Page 10 - Expotime10_11_2017

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Major Rawlinson found 1836 fragments of columns and an Délégation en Perse and organized excavations in today’s
ancient inscription. Austen Henry Layard discovered Iran between 1897 and 1912. He worked together with
between 1840 and 1842 steps of a stone staircase and the Assyriologist Father Vincent Scheil O.P., the
later a great mound which was the temple area of Susa. Egyptologist Gustave Jéquier, Joseph-Etienne Gautier,
The systematic excavations started at 1851 under the and Georges Lampre, who already lived in Persia for ten
British Colonel Fenwick Williams and the geologist William years. De Morgan had an excellent qualification for his
Kenett Loftus, with Major Rawlinson as supervisor. The job: He was geologist as well as prehistorian, a talented
explorer discovered a lot of objects mostly from Meso- draughtsman and cartographer, he was professional with
Elamie period. They divided the hills in “Susan, the numismatic, ethnology and natural history and was
Palace”; the “Citadel”, the “Great Platform/the Royal somewhat of a Renaissance character. 8
City", and the “Ruins of the artisans’ City”. Loftus
detected the Apadana of the Achaemenids and a column Shush Castle
base with a trilingual inscription written by Artaxerxes
(404-359 BC) which is today in the Louvre Museum. De Morgan constructed the Chateau de Suse to have a
fortified base for the excavation. The researchers had
In 1894, René Davy de Chavigné de Balloy, the French bad experience with the Bani Lam tribes who several
embassador in Tehran, got the French monopoly for times tried to get a piece from the excavation cakes
excavations in Persia from the Shah Naser ad-Din. All knowing quite well the value of finds. The castle is built
objects discovered in the Susa region became possession like medieval fortifications in France; but the workers
of France for the payment of 50 000 Francs. Jacques de dared to use bricks from the Achaemenid castle and the
Morgan, the head of the Department of Antiquities of ziggurat of Choga Zanbil for their residence. Like the
Egypt, became the director of the new created palaces of Susa it had been built on a hill. The castle is
a good example how archeology worked in these days.
Today it is hard to imagine that archeologists destroyed
ancient sites like the ziggurat to build their own
fortification and shape it in a Disney-like medieval style.
But until the end of 19th cent., this was a usual method
even for a highly educated man like de Morgan.

The Ukrainian archaeologist Roman Michailowitsch
Ghirshman commanded the fruitful French excavations
after World War II which were the first ones in Susa
conducted with modern archaeological methods instead
of treasure hunting. He did a lot of research in the
Northern Royal City which incorporated relics from
Islamic, Sasanid, Parthian, Greek and Achaemenid
periods. He retired in 1967. 1972 workers found the upper
part of a statue of Darius I. Between 1969 and 1976, a
palatial complex of Artaxerxes II was excavated.
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Choga Zanbil: The best preserved ziggurat in
the world

The archeologist Roman Ghirshman explored the nearby
Choga Zanbil between 1951 and 1961, the city with the
best preserved ziggurat in the whole Middle East. The
Untash-Napirisha worshipped here the god Inshushinak,
and most people who lived here, were probably priests
and servants.

The ziggurat is protected by three concentric walls. The
inner area consists of one building: The ziggurat. In the
middle area there are eleven temples for lesser gods. In
the outer area five tombs were built for kings. In 1979,
Chogha Zanbil, the best preserved zigurrat in the world,
became 1979 the first UNESCO World Heritage in Iran.
Shush-Daniel, to so-called Daniel's tomb in Susa, is well Best time to visit the zigurrat is the early morning ‒
protected as the biblical Daniel is being interpreted as an especially in the incredibly hot summer months near the
Islamic prophet. Persian gulf. The best months to come are between

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EXPOTIME!, issue October / November 2017