source: Bushire and Beyond Some Early Archaeological Discoveries in Iran
Bushire and Beyond: Some Early Archaeological Discoveries in Iran
By St John Simpson
Forthcoming in: From Persepolis to the Punjab: 19th-century discoveries (Errington, E. & Curtis, V. S., eds), London
Some of the greatest
discoveries are made by chance rather than through design. Interesting
discoveries are not the sole prerogative of scholars, and the history of
archaeology is closely intertwined with the personal histories of
amateurs, antiquarians and travellers. The latter, in particular, have
played an important pioneering role in the discovery and advertisement
of the monuments and antiquities of extinct cultures, sparking the
enthusiasm necessary for the gradual evolution of academic disciplines
focused on the specifics of where, why and how. The following paper
highlights some significant yet little-known discoveries made in Iran
during the opening and closing decades of the nineteenth century.
1- Sasanian remains on the Bushire peninsula
The first part relates to
recurrent discoveries of Sasanian ossuaries at some eight sites on the
Bushire peninsula. On 3 June 1826 one James Edward Alexander (1803-85)
(Pl. 1), landed at the Persian Gulf port and seat of the British
Residency of Bushire (Alexander 1827, p. 92). Alexander had obtained a
cadetship in Madras in 1820 and already served in the Burmese war of
1824 when he left the East India Company to join the 13th Light Dragoons
as a cornet. This was to mark the beginning of a long and active army
service in Persia, the Balkans, Portugal, South Africa, the Crimea, New
Zealand and Canada, finally retiring with the rank of general.1
- His long absence abroad between 1831 and 1854 occasioned a minor incident at the Oriental Club in London, to which he had been elected in 1829, when he was refused re-entry by the Hall Porter (Forrest 1968, p. 28).
Alexander also led exploratory
expeditions in Africa and South America, but is most famous for his role
in finally bringing ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’ to London, some eighty years
after it had been presented by Muhammad Ali (1769-1849) to King George
IV on the occasion of his coronation (O’Donnell [1893], pp. 321-22,
portrait facing 176; Lee 1901, pp. 31-32; Bierbrier 1995, 10).
In 1826 Alexander was a young
man on temporary secondment to Colonel John Macdonald (- Kinneir)
(1782-1830), then British East India Company Envoy Extraordinary to the
Shah. However, as his superior officer was delayed at Shiraz,2 Alexander
spent his time visiting sites in the vicinity of Bushire and Shiraz,
including Naqsh-i Rustam and Bishapur. Alexander was also told tales of
an ancient cemetery located some six miles south of Bushire, close to a
spot called Sabzabad and a short distance east of the ruins at Rishahr
(Fig. 1). According to Alexander’s host Colonel Ephraim Gerrish Stannus
(1784-1850), the official British Resident in the Persian Gulf
(1824-1826), ‘urns [with] human bones, . . . are found in rows close to
an ancient wall’. It is possible from this description that Stannus had
conducted his own investigations at this site but, if so, there is no
published account of it.
However, the cemetery described
to Alexander by Stannus was one of eight such sites on the Bushire
peninsula. The first of these was discovered in March 1811 [close one
space] at a spot some one and three/quarter miles south of the town of
Bushire when two or three asphalt-lined jars were unearthed by a pair of
Arab workmen hired by the Acting Resident, Lieutenant William Bruce, on
behalf of a diplomatic mission led by Sir Gore Ouseley (1770-1844).
These jars were said to be found ‘at about two feet from the surface of
the ground’, to contain bones and were placed side by side, fronting
east and west. They had a small cover at one extremity, and were
terminated at the other by a handle. In length they were three feet and a
half, and the diameter of the orifice eight inches. Our surgeon [Mr
Sharpe] supposed that the bones were those of a woman and child; the
enamel of the teeth was undecayed (Morier 1818, pp. 44-45).
This discovery is also
described by William Ouseley (1767-1842), Sir Gore Ouseley’s older
brother, who added that ‘one old Arab assured me that he had himself dug
up above a hundred’ such vessels (Ouseley 1819, pp. 217-20, 404, pl.
XXIII). William Ouseley kept a skull, the two covers and several sherds
belonging to one of the jars as part of his embryonic collection of
Iranian antiquities.3
Two years later, in February
1813, the construction of a temporary Residency by Bruce at the same
spot resulted in the discovery of five further jars. Two of these were
promptly shipped to Bombay by Captain Taylor, then in command of the
Resident’s guard of sepoys. This discovery was first reported by Sir
John Malcolm (1769-1833), then resident in Tehran as Minister
Plenipotentiary to the Shah, in his History of Persia (Malcolm
1815, vol. I, p. 198, n.*). They were later referred to in a slightly
garbled description by Lt-Colonel John Johnson (1818, p. 19) who heard
of the discovery when he passed through Bushire in 1817. Shortly
afterwards they were the subject of a detailed paper presented to the
shortlived Literary Society of Bombay by Mr William Erskine (1819) on
the basis of correspondence with Bruce. They were found ‘interred in a
straight line lying east and west, the small end to the east.’ Four of
the jars were of a similar size, approximately three feet long, but the
fifth was ‘a small one for an infant I suppose’. Disarticulated unburnt
human bones were found inside the jars, the restricted size of which led
Erskine to conclude that they had been used for the burial of
decomposed corpses that had been deliberately exposed (cf. also Malcolm
1815, vol. I, p. 198, n.*; Modi 1889; Casartelli 1890).4
This was not the only findspot
for such jar-burials. Bruce reported to Erskine (1819, pp. 191-2) that
‘a few . . . were met with in a / mound about twelve miles’ from the
first cemetery. Further jars appear to have been discovered at this spot
on at least two subsequent occasions. This site is described as being
three miles south of Sabzabad, in the part of the country called
Bakhtiar, [where] there is a small plain within two or three feet of the
surface of which there were found, some forty-five years ago [i.e. c.
1843], and may still be found, barrel-shaped coffins of baked earth,
containing also human relics stowed away in the same fashion as these in
the stone coffins, and the two sorts of repositories may be said to be
of equal size and capacity, though far different in shape. The
barrel-like coffins, which are termed jars, are of two equal parts,
being divided in the middle breadthwise, and evidently joined together
by metallic fasteners, which have, of course, rusted away, but the
3-This collection included
seals, coins and other small objects acquired in Bushire bazaar, two
fragments of Persepolis sculptures and three inscribed bricks collected
from ‘Babylon’ by one Mr Martin, then staying in Bushire (Ouseley 1819,
pp. 209, 213, 219, 417, pl. XXI). The reliability of the Babylon
provenance might be questioned as the correct location of the site had
only been firmly established in 1818 by the EIC Resident in Baghdad,
Claudius James Rich (1786-1821), and it is more likely that these bricks
derive from the Kassite capital of Aqar Quf, the spectacularly eroded
ziggurat which was frequently mistaken for the Tower of
4-This may be the report to which Keppel (1827, p. 107) refers in his comments on the use of clay rather than
wooden coffins in Mesopotamia.
holes on the rims of each half, evidently intended as holds for the
fasteners, bear evidence to this explanation (Modi 1889, p. 3, quoting a
letter from C.J. Malcolm dated 5 August 1888). A similar jar was
presented to the British Museum in 1823 by Captain James Ashley Maude.
This was shipped from Bushire in 1817 and was found in a desert about
three miles to the eastward of the walls of the town [of Rishahr] where
at present, there are neither dwelling houses nor inhabitants. The vase
is lined with bitumen, and a stone is generally found under the cover,
placed upon the contents, which are human bones. These vases are found
in groups of five or six, placed near each other in a horizontal
position with the pointed end towards the east and about five or six
feet under the surface of the earth. These groups of vases are supposed
to contain the remains of families. Some of them are in the shape of a
sarcophagus formed of talc (J.A. Maude, p. 22 May 1823).5
These vessels have sandy
fabrics, a cylindrical body thrown in sections with a paddled bottom, a
pointed base and a rolled rim, and were lined with asphalt (Fig.
2.1-2).6 This type of so-called torpedo jar with a ‘spitzfuss’ base is
possibly best-known from Sasanian sites in central and southern
Mesopotamia and south-west Iran (e.g. Adams 1981, p. 234) and indeed
Captain Robert Mignan (1829, pp. 46-47) compared similar vases he found
in southern Iraq in 1827 with ‘some I have dug up near a village called
Reschire, five miles to the south of Bushire in the Persian Gulph’. The
form appears to have commenced in the Parthian period and continued to
be made into the early ‘Abbasid period. They were probably lined with
asphalt so as to render them impervious, and were presumably the local
equivalent of Roman transport amphorae which were used primarily to
carry wine and oil but also other substances (Zemer 1977). The pointed
bases – described by Morier as ‘handles’ – were probably designed to be
set into supports, yet would have provided a suitable grip when carried
slung over one shoulder.
The site of Sabzabad itself,
close to an old fort at Rishahr, is known to have produced stone
ossuaries as well as jar burials judging by Stannus’ account to
Alexander. The remains at Rishahr are marked on a number of early maps
and gazetteers of the Persian Gulf owing to their use in navigation
along this barren section of coastline. Niebuhr’s map dated 1765 marks
‘Rischahr
ruins’ (cf. Hansen
1964, p. 311), as does a later Memoir prepared for the Indian government
in 1830 by Captain G. Barnes Brucks (reproduced by Bidwell 1985, p.
587, map facing p. 531); a later British naval intelligence report
likewise comments that Rishahr ‘is on the site of a medieval port, and
has a ruined fort’ (Mason 1945, p. 125). The date of this fort has not
been firmly established although it is widely attributed to the
Portuguese, who finally evacuated in 1622.7 However, the site itself
should be identified as the Sasanian port of Rev-Shapur.
According to later historical sources this town was founded by Ardashir I (c. AD 224-41), was a victim of Arab piracy culminating in bloody reprisals by Shapur II (AD 309-79),8 and witnessed a
5- British Museum archives: Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Letters on Antiquities, 75.
6- A photograph of this vessel was published by Bilkadi (1996, 103).
7- There is some evidence to
suggest that the Portuguese may have re-modelled an earlier fort dating
to the thirteenth century or before (Whitehouse & Williamson 1973,
p. 40); a similar pattern of reuse is evident at the so-called
Portuguese Fort on Bahrain (Vine 1993, 99-103).
8- Bandar Abbas and other Persian ports were the subject of similar raids during a period of weakened central
major battle during the Arab
Conquest.9 During the fifth century it was the seat of the Nestorian
metropolitan of Fars. It is said to have been a source of [i.e. local
market for] excellent pearls and clearly functioned as an important
entrepot for the province of Fars and an early rival to Siraf within the
context of Gulf trade (cf. Whitehouse 1971; Williamson 1972; Whitehouse
& Williamson 1973). Early Sasanian Fine Orange Ware with Black
Paint – probably imported from south-east Iran – Indian Red Polished
Ware, Sasanian plain wares and so-called pedestal supports have been
found here (Pézard 1914, pl. V.18; Williamson 1972, pp. 100, 104;
Whitehouse & Williamson 1973, pp. 35-42, pl. II). In addition,
extensive remains of carnelian-working in the form of beads, gems, rings
and waste flakes have been reported from the area of Rishahr
(Whitehouse 1975; cf. Pézard 1914, p. 35). The date of these remains is
unclear. Whitehouse implied that they may be Sasanian and states that
there is a local source yet local informants told Ouseley (1819, pp.
200-201) that ‘above seven hundred families [were] employed in cutting
and polishing carnelians and other ornamental stones; which, it is /
affirmed, were not originally produced here; but brought in their rough
state from Cambay in India.’
The importance of Rishahr was
finally supplanted when Nadir Shah (r. 1736-47) selected a fishing
village situated at the northern tip of this narrow coral reef peninsula
as the site of the principal Persian port and naval base of Bushire.10
This was designed to enable Persian control of the Gulf and soon
afterwards the Persian navy indeed succeeded in seizing Bahrain and
Muscat. In 1763 the British East India Company established a Residency
at Bushire enabling exclusive trading rights in Persia and in the
following year the Resident was upgraded to British Consul (Belgrave
1972a, pp. 19-20; Standish 1998, pp. 83-84). By 1820/1 Bushire was
handling a quarter of all Persian exports although the population never
exceeded 20,000 (Issawi 1971, pp. 27-28, 31, 130).
The town of Bushire was
dominated by fine two-storey buildings with wind-catchers and an
Armenian Church of St. George built in 1819 (Greenway & St Vincent
1998, p. 305; Mason 1945, pp. 503, 583). The Residency itself was
situated outside the south-east corner of the town walls but close to
the seashore and was ‘built in the Indian style, with big, high rooms
and old- world sanitation, but comfortable and more dignified than the
houses which are now being built in the Gulf’ (Belgrave 1972b, p. 14).
The plan consisted of a rectangular building with a defendable entrance
and outer and inner courtyards surrounded by storerooms, offices,
kitchens and living quarters (Belgrave 1972a, p. 85). This building
remained in use as the Residency until the mid-nineteenth century when
Captain Felix Jones transferred it to the former summer retreat at
Sabzabad (Belgrave 1972a, p. 85; Wright 1977, p. 73).11 The subsequent
growth of Sabzabad must have been a factor for this being the findspot
of a number of further ossuaries in the second half of the nineteenth
century.
9- The Arab sources are
ambiguous as a second Rishahr existed near the head of the Gulf in the
district of Arrajan (Le Strange 1905, p. 271) but most modern writers
accept that this is the site of Rishahr near Bushire (Hinds 1984, 51-52,
n. 87).
10- In March 1811 the wreck of
Nadir Shah’s man-of-war, constructed at great effort with wood brought
from Mazanderan, was still visible in Bushire harbour (Morier 1818, pp.
38-9). Further information on the history and topography of the town is
given by Curzon (ed. 1892, vol. II, pp. 229-36), Wilson (1928), Mason
(1945, pp. 125, 502-4, pls 270-71), Bidwell (1985, pp. 584-86) and de
Planhol (1990); Wright (1998, pp. 167-68) lists funerary monuments of
British individuals interred in the church of St. George and at Rishahr
Cemetery. Useful detailed maps of the island can be found in Pézard
(1914, pl. IX), [Moberly] (1987, endpapers: ‘to illustrate operations at
Bushire 1915’), Whitehouse & Williamson (1973, p. 36) and Whitcomb
(1987, p. 312).
11- The Sabzabad Residency was
used until 1946 when the Political Residency was transferred to Bahrain
and the old buildings handed over to the Persian government for use as a
sanatorium; the British consulate closed in
Close to Sabzabad, and a short
distance east of Rishahr, lie the remains of the important Neo- Elamite
settlement of Liyan. Wilson (1928, p. 73) refers to ‘numerous burial
urns, bricks, and cuneiform inscriptions [being] discovered in the
neighbourhood in 1873 and 1877’. A number of these bricks exist in the
British Museum, one presented by Mr A.S. Betts in 1873 but the majority
being presented by Colonel Ross in 1875 (Walker 1981).12 In 1887
excavations were made at Liyan by the German philologist, Mr Friedrich
Carl Andreas (1846-1930) (Pl. 2), during the course of his research into
the languages of southern Iran (Kanus-Credé 1974; Budge 1920, vol. I,
p. 331).13 These investigations are unpublished: some 200 cases of
Elamite and other antiquities were packed but ‘owing to pecuniary
difficulties he was unable to take them out of the country. Four cases
belonging to this collection are on their way to the British Museum’ (Reports to the Trustees,
19 May 1888).14 The site was later re-investigated in 1913 by the
French mission to Iran (Pézard 1914) but no further work has been
undertaken there.15
In March 1888 as part of a more
extensive trip to Mesopotamia and Egypt, Wallis Budge visited Bushire
in order to investigate the possibility of new excavations. These were
considered either at Bushire or on Bahrain where Captain E.L. Durand’s
discovery of a cuneiform inscription ten years before had attracted an
[unclaimed] offer of a ,100 grant from the Trustees of the British
Museum towards further exploration on the island.16 At Sabzabad Budge
‘called on Mr C. J. Malcolm, on whose property the antiquities had been
found, and he welcomed us most kindly, and offered to afford every
facility if the British Museum would excavate the whole site. He gave me
for the Museum a small Parthian stone coffin, containing burnt human
remains’ (Budge 1920, vol. I, p. 331 = Fig. 3.1).17
This was not the only ossuary
discovered by Joseph Malcolm [Malkomian], an Armenian employee of the
Persian Telegraph company. In the same year he sent a second limestone
ossuary and lid ‘filled with human bones’ – later reportedly identified
as those of a sixty year old man – to the Anthropological Society of
Bombay. This coffin was promptly published by Mr
Jivangi Jamsedji Modi, a
leading Parsi scholar in Bombay, who related the find to Avestan texts
describing Zoroastrian burials in ‘bone receptacles’ or astodans (Modi 1889; cf. also Casartelli 1890). According to a letter to Modi from Malcolm, dated 5 August 1888, this ossuary
was accidentally found in a vault about 5 or 6 feet below the surface . . . among others deposited there, and covered with the débris of
parts of the vault that had fallen in from the effects of rain. The
said vault is about 7 miles from the town of Bushire, and the ground
surrounding it are covered with / mounds, which are manifestly the ruins
of what must once have been buildings. The particular vault
12- These are registered as ANE
1873-7-26,1; 1875-7-24,1-2 [part]; 1875-7-25,1-37; 1895-5-14, 2-7. An
inscribed brick of Shilhak-Inshushinak I passed through the London
salerooms in recent years; according to the attached nineteenth century
paper label, this was one of a group of seven (Bonhams 5 July 1994, pp.
62-63, lot 268 = Bonhams 7 April 1998, p. 47, lot 237 = Bonhams 22
September 1998, p. 43, lot 140).
13- Andreas is better known for his philological contributions and co-operation with F. Stolze in the publication
of the first photographic album
of the standing ruins at Persepolis (Andreas & Stolze 1882). The
bulk of his papers are held by the University Library in Göttingen
(Lentz 1987).
14- British Museum archives:
Department of the Ancient Near East. The bricks are registered as ANE
1875-7- 25,1-26 (cf. Walker 1981, pp. 149-50).
15- This site is briefly described by Mostafavi (1978, 92).
16- Budge decided against
working on Bahrain but Mr and Mrs Bent excavated a large tumulus there
the following Their finds were later presented to the British Museum
(Reade & Burleigh 1978).
17- This acquisition is listed
in reports by Mr Renouf (then Keeper of the Department of Egyptian and
Assyrian Antiquities) to the British Museum Trustees (Reports to the Trustees, 19 May 1888, 28 June 1888).
itself was under a mound, and
the removal of which for agricultural purposes led to the discovery of
the said coffin (Modi 1889, pp. 2-3).
The British Resident in Bushire
at this time was Colonel Edward C. Ross, who had already presented the
Museum with the inscribed bricks from Liyan mentioned above, a second
and very similar limestone ossuary which was probably found at the same
site (Fig. 3.2) and a reused torpedo jar ossuary that was said to be
from Sabzabad (Fig. 2.2).18 The stone ossuaries were later placed on
display in a former Babylonian and Assyrian Room – now the Early Egypt
gallery in Room 64 – in the British Museum, together with Parthian
glazed ‘slipper coffins’ excavated at Warka by William Kennet Loftus
(British Museum 1892, p. 135; British Museum 1908, p. 117; British
Museum 1922, p. 80). The sizes and shapes of the two ossuaries in the
British Museum compare favourably with that described by Modi: the three
range from 48 to 60 cm in length, 33 to 36.6 cm in width and 24.5 to 27
cm in height. Each has one squared-off end and a rounded end and was
covered with a flat lid carved from the same type of stone; two of the
lids have single holes drilled through at either end. The shaping marks
of an adze are very clear on both of the ossuaries and lids in the
British Museum.
Curzon (1892, vol. II, p. 235) later described these discoveries as one of the characteristic features of Bushire, there being
an immense
collection of stone and earthenware vases of rude shape and fabrication,
sealed up with earthenware lids or with coverings of talc, sometimes
lined inside with a coating of bitumen, and containing human skulls and
bones. A great number of these have been found between Bushire and
Reshire, at a depth of about two feet below the surface, usually placed
horizontally in a long line one after the other. The jars are about
three feet in length and one foot in diameter. They are supposed to have
contained the remains of Zoroastrians, after the body had perished by
exposure.
Whitcomb (1987, p. 315) has
ingeniously suggested that these reports may have referred to lines of
ancient drain pipes, possibly water conduits leading from the Angali
canal which appears to have supplied the peninsula with much of its
water in antiquity. However, it is clear from the contemporary
descriptions that bones were invariably found within both the
asphalt-lined jars and the stone ossuaries. A further set of ossuaries
were discovered in more recent years as a result of the construction of a
national park at Shoqab next to the beach between Bushire and Rishahr.
These finds included long narrow-mouthed jars measuring up to 87 cm in
height, 14 cm across at the mouth, and containing human remains and
plain stone ossuaries measuring 50 cm in length, 30 cm across and 25 cm
in height (Mir Fattah 1996; Curtis and Simpson 1997, p. 139; Yamauchi
1997, pp. 241-42).19 These reports draw attention to similar finds being
made in more recent years at Bahmani and Bagh-e Zahra, thus bringing
the number of currently known burial sites to a total of eight, lying
north, east and south of the Sasanian port of Rev-Shapur.
18- The stone ossuary was
reported in later gallery guides as being from Susa but this is not
supported by documentation at the time of its
19- These discoveries are
mentioned in a recent guide. ‘Excavations along the same road [between
Bushire and Rishahr] have revealed a more or less continuous line of
buried earthenware vases, believed to contain the remains of
Zoroastrians after the vultures had done their work’ (Greenway & St
Vincent 1998, 307).
There has been much discussion
over Sasanian funerary customs with a common assumption that these must
be influenced by Zoroastrian belief as this was the official religion of
the Empire
(e.g. Trumpelmann 1984; Boucharlat 1991). However, the available archaeological evidence
suggests a wide range of burial practices in different parts of the Empire which probably reflects
more closely a diversity of religious belief and funerary tradition. In Mesopotamia primary
Sasanian burials have been
excavated at over forty sites, including Tell Mahuz (Negro Ponzi 1968/9)
and Mohammed ‘Arab (Roaf 1984, pp. 142-44, pl. XI). In other cases,
particularly along the Euphrates, torpedo jars were likewise reused in a
funerary context but employed in a different manner, namely placed in a
row over the body, presumably in order to protect it from dogs and
other animals (al-Haditti 1995).
Within Iran there is greater
evidence for secondary burials although primary burials of this period
have been excavated at some sites in northern Iran, including Haftavan
Tepe (Burney 1970, pp.169-71, pls VIIc-d, VIIIa-c). Across southern
Iran, individuals were interred inside cairns although the poor state of
the surviving remains render it ambiguous as to whether these were
disturbed primary burials or secondary interments (cf. Azarpay 1981).
The practice of interring human remains inside torpedo jars is attested
from Susa. Loftus (1856/7) remarked that this was the ‘most common form
of coffin’ that he encountered at this site, especially on the huge
Ville Royale mound (so-called ‘Great Platform’), and speculated on how
the bodies could have been placed inside such narrow-mouthed vessels
(cf. also Loftus 1857, pp. 405-406). Similar jar burials have been
reported from the Galalak district of Shushtar, suggesting that this was
a funerary practice employed at a number of sites in this region (Mir
Fattah 1996). At other places in Fars, there is evidence for burial in
rock-cut ossuaries but the cemeteries found on the Bushire peninsula
offer the first convincing archaeological evidence for stone and ceramic
ossuaries within Iran at this date.
2-Early excavations at Persepolis and the discovery of a sphinx
Bushire was the traditional
gateway to central Iran from the south. At a distance of some 200 km
from Bushire lay the city of Shiraz. On arrival here the adventurous and
the romantic usually rode out to the ruins of the Achaemenid royal
citadel at Persepolis, a short distance away. These ruins were
rediscovered by a European audience during the seventeenth century with
the
publication of travel accounts
by Pietro della Valle and others. The standing remains were frequently
illustrated by later travellers, some of whom made more extensive
investigations. The story of these discoveries is still unfolding but
the following section illustrates another significant yet little-known
episode.
On 29 June 1826 Alexander
visited Persepolis where he found excavations by his superior officer to
be in progress. After briefly describing the ruins, he added:
Colonel Macdonald employed
people in clearing away the earth from a staircase, and made the
interesting discovery of a chimerical figure representing a lion or
dragon winged, with a human head, resting one of its paws on a
lotus-flower, supported by a stem like that of the date tree. No similar
figure had ever previously been discovered at Persepolis (Alexander
1827, p. 140).
This figure belongs to a
category of Achaemenid male royal sphinxes (Pl. 3). Facing pairs of
these figures, each wearing a divine horned headdress and with one paw
raised in supplication, survive in the upper central panel on the
processional staircases of four buildings at Persepolis, namely the
Palace of Darius, the Palace of Xerxes, the Apadana and the so-called
‘Central Building’. At the time of Macdonald’s excavations, these
facades were either still buried or in a highly fragmentary state
(Ouseley 1821, pp. 255-56, n. 31, p. 532, pl. XLI [bound in out of
sequence to follow p. 530]); indeed, a second fragment of sphinx relief
from Persepolis was found reused at the site of Madar-i Sulaiman [Qasr-i
Abu Nasr] where it was recorded by earlier travellers, including Sir
William Ouseley in 1811 (Ouseley 1821, pp. 41, 534, pl. LV: 5).20
However, the present example derives from a fifth location, probably the
upper central portion of a facade belonging to Palace G, which was
constructed next to the Palace of Darius by Artaxerxes III (358-338 BC)
but which was physically transferred during or after his reign to
replace the original north staircase of Palace H that had been
constructed by Artaxerxes I (464- 424 BC) (Shahbazi 1976, pp. 53, 55).
The fact that it was not previously exposed to the elements helps
explain its relatively crisp appearance.
The purpose of these sphinx
figures was apotropaic and variations of the motif recur on a number of
small objects of this period, including a gold appliqué in the Oxus
Treasure (Dalton 1964, 14, pl. XII),21 an ivory from Susa (de Mecquenem
1947, p. 88, fig. 56: 2), gold appliqués from Sardis and elsewhere
(Curtis 1925, 11, pl. I, no. 1; Bingöl 1999, 182, no. 203), Western
Achaemenid stamp seals (Boardman 1970, pp. 34, 39, 42-43, pls 1, 5, nos
5, 116-25) and seal impressions from Daskyleion, Wadi Daliyeh and Ur
(Leith 1997, 191-92, pl. XV: 1, cf. also pls XIX, XXI, XV; Collon 1996,
p. 74, pls 20d-f, h-i).
Accompanying Alexander’s
description are three engravings taken from the author’s drawings. These
consist of the sphinx relief in question, a standard view of the site
looking down from the mountain behind the Tomb of Artaxerxes III (Pl. 4)
and a detail of a processional scene showing servants ascending a
staircase to the left (Pl. 5). The processional scene may be identified
with the bottom right flight of the eastern staircase of the Palace of
Darius where these figures are missing yet closely paralleled by figures
on the equivalent left side (Schmidt 1953, pls 133, 135).22
The Persepolis sphinx was
removed in 1828 by Sir John McNeill (1795-1883), a difficult process as
he described in a letter to Macdonald.23 The relief was generously
presented to the British Museum in December 1937 by the National Art
Collections Fund who had purchased it for the reduced price of ,600 from
the dealer Mr Alfred Spero of 48 Duke Street, St. James’ (Pl. 6; Trustees Reports for 1936-38,
no. 17;24 Smith 1938; Barnett 1957, pp. 62-63, pl. XXI: 4; Verdi ed.
2003, 123, cat.53). Nothing was then known about its previous history
although it was assumed
20- This fragment has since
been restored to its original position (Carbone 1965, p. 36, fig. 5). In
1933 the American excavators of Qasr-i Abu Nasr found traces of the
nineteenth century excavations (Whitcomb 1985, 16, 32).
21- Pfrommer (1993, pp. 17-18, 238, nn. 122, 127, 148) has suggested a post-Achaemenid date for this appliqué
(ANE 1897-12-31,26 = 123927).
22- Compare the scene at the
bottom right flight of the staircase on the western side which was
moulded by the Weld expedition (Smith 1932, 3, pl. 8).
23- McNeill first visited
Persia as an Assistant-Surgeon to Major Henry Willock’s mission in
January 1821. After his first marriage he was re-appointed at Willock’s
request as medical officer to the East India Company legation in Tehran
in 1824, later becoming assistant to Macdonald and eventually promoted
to Minister Plenipotentiary to Tehran from 1836-42 (Lee 1893, pp.
249-51; [MacAlister] 1910; Wright 1977, pp. 21-22). McNeill finally
retired to Edinburgh in 1842 where his house at 53 Queen Street was
‘fitted up entirely in Persian materials’ ([MacAlister] 1910, p. 271).
It is likely from this description that the sphinx relief featured
prominently among these furnishings. We are very grateful to Mrs F. S.
Farmanfarmaian for kindly drawing our attention to this description
(Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh: McNeill Papers, GD371/-).
24- British Museum archives: Department of the Ancient Near East, Smith, Report of Donations, 29 December
that it had been in a private
British collection since the nineteenth century.25 Alexander’s (1827)
description and illustration are therefore particularly important as
they establish, for the first time, a precise provenance for the British
Museum relief. However, other details of Alexander’s published drawing
are incorrect: the tip of the winged disc symbol in front of the sphinx
was mistaken for a rosette and the fourteen line ruling to the left
should correspond with the beginning of a row of plants. The vertical
left side of this slab is original whereas the present thickness of 8.5
cm indicates that it has been thinned down as other slabs along this
facade are uniformly 30 cm thick.
It is quite possible that
Macdonald made other clearances at Persepolis as he appears to have been
a regular visitor to the site, leaving graffiti within Xerxes’ Gate of
All Nations (the so-called ‘Porch of Xerxes’) dated 1808, 1810 and 1826,
and the main north doorway of the Palace of Darius dated June 1820
(Curzon 1892, vol. II, pp. 157, 169). Indeed, the 1820 graffito lists
the members of the delegation as ‘Col. J. M. Macdonald Envoy, Cap. R.
Campbell Asst., Sir Keith Jackson Bart., Cap. Jervis 3d Cav., Major Geo.
Willock, Lt. McDonald, J. P. Riach Esq., Lt. Strong, Cornet Alexander,
Geo. Malcolm’ followed by the name of ‘Mrs Macdonald Kinneir’ (Simpson
2005). However, Macdonald’s excavations were by no means the only such
investigations conducted during this period and the first quarter of the
nineteenth century witnessed a minor flurry of activity at Persepolis.
The early travellers’ accounts provide a useful record of the state of
the monuments and illustrate their progressive decay.26 This was
precisely the period when a number of sculptural fragments entered
private European collections, notably belonging to Sir Gore Ouseley
(Ambassador to Persia 1811-14) and the Fourth Earl of Aberdeen, many of
which were later presented to the British Museum.27 One of these little-
known early excavators was Colonel Stannus, Alexander’s host at Bushire
in June 1826.
25- Sidney Smith (Keeper of the
Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities) suggested in a letter
to Sir Robert Witt (Chairman of the National Art Collections Fund) that
the sphinx may have belonged to Lord Amherst of Hackney but this is
clearly mistaken (British Museum archives: Department of the Ancient
Near East, Correspondence, 30 October 1937). I am also grateful to Mrs M. Yule of the National Art Collections Fund for her
26- Not all travellers were so
thorough. For instance, John Hyde, a businessman from Manchester,
visited Persepolis on 4 and 6 October 1821 – the days immediately before
and after the premature death of Claudius James Rich in Shiraz – but
his (unpublished) journal makes no further reference to his activities
there (British Library Add. MS 42106).
27- Barnett (1957); Mitchell (2000); Roaf (1987) and Curtis (1998) list additional pieces in other collections;
3- Stannus, the first plaster casts of Persepolis sculptures and the Weld expedition
‘Stannus was a splendid-looking
man with a tall soldier-like presence’ (Pl. 7; Vibart 1894, p. 107). He
was from a wealthy Irish family who joined the service of the Indian
army in 1800 and was posted to the Bombay European Regiment with which
he served with distinction; he was promoted to Captain in 1811, rising
to Colonel in 1829 (Vibart 1894, pp. 104-107; Crone 1937, p. 237;
Burke’s Peerage 1976, p. 1046).
During his brief Residence at
Bushire, Stannus produced an important report for the British government
on the state of trade between Persia and India between 1817 and 1823
(quoted by Issawi 1971, pp. 89-91).
He retired to England from this
post on health grounds in 1826 but was later appointed
Lieutenant-Governor of the East India Company Military Seminary at
Addiscombe, near Croydon, on 13 March 1834. This promotion followed the
resignation of his predecessor over growing criticism of the discipline
at Addiscombe, the breakdown of which was attributed to ‘the pernicious
habit of smoking cigars’ and the availability of pocket money (Broadfoot
1893, p. 651). However, ‘though just and kindly, he was no
administrator, and was systematically irritated by the cadets into
extraordinary explosions of wrath and violent language. During the
latter years of his rule at Addiscombe the discipline seems to have got
very slack’ (Lee 1898, p. 86). ‘Notwithstanding his quickness of temper
and his use of strong language, Sir Ephraim Stannus was a favourite with
the cadets’ (Vibart 1894, p. 109).28 In 1838 Stannus was promoted to
the rank of Major-General and he remained in post here until he died of a
heart attack on 21 October 1850, aged 66. He had remained a close
friend of McNeill’s with whom he maintained regular correspondence ‘in
the most illegible of handwritings’ ([MacAlister] 1910, p. 88). Stannus
was buried in the churchyard of St. John’s in Croydon and a plaque was
erected in his memory by ‘a few of his oldest friends’ in St. James’s
Church, where the cadets used to attend and where many of the officers
were buried (Croydon Advertiser 1882, p. 27).29
During his spell of residence
in Bushire, Stannus made some limited yet previously unrecognised
excavations at Persepolis. In 1825 he exposed ‘a number of sculptured
stones, capitals of columns etc.’ but these were re-buried a few days
later by local villagers who blamed them for a sudden locust swarm
(Alexander 1827, p. 137). Although not cited by Curzon (1892), Stannus’
name recurs twice as a graffito on the interior of the main east doorway
and a window on the south side of the Palace of Darius (Simpson 2005).
Despite his evidently mixed
fortune in excavation, Stannus succeeded in making the first casts of
Persepolis reliefs as an alternative record, through the expedient of
making
several long shallow boxes of
wood, in / which he put quick lime, applied them to the sculptures, and
allowed them to remain till thoroughly dry. The case was then taken off
and sent to Bushire, containing the impression, from which the cast was
again taken in lime. These, of course, are very valuable, as nothing can
be more accurate. Processions were the subjects of these casts
(Alexander 1827, pp. 97-8).
28- See also his obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1850, 659.
29- I am grateful to Mr S.
Griffiths of Croydon Local Studies Library for this information. The
Seminary was finally closed in 1861 with the merging of the Indian and
British Armies after the Indian Mutiny when the War Office decided that
the existing training facilities at Sandhurst and Woolwich were
sufficient. Addiscombe House, which was built by Hawksmoor, and the
surrounding buildings were later demolished for housing
These casts were shipped to
India following Stannus’ departure from Bushire in 1826. The governor of
Bombay during this period was Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) who
was said to be ‘immersed in classical literature’ and had previously
been responsible for ‘the putting together of a valuable library in the
handsome Residency’ at Poona (Bellasis 1952, p. 211). In
1827, the year of Elphinstone’s
resignation, Mr Edward Hawkins (1780-1867), numismatist and Keeper of
the Department of Antiquities in the British Museum, reported to the
Trustees that ‘he has received 23 cases of casts of Persepolitan
sculptures and inscriptions presented to the Museum by the Hon.
Mountstuart Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay. They are at present placed
upon shelves in the basement storage’ (Officers’ Reports, vol. X, May 1827).30 These casts immediately appear to have been given a protective wash and sealed with oil (Minutes of the Standing Committee of Trustees,
no. 3022, 12 May 1827); some were also mounted on stone slabs, a method
that continued to be used in the nineteenth century to support fragile
Assyrian reliefs and Parthian coffins within the Museum (Sub-committee on Antiquities,
14 June 1828, p. 13).31 The casts were placed on display in the Central
Saloon [later moved to the Assyrian Transept] of the British Museum
together with Persepolis sculptures presented by Sir Gore Ouseley in
1817 and Lord Aberdeen in 1825 (Jenkins 1992). However, these were not
the only casts made by Stannus: he also made casts of the Middle Persian
inscriptions at Hajjiabad (Curzon 1892, vol. II, p. 116) which were
displayed together with the Persepolis sculptures and casts.32 However,
since that date the existence and significance of these has been
overlooked (Simpson 2000; 2003).
In 1844 a second group of
Persepolis casts, totalling twenty seven reliefs and four inscriptions,
were made by M. Pierre-Victorien Lottin [also known as Lottin de Laval]
(1810-1903), using a different technique that was christened
‘lottinoplastique’; these casts survive in the Musée de Berny and Musée
du Louvre (Chevalier 1997, pp. 27, 33, 193, figs 11, 18, nos 8-9;
Zapata-Aubé & Amiot-Defontaine 1997).33
Almost fifty years later a
third and even more extensive set of plaster casts were made through an
expedition to Persepolis initiated by Mr Cecil Harcourt Smith
(1859-1944), a curator in the Department of Antiquities in the British
Museum. This followed an earlier reconnaissance trip to Persia for the
purpose of ‘examining some likely fields for archaeological research in
Southern Persia’ which Smith had made in May-August 1887; he was
accompanied and assisted by Major- General Sir Robert Murdoch Smith
(1835-1900), formerly a key player in Newton’s expedition to
Halicarnassus, later Director of the Persian Telegraph company and now
Director of the Royal Scottish Museum (Dickson 1901, p. 311).34 The
ensuing expedition of 1892 was privately
30- British Museum archives:
Central Archives. A second group of eighteen casts, listed by Stannus in
a paper sent to Edward Hawkins (Letters on Antiquities, 100), were offered by Stannus to the Royal Dublin Society but not delivered owing to ‘some mistake of his agent’.
31- I am very grateful to Dr
Ian Jenkins (Department of Greek & Roman Antiquities) for drawing my
attention to these archives and to Christopher Date (Central Archives)
for his kind assistance.
32- A Guide to the Exhibition Galleries of the British Museum, Bloomsbury,
(London 1884), 80. Two of these casts were transferred in 1880 from the
India Museum. It might be noted that the original colour of the plaster
– visible on the backs of the casts – and the method of mounting of the
Stannus casts from Persepolis and Hajjiabad are identical yet contrast
greatly with that of the later Weld series. I am very grateful to Ken
Uprichard (Head of Inorganic Conservation) for his insightful comments
on these and the possible original displayed appearance of other
sculptures.
33- Lottin de Laval also made casts of Assyrian reliefs at Khorsabad (Fontan 1994). His own Manuel complet de Lottinoplastique, published in 1857, has been re-issued electronically at http://www.bmlisieux.com/ normandie/lottinop.htm
34- British Museum archives: Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Reports to the Trustees 1887-88, pp.
financed by Lord Savile and was directed by Mr Herbert Weld [Blundell] (1852-1935).
Herbert Joseph Weld was born in
1852 and was educated at Stonyhurst (Pl. 8). He was the son of Thomas
Weld-Blundell of Ince-Blundell but discontinued the name of Blundell in
1924 prior to inheriting the Weld seat at Lulworth. His career included
further travels in Persia (1891), Libya (1894) and Cyrenaica (1895),
hunting game and exploring the source of the Blue Nile in Somaliland,
Abyssinia and Sudan (1898/9, 1905) and a spell as Boer War correspondent
for The Morning Post. Herbert Weld was a notable
philanthropist. In addition to his work at Persepolis he presented a
substantial collection of East African stuffed birds to the Natural
History Museum and, in the winter of 1921/2, he travelled to Baghdad
where he acquired an important collection of tablets. He presented this
to the Ashmolean Museum, recommending Kish as the preferred site for a
proposed joint expedition between Oxford University – largely funded by
Weld himself – and the Field Museum in Chicago, and nominally directed
by Stephen Langdon, then the Professor of Assyriology in the University
(Field 1955, p. 53; Gibson 1972, pp. 70-71; Moorey 1978, pp. 13-14).
On 11 November 1925 Weld was
elected an Honorary Fellow of Queen’s College Oxford in recognition of
his support for the Kish expedition, the citation in the minute-book
referring to him as ‘Hon. D.Litt., Fellow Commoner 1902’; at that time a
Fellow Commoner was a person admitted to the college as a mature
scholar, already a graduate of some standing, who was allowed to share
the high table with the fellows as a mark of distinction. He would not
be expected to read for any degree and would pay all expenses himself.
Weld was a member of the Athenaeum and various learned societies (Who was Who 1929-1940, pp. 1433-34) and was elected a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes in 1924, where his boat Lulworth ‘won
a good many races, including the King’s Cup in 1925’ although Weld’s
‘detachment from the excitement of the start was a general cause of
astonishment’ (Guest and Boulton 1903, pp. 179-80).35 He had a house at
13 Arlington Street, London SW1 but in 1927 he inherited Lulworth Castle
at East Lulworth in Dorset, ‘a castle of a very special sort’ that was
constructed in c. 1608 in Gothic style (Pevsner 1972, pp. 45, 194-6).
This was a tragic period in his life as his beautiful young wife died in
1929 and Lulworth castle was gutted by fire in the same year. Herbert
Weld died at Lulworth on 5 February 1935 after a brief illness, leaving
the sum of ,500 in his will to Queen’s College Oxford. He was buried in
the Weld family chapel the following day, the members of the
congregation including Langdon who added a glowing appreciation to
Weld’s published obituary (The Times, 7 February 16b; funeral
details on 9 February 15d, appreciation on 12 February 19c, details of
the will on 27 August 13c and 22 June 9d).36
Meanwhile, in November 1891
Herbert Weld left for Persia, arriving in Shiraz the following January.
Plaster piece and papier maché moulds were made on site by the formatore Mr
Lorenzo Museum) based on experience ‘learned on the job at the British
Museum’ (Burton 1999, p. 171) and it was on behalf of that museum that
Murdoch Smith built up a rich Islamic collection from Iran, partly
acquired from M. Richard, ‘a French gentleman long resident in Persia’
(Murdoch Smith 1877, preface). The activities of M. Richard at Rayy had
been detailed by Cecil Smith to the Trustees of the British Museum some
years before as he noted that ‘M. Richard of Teheran has made some
tentative excavations here, the most interesting result of which was the
acquisition of fragments proving the existence here in very early times
of the manufacturing of reflet pottery’ (Reports to the Trustees 1887-88, p. 131).
35- My thanks to Mrs Diana Harding (Royal Yacht Squadron Archivist) for kindly referring me to this
36- I am very grateful to Mr J.
M. Kaye (Keeper of the Archives at Queen’s College) for information
relating to Weld’s Oxford connection, to Dr Roger Moorey for suggesting
other leads, to Mr D. Greenhalf (Custodian of Lulworth Castle) for
kindly sending further information and to Lady Agnes Grey for giving her
permission to
Andrea Giuntini (c.
1844-1920) and one of his four sons. Giuntini (Pls 9-10) had previously
worked for D. Brucciani who owned an important cast gallery at 40 Great
Russell Street and had travelled to Meso-America with Alfred Maudslay to
mould Mayan sculptures at Copán and Quirigua.37 At Persepolis he
moulded processional scenes along the north face of the Apadana and the
southern and western facades of the Palace of Darius, royal combat
scenes inside doorways of the Palace of Darius and the Harem, an
inscription of Artaxerxes III Ochus (358- 338 BC) from the staircase on
the western facade of the Palace of Darius, a column base excavated in
the Treasury, a lion on the rock-cut tomb facade of Artaxerxes III and
the winged figure in Gate R at Pasargadae (Smith [1931]). While at
Persepolis, Weld and Giuntini made and presented duplicate papier maché
moulds of the Artaxerxes inscription and a guardsman from the southern
facade of the Palace of Darius to Mr Truxton Beale, the United States
Minister to Persia, during his otherwise unsuccessful visit to try and
secure sculptures for what is now the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington (Adler 1895).38 After returning to England in the summer,
Giuntini’s moulds were used to make plaster casts and sold via Smith’s
London address of 3A The Avenue, Fulham Road (Pl. 11).39
Extensive lime burning,
erosion, removal of certain pieces and vandalism had already led to
parts of the site – particularly the long-exposed north face of the
Apadana – being damaged. The 1892 casts thus provide the best surviving
record of these sculptures. Some casts were sold to defray costs, the
buyers including the Musée du Louvre, the Vorderasiatische Museum Berlin
and the Metropolitan Museum in New York but only two complete sets
appear to have been made and the moulds were deliberately destroyed to
ensure that these remained a limited edition (Budge 1925, p. 24; Smith
[1931]).40 One set was presented by Lord Savile to Nottingham Museum and
Art Gallery and the second was presented to the British Museum in July
1893 ‘with the view of
37- Maudslay described Giuntini
as ‘a very good fellow and good companion – does not grumble’ (Graham
2002, p111). There are some interesting similarities between the
Maudslay and Weld expeditions. Both were directed by modest men of
private means whose objective was, in Maudslay’s words, ‘to enable
scholars to carry on their work of examination and comparison, and to
solve some of the many problems of Maya civilisation, whilst comfortably
seated in their studies at home’ (quoted by Drew 1999, p. 89). Maudslay
learnt the technique of making paper squeezes at Yaxchilán in 1881 from
the French explorer Desiré Charnay; his subsequent expeditions relied
heavily on making squeezes of low-relief sculptures and inscriptions
using ‘a special tissue like orange wrappers that travelled out from
England in large bales’ or making plaster piece-moulds of stelae and
sculptures in the round. ‘The logistical problems were formidable.
Besides photographic and survey equipment, and supplies for many weeks
in the field, he had to arrange for the shipment of the plaster [bought
for 50 shillings a ton in Carlisle but reckoned by Maudslay to cost £50
by the time it reached Copán], the bales of paper, wrapping materials
for the moulds and specially designed boxes to transport them … At
Copán, Maudslay and Giuntini used four tons of plaster and produced some
1400 separate piece moulds’ (Drew 1999,93; cf. also Graham 2002). I am
very grateful to Susan Gill for drawing my attention to Drew’s account.
38- My thanks to Dr Ann Gunter for kindly telling me about these casts.
39- I am very grateful to Mrs
Valerie Emmons for kindly sending me further information about Lorenzo
Giuntini and his family. He had two brothers (Frederico Eugene and
Angelo Robert), four sons (Lawrence Mark Angelo, Joseph Albert Victor,
Lelio and Renaldo) and four daughters (Flora Kate, Cecilia Alice, Ada
Maud and Mabel Adela); the brothers and sons all worked in the family
studio and together were partly responsible for making a number of
well-known monumental bronze sculptures erected in public spaces across
40- The Musée du Louvre
holdings include cast sections of the north facade of the Apadana and
the west staircase of the Palace of Darius, recently exhibited in two
temporary exhibitions (anon. 1997 = Smith 1932, no. 2 [part]; Fontan
1998, pp. 228-29, nos 93-94 = Smith 1932, no. 4 [part of sections I and
IV]). I am indebted to Dr A. Caubet for kindly supplying this
information. Nine plaster casts of Achaemenid sculptures were registered
by the Vorderasiatische Museum and transferred to the University of
Hamburg in 1993; for this information I am grateful to Dr R.-B. Wartke.
The reassembled cast of the enthroned Xerxes which was made for the
supplying adequate means of comparison of the Persepolis sculptures with the Assyrian slabs exhibited in the British Museum’ (Trustees Minutes,
29 July 1893, no. 2798).41 However shortage of adequate space and the
Trustees’ concern over showing casts rather than originals prevented
them from being placed on permanent display (a fate similar to that of
the Maudslay casts). Nevertheless, following the popularity of an
exhibition on Persian Art held at Burlington House earlier in 1931 – at
which some of the Nottingham casts were exhibited – and the unexpected
availability of a temporary exhibition slot (normally hosting a
temporary display relating to Woolley’s excavations at Ur), a display of
these casts was opened on 26 May 1931 in the former Assyrian Basement
of the British Museum (anon. 1931, p. 8; Smith 1932; cf. Royal Academy
1931, p. 6).42
During the course of his
expedition Weld excavated a number of trenches at Persepolis. These were
in the Apadana (‘The Great Hall of Xerxes’), the Central Building
(‘square pylon at the south corner of the Hall of a Hundred Columns’),
the Hall of a Hundred Columns, Palace D (‘tumulus rising behind the
Palace of Darius’), the Palace of Xerxes (‘open court below the Palace
of Darius’), the Harem (‘S. E. Edifice’), the Treasury and the plain
below the citadel; in addition, he excavated some trenches in Palace P
at Pasargadae.43
Most of the discoveries were
architectural but they hinted at the degree to which colour was an
important factor in the original decor of the palaces. Traces of ‘a rich
red’ cement pavement were found in the Treasury and Palace of Darius, a
fragmentary fluted pilaster ‘with remains of the [yellow] paint in the
flutings … laid on a ground of white gesso’ was discovered in Palace D,
and a blue and yellow glazed brick found in or near the Apadana (Weld
Blundell 1892, pp. 539, 541, 557); the discovery of this glazed brick is
interesting as few examples of this type of architectural decoration,
better known from Susa, had hitherto been reported from Persepolis. The
base of a relief in the Hall of a Hundred Columns was also noted as
being ‘covered with a coating of blue paint, which came away readily
under the touch as fine blue powder. This on examination is proved to be
silicate of copper, or blue fritte’, confirming earlier suggestions
that the sculptures were originally coloured (Weld Blundell 1892, p.
557).44
41- These two sets have now
been reunited following the acquisition by the British Museum of the
Nottingham casts in November 1997: the ultimate aim is to display a
sequence of these Persepolis casts in a future Ancient Iran
42- The exhibition was open for a year before being dismantled in May 1932 (Reports to the Trustees:
S. Smith, p. 8 June 1931, no. 137, 6 May 1932, no. 69). In a letter to
George Hill, then Director of the British Museum, Smith wrote that a
‘rough calculation shows that the approximate length of exhibition space
required would be over 100 feet, and the only safe way of exhibiting
them temporarily would be to have two sets of planking about 30 feet
long run down the centre of the room; at least that is the only way that
suggests itself to me at present as feasible, without interfering with
the public view of the Assyrian sculptures’, and continued by referring
to his desire that they be displayed in a permanent gallery once ‘the
temporary Persian exhibition in the Print Room is dismantled’ (Reports to the Trustees,
7 March 1931, no. 228). In preparation for this temporary exhibition,
the casts were fitted together, cleaned and coloured by the Cast
Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum (Officer’s Reports 1931). The Assyrian Basement was later restricted to its present size and height with the construction of galleries
43- Surprisingly, Weld’s
pioneering excavations at Palace P are not mentioned by Stronach (1978)
although they must have informed Herzfeld’s later trenches.
44- Traces of black, red,
green, blue and yellow or golden pigment have been noted on reliefs in
the Apadana, Central Building and the Hall of a Hundred Columns (Tilia
1978, 31-69; Lerner 1971; 1973; Roaf 1983, p. 8). Lumps of pigment or
pigment-encrusted sherds have also been found at the south-west corner
of the Terrace wall, in and near the tripylon and on the northern side
of the Apadana (Tilia 1972, pp. 245-46; Tilia 1978, p. 68- 69). Analyses
indicate the black to be asphalt, the red to be a vitreous material,
the blue to be ‘Egyptian Blue’
Beneath the Apadana, Weld
cleared out the series of drains which had intrigued many of the earlier
travellers to the site and within the Treasury he found and moulded a
column base. The process of making moulds necessitated some additional
excavation, notably within the Palace of Darius where he cleared the
lower part of a doorway on the southern side to reveal a royal
combat scene, and along the
facade of the staircase on the western part of the Palace of Xerxes
(Smith [1931], p. 12, nos 10, 12).
Finds were few except in the north-east corner tower of the Apadana where
buried in masses of charcoal,
we found a quantity of red pottery vases, an iron axe- head, nails with
round heads, and a copper pot full of pieces of bone and charcoal.
Humble implements, but interesting as relics of an historical
conflagration. They had been cracked by the fallen rafters and some
blackened by the heat (Weld Blundell 1892, p. 546).
The nails and charcoal probably
derive from the burnt superstructure of one of the upper stories
whereas the remainder of the finds perhaps reflect stored contents. A
similar situation was noted by later excavators inside the Treasury but
unfortunately this evidence does not appear to have been either recorded
or retained by most excavators at the site. Weld’s ‘copper pot’ was
presented to the Trustees of the British Museum where it was recorded as
a ‘bronze vase’ (British Museum Returns, 16 August 1893, p. 54).
This particular vessel consists
of a straight-sided sheet-bronze bucket or pail standing 12.5 cm in
height with an original rim diameter of 28 cm, base diameter of 12 cm,
height/width ratio of 1 : 2.2 and a capacity of 1.8 litres (ANE
1892-12-14,1 = 91163). It originally had a free-swinging handle attached
to two plain T-clamps, measuring 5 cm across and 5.1 cm in height and
each held in place below the rim with three round-headed rivets; the
handle was detached and the bucket was badly crushed and distorted
in antiquity (Fig. 4; Pl. 12). Qualitative X-ray fluorescence
analysis by J. R. Lang and D. R. Hook (Department of Scientific
Research) of the corroded surfaces of the bucket indicate that it is a
tin bronze containing traces of lead whereas the suspension loop and
rivet analysed are copper with a trace of lead. Radiography proves that
the bucket had not been decorated in antiquity.45
Buckets such as this are
frequently depicted in ninth-eighth century Assyrian, Urartian and North
Syrian art although details such as the decoration and the shape of the
handle attachments vary (Madhloom 1970, pp. 109-16, pl. LXXXV; Merhav
1976).46 Several plain and one engraved sheet-bronze buckets were
excavated in ninth/eighth century contexts in level IV at the site of
Hasanlu in north-west Iran (Burned Buildings I, II, IV, IV East) and an
example with Assyrian- style decoration was excavated at the eighth
century cemetery of Chamahzi Mumah in western Luristan (de Schauensee
1988, p. 49; Muscarella 1988, pp. 29-31, no. 8; Haerinck & Overlaet
1998, pp. 27-29, fig. 43, pls 62-3). Further straight-sided buckets –
some reportedly found in Luristan – exist in other collections, some
with decoration added in recent times (Moorey 1971, pp. 268-69, fig. 23,
pl. 81, no. 513; Merhav 1976; Muscarella 1977, p. 184, pl. XIV: top;
Tanabe et al. 1982, 68, 73, pl. III; Mahboubian 1997, p. 242, no. 315).
Although it is conceivable that the bucket excavated by Weld was an heirloom, it is more likely
1953, p. 287; cf. also now Ambers & Simpson 2005).
45- Department of Scientific Research file: Project rad7066 dated 20 January
that this type had a lengthier
history than previously suspected. Indeed, horizontally fluted metal
buckets with swinging handles are shown being carried by royal
attendants on sculptures in the Palace of Darius (521-486 BC) and the
Hall of a Hundred Columns (Schmidt 1953, pls 183-84; Tilia 1972, pl.
XCVII). Horizontal fluting was widely used as a surface technique by
Achaemenid metalworkers and recurs on bowls, beakers and animal-head
vessels as well as contemporary Attic pottery copies and column bases,
both at East Greek sites and Palace P at Persepolis (Miller 1993;
Stronach 1978, pp. 84-85, pls 73-76). However, this bucket suggests that
plain versions of this type were also manufactured. The function of
these bucket is unclear. In Assyrian art, buckets are shown being used
by apotropaic figures in purifying ceremonies whereas the Persepolis
reliefs show them being carried by attendants next to the king. The
excavated finds from Hasanlu and Chamahzi Mumah suggest that they may
have had other practical functions, supported by the excavated context
of the Persepolis bucket.
Herbert Weld’s work at
Persepolis is a classic example of nineteenth century problem-orientated
research building on earlier discoveries and observations of Political
Residents, Envoys and travellers such as Ephraim Stannus, John Macdonald
[-Kinneir] and James Alexander, highlighted above. This was the
beginning of archaeological research in Iran yet the full story has yet
to be told and further episodes are certain to unfold with continued
research in libraries, archives and other collections.47
St John Simpson SSIMPSON@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
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FIGURE CAPTIONS
Fig. 1 Map of Bushire (after [Moberly] 1987, Whitcomb 1987, Whitehouse and Williamson 1973).
Fig. 2.1
Reused
torpedo jar ossuary from Sabzabad; presented by Capt. J.A. Maude (ANE
1823-6-14,1 = 91952). Munsell pale yellow 5Y 8/2 surfaces with more
heavily oxidised fabric; asphalt-lined. Length as preserved 76 cm,
maximum width 22 cm, circular hole, 1.5 cm across, drilled through the
wall at a height of 70 cm above the base.
2 Reused
torpedo jar ossuary from Sabzabad; presented by Col. E.C. Ross (ANE
1875-7-24,41 = 91954). Munsell pale yellow 5Y 7/4 surfaces with more
heavily oxidised fabric; asphalt-lined. Length of lower portion 68 cm,
interior rim diameter of second piece 11 cm.
Fig. 3.1
Limestone
ossuary from Sabzabad; presented by Mr C.J. Malcolm (ANE 1888- 7-14,1 =
91333/134691). Length 59.7 cm, width 36.6 cm, height 24.5 cm. Lid length
59.5 cm, width 36 cm, thickness 3 cm.
2 Limestone
ossuary; presented by Col. E.C. Ross (ANE 1875-7-24,42 = 91932). Length
48 cm, width 33 cm, height 27 cm. Lid length 48 cm, width 33 cm,
thickness 2.5 cm.
Fig. 4
Bronze bucket
from the Apadana at Persepolis; presented by Mr H. Weld (ANE
1892-12-14,1 = 91163). Height 12.5 cm, rim diameter 28 cm, base diameter
12 cm.
PLATE CAPTIONS
Pl. 1 Portrait of James Edward Alexander (from Alexander 1827)
Pl. 2 Portrait of Friedrich Carl Andreas (from Kanus-Credé 1974)
Pl. 3 Royal sphinx (from Alexander 1827)
Pl. 4 View of Persepolis (from Alexander 1827)
Pl. 5 Processional scene (from Alexander 1827)
Pl. 6 Royal sphinx
from Persepolis; presented by the National Art Collections Fund (ANE
1938-1-10,1 = 129381). Length 75 cm, height 82 cm, preserved thickness 9
cm.
Pl. 7 Portrait of Ephraim Gerrish Stannus (from Vibart 1894, p. 105)
Pl. 8 Portrait of Herbert
Weld (from Lulworth Castle exhibition display panel) Pl. 9 Lorenzo
Giuntini as a young man (photograph courtesy of Mr V. Emmons)
Pl. 10 Lorenzo Giuntini in later years (photograph courtesy of Mr V. Emmons)
Pl. 11 The interior of the Giuntini family studio, Fulham Road, London (photograph courtesy of Mr V. Emmons)
Pl. 12 Bronze bucket from the Apadana at Persepolis; presented by Mr H. Weld (ANE 1892-12-14,1 = 91163)
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