KINGS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT PERSIA;
by Souren Melikian
The International Herald Tribune
September 17, 2005 Saturday
Persepolis survived in Iranian psyche
LONDON
It was a great idea to devote an exhibition to the first classical
age of one of the three oldest cultures in the world, Iran.
“Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia,” at the British
Museum, focuses on the Achaemenid period (557-333 B.C.). It should
not be missed, but it is marred by curious flaws.
The Achaemenid Empire came into existence when the first Iranian
emperor documented in history, Kurush (later known to the Romans
as Cyrus), ascended the throne around 557 B.C. For the first time,
all Iranian groups, the Medes in the northwest, the Persians in the
center and south, the Sogdians in the northeast and the Scythians,
right up to the Sir Darya, which flows through present-day Uzbekistan,
were united under one rule.
But the empire soon extended far beyond Iranian territory. Assyria,
which had waged war against the Medians, was included in it. So were
Armenia, which had recently arisen in ancient Urartu (now mostly
in eastern Turkey), Lydia and other territories. By the late sixth
century B.C. the entire Middle East was under Achaemenid control,
up to the Mediterranean shores.
It would take the world-conquering fury of Alexander to break up the
empire in 333 and burn down its jewel, the huge royal palace-shrine
called by the Greeks Persepolis, “the Persian City.”
The mark left by the empire in Iranian culture remained indelible.
The memory of Persepolis continued to resonate through time in
the collective Iranian psyche long after its ancient name had been
forgotten it is called today Takht-e Jamshid, “The Throne of Jamshid,”
after a legendary king.
Iranian poets writing in Islamic times lamented its ruins. Solemn
visits were made to the site by kings who left calligraphic
inscriptions recording their presence down to the late 19th century.
This was not just the result of curiosity. As Sufi mysticism, long
confined to closed circles, spread across Iranian society from the
13th century on, the visits took a mystical turn.
The most extraordinary pilgrimage of all was organized in 1476 when
Sultan Khalil and his troops, accompanied by religious leaders, went to
Persepolis and spent an entire day gazing at the bas-reliefs. The great
Sufi master Jalal ad-Din Davani recounts in a work titled Arz Name
(“The Military Review Book”) the visions experienced by the sultan,
who saw the standing figures coming out of the stone walls and going
back into place.
The ruler’s son Ali, a child prodigy who was a calligrapher, engraved
a poem made up from verses by the 12th-century Sufi poet Nezami. The
visit and the poem made a lasting impression in Iran. In 1606, the
author of a treatise on calligraphy and painting “The Rose Garden of
Art” cited it and reproduced it. The verses can be seen to this day.
I photographed and published them in 1971 in an essay on Islamic
period pilgrimages to Achaemenid sites in the journal Le Monde Iranien
et l’Islam.
The entire Achaemenid age continued to evoke echoes, however imprecise,
in the collective memory of Iran in a way that has no equivalent in
other cultures. Its precise history became lost, but the names of
one ruler, Daraya-vahush (Darius I in Latinized form, 522-486 B.C.),
shortened to Dara, and of his father, Vishtaspa (Hystaspes in Latin),
changed to Goshtasp, are easily recognized in the “Book of Kings”
versified in the 10th century.
In the 15th century, Davani still observed that royal gatherings once
took place at Persepolis on new year’s day.
Mystery surrounds the destination of the huge palatial structure
with walls carved with processions of guards and laymen bringing wine
vessels or driving animals. Debate still rages among scholars as to
the exact nature of the Achaemenid kings’ religious beliefs and the
meaning of many symbols, including the mythical creatures that loom
large at Persepolis, eludes us. Alexander’s troops destroyed the
palace in 330 B.C., and anything that might have shed light on it.
Even reduced to rubble and bereft of their meaning, the remains
profoundly impressed the Iranians. They continued to perceive the
Achaemenid period as a golden age. From its very beginnings, the
Sasanian dynasty, which ruled Iran from 224 to 651, made attempts
at revivalism. At Naqsh-e Rostam, near Persepolis, the Sasanian rock
reliefs are carved under the Achaemenid reliefs. Some of the characters
have a closely resembling smile, barely suggested. The lips are closed,
the eyes stare as if in ecstasy.
The reasons for this admiration are fairly obvious to anyone
strolling through Persepolis. The plaster casts that take up much
of the exhibition space fail to convey the grandeur of the setting,
the mastery of space and the rhythm of the figures. A few sculptural
fragments do not re-create the effect of bas-reliefs as a whole.
The figure of a charioteer who stands holding the reins of the
two horses that pull his vehicle is remarkable. But the fragment
“obtained at Persepolis by Sir Gore Ouseley” in 1811 would look
better if the front part of the two horses, given by him to his son,
had not turned up many decades later at auction. The Miho Museum in
Japan bought them in 1985. Instead of reuniting the two fragments,
the exhibition organizers supplied a plaster cast of the Miho piece,
which does not help much.
Another fragment retains the bust of a camel driver ripped off the
north staircase of the Apadana. This was purchased by the British
Museum in 1894, when the monument was quarried by passing European
travelers.
Not a great deal of Achaemenid sculpture in the round survives. A
small lapis lazuli head of a king dug up at Persepolis in 1946
is on loan from the National Museum in Tehran. It is one of those
rare masterpieces that justify a visit on their own. The smile of
certainty that illuminates the face, as serene as it is mysterious,
is not easily forgotten.
The foreparts of a lion also carved out of lapis lazuli again gives
in miniature size some idea of the greatness of animal sculpture in
the round that reached an apex in the sixth century B.C. So do three
lions cast in bronze in a larger size to serve as a pedestal.
It would have been desirable to include as an introduction some of the
beakers and cups in gold and silver from the 10th and 9th centuries
B.C. recovered at Marlik or perhaps some copper vessels worked in
repousse from northern and western Iran in the eighth and seventh
centuries B.C. All show examples of low-relief animal sculpture that
would help to understand the blossoming of the Achaemenid age.
One of the greatest and most original aspects of Achaemenid art
is represented by gold, silver or bronze vessels. The exhibition
selection is uneven and disparate. Only one of the so-called rhytons,
or vertical beakers linking up at an angle with the foreparts of
an animal, real or mythical, to serve as a pouring vessel, rates as
a true masterpiece. Said to have surfaced at Erzincan, in Armenia,
now part of Turkey, it was acquired by the British Museum in 1897.
Another British Museum rhyton, reputedly from Mar’ash in Syria,
displays Iranian influence, but is clearly not Iranian.
One wonders why the Louvre bronze rhyton ending with the foreparts of
a gazelle is not in the show. It would look better than the heavy gold
rhyton with the foreparts of a winged lion bought in France by the
shah’s regime shortly before the 1961 Paris exhibition “7,000 Years
of Art in Iran.” It bears a troubling similarity in workmanship to
other gold pieces now recognized as duds. The same comment applies to
a gold bowl from the same source. A beautiful silver bowl reputedly
from Erzincan and another from the so-called “Oxus treasure” do not
make up for the presence of four other shallow bowls that despite their
cuneiform inscriptions again raise questions as the catalogue admits.
The display, cramped and clumsy, does little to improve the mixed
impression with which one leaves an exhibition probably put together
under very difficult conditions. It should have been dazzling, and
it is not.