Sassanid Empire
(3-7th c. A.D.)

Architecture

1. Sassanid fire temple at Naqsh-i Rustam. It is constructed as usual on a mountain top, a traditional place of worship in the Near East.

Stone relief

	1. Relief from Naqsh-i Rustam, 3-4th c. A.D. Goddess Anahita on the right invests King Narseh (293-304) with the symbol of kingship. As a goddess of water, her drappery ripples. An example of Sassanid ornate style.
	2. Relief from Taq-i Bustan showing Ardashir II (379-383) at the center receiving his crown from Ahura Mazda. The two stand on a prostrate enemy. At the left is Mithra as a priest, wearing a crown of sun-rays, holding a priest's barsam, and standing on a sacred lotus.
	3. An arched cave in the hunting park at Taq-i Bustan, with reliefs carved under Khusrau II (591-628). At the back of the cave King Khusrau is represented as a warrior who fights for truth and justice (Ahura Mazda).
	4. Detail from Khusrau II's cave at Taq-i Bustan. Here Khusrau receives the diadem from Ahura Mazda on the right, while Anahita, on the left, also offers a diadem. Anahita in Persian mythology is the Strong Undefiled Waters, the source of fertility and life.
	5. A side-wall relief from Khusrau's cave at Taq-i Bustan. From left to right, elephants are used to drive the boar into a swamp; the king hunts them from a boat; the victorious king disembarks and now has a nimbus symbolizing his acquisition of divine glory. The nimbus was adopted by the Mediterranean world as the halo of sainthood.
	6. Relief from Naqsh-i Rustam. Ahura Mazda, on the right, holding the barsam of priesthood, offers the diadem and jpgt of kingship to Ardashir I (224-241), the founder of the Sassanid Empire. Ahura Mazda tramples the head of Ahriman, the principle of evil, while Ardashir tramples the head of Artavazd (Ardavan) (ca. 228 A.D.), the last Parthian king. Here is the religious legitimation of Sassanid monarchy, for the duty of a Zoroastrian was to fight evil so that the Redeemer might come into this world and save the just.

Coins

	1. Silver coin of Ardashir I with a fire altar on its verso (London: British Museum).
	2. To left is a silver drachma of Shapur I (241-272 A.D.), Ardashir I's successor, and to right is a gold denarius of Khusrau II (590-628 A.D.). Khusrau's crown with wings resembles the symbols for the god Verethraghna and the moon god Mah.
	3. Silver coin of Bahram V (421-439), with fire temple on its verso (London: British Museum).
	4. Silver coin of Yazdigird III (632-651), the last Sassanid ruler, with fire alter on its verso (London: British Museum).

Mosaics

1. Irano-Roman floor mosaic detail from the palace of Shapur I at Bishapur (Fars). Lady with a bouquet. 2nd half of 3rd c. A.D. (Tehran: Arch. Museum). Probably a Roman craftsmen contracted to do a Sassanid subject. The endemic hostility between the Late Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia did not stand in the way of a significant cultural exchange between them.

Silver relief

	1. Gilded silver plate showing probably Shapur II (309-379) hunting stags (London: British Museum). 18.0 cm. dia.
	2. Silver repoussæ dish with partial mercury gilt. 457-484 A.D. King Peroz (457-484) hunting mouflon (New York: Metropolitan Museum). 26 cm. dia. A pair of bucks are shown twice: fleeing and dead. Circular composition is cut by a vertical axis. A combination of relief and repoussé, with an additional assembly of high relief elements. Gilt hides the joints. Silver niello contributes to a painterly effect characteristic of 4-5th century Sassanid art.
	3. Silver bowl showing &Khusrau of the righteous soul& (Khusrau I Anushirvan, 531-579) seated on his throne, or his father Kavadh I (488-496). This became a model representation of kingship for Byzantine art and from there, in Carolingian art. Below the king is shown in a typical scene of the mystical hunter of mouflon (Leningrad: Hermitage).
	4. Silver gilt jug, late 6th c. A.D. It reflects sub-Byzantine influence on court culture at time of Khusrau.
	5. Silver gilt dish with a senmerv. 7th c. A.D. (London: British Museum). 19.3 cm dia.
	6. Silver ewer with an image of the senmerv - the dragon-peacock (Leningrad: Hermitage).
	7. Silver gilt plate showing a senmerv (Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek).
	8. Sassanid gilt silver vase of a dancing girl, showing Greek influences. While the rise of the Sassanian dynasty in the third century drew upon and concentrated local resources at the expense of the cosmopolitan Hellenistic culture of the Parthians, this did not mean a simple reversion to the styles and techniques of the Iranian Plateau. Here we see Greek technology and taste for nudes is preserved, but subject to the newer hieratic inorganic forms, symbolism, ritualistic stiff pose, and frontality.
	9. Silver repoussé plate with a hunting scene, 6-7th c. A.D. (Teheran: Foroughi Coll.). Silverwork seems to have reached its peak at the time of Khusrau II (e. 7th c.) and thereafter rapidly declined, due in part to the revitalization of the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century and then to Moslem expansion. The Moslems adopted much of the Sassanid artistic technique and taste, but also modified them and and restored to West Asian art a cosmopolitan taste that was less nativistic.

Jewelry and seals

	1. Impression of a carnelian seal showing Vehdin-Shapur, the chief storekeeper of the Sassanid realm, probably at the time of Yazdigird II (mid 5th c.) (London: British Museum). The headdress indicates his rank.
	2. Sassanian gold pendant from the Wolfsheim tomb treasure. Ca. 378 A.D. (Wiesbaden: Stadt. Mus.)
	3. Jewelry, 4th c. At top is the Susa Cupid of engraved crystal set in a gold mount, originally inlaid (Paris: Louvre). At bottom is the Wolfsheim buckle, which was found with a coin of Valens. The Pahlavi inscription on the buckle has name of Ardashir (Wiesbaden: Museum). The inlays were called &hyacinths& by the ancients because they were reddish zircons and blue saphires (?).

Pottery and stucco sculpture

	1. Sassanid pottery jar with stamped designs. Borsippa, Mesopotamia. Ca. 6th c. A.D. (London: British Museum). Stamped designs of animals, crosses and geometic shapes are characteristic of late Sassanid period.
	2. Stucco plaque with a senmerv in a beaded circle. From Chal Tarkham, near Rayy, 7-8th c. (London: British Museum). 16.9 cm. high. Stucco relief is typical of West Asia and is not found in the Mediterranean world.
	3. Stucco relief of two ibexes flanking a hom (Paris: Louvre). In West Asia, animal images conveyed meaning in the same way that the human figure was used in the Mediterranean. It is unclear what many images represent, and it may not have been entirely clear at the time. A common theme is two animals counterposing a hom - a sacred tree perhaps like a tree of life, which perhaps implied the state's access to creative forces. Christian art adapted the idea in the represention of two deer flanking a fountain (hart panting after the waterbrook) to suggest the quest for salvation.

Textiles

	1. Silk twill textile with peacocks, beaded circle and column decorated with hearts, 3-4th c. A.D. Red hearts are a favorite Sassanid decorative motif and became associated in the Mediterranean world with Saint Valentine. This piece of cloth survived as a reliquary wrapping in Europe (Aachen: Cathedral Treasury). The peacocks share a nimbus, which indicates their holy state. Thanks to the Kushan Empire, raw silk from China reached the West. The Sassanids blockaded the Mediterranean, but did export finished silk products to Egypt, from where they often accompanied the flow of Christian relics to European Churches. Egypt was the point of mutual cultural influence between the two hostile powers. For example, Sassanid peacocks and halos frequently appear later in Mediterranean art.
	2. Egyptian woven pattern woolen curtain or trousers, which was a copy of a Sassanid silk import, which was in turn based on a fresco of King Khusrau II (591-628) fighting Axumite (Ethiopian) forces in Yemen, 5-6th c. A.D. (Lyons: Mus. des Tissus). At the top, symmetrical archiers flank hearts; below, a mounted archer shoots backward from horseback. In contrast, the royal figure below is frontal and static. An Axumite solder is lead into capitivity.
	3. Sassanian silk textile of a boar's head made for export to Chinese Turkistan, 6-7th c. A.D. (New Delhi: Museum). 9& dia. The head, win a beaded surround, is so geometicized as to be almost unrecognizable. This gravitation toward geometic abstraction in late Ancient art (as in Coptic Egypt) seems a desperate effort to force new vitality into old forms by artistic intensification.
	4. Sassanian-Moslem textile, 6-7th c. A.D. A cock in a beaded surround (Vatican City: Mus. Sacr.). This export to Egypt ended up a religuary wrapping in Sancta Sanctorum in Rome. The symboblic significance of the cock is suggested by its having a nimbus. Palmette motifs between surrounds. Design is like Sassanian silver and cliff reliefs. While freedom of design suggests this work is post-Sassanid, the subject and technique remain Sassanid.
	5. Sassanid silk twill textile of a senmerv in a beaded surround, 6-7th c. A.D., and used in the reliquary of Saint Len, Paris (London: Victoria and Albert Museum). Thus, the beaded circle or surround, a typical Sassanid decorative motif reflecting sanctity, penetrates the west to wrap relics and gave rise to the idea of the halo as reflecting the sanctity of the saints. The senmerv was a royal symbol that also influenced political institutions and ideology in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds.