Azarnoush, Massoud. “Excavations at Kangavar.” In Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, 69–94. Berlin: NF Berlin, 1981.

  Huff, D. “Architecture iii: Sasanian Period.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1986, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/architecture-iii.

  Isidore of Charax. Parthian Stations: An Account of the Overland Trade Route between the Levant and India in the First Century B.C. The Greek text, with a translation and commentary. Translated by Wilfred H. Schoff. Philadelphia: Commercial Museum, 1914.

  Kambakhsh Fard, Sayfullah. “Kavesh dar ma’bad-e Anahita (Kangavar).” Barrasiha-ye Tarikhi 3(6) (1968): 11–46.

  Kleiss, Wolfram. “Kangavar.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2005, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kangavar-1.

  Layard, Sir Henry. Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana & Babylonia, Including a Residence among the Bakhtiyari and Other Wild Tribes before the Discovery of Nineveh, Vol. 1. London: John Murray, 1887.

  Matheson, Sylvia A. Persia: An Archeological Guide. London: Faber and Faber, 1972.

  Pope, Arthur Upham. Introducing Persian Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971.

  Kuh-e Khwaja (Mount of Khwaja)

  A black basalt mountain and a maj
or historical, religious, and archaeological site located on an island in Lake Hamun, 19 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of the city of Zabol in the northeastern part of the province of Sistan-Baluchistan, near the Iranian–Afghan border. During the Achaemenid period, the region surrounding Lake Hamun and the Helmand River lay within the territory of the Iranian province of Drangiana (i.e., Zranka/Dranka), which is mentioned in the inscription of Darius I at Bisotun in western Iran near the city of Kermanshah (Schmitt: 1). The word “Zranka” or “Zarang” (meaning “mountain peak”) may have been a reference to the Kuh-e Khwaja (Mount of Khwaja), which was the most important hallmark of the province. The Arsacid monarch Mithridates I (r. 171–139/138 BCE) incorporated the province into the Parthian Empire during his reign. The province became the home of the Saka (Scythian) nomadic groups who settled there from Central Asia. The name “Sistan” is believed to have derived from Sakastan, or the land of the Sakas.

  Kuh-e Khwaja rises out of the marshes of Lake Hamun and is considered one of the most important historical landmarks of Sistan-Baluchistan and eastern Iran. The main archaeological remains of Kuh-e Khwaja are situated on the southeastern section of a high hill overlooking the marshes of Lake Hamun. This hill rises out of the lake and for most of the year is an island. The sole access to the upper slopes of this hill is through a narrow path, which zigzags through the ruins of the ancient town on the lower slope.

  The major archaeological complex consists of several buildings and fortifications, which include ruins of courtyards, gates, towers, and rooms. Numerous rooms were richly decorated with stucco ornaments and above all with colorful frescoes showing Iranian, Indian, and Greco-Roman stylistic elements and representing religious and secular motifs. The most important archaeological site of Kuh-e Khwaja is the ruins of a walled citadel and a building complex known as Ghagha-shahr, “a complex structure consisting of a maze of courts and rooms built of mud brick,” which sits on the mountain’s southeast end (Kawami: 13). The building complex contains one of the only surviving Zoroastrian fire temples within a major monument from the pre-Islamic era. The temple is located on a terrace beyond high walls.

  As a structural complex with an intriguing range of Zoroastrian associations, Kuh-e Khwaja represents a unique repository of still inadequately documented architectural information, especially with reference to the transition from Sasanian to Islamic architectural forms. In addition, the site was decorated with large murals depicting various figurative motifs and mud reliefs of human and equestrian figures. Several of these surviving pieces are housed in various museums such as Iran-e Bastan Museum in Tehran, New Delhi Museum, Berlin Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Farther up the hill and beyond the fortifications on top of the plateau, various unrelated structures probably of the Islamic era remain. The function of these structures has not been determined.

  The date for the construction of the Ghaga-shahr complex is unknown. The analysis of the wall paintings has not produced an exact or even approximate dating. Scholars “have suggested dates that range from the Achaemenid to the Seleucid, Parthian, Sasanian and early Islamic period” (De Waele: 1). The first Western scholar to study Kuh-e Khwaja was the Hungarian-born British archaeologist Aurel Stein, who visited the site in December 1915 (Kawami: 13). Stein “mapped the large complex, photographed the painted decorations that remained in some rooms, and removed many of the wall paintings, which were sent to the National Museum in New Delhi, where they remain” (Kawami: 13). Stein “first published his discoveries in 1916, but full documentation had to wait until 1928, with the publication of his work Innermost Asia” (Kawami: 13).

  The second Western scholar to study Kuh-e Khwaja was the German orientalist Ernst Herzfeld, who visited the site in February 1925 and returned with a small crew in 1929 to spend February and March measuring and mapping the rooms and removing the wall paintings he found. These paintings were transported to Berlin, but no one is certain of their fate, and today they are viewed as lost and beyond recovery. Two small fragments of the wall paintings, which had remained in Herzfeld’s possession, were later purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Kawami: 14).

  The building complex that included wall paintings, stucco reliefs, and a Zoroastrian fire temple could not be accurately dated. Stein believed that the citadel and the temple housed within it were built during the reign of the Arsacid dynasty (247/238 BCE–224 CE). Initially Herzfeld dated the palace complex and the citadel to the first century CE, which falls into the Arsacid era. However, he modified his estimate and identified two separate phases for the complex, the first dating back to the Sasanian period and the second to the early Islamic era. In 1960–1961, an Italian archaeological team headed by Giorgio Gullini visited Kuh-e Khwaja and reported the loss of more archaeological evidence as a result of weather. Gullini identified six separate levels, starting with an Achaemenid phase, then an early Parthian level from approximately the middle of the second century BCE, two phases from the Sasanian period, and finally an early Islamic level, and another and a far more recent Islamic phase, which dates to the 15th century (Kawami: 15). In 1975–1976, a second Italian archaeological group discovered a new wall painting fragment.

  After the fall of the Sasanian dynasty in the middle of the seventh century CE and the conversion of the majority of the population to Islam, Kuh-e Khwaja remained a destination for pilgrims. Muslim tombs on the top of the rocky ridge indicate that the site was visited by those who paid homage to the island as a holy place. Travelers and pilgrims continued to visit the mountain as late as the 20th century, and some celebrated the arrival of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on the island.

  See also: Peoples: Arsacids; Sasanian Empire

  Further Reading

  De Waele, An. “Sasanian Wall Painting.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-wall-painting.

  Ghanimati, Soroor. “New Perspectives on the Chronological and Functional Horizons of Kuh-e Khwaja in Sistan.” Iran 38 (2000): 137–150.

  Kawami, Trudy S. “Kuh-e Khwaja, Iran, and Its Wall Paintings: The Records of Ernst Herzfeld.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 22 (1987): 13–52.

  Schmitt, R. “Drangiana.” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1995, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/drangiana.

  Naqsh-e Rajab

  Naqsh-e Rajab (Picture of Rajab), at the foot of Mount Hossein, is an important historical and archaeological site located amid other significant sites in the southern Iranian province of Fars. Its location on the Shiraz–Isfahan road, 7.4 miles (12 kilometers) from Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty, also places it less than half a mile (1 kilometer) from another archaeological site, Naqsh-e Rostam, where the tombs of four Achaemenid kings, Darius I, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II, as well as Ka’ba-ye Zardosht (Ka’ba of Zoroaster) and several rock reliefs from the early Sasanian period are located.

  Naqsh-e Rajab itself is home to four large rock reliefs carved onto the site’s limestone cliffs and dating back to the first century of Sasanian rule. One rock relief depicts the investiture of Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty. The great god Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda) hands the diadem of royalty to the Sasanian king, while six onlookers stand at attention observing the elaborate ceremony. Ardashir founded the Sasanian dynasty after he revolted against Artabanus IV, the last king of the Arsacid monarchy. After he defeated and killed Artabanus on the battlefield, Ardashir imposed his rule over the former provinces and tributaries of the Arsacid Empire. He also proclaimed himself the king of kings. It was under Ardashir and his successors that Zoroastrianism was established as the state religion of the Sasanian Empire.

  The archaeological site of Naqsh-e Rajab, a short distance from Naqsh-e Rostam and Persepolis in the southern Iranian province of Fars, contains four inscriptions and rock-cut bas reliefs dating to the early Sasanian period. (Manca Juvan/In Pictures/Corbis)

  The second rock relief celebrates the investiture of Ardashir’s son
and successor, Shapur I, and shows the Sasanian king of kings receiving the diadem of sovereignty from Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda), who, like the king, is seated on horseback. Shapur was designated as co-regent by his father while Ardashir was still alive. Shapur’s reign witnessed the expansion and consolidation of the empire his father had founded. By the end of Shapur’s reign, the Sasanian domains extended from Central Asia to the Euphrates River. Both Naqsh-e Rajab and the nearby Naqsh-e Rostam seem to have played an important role in Shapur’s celebration of his power and accomplishments. A rock relief at Naqsh-e Rostam shows the captured Roman emperor Valerian kneeling in front of Shapur, who is seated on his horse. On the walls of the tower-shaped Ka’ba-ye Zardosht, Shapur left a long and highly detailed inscription that recounts his victories over three Roman emperors and lists the provinces that had submitted to his rule.

  The third carving, a polished surface relief, depicts Shapur I and his followers celebrating his triumph over the Roman emperors Philip the Arab and Valerian. During his long reign, Shapur I had to either fight or negotiate with three Roman emperors: Gordian III, Philip the Arab, and Valerian. He was victorious in most of his campaigns against the Romans. Gordian was killed either in battle against Shapur or by his own generals shortly after the conclusion of a battle with the Persian king. Philip the Arab, who succeeded Gordian, agreed to pay a large war indemnity to Shapur, and Valerian, who had marched against Shapur, was captured by the Persian monarch and brought back to Fars, the birthplace of the Sasanian dynasty, as a prisoner of war.

  The fourth relief at Naqsh-e Rajab belongs to Kartir (Karder), the powerful high priest of the Zoroastrian religious establishment who rose to prominence during the reigns of the Sasanian kings Shapur I, Hormozd I, Bahram I, and Bahram II. Kartir’s sway, sufficient to have his own bas-relief and inscription next to those of the first two kings of the Sasanian dynasty, reflects the growing power and interference of the Zoroastrian religious leadership in the political and cultural life of the Sasanian state. Kartir appears on several Sasanian rock reliefs. He also left several inscriptions of his own, which were carved next to rock reliefs depicting significant important ceremonies or victories. These inscriptions are of great importance to historians, linguists, and scholars of Zoroastrianism. The inscriptions shed light on the teachings of Zoroastrianism during the early Sasanian period and have also been used by scholars to study the grammar and structure of Middle Persian, the language of the Sasanian dynasty.