Page 7 - Expotime10_11_2017

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The archeological site by visitors damage the historic material. Parts of the
ancient architecture where demolished by Iraqui bombs
1851 the Britains F. Williams and W. K. Loftus identified a during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88).
hill in the floodplain of the rivers Dez and Kharkeh as Susa,
and, from 1897 until 1979, French archeologists excavated Visitors can easily achieve the archeologist site with
the ruins. They detected that Susa was built on and around public busses and taxis inside Shush; to Shush there are
four hills and protected by a wall and a moat. 3 busses and trains from Ahvaz and to Ahvaz there are
trains from Tehran.
In the North of the area is the Apadana Hill, with ruins
of an Achaemid palace, in the Southwest the Akropolis, Sumer, Elam and the Persians
the Eastside was named “town of the king“ and near to
it extends the “craftsmen-town“. North of it, a bigger Susa was built in a fertile region in today’s Khuzistan
settlement from Achaemenid period was found. Today, between the rivers Karkheh and Dez. The rivers transport
travellers walk on the Western plains among relics of a mud from the Zagros mountains and make in this way
palace which was built by the Persian king Artaxerxes. agriculture more effective than in the most other parts of
Iran. The fertility caused by the rivers was similar to
Between both areas of the city visitors are attracted by Euphrat and Tigris, and the civilization with Susa as centre
the excavation centre, now a historical monument itself. had much in common with the city states of Mesopotamia.
The archeologists built this “Chateau de Suse“ like a
medieval castle, because they were often attacked in The Kingdom of Elam
19 cent. by nomadic warriors from Khuzistan and had
th
to defend themselves. The archeological site is located The earliest archaelogical finds in Susa show no connection
on an artificial raised terrace which expands around 100 to Mesopotamia but in the late 4 millenium BC Sumer in
th
ha. It includes the relics of a palace complex of the the Uruk period influenced the city culture. Around 1500
Persian king Darius I. BC began the Middle Elamite period, and the rulers took
the title “King of Anshan and Susa“. The Kindinuid dynasty
When the French archeologists excavated the core of used Akkadian language but the later dynasties of the
ancient Susa, the site was surrounded by swamps, snakes Igihalkids and Skutrukids wrote their inscriptions in Elamite.
and waterbirds. Today it is surrounded by a polluted In the third period of the Elam empire, Medes migrated
urban area, taxi drivers and busses, and dump spread to the Iranian plateau and put the Elamites under
around the historical site. This site of global importance pressure. 4
is poorly protected, illegal excavations and destruction

The fortification of the archaeologists, built by the French archaeologist Jean-Marie Jacques de Morgan in the late 1890s
with material from the Susa/Shush excavations for comfort and against attacking local tribes.
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EXPOTIME!, issue October / November 2017