Iran 01 (1963)

IRAN
Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies
VOLUME I 1963
CONTENTS
Page
Governing Council. . . . . . . . . . ii
Statement of Aims and Purposes . . . . . . . iii
Foreword, by H. E. Dr. 'Isa Sadiq . . . . . . . iv
Directors' Report . . . . . . . . . v
Edward FitzGerald, by Sir Maurice Bowra. . . . . I
Persian Influence on Chinese Art from the Eighth to Fifteenth Centuries,
by Basil Gray . . . . . . . . . 13
Excavations at Pasargadae, First Preliminary Report, by David Stronach 19
Excavations at Tall-i-Nokhodi, by Clare Goff . . . . . 43
Iranian Bronzes in the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, by Judy
Birmingham . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Function of Religion in Persian Society, by B. J. Spooner . . 83
The Religious and Social Views of Nizami of Ganjeh, by M. V. McDonald 97
Application Form . . . . . . . . . . xi
Publishedannuallyby
THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PERSIAN STUDIES
c/o British Academy, Burlington Gardens, London, W.I
Price: ?2 1os. od.

NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
TITLES The titles of books and periodicalsshould be printed in italics (in typing, underlined), while
the titles of articles in periodicals should be in Roman letters between quotation marks.
REFERENCES Where references are made, the volume and date of publication of a book should
both be cited in the first reference to it. The number of a volume in a series should be given in
Roman numerals.
ILLUSTRATIONS Only clear glossy prints of photographs or strong outline drawings should be
submitted. Photographs reproduced as half-tones or collotypes will appear as " Plates ", numbered
in capital Roman numerals. All line drawings, including maps, will appear as " Figures ", numbered
consecutively in Arabic numerals throughout each article.
TRANSLITERATION The transliteration into Roman script of names and words in Oriental
languages (other than modern Turkish) should be in accordance with the system employed by learned
bodies such as the Royal Asiatic Society. Modern Turkish names and words should be written in the
current Turkish orthography.
MEMBERSHIP OF THE INSTITUTE
Anyone wishing to join the Institute should write to the Hon. Sec., J. E. F. Gueritz, Esq., M.A.,
85 Queen's Road, Richmond, Surrey. The annual subscription for Membership of the Institute is
?I, while the total sum of ?2 ios. od. entitles the subscriber to receive the Journal. Application
Forms on Page xi.
IRAN
Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies
VOLUME I 1963
CONTENTS
Page
Governing Council . . . ii
Statement of Aims and Purposes iii
Foreword, by H. E. Dr. 'Isa Sadiq iv

Directors' Report . . .v
Edward FitzGerald, by Sir Maurice Bowra. . . . . . 1
Persian Influence on Chinese Art from the Eighth to Fifteenth Centuries,

by Basil Gray . . . . . . . . . . 13
Excavations at Pasargadae, First Preliminary Report, by David Stronach 19

Excavations at Tall-i-Nokhodi, by Clare Goff . . . . . 43
Iranian Bronzesin the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, by Judy

Birmingham . . . . . . .
..071 .
The Function of Religion in Persian Society, by B. J. Spooner . . 83
The Religious and Social Views of Nizami of Ganjeh, by M. V. McDonald 97
Application Form . . . . . . . . ix
Publishedannuallyby
THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PERSIAN STUDIES
c/o British Academy, Burlington Gardens, London, W.I

BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PERSIAN STUDIES
GOVERNING COUNCIL
President
*ProfessorM. E. L. MALLOWAN, C.B.E., M.A., D.Lit., F.B.A., F.S.A.
Vice-President
ProfessorA. J. ARBERRY, M.A., Litt.D., F.B.A.
Members
R. D. BARNETT, Esq., D.Lit., F.B.A., F.S.A.
* Sir MAURICE BOWRA,
M.A., D.Litt., Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
P. R. E. BROWNE, Esq., O.B.E., T.D., Q.C.
Sir TRENCHARD COX, C.B.E., D.Litt., F.S.A., F.M.A.
ProfessorC. J. GADD, C.B.E., D.Litt., F.B.A., F.S.A.
BASIL GRAY, Esq., C.B.E.
ProfessorA. K. S. LAMBTON, O.B.E., D.Lit., Ph.D.
ProfessorSETON H. F. LLOYD, C.B.E., M.A., F.B.A., F.S.A., A.R.I.B.A.
* Sir MORTIMER WHEELER, C.I.E., M.C., T.D., D.Lit., F.B.A., F.S.A.
ProfessorR. C. ZAEHNER, M.A.
Hon. Editor
LAURENCE LOCKHART, Esq., Litt.D., Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
Hon. Treasurer
Sir JOHN LE ROUGETEL, K.C.M.G., M.C.
Hon. Secretary
JOHN E. F. GUERITZ, Esq., M.A.
OFFICERS IN IRAN
Director
DAVID STRONACH, Esq., M.A.
AssistantDirector
BRIAN SPOONER, Esq., B.A.
c/o The BritishAcademy, P.O. Box 2617,

Burlington Gardens, Tehran,
LONDON, W.I. IRAN.
* DenotesFounderMember
STATEMENT OF AIMS AND PURPOSES
I. The establishment in Tehran of a centre at which British scholars, men of learning versed in the
arts, friends of Iran, may from time to time reside and meet their Iranian colleagues in order to
discuss with them subjects of common interest; the arts, archaeology, history, literature, linguistics,
religion, philosophy and cognate subjects.
2. The Institute will provide accommodation for senior scholars and for teachers at British Universities
in order that they may from time to time refresh themselves at the source of knowledge from which
their teaching derives. The same service shall be rendered for younger students who show promise
of developing interests in Persian studies.
3. The Institute, whilst concerned with Persian culture in the widest sense, will give special emphasis
to the development of archaeological techniques and will seek the co-operation of Iranian scholars
and students in applying current methods to the resolution of archaeological and historical problems.
4. Archaeological excavation using modern scientific techniques as ancillary aids shall be one of the
Institute's primary tasks. These activities will entail a fresh appraisal of previous discoveries and
should result in the finding of new material and new sites which may be expected to widen our
vision of the ancient world and to reorientate the bearing of the past on the present.
5. In pursuit of all the activities mentioned in the preceding paragraphs it is intended to form a
library, to collect learned periodicals, to publish a Journal, and to edit and translate a series of
Persian texts deemed to be of value to scholarship.
6. The Institute will arrange occasional seminars, lectures and conferences and will enlist the help of
distinguished scholars for this purpose. It will also aim at giving small exhibitions in order to
demonstrate the importance of Persian culture and its attraction for the world of scholarship.
7. The Institute shall endeavour to collaborate with universities and educational institutions in Iran
by all the means at its disposal, and when consulted will assist Iranian scholars with any technical
advice for directing them towards the appropriate channels in British universities.
iii
FOREWORD
Cultural pursuitsand scientific researchin modern times have often had as their primary incentive
and immediate stimulus utilitarian considerationsand economic motives and this fact seems to be true
in the case of Persian studies.
The early relations between Iran and Great Britain were commercial, being created by English
trade missions to this country in the second half of the sixteenth century. They were followed by the
establishmentof diplomatic relations at the beginning of the seventeenth, in the reign of Shah 'Abbis
the Great. Just at that time the East India Company, constituted in 1599, acquired a foot-hold on
Indian soil, where Persian was the language of the court and the linguafrancaof affairs and business.
Thus, from the very outset, the British officials and employees of the Company felt the need to learn
Persian. Gradually they became acquainted with Persian poetry and history and in time acquired
such skill in the language that they emulated each other in translating its masterpiecesinto English
and teaching it in the Company's colleges.
In this way it could be said that the first foundationstones of the British Institute of Persian Studies
were laid more than 300 years ago in India where a successionof pioneers exerted their efforts to give
the West a taste for Persian culture.
The story of BritishContributionsto PersianStudies,in the field of poetry and history, was remarkably
summarized in a fascinating brochure by ProfessorA. J. Arberry in 1942, which should be read for
an appreciation of the achievementsof so many scholarsin the disseminationof our culture before the
creation of the present Institute in Tehran could become possible. To pay tribute to them as well as
to those who have laboured in the field of art and archaeology, I only mention the names of those
whose fame is world wide, like Thomas Hyde, Sir William Jones, Sir John Malcolm, Turner Macan,
Sir Henry Rawlinson, Atkinson, Edward FitzGerald, Winfield, Gertrude Bell, Edward Browne, Aurel
Stein, Lawrence Binyon, Nicholson and Storey.
It is impossible not to make mention of the French, German, American, Italian and Russian
scholars whose works on linguistics, literature, religion, arts and archaeology have naturally affected
the studies of Britishmen of learning, chiefly in the last two centuries.
So much for the Institute's ancestors. For the present time, heart-felt thanks are due to those who
have initiated and been instrumentalin the creation of the Institute, in particularthe BritishAcademy,
the learnedmembersof the GoverningCouncil whose names appear in this issue and the BritishCouncil.
Both Iranian and British scholars had long wished for such an institution and all are gratified to see
this wish at last realised.
At the inauguration ceremony, on December i I1961, Sir Maurice Bowra, President of the British
Academy, and some time later two distinguishedscholars,Sir Sydney Roberts, former Vice-Chancellor
of the University of Cambridge, Mr. Basil Gray, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at
the British Museum, delivered illuminating lectures on, respectively, Edward FitzGerald, Edward
Browne and Persian influence on Chinese art. Archaeological excavations have been carried out in
Pasargadaeand Gorgan by Mr. Stronach, the Director of the Institute, and thee other membersof the
Institute have made studies in the fields of religion and archaeology. Several Britishscholars,versed in
Persian studies, are putting the results of their investigations at the disposal of the Institute. Many
other activities will follow which may give clues to new archaeological sites and valuable discoveries
of historicaland literary and cultural importance. This material will be available to all those interested
in our culture by means of the regular publication of this Journal, under the able direction of Dr.
Lockhart, who has devoted most of his life to the study of Persian history.
As I understand it, the Journal is to be the English language magazine for articles on Persian
studies written by scholars of all nationalities.
I earnestly hope that the Journal will prove a useful instrument of research, that it will help scholars
all over the world to elucidate and solve the problems of Iranian scholarship, extend the vision of the
ancient world and exhibit and appraise the contributions of Iran to world culture.
'ISA SADIQ.
iv
DIRECTORS' REPORT
April 1st g961-March3rst 1962
Thanks to the initial impetus provided by the Royal Visit in March 1961, the most generous offer
of free accommodation for a period of two years from the University of Tehran, and the interest of
many friends in Iran, the Institute had a most auspiciousstart to its first year. Within a very short time
our new premises were able to accommodate the first of many visitors; contact had been made with
other cultural institutions both in Tehran and in the provinces; and, as far as our research activities
were concerned, the generosity of the Wolfson Trust on the one hand and the liberal assistance of
the British Academy and the Iranian Oil Exploration and Producing Company on the other had
allowed us to award our first researchfellowshipsin October and to begin excavations at Pasargadaein
the same month. Not long afterwards, on December I1th, the President and Mrs. Mallowan, Sir
Maurice Bowra and Sir Mortimer Wheeler were all able to attend the Institute's Inaugural Meeting,
at which Sir Maurice Bowra spoke on " Edward FitzGerald ". Finally, in late February and early
March, the Institute was privileged to play its part in commemorating the centenary of the birth of
the late ProfessorE. G. Browne, the most renowned of all British scholars who have been concerned
with Persian literature.
In covering these and other events and developmentsin greater detail, the present report is divided
into fourteen separate heads.
The House
In the course of the year the Institute's house, at No. 46, Kuche Khorshid, was more or less fully
furnished. Apart from the provision of office, library and workroom facilities, accommodation was
made available for up to ten persons (including permanent staff).
At the lower end of a spacious garden, parking space was provided for up to three vehicles.
Library
In the late autumn of 196I the Institute received a most generous gift of some forty books from the
British Council. Since that date the library has grown steadily until, at the time of writing (April
1962) it stands at about 190 volumes, divided between the following subjects: (i) Encyclopaedias,
bibliographies; (ii) Dictionaries, grammars, linguistics; (iii) General workson Iran and the Middle
East: travel and geography; (iv) Histories; (v) Literature; (vi) Religion; (vii) Series and Journals;
(viii) Fine arts; (ix) Archaeology; (x) Anthropology.
Guests
During the course of the year the following guests stayed at the Institute:
Dr. S. M. Stern Two-month visit to Iran, looking at libraries, monuments, etc.
Mrs. R. Walzer
Dr. V. E. Crawford Visit to Tehran and Yarim Tepe on behalf of Metropolitan
Museum.
Miss Barbara Parker Four weeks in Iran visiting archaeological sites.
Miss Diana Ashcroft
Mr. N. H. S. Kindersley Visit to Tehran on return from excavations at Nimrud.
Mrs. Olga Ford Month in Iran visiting architectural monuments, particularly in
Mr. Edmund Wilford neighbourhood of Isfahan.
Mr. Thomas Braun Craven Scholar, studying Graeco-Persian relations in fourth
century B.C. Spent over a month travelling in Iran.
Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Burney Together with other members of the University of Manchester
Expedition, spent short visits at the Institute before and after
excavations at Yanik Tepe, Azerbaijan.
V
Mr. and Mrs. C. T. Young, Jr. Travelling to and from excavations at Hasanlu.
Mr. M. Noel Clarke Language student from the Persian Faculty at Oxford, resident
at Isfahan for one year.
Mr. G. P. Lampel Researchstudent from Cambridge, engaged in entomologicalfield
work on arachnides.
Members of the Pasargadae Expedition (see below).
Mr. George Morrison Lecturer in Persian at Oxford: on British Council lecture tour.
Professorand Mrs.
M. E. L. Mallowan
Sir Mortimer Wheeler
Mr. R. F. Algar Holder of N.I.O.C. Cambridge Scholarship. Studying dialect of
Gilan. Stayed at intervalsduringJanuary and February 1962.
Dr. Alastair Lamb Reader in History at Kuala Lumpur University. Paid a brief
visit in order to study mediaeval Islamic and Chinese ceramics
in the Archaeological Museum.
ProfessorW. B. Fisher Professorof Geography, Durham University. Visited Iran for two
weeks in connection with the Cambridge History of Iran.
Dr. A. D. H. Bivar Lecturerin Iranian and Central Asian Archaeology at the School
of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. On study
leave, partly workingon inscriptionsfor the CorpusInscriptionum
Iranicarum.
Sir Sydney and Lady Roberts E. G. Browne Centenary Celebrations.
Dr. Laurence Lockhart Visit on behalf of U.N.E.S.C.O.
Visitors
Distinguished visitors to the Institute during this same period included two members of the
Governing Council, Sir John Le Rougetel and Sir Maurice Bowra, who were here in September and
December respectively. Other visitors included Sir Paul Sinker, Director-General of the British
Council; Sir Allen Lane, Director of Penguin Books; ProfessorDavid Daube of All Souls College,
Oxford; and Rear-AdmiralPaul Furse and his wife, here on their second botanical expedition to Iran.
In addition, the Director was able to meet SirJohn Cockcroft,who wished to hear something about the
Institute during his visit to Tehran in May, 1961.
Lectures
On May I5th I96I, the Institute combined with the University of Tehran to hold its first public
lecture in Tehran. The lecturer was Dr. S. M. Stern of All Souls College, Oxford, who spoke on
" The First Appearance of Ismailism in Iran ". Through the courtesy of the Dean of the Faculty of
Letters, Dr. Ali Akbar Siyasi, the lecture was held in one of the Faculty's main lecture halls. The text
of Dr. Stern'slecture has since been translatedinto Persian and published in the Bulletin of the Faculty
of Letters.
On the occasion of the Institute's Opening Ceremonies on December I Ith, Sir Maurice Bowra,
President of the British Academy, delivered an address on " Edward FitzGerald " (see below).
Sir Maurice also gave a second lecture under the auspices of the Institute, at the Faculty of Letters,
University of Tehran, on December 9th. His subject was " Peculiarities of English Poetry ".
Finally, on the occasion of the E. G. Browne Centenary Celebrations at the Institute on February
I7th, Sir Sydney Roberts gave a lecture entitled " Edward Granville Browne ". He later gave the
same lecture in the course of his tour on behalf of both the British Council and the Institute at Meshed,
Shiraz and Isfahan. In addition, he lectured to the British Council in Tehran on " Samuel Johnson "
and gave a further talk on the same subject at the Faculty of Letters, University of Shiraz.
vi
AssistantDirector
On August Ist Mr. B. J. Spooner, accompanied by Mrs. Spooner, arrived at the Institute to take
up his duties for an initial period of five months. Apart from looking after the Institute during Mr.
Stronach's absence in England during the greater part of August and September, Mr. Spooner also
had charge of the Institute during the period of the excavations at Pasargadaefrom October I6th to
December I7th. Mr. Spooner'ssubsequentstudy tour of eastern and southern Iran, undertakenduring
the early months of 1962, is described in detail below.
WolfsonFellows
The three Wolfson Fellows for the year I961/2 have all been successfulin pursuing their separate
studies. Mr. McDonald has been engaged on a broad study of the works of Nizami of Ganjeh, a poet
and philosopher of Azerbaijan who died in the first half of the thirteenth century; Mr. Weightman
has been working on a study of the Ahl-e-Haqq sect of Kurdistan, a religious group whose present
beliefs depend, at least in part, on pre-Islamic, possibly Mithraic, concepts; and Miss Goff has been
making a thorough study of the prehistoricpainted wares of south-westernIran, including the material
recovered from the Institute's excavations at Tall-i-Nokhodi. All three have taken advantage of their
stay in Iran to travel widely.
Field Trips
May 196i: During mid-May Dr. Vaughn Crawford,Director of the American School of Archaeo-
logy in Baghdad, joined Mr. Stronach in making a short visit to the prehistoric site of Yarim Tepe
near Gunbad-i-Qabus. A number of other sites were inspected at the same time, including Turang
Tepe, the Belt Cave at the south-east corner of the Caspian, and sections of the Kizil Alan-better
known as " Alexander's Barrier". Two weeks later Mr. Stronachjoined Dr. S. M. Stern and Mrs. R.
Walzer in visiting the eleventh-century site of Shamiran, Io miles west of Manjil on the Sefid Rud.
The site was carefully examined in case the rising waters of the Manjil Dam should call for rescue
excavations at some future date.
September: On September I2th Mr. Spooner left for a short stay at Baidokht in Gunabad, some
200oomiles south of Meshed, in order to re-establish contact with Jonab-e-Aqa-ye-Hajj-e-Shaikh-
MohammadhasanSaleh'ali Shah, one of the most renowned Sifis in Iran, with the object of making a
further study of the nature of his teaching. Also, at the end of the month, Mr. Stronach visited Mr.
Charles Burney's excavations at Yanik Tepe, south of Tabriz.
December: On December 3oth, at the express invitation of Professor Ezzatullah Negahban,
Mr. Stronach and other members of the Institute were able to pay a two-day visit to the excavations
at Marlik Tepe, near Rudbar.
January-March 1962: On January 2nd Mr. and Mrs. Spooner left Tehran on a prolonged tour
which lasted three months and covered 7,500 miles. The first month was spent in Khorasan in the
areas aroundJajarm, between Gunabad and the Afghan border, and between Birjandand the Dasht-e-
Lut. The route followed from there onwards was: Zabul, Zahedan, Iranshahr, Chabahar, Jask,
Minab, Bandar Abbas, Linge, Gabandi, Kangan, Khormini, Bushehr, Shiraz, Nairiz, Kerman, Bam,
Guk, Shahdad, across the Lut to Khor (near Birjand), Tabas, Yazd, Tehran. A short period spent
in Dashtiari, between Chabaharand the Pakistanborder,was particularlyinterestingand Mr. Spooner
hopes to make a more detailed study of the area in the near future. The object of the survey as a whole
was to form an impression of local differences in the practice of the established religion, in the framework
of the general study that Mr. Spooner is making of the quality of the ordinary man's religion in Persia.
For the same purpose Mr. Spooner also spent four days in the villages between Lashtanesha and
the shore of the Caspian Sea.
Finally, during the course of the southern tour made by Sir Sydney Roberts (see below), Mr.
Stronach, accompanied by the three Fellows, was able to visit a number of ancient sites on or near the
road down to Shiraz. In particular, a special expedition was made to the Ismaili fortress of Shah-dizh,
just outside Isfahan.
vii
Servants
Throughout the year the Institute has been well served by the same three servants. These consist
of cook, maid and gardener, the last two of whom have their own quartersadjoining the main house.
SpecialEvents
Visitof Sir John Le Rougetel:During his stay in Tehran in September and October Sir John Le
Rougetel very kindly lent his assistance to the Institute in a number of ways. After paying a call on
H.E. Mr. Hussain Ala, the Minister of Court, Sir John called also on H.E. Mr. Ghulam Ali Vahid
Mazandarani, the Legal Adviser to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the Institute's
formal registrationwith the police authorities. This last matter was brought to a successfulconclusion
not long afterwards. At the same time he extended the Governing Council's invitation to H.E. Dr.
Ahmad Farhad, Rector of the University of Tehran, to take the Chair at the Institute's Inaugural
Meeting on December I Ith. And lastly, just before leaving for home, he was able to visit Pasargadae
and see something of the Institute's first preparationsat the site.
Excavationsat Pasargadae:The Institute's first season of excavations at Pasargadae began on
October I6th. The field staff consisted of the following:
Mr. D. B. Stronach (Director) Mr. R. C. Soper (Senior Field Assistant)
Mr. M. E. Weaver (Surveyor) Mrs. M. E. Weaver (Pottery Assistant)
Miss E. D. Beazley (Architect) Miss C. L. Goff (Field Assistant)
Miss O. A. Kitson (Photographer)and Mr. R. Clark (Field Assistant)
Miss Parveen Barzin, an experienced member of the National Museum in Tehran, accompanied
the Expedition as the Representativeof the ArchaeologicalDepartment.
The main work of the expedition was concentrated on the huge stone platform, known as Takht-i-
Suleiman, which dominates the site. Here, in an area adjoining the earlier excavations of the Iranian
Archaeological Department, we were able to uncover at least one new stone staircase together with an
impressiverange of mud brick buildings on the platform above. The work produced evidence of three
distinct phases of construction. In the first phase the stone platform seems to have been intended to
form part of an extensive royal Acropolis on which future palaces were to be built. Unfinished
staircases,fragments of column bases and partly-cut column drums all testify to the preparationsthat
were in hand when some abrupt development-probably to be associated with the death of Cyrus-
suddenly brought this phase of the work to an end. Thereafter the whole concept changed. The
staircaseson the northern side of the platform were blocked up; all furtherwork in stone ceased; and,
in place of the palaces that appear to have been envisaged originally, a fortified mud brick citadel,
with carefully planned residential quarters, storage magazines and workshops seems to have been
designed instead. Finally, in what would seem to have been a late phase of the Achaemenian Empire,
the greater part of the mud brick layout appears to have been refurbishedor even rebuilt. But by this
time there is little trace of the careful planning of the first two periods and the proliferationof mean
little rooms of a purely domestic type seems to point to a sharp deterioration in the fortunes of the
citadel, not to mention Pasargadae as a whole.
Apart from the work on the citadel itself, the walls and towers of the adjoining fortificationswere
examined for the first time. Also, as part of a long-term plan to produce a new contour map of the
whole site, Mr. Weaver prepared a detailed survey of both the citadel mound and its outlying defences.
Elsewhere, with a view to obtaining more information about the site's earlier history, Miss Goff had
charge of a small sounding at the prehistoric mound of Tall-i-Nokhodi. Among other finds the mound
produced an excellent collection of painted pottery, some of it with a very vivid sense of movement in
its designs, which probably dates back to the first half of the fourth millennium B.c. Finally, with
regard to other work undertaken, Miss Kitson prepared a careful photographic record of all standing
monuments at Pasargadae, while Miss Beazley drew up a series of large-scale plans and elevations of
the tomb of Cyrus. The outstanding object from the Achaemenian side of the excavations must also
viii
be mentioned: a beautiful stone cylinder seal showing the figure of Ahuramazda above a wheel or
sun disc, with a king in combat with a lion on the opposite side.
Throughout the course of the season the Expedition met with nothing but the greatest assistance
and co-operation from the local Archaeological Department of Fars, which not only allowed us to use
the Department Rest House at Pasargadae as our headquartersbut also lent us a railway and other
vital equipment. Help of many kinds came also from a number of good friends in Shiraz, especially
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Gotch of the British Council.
Among many visitors to the site, the Expedition was particularly glad to welcome Professorand
Mrs. Mallowan on two occasions and Sir Maurice Bowra and Sir Mortimer Wheeler, each of whom
managed a visit during their short spells in Iran. While in Shiraz, ProfessorMallowan also gave a
most successfullecture at the British Council, in the course of which he was able to draw attention to
both the work at Pasargadaeand the aims and purposesof the Institute as a whole.
OpeningCelebrations
The events connected with the Institute's formal Opening were spread over a period of two days
from December i oth to December i i th.
On December Ioth the Society for the National Monuments of Iran held a special luncheon in
honour of the Institute's Inauguration. Among those representingthe Society on that occasion were
H.E. Mr. Hussain Ala and H.E. Dr. 'Isa Sadiq, both of whom expressed their very great pleasure at
the foundation of the Institute, and added their warmest hopes for its success in the future. Sir
Mortimer Wheeler and Professor Mallowan replied for the Institute, paying tribute to the great
contribution that the Shah and his Ministers,the Ministry of Education and the University of Tehran
had made in helping to bring the Institute into being. Warm tribute was paid also to the British
Council and to the important part played by Mr. Charles Wilmot, British Council Representativein
Iran, in furtheringthe project from the time of its inception.
Later in the same day the University of Tehran held a special dinner at the University Club in
order to mark the Opening. Dr. Farhad, Sir Mortimer Wheeler and ProfessorMallowan all spoke on
the occasion and Mr. A. R. H. Kellas read a special message from the British Ambassador,H.E. Sir
Geoffrey Harrison, K.C.M.G., K.C.V.O.
The following day, on Monday, December I th, the Inauguration began with a Reception held
at the Institute at 6 p.m. Those present included H.E. Mr. Hussain Ala, Minister of Court; H.E. Sir
Geoffrey and Lady Harrison; Sir Maurice Bowra; Sir Mortimer Wheeler; Professor and Mrs.
Mallowan; H.E. Dr. 'Isa Sadiq; H.E. Dr. Ahmad Farhad; H.E. Mr. Ghulam Ali Vahid
Mazandarani; Professor Ali Ashgar Hekmat; Professorand Mrs. Lutf 'Ali Suratgar; Mr. G. E.
Millard and Mr. and Mrs. A. R. H. Kellas of the British Embassy; Dr. H. Luschey, Director of the
German Archaeological Institute; Professor et Mme Corbin of the Franco-Iranian Institute; Mr.
David Nolle, Director of the Iran American Society; and Mr. Charles Wilmot, British Council
Representative in Iran. Altogether some seventy to eighty guests attended the Reception and the
Inaugural Lecture which followed.
On this importantoccasion the Institute was very much honouredto have as its lecturerSir Maurice
Bowra, Presidentof the BritishAcademy and Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, who read a paper
on " Edward FitzGerald ". Sir Maurice'slecture traced the whole backgroundto FitzGerald'sgradual
absorption in the writings of Omar Khayyim; explored in detail the measure of FitzGerald's great
achievement; and, at the end, showed the special value that Omar's writings and philosophy came
to have for FitzGerald himself.
At the conclusion of the proceedings, Dr. Farhad, who had taken the Chair, and Mr. Ala, whose
own speech was an essential part of the evening, each paid tribute to Sir Maurice's lecture. Dr. Farhad
also made a special plea for close co-operation between the Institute and the academic institutions of
Iran. Finally, Professor Mallowan brought the meeting to a close with a further expression of thanks
to all those who had contributed, either in England or Iran, to the creation of the Institute.
ix
E. G. BrowneCentenary Celebrations
The main event in the last quarterof the year was the Institute'ssecond meeting on February i8th,
when Sir Sydney Roberts gave a special lecture to commemorate the centenary of the birth of E. G.
Browne. In addition to the lecture, the Institute was also able to mount a comprehensiveexhibition
of books, pamphlets and photographs. For the success of the exhibition our particular thanks are due
to Mr. PatrickBrowne and Mr. Michael Brownefor supplying excellent photographsfor reproduction;
to Sir Sydney Roberts for bringing these and other photographsin his own possessionout to Tehran;
to Dr. 'Isa Sadiq for the loan of books, letters and other material; and to Dr. Ali Akbar Siyassi, Dean
of the Faculty of Letters at Tehran University, for the loan of a bust of Browne in the possessionof
the Faculty.
The meeting itself began at 6 p.m. with a reception for Sir Sydney and Lady Roberts which was
attended by some eighty guests. The guests included H.E. Sir Geoffrey and Lady Harrison; H.E.
Sayyid Hasan Taqizadeh, President of the Iranian Academy; H.E. Mr. Asadullah Alam, President
of the Pahlavi Foundation; and Mr. Kaihan, the Vice-Chancellor of Tehran University. In addition,
we were very pleased to welcome Miss Maria Browne, the grand-daughterof E. G. Browne, who had
made a specialjourney from Isfahan in order to be present for the occasion.
In his lecture Sir Sydney not only gave us a very full picture of Browne'scareer and achievements,
but he also added a series of personal impressionsand memories which were very much appreciated.
At the end of Sir Sydney's address, H.E. Sayyid Hasan Taqizadeh, describing himself as " one of
Browne'soldest friends ", very kindly moved the vote of thanks.
Sir Sydney's other lectures during his seventeen-day tour included a lecture on Samuel Johnson
at the British Council in Tehran and three further lectures on E. G. Browne-one at the British
Council in Meshed, one at Shiraz University and one at Isfahan University. Sir Sydney also gave a
more informal talk on Samuel Johnson at the Faculty of Letters at Shiraz. In Meshed, Shiraz and
Isfahan the British Council's Regional Directors, Mr. Merlyn Jones, Mr. Paul Gotch and Mr. John
Gayford, each did all they could to ensure the success of the tour and warm thanks are due also to
Professor Lutf 'Ali Suratgar and Professor 'Abbas Faroughi for their kindness and assistance in
organizing the lectures at Shiraz and Isfahan Universities.
Brochures
To mark the occasion of the Inaugural Meeting on December i i th the Institute brought out a
special brochure, written in both English and Persian. The contents include a statement of the
Institute's aims and purposes; a brief account of the Institute's foundation and its present activities;
and a list of the members of the Governing Council. In addition, a second brochure, in the form of a
series of tributesfrom Browne'sfriendsand colleagues, was brought out at the time of the E. G. Browne
Centenary celebrationson February I7th.
X
1
EDWARD FITZGERALD
By Sir Maurice Bowra
In the nineteenth century, England, despite its reputation for ruthless

conventionality, was a happy
home for eccentrics, for men who with an almost unconscious confidence pursued their
private whims
and maintained a curious innocence from the world around them. To this select and
agreeable company
belonged Edward FitzGerald. He was not, strictly speaking, English, but Anglo-Irish, coming from a
family long settled in Ireland but regarding itself as an outpost of English manners and superiority,
and confirmed in its belief by an ample income and several large houses. Though FitzGerald lived to
be 74, his life was undramatic, and such dramas as befell him he took with a philosophical calm.
Even when his father lost his money trying to find coal on his Manchester estate and was declared
bankrupt, FitzGerald's existence was not troubled. His wants were few; he had no appetite for luxury
or display. When some of his old friends, notably Thackeray and Tennyson, became prominent
figures in London society, FitzGerald preferred the company of farmers in Suffolk and made a special
friend of one Joseph Fletcher, a sailor, whom he called " Posh " and thought " a gentleman of Nature's
grandest type ", forgiving him his bouts of intoxication and his uncertain touch with money. To the
more dramatic events of his time he paid little attention. He was not interested in the sensational
strides of natural science; he thought most contemporary writers, including Tennyson after his first
work, sadly imperfect; he was deeply distressed by what he regarded as the rapid decay and
imminent dissolution of the British Empire. He developed agreeable oddities of dress and manner,
wearing indoors a top hat and a silk dressing gown, and out of doors a plaid shawl wrapped loosely
round his shoulders, and very short trousers, which stopped just below his knees. He kept himself
alive by maintaining a calm routine, and when he tried to break it, always regretted the attempt.
When he was nearly 5o, he married a woman older than himself, but she had social ambitions which
were highly distasteful to him, and he soon separated from her. When years afterwards he met her by
accident, he held out his hand to her, but withdrew it at once, saying, " Come along, Posh," and walked
away. His life lacked any obvious purpose, and though at first he was conscious of this and a little
troubled, it soon became a habit and even a philosophy. He wrote letters to his friends about the small
matters of every day, and they remain among the most subtle and charming letters written in English.
He pursued his literary hobbies with a quiet persistence, and in the end it was clear that this man,
who seemed to be wasting his undoubted talents, had discovered where they lay and made at least
one triumphant use of them.
FitzGerald loved words and had a natural gift for their use, but he lacked the mastering, driving
impetus which makes a truly creative writer. Though he enjoyed the practice of writing, as his letters
abundantly show, and though he was an acute and exacting critic of the work of other men, he was
incapable of forming a large design for any literary undertaking of his own. His gift was for sensibility
and the niceties of observation, for finding the right, unassuming words for what caught his fancy in
nature or books or human relations. His refusal to join in the ardours and struggles of other men
meant that he had very little to write about, and his emotional life, confined as it was to his friends,
gave him no inspiration. When he was 22 years old, he wrote a little lyric, " The Meadows in Spring ",
which is in its own quiet way original and graceful and true to himself. It catches a tranquil, relaxed
mood, which was indeed to be the dominating mood of his life, and shows how early he had settled
down to his characteristic quietism. It begins:
2 JOURNAL OF PERSIAN STUDIES
'Tis a dull sight And there I sit

To see the year dying, Readingold things,
When winterwinds Of knightsand lorn damsels
Set the yellowwood sighing: While the wind sings-
Sighing,oh! sighing. Oh drearilysings!
When such a time cometh I neverlook out
I do retire Nor attend to the blast;
Into an old room For all to be seen
Besidea brightfire: Is the leavesfallingfast;
Oh, pile a brightfire! Falling,falling!
This is not a great poem, but it has certain qualities. The use of the unrhymed line at the end
of each verse catches very aptly the mood of peace and resignation and lack of effort. The half-
conversationallanguage shows, as FitzGerald was to show on a much greater scale later, his dislike of
the artificialvocabulary, which the Victorian poets imported from an imaginary medieval world. The
theme of withdrawal into books is entirely true to FitzGerald's temperament, and it is not surprising
that he writes in a mood of reminiscenceas if, at the age of 23, life held nothing in store for him.
FitzGerald wrote a few more occasional poems, none of them so good or so revealing as this. He
saw that he was not really the man to write poetry at the only level at which it is worth writing.
He had thereforeto find some other, less direct means to express himself, and it was some time before
he found it. He had the makings of an excellent critic, and his letters give many examples of his
independence from current fashions, his sharp eye for faults and failures, his understanding and
admiration of the great masters, his precise and sensitive feeling for words. But he wanted more than
this. Criticism might be good enough for conversation and correspondence, but it was not a life's
work, and despite all his modesty and self-depreciationFitzGerald dreamed of writing something that
would be remembered and endure. The question was how to do it. His own demon was not strong
enough to drive him into truly creative activity, and he was not content merely to discuss the works
of other men. In his spare time he edited a book of maxims, which revealed the unconventional range
of his reading and his eye for a terse or pointed sentence. But this kind of scholarshipdid not satisfy
him. Hidden away in him was something which called to be put into words of beauty and power,
and yet defeated his first effortsto expressit rightly. FitzGerald was in the awkwardposition of feeling
that he had something important to say and yet not being quite sure what it was.
FitzGerald's first sustained and serious attempt to write a book was Euphranor, published in I851.
It is modelled on a Platonic dialogue, in which four Cambridge undergraduates discuss with a doctor,
who is twice their age, subjects that undergraduatesin all times tend to discuss. In it FitzGerald has a
serious purpose, to charge English schools first with failing to look after the physical development of
youth; secondly, with paying no attention to the usefulnessof education fitting a man for a career.
in
The first charge sounds odd to-day, when for a century our schools have been vociferouslyaccused of
preferringphysical to mental training, and even in FitzGerald'sday many schools had established the
cult of compulsorygames as a moral antidote to the more violent relaxations of an earlier generation.
The second charge is more far-sighted, and is still a subject of hot debate, especially on the relation of
science to society, in which FitzGerald was not interested. Both come unexpectedly from FitzGerald,
who was in no sense an athlete and had little curiosity about industry or business or administration.
Euphranor is written with the same charm and grace as the letters and has many happy observations
and alluring cadences. Yet it fails sadly when we compare it with its Platonic models. We miss the
closely knit argument, the intellectual structure, the appeal to first principles, the merciless and
unforgiving cogency with which a debate is conducted, the fusion of close and even difficult thought
with an easy conversational style. FitzGerald has the style, but not the strength which is needed to
give body to it, and his principles are too like prejudices to be impressive. He himself soon thought
little of Euphranor and called it " a pretty specimen of a chiselled cherry-stone". He was right, and
yet it reveals something in FitzGerald which was to come to the fore later and was already at work
in him. In setting out the case for physical education he was speaking for the Greek world which he
EDWARD FITZGERALD
knew and loved from books, and his statement of the case is a quiet challenge to the Victorian society
in which he lived. From early days he had rejected some of its favourite assumptions,and now he had
seriouslybegun to look for some alternative to them. He presentedhis views with tact and restraintand
decorum, but he had shown the first signs of revolt and indicated the direction in which he was to move.
Poetry was the art which FitzGerald most loved and admired and wished to practise. Recognizing
that he could not be a great poet in his own right, he decided to devote himself to the translation of
poetry, and with this for the rest of his life he was mainly occupied. The three languages which
concerned him were Greek, Spanish and, above all, Persian. Greek he had studied at school and at
Cambridge and knew with the thoroughnessinculcated by a well-establisheddiscipline; Spanish and
Persian he learned with the help of his friend Edward Byles Cowell, who was a man of most unusual
gifts and, despite the lack of a formal education, took up Persian, Sanskrit,Norse, Italian and Spanish,
to end up as Professorof Sanskrit at Cambridge University. FitzGerald met him in 1846 and formed
with him a friendshipwhich lasted until his own death. Cowell was an.excellent scholar,who combined
a very wide range of reading with a thorough knowledge of the languages which he read and a real
enthusiasm for their literatures, and though FitzGerald was never to know Spanish or Persian so well
as Cowell, he inspired FitzGeraldwith his excitement, taught him how to study new languages, engaged
in a long and scholarly correspondence on points of detail, and put him on to new topics when his
ardour began to flag. It is a pity that in translating Greek, on which FitzGerald could so easily have
got expert advice, he. relied on his own judgment and sought for no Cowell to assist him. Cowell's
direct contribution to Persian studies in England was not nearly so great as that of Sir William Jones
or Browne or Nicholson, but indirectly, in his own sphere, he may have had more influence than any
of them, since it is through him that one Persian poet became an established English Classic.
In translatingfrom Spanish and GreekFitzGerald'smethods were very much his own. He translated
eight plays of Calderon, the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, and the King Oedipusand the Oedipusat Colonus
of Sophocles. The results are always readable, even distinguished, but the methods are certainly
eccentric. First, FitzGerald thought nothing of omitting passageswhich did not appeal to him. This
might not matter if the omitted passageswere unimportant either for their own sake or because they did
not contribute to the structureof a complete work of art. However, if they bored FitzGerald,or for some
reason he took against them, they were left out. Secondly, he took more than legitimate liberties with
the text when he fused two separate and quite different plays of Sophocles into a single play. The two
plays about Oedipus differ in manner, in intention, in tragic interest, in the actual quality of their
poetry, and to make them one, FitzGerald had to leave out important characters,soften the asperities
of the first play, obscure the age of Oedipus, who is a young man in one play and an old man in the
other, spoil the detective interest of the first play and the religious interest of the second. Thirdly,
FitzGerald disliked anything too elaborate and mannered, and this did not make him an ideal
translatorof Calderon, who wrote in the high manner of Spanish rhetoric, or even of Aeschylus, with
his bold, unexpected phraseology and his complex, metaphorical lessons. If these got in the way,
FitzGerald pushed them aside and simplified and lowered the tone of the text. Fourthly, FitzGerald
was not a lyrical poet, and the more musical and more melodious passagesof Aeschylus and Sophocles
were beyond his reach. He reduced the first to much less than their full scale; the second he did not
attempt to translate but used instead the poor versions of an eighteenth-centuryrhymer called Robert
Potter. His gift was much more for philosophic or reflective verse than for lyrical or even dramatic
poetry, and though his lines have always a noble resonance and often a real sweep and splendour,
they are not dramatic. We can read them with pleasure, but we cannot imagine that they could be
spoken successfully on the stage. He prefers the fine sweep of noble sentiments to human situations,
and general remarks about the human state to particular instances of it. All this means not merely
that he was an unfaithful translator, but that he did not really find the right medium for his own views.
Tying himself, as he did, to drama, he shirked the issues that in fact most troubled and most interested
him. The result was not a faithful version, and FitzGerald did not intend it to be one; but in that case,
it was equally not an independent work of art which conveyed the richness and the oddity of FitzGerald's
own personality.
At the same time, FitzGerald needed the personaof some other poet in order to discover and express
himself, and at least he saw that, whatever else a translation must do, it must live as poetry in its own
right. " Better a live sparrow than a stuffed eagle " was his own comment on his work, and there is much
to be said for it. He did not necessarily have to accept the views of the authors whom he translated
and was paradoxically more at home in the religious passages of Calderon than in the courtly and
worldly. What really stirred him was the kind of poetry which deals with general ideas, but in such
a way that they are transmuted and transfigured by an individual, imaginative treatment of them.
FitzGerald felt at home with this and made it fit his own more troubled ideas. His error was to try to
find it in Greek and Spanish. Greek tragedies were too austere, too remote for his feminine, melancholy
nature; Calderon was too elaborate and too dignified. He had still to find what he really needed, and
it came to him unexpectedly. To realise himself as he wished FitzGerald had to set himself at some
distance from his own life and society. In a foreign language, in a distant past, in ways of thought
that had not been touched by Christianity, in ideas and ideals not familiar to western Europe, in
poetry richer and more heavily loaded than any other known to him, FitzGerald found his release and
his means of self-expression, and his final, complete, satisfying and inspiring refuge was the poetry
of Persia.
As with Spanish, the first impulse came from Cowell, in the winter of 1852. Cowell later said of it;
" I suggested Persian to him and guaranteed to teach the grammar in a day. The book was Jones'
grammar, the illustrations in which are nearly all from Hafiz. FitzGerald was interested in these and
went on to read Hafiz closely." FitzGerald carried the grammar, which was that published by William
Jones in 1771, about with him for a year, translating the passages in it and writing to Cowell in
" The Persian is
January 1853: really a great amusement to me. . . . As to Jones' Grammar, I have
a sort of love for it." For the next eighteen months, he studied poems by Sa'di, Ferdowsi, Hafiz, Jdmi,
and Attar, and read many books about Persia and its people. Then in the summer of 1854, with
Cowell's help, he read Jami's Saldmdnand Absdl, and began to translate it, very much according to his
own rules, omitting what did not interest him, elaborating what did, and giving much more care to
some passages than to others. He told Cowell that he had " compacted the story into a producible
drama and reduced the rhetoric into perhaps too narrow a compass". Yet though he thought his
version the best thing that he had yet done, it did not meet all his inner needs. He did not like its
more complex thoughts and said of it: " I shall bundle up the celestial and earthly shah so neatly that
neither can be displeased, and no reader know which is which. Trust an Irishman where any confusion
is wanted." But what he himself really wanted was not confusion but a clarity and firmness which
the poem did not give him, at least in the form that he desired: " I wanted to secure a palpable
image of the deity scrutinizingthe world he made and moves in throughthe eyesof his master-work, Man,
and to edge and clench it with the sharp corner-stone of rhyme in that very word scrutinize." In the
end FitzGerald produced a version of a poem whose actual story he found boring, but there was much
else in it to excite him, and it has more sustained power than his translations from Greek and Spanish.
Moreover, it tells much about himself, especially when he deals with its speculative and metaphysical
passages. In his first version he translated the opening lines not only with an unusual power but with
an unexpected fidelity to the original.
Oh Thou, whose memory quickens Lovers' souls,

Whose fount of joy renews the Lover's tongue,
Thy Shadow falls across the world, and they
Bow down to it, and of the rich in beauty
Thou art the riches that make Lovers sad.
Not till thy secret beauty through the cheek
Of Laila smite does she inflame Majnuin,
And not till thou have sugar'd Shirin's lip,
The hearts of those two Lovers fill with blood.
EDWARD FITZGERALD 5
The mystical conception of love has caught FitzGerald's imagination, and he breaks out into words
that would have been beyond his scope but for the Persian text in front of him. Over twenty years
later FitzGerald published a revised version of the poem, and his new translation of these opening
lines shows how much he has thought about them and how much further he has moved from them:
Oh Thou, whoseSpiritthroughthis universe
In which Thou dost involvethyselfdiffused,
Shall so perchanceirradiatehumanclay
That men, suddenlydazzled,lose themselves
In ecstasybeforea mortalshrine
WhoseLight is but a shadeof the Divine;
Not till thy SecretBeautythroughthe cheek
Of Laila smitedoth she inflameMajnuin;
And not till Thou have kindledShirin'sEyes
The heartsof thosetwo Rivals swellwith blood.
Some of the first sweep and power and ecstasy has gone, and'yet FitzGerald is more at home in his
new version, more at ease with the idea of love as a divine power working through the universe.
SaldmdnandAbsil opened new vistas to him, and, as he slowly grew accustomedto them, he made them
fit his inner longings more closely.
For FitzGerald the trouble with SaldmdnandAbsdlis that he was not equally interestedin the whole
poem throughout. He conscientiously translated much of it, but the narrative portions called for
talents which he did not possess,and he made a grave errorofjudgment when, for the sake of variety, he
put some passages into the jaunty metre of Hiawatha,for which his original provided no excuse. The
poem introduced him to a new kind of religious poetry, and it was this that fascinated him and kept
him to it, but in the meanwhile he had found something else of a different kind, which was to satisfy
much more of his nature and to excite the full exercise of his genius. In July, 1856, FitzGerald told
Tennyson: " I have been the last fortnight with the Cowells. We read some curious infidel and
Epicureantetrastichsby a Persianof the eleventh century-as savage against destiny, etc., as Manfred-
but mostly of Epicurean pathos of this kind-' drink for the moon will often come round to look for
us in this garden and find us not ". Behind this lay Cowell's discovery, in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, of a manuscript of Omar Khayyam written in 1460 on thick yellow paper, in purple-black
ink, profusely powdered with gold. It contains I58 quatrains which Cowell copied out and sent to
FitzGerald. FitzGerald was fascinated by them, collected more informationfrom the French Scholar,
Garcin de Tassy, got hold of a Calcutta text of them, and in the summer of 1857 could read no other
books. At firsthe played with the idea of translatingit into rhymed Latin versein the mediaevalmanner,
and a specimen of this was sent to Cowell. It was probably no more than a joke, though FitzGerald
wrote to Cowell: " You will think me a perfectlyAristophanicold man when I tell you how many lines
of Omar I could not help runriing into such bad Latin ". By the autumn of the same year he had
finished the first draft of his translation into rhymed English verse, and in 1859 he published
anonymously, in an edition of 250 copies, bound in brown paper, his Rubaiyatof OmarKhayydm, at the
price of one shilling a copy.
At first it attracted no notice whatsoever. For two years it lay on the shelves of Quaritch the
publisher who, giving up all hope of selling it, dumped the copies into his bargain box at the price of
one penny each. Some unknown man of great perception saw it there, bought a copy, and showed it
to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who returned to the shop with his friend Swinburne, to find themselves
charged two pence a copy. As Swinburne wrote: " We were extravagant enough to invest in a few
more copies at that scandalous price ". From Swinburne and Rossetti news of the book was passed to
William Morris, Burne Jones and Ruskin, and by i868 the book appeared as a rarity in Quaritch's
catalogued at the price of three shillings and sixpence, and FitzGerald wrote to him to say that the
price made him blush. While the Pre-Raphaelites took up the poem in England, the American scholar
and critic, Charles Eliot Norton, saw Burne Jones' copy and made the poem known in the United
States. In all this, nobody was more surprised than FitzGerald, who had not attached his name to
the book and read with pleasure the statement in a newspaper that it was the work of " a certain
Reverend Edward FitzGerald, who lived somewhere in Norfolk and was fond of boating ". Off and
on the poem was to occupy FitzGerald for'the rest of his life. He published new editions of it, each
greatly revised, in 1868, 1872 and I879. It made his name in select circles, but he did not live to
see the enormous popularity which it had in the last ten years of the last century and the first twenty
years of this. Produced in every shape and size and print, ornamented often with the most startling
or most inappropriate illustrations, given freely as a Christmas present by elderly relations to their
nephews and nieces, parodied and copied and maltreated from comic papers to Rudyard Kipling, it
shared a strange popularity with other vastly inferior works which were thought to make no claims
on the intelligence of their recipients. It was set to music with luscious accompaniments suited to
contralto voices and thought to reflect all the lure and luxury of the East. It even became a symbol
for those who paid more than serious attention to food and drink, and the Omar Khayyam Club in
London, with its ceremonious and carefully chosen dinners, passes far beyond the poet's own satisfaction
with a loaf of bread and a glass of wine. FitzGerald would have been amazed, amused, perhaps even
a little shocked. It was not in the expectation of such a future that he translated the quatrains of the
astronomer-poet of Persia.
FitzGerald was himself somewhat surprised that Omar should appeal to him so much as he did.
Omar was a man of strong appetites and a strong predilection for wine; FitzGerald was a vegetarian
and seldom drank anything stronger than beer. Omar did not attempt to hide his taste for women;
FitzGerald was shy of them and liked them only for their conversation. Omar played a large part in
public affairs; FitzGerald was a recluse even in his own small section of rural society. Omar speculated
boldly about the universe; FitzGerald, at least outwardly, conformed to the Church of England,
though it must be admitted that his local clergyman remonstrated with him about his laxity. FitzGerald
was attracted to Omar as to a poet quite outside his previous experience, and all the more seductive
because he lived in a world so unlike FitzGerald's own and had so marked and so powerful a personality.
He wrote to Cowell: " I thought him from the first the most remarkable of the Persian poets, and
you keep finding out in him evidences of logical fancy which I had not dreamed of ". That FitzGerald
should prefer Omar to Hafiz or Ferdowsi indicates that this usually balanced and sagacious critic
had been swept off his feet, and it was not only the quality of Omar's poetry which had done it.
FitzGerald had a strong taste for what he here calls " logical fancy ", and by it he means something
akin to metaphysical poetry, which treats ideas imaginatively and enriches and expounds them through
symbols and images. He had liked this in Calderon, and he liked it in Omar, but behind it was some-
things else which exerted a stronger attraction on him and about which he was not quite so happy.
FitzGerald owed his knowledge of Omar to Cowell, but he knew that Cowell, who was a devout
member of the Church of England, could not take Omar entirely to his heart. He was quite frank
about it and wrote to Cowell in December 1857: " In truth, I take old Omar more as my property
than yours; he and I are more akin, are we not ? You see all his beauty, but you don't feel with him
in some respects as I do. I think you would almost feel obliged to leave out the part of Hamlet in
representing him to your audience, for fear of mischief. Now I do not wish to show Hamlet at his
maddest; but mad he must be shown, or he is no Hamlet at all. . . . I think these free opinions are
less dangerous in an old Mahometan or an old Roman (like Lucretius) than when they are returned
to by those who have lived on happier food ". FitzGerald was right in thinking that Cowell felt some
responsibility for introducing Omar to FitzGerald; for many years later, in 1898, after FitzGerald's
death, when the Persian scholar, Edward Heron-Allen, proposed to dedicate to him a book on Omar
and FitzGerald, Cowell wrote:
" I yield to no one in my admiration of Omar's poetry as literature, but I cannot join in the
Omar cult, and it would be wrong in me to pretend to profess it. So I am deeply interested in
Lucretius . . . but here again I only admire Lucretius as 'literature'. I feel this especially
about Omar Khayydm, as I unwittingly incurred a grave responsibility when I introduced his
poems to my old friend in I856. I admire Omar as I admire Lucretius, but I cannot take
him as a guide. In these grave matters I prefer to go to Nazareth, not to Naishapur."
EDWARD FITZGERALD 7
Cowell was quite right. What fascinated FitzGerald in Omar was not merely its strangeness,nor its
purely literary quality, nor even its metaphysical ingenuity, but its point of view. This appealed to
him more deeply than the Olympian grandeur of Sophocles or the mystical fervour of Calderon, or
the philosophic sweep of SaldmdnandAbsdl. No doubt he had many serious reservationsabout Omar's
philosophy and would certainly neither admit nor think that he accepted it in its entirety. No doubt
he believed that he liked it simply for its purely poetical qualities, irrespectiveof its sentiments, though
this is not an easy position to maintain and usually conceals an element of self-deceptionsomewhere.
Yet Omar fascinated FitzGerald in more than one way, and the fascination was by no means merely
aesthetic. FitzGerald was at heart a practising Epicurean, in his love of a quiet life with its tranquil
consolations, and untroubled security, enjoying the passing moment and not looking beyond it, free
alike from action and from the decisionswhich action demands. More than this, as a modern Epicurean,
FitzGerald could not but speculate about the nature of the universe and its government. His Christian
upbringing and allegiance meant little to him, and in some moods, he saw an encompassingdarkness,
to whose central mystery there was no clue, but which raised awkward questions and prompted
various answers. The inconsistenciesand the contradictionsin his agnosticismfound an echo in Omar,
and when he turned the quatrains into English, the strength and the passion of his words show how
fully FitzGeraldwas at home. On one side there is a profound scepticism, which assertsthat it is useless
to ask questions because no answers can be found to them.
Why, all the Saintsand Sageswho discuss'd
Of the Two Worldsso learnedly,are thrust
Like foolishProphetsforth; theirWordsto Scorn
Are scatter'd,and their Mouthsare stoptwith Dust.
On the other side is a positive conviction that the universe has its own ghostly guidance, which is
indeed alien to any teaching of religion:
Then to the rollingHeav'n itself I cried,
Asking,'WhatLamp has Destinyto guide
Her little Childrenstumblingin the Dark? '
And-' A blind Understanding!' Heav'n replied.
FitzGerald may have had reservationsand qualifications, and certainly did not treat literally all that
Omar said and he himself translated, but how seriously he treated him and liked him can be seen
from his association of Omar with Lucretius: " Men of subtle, strong and cultivated intellect, fine
imagination, and hearts passionate for truth and justice, who justly revolted from their country's
false religion and . . . with no better revelation to guide them, had yet made a law to themselves".
The words " with no better revelation to guide them " are a saving clause which FitzGerald puts in,
no doubt sincerely, but equally there is no doubt about his admiration of Omar, -as of Lucretius, for
his bold and independent outlook, and though he does not say that he himself shares it, he would
hardly display this degree of admiration if it did not in some respects appeal to him.
FitzGerald'streatment of Omar has its characteristicidiosyncrasies. He has been accused of adding
and falsifying, of making too much or too little of what he found before him. He certainly treated
Omar on his usual principles of translation, determined that " at all cost a thing must live ", but in
his curious way he was more faithful than he is commonly thought to have been. In the final form
his poem has Ioi stanzas, and it has been calculated that of these:
Forty-nine are faithful translationsof single quatrains to be found in the Bodleian MS., copied for
him by Cowell, or in the copy of the text which he got from Calcutta.
Forty-four are traceable to more than one quatrain and may be called composite, but not in the
last resort unfaithful.
Two are inspiredby quatrainsfound by FitzGeraldin the Frenchversion ofJ. B. Nicholas, published
in I867.
Two are quatrains reflecting the whole spirit of the original poem, but may be classed as
FitzGerald'sown inventions.
Four are traceable to other poems by other poets, notably 'Attar and Hafiz.
2A
At least FitzGerald treated Omar with more respect than he treated Sophocles, and even his additions
have been skilfully adapted to the dominating tone and temper.
Examples of FitzGerald'smethods will illustratewhat he had in mind and what successhe achieved.
First, he took from Hafiz the quatrain:
Beforethe phantomof falsemorningdied,

Methoughta voice within the taverncried,
'When all the templeis preparedwithin,
Why nods the drowsyworshipperoutside? '
FitzGerald has completely changed the context and therefore the intention of the lines, but they fit
very well into his scheme, and he puts them in at this point because they provide a useful link to get
his subject going at the start. Secondly, from Attar comes:
Earthcould not answer; not the seas that mourn

In flowingpurple,of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rollingHeav'n, with all his signsreveal's
And hiddenby the sleeveof night and morn.
This gives a new strength and majesty to the sense of utter ignorance which afflicts mankind and fits
very well into FitzGerald's presentation of it. Thirdly, FitzGerald composes verses of his own which
reflect and summarize the general spirit of Omar, but are not based on his actual words. Such is the
quatrain:
Iram indeedis gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshyd'sSeven-ring'dCup whereno one knows;
But still a Ruby kindlesin the Vine,
And many a Gardenby the Waterblows.
This little distillation of poetry in the master's manner is needed in its place to provide a transition
to the theme of wine, and FitzGerald'swords are a remarkableexample of pastiche.He has so absorbed
Omar that he speaks like him in his own voice.
Apart from these 'small and successful aberrations from the text, FitzGerald treated it in other
ways which may seem to be high-handed but are alsojustified by success. First, he chose from a larger
number available IoI quatrains, and omitted those which did not appeal to him. He then arranged
his selection to suit his own design. This was permissible because the original quatrains were single,
separate poems which could be arranged in any order because each stood in its own right and was
not part of any unifying design. But FitzGerald, who treated Omar seriously,decided to make a single
poem of the various quatrains, because this would stress their underlying philosophy. There is a real
development through the poem from the dawn, with which it starts, to the resigned melancholy of the
end. This development has not the logic of an argument or an apology; it follows a natural sequence
of emotional states, as the poem passes from the ignorance and insecurity of man to the consolations
of the grape. FitzGerald'sRubaiyatis by his own choice and skill not a mere string of stanzas, of which
almost any might take the place of any other, but, as he himself calls it, " something of an Eclogue,
with perhaps less than an equal proportion of the ' drink and make merry', which (genuine or not)
recurs over frequently in the original ". Secondly, FitzGerald reduced all the stanzas to the same
shape and to the same scheme of rhyme. He kept the unit of four lines, made all of them the same
length, and rhymed the first, second and fourth lines, leaving the third unrhymed. The result is
remarkably effective, and we can see what FitzGerald means when he says that " the penultimate
line seems to lift and suspend the wave that falls over into the last ". The stanza so formed is irrevocably
associated with the names of Omar and FitzGerald and has found a lasting place in English poetry,
being used even for so unexpected a task as Mackail's translation of the Odyssey.
EDWARD FITZGERALD 9
At the same time FitzGerald certainly played some minor tricks with the text, and these throw
some light on his ulteriorintentions. Take, for instance, a famous and much quoted stanza:
Oh Thou, who Man of baserEarthdidst make,

And ev'n with Paradisedevisethe Snake:
For all the Sin wherewiththe Face of Man
Is blacken'd-Man's Forgivenessgive-and take!
Asked about the last line Cowell wrote in 1903:

" There is no original for the line about the snake; I have looked for it in vain in Nicholas. FitzGerald
mistook the meaning of givingand accepting. . . and so invented his last line out of his own mistake.
I wrote to him about it when I was in Calcutta, but he never cared to alter it."
Fortunately we have FitzGerald'sanswer at the time to Cowell's criticism:
" I have certainly an idea that this is said somewherein the CalCuttamanuscript. But it is very likely
I may have construed,or remembered,erroneously. But I do not adddirt to Omar's face."
In fact FitzGerald got the idea not from Omar but from Attar, and so absorbed it that he forgot the
source. But it is exactly the kind of effect that he seeks and loves, and we can understandthat, having
done it, he was not going to withdraw or alter it.
FitzGerald altered his poem greatly in the four editions which he published at intervals of it, and
though we may feel that many of his correctionstake away some of the first freshness,there is no doubt
that FitzGerald,who was an excellent critic of his own work, made them with due deliberationbecause
they represented more closely the poetical effect which he wished to produce. In each he tends to
get further away from the original text and to speak more confidently in his own voice. Take for
instance one quatrain on the theme of drinking while we may. In the first edition it runs:
While the Rose blowsalong the River Brink

With old KhayyAm the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with the darker Draught
Draws up to Thee-take that, and do not shrink.
In the second edition this has been remodelled:
So when at last the Angel of the Drink

Of Darkness finds you by the river-brink,
And, profferinghis cup, invitesyour Soul
Forthto your lips to quaffit--do not shrink.
The rose by the river and the whole conception of drinkingwith old KhayyWam have disappeared,and
the stanza is devoted to the single, powerful image of the draught offered by the angel of death. It is
more sombre, more pointed, more concentrated. Then in the fourth and final form the quatrain reads:
So when that Angel of the darkerDrink

At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And, offering his cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your lips to quaff-you shall not shrink.
The Angel has become more remote and more mysterious, and the last line is now not a command
but a prophecy. This is what will happen, and there is no gainsaying it. FitzGerald has hardened
and condensed his style to get this effect, and there is no doubt that he wanted it because it said what
he really wished to say.
In making his alterations FitzGerald had a clear notion of what the style of his poem should be,
and in this he presents a marked independence from any Victorian practice. The Victorians suffered
from a taste for archaic, literary words. In' their rejection of the neatness and point sought so ardently
by the eighteenth century, they sought to convey an air of romance by certain affectations of speech-
not merely mediaeval words long passed out of currency, but inversions, such as putting the adjective
after the noun, or twisting the order of words to make them look more impressive. They did this
because they thought that the poetry of their immediate predecessors was unduly prosaic, and they
thought that this was a good way to counter and correct its influence. FitzGerald did not agree with
them. He was no great admirer of Victorian poetry, and thought that most of it compared poorly
with even such work as that of Crabbe. On the other hand though he saw much to admire in Pope
and Cowper, he felt that they did not belong to his world and could not teach him anything, and
in this he was certainly right so far as his love of exotic situations and striking fancies was concerned.
The result was that he stood in a middle position between the dominating styles of the eighteenth and
nineteenth century, and instead of being perplexed and defeated by this, he took triumphant advantage
of it. He was a man of the nineteenth century in his romantic affection for the past, for strange places
and strange names, for flaunting statements about the nature of reality, for rich, decorative effects,
for the graces and subtleties of nature. But he had his roots in the eighteenth century-in his love of
point and paradox, of sharp epigram and lyrical wit, of personal statements which tell the truth in a
concise and striking way without any adventitious ornament. His peculiar, indeed his unique success
was that he fused these two sides of his nature into a single style. At one time the nineteenth century
seems to dominate in such a stanza as:
One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,

One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste-
The Stars are setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing-Oh, make haste!
or
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.
Here indeed FitzGerald speaks with the luxurious melancholy of his time and finds an imagery which
suggests vast distances in space or long tracts of time, but he casts his words in a strict and economical
mould. Nothing is otiose or flabby. At other times the eighteenth century comes to the fore, and in
the background we hear the disciplined march of the heroic couplet:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent

Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
or
Indeed, indeed Repentance oft before
I swore-but was I sober when I swore ?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My threadbare Penitence apieces tore.
In such cases there is much that Pope would have liked, but FitzGerald is richer and warmer and less
self-conscious. And though we may distinguish the two strands in him, the important fact is that he
unites them in a style which is at once highly coloured and strictly drilled, bold in its sweep and yet
careful of every step that it takes, straightforward as common speech and yet loaded with imaginative
association at every point, reckless and ironical, outspoken and controlled, passionate and witty. All
EDWARD FITZGERALD 11
this FitzGerald learned from Omar, but he learned it so well and made it so intimate a part of himself
that he stands in his own right as a unique poetical personality.
Through Omar FitzGerald found the deliverance that he needed from certain misgivings and
uncertainties. Of course he did not take everything that Omar said at its face value and was very
far from preaching a gospel of drink. For him no doubt the vine and its products were symbols of
the happiness which he hoped to find, and indeed often found, by avoiding the troubles and entangle-
ments of an active life. As such they enabled him to state with unusual power the troubles which
gnawed his spirit, as indeed they gnawed the spirits of other men, but were not easily publicised in
Victorian England. The complacent religion of his time forced him into opposition because he saw
that it did not meet his real spiritual needs, and, though in his daily life he treated it with a polite
tolerance, in his inner self rebellious powers were at work, urging him to complain about the scheme of
things which aroused not merely his discontent but his condemnation. He felt, as the Greek felt, that
human life was a shadowy affair at the mercy of dark, incalculable forces, and he found in Omar his
instrument to speak of his disillusion and his distress. In this respect he was the forerunner and almost
the guide of some Victorian rebels, who did not share the current optimism and reverted to those
denunciations which Shakespeare gives to some of his characters when their worlds are shattered
around them. Yet he differs greatly from them. He has much more tenderness and love of life than
James Thomson in the prolonged gloom of The City of Dreadful Night; his outlook is much gentler
and easier to understand than Housman's acrid and disdainful vision:
It is in truth iniquity on high

To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave;
he gives far more scope to human effort and choice than do Thomas Hardy's Spirits of the Years:
O Immanence, That reasonest not

In putting forth all things begot,
Thou build'st thy house in space-for what ?
O loveless, hateless! past the sense

Of kindly eyed benevolence,
To what tune danceth this immense ?
FitzGerald felt the force of these questions, but shrank from answering them in his own voice or with
any final assurance. His translation of Omar is the record of his quarrel with himself, of the conflict
between his natural desire to take things as they come and not complain, and something which forced
him to look away from the creeds and assurances of his youth and to find some sort of answer in Omar's
Epicurean nihilism. At least this left the human affections intact and gave a brief, if precarious, dignity
to his pleasures. If pressed about his views, FitzGerald would have said that he did not know what
they were, and that much of Omar was not really acceptable to him. Yet in his inner self, away from
the compromises and falsities of his time, he found something which caught his heart and his
imagination. In him the Victorian melancholy was set on a philosophic basis, where it could be
exorcised only by a recognition that what we have is after all worth having, even if its career is brief
and uncertain. At times he might wish to get more than this, to break out into complaint and
denunciation, but in the end he knew that it was useless, and it is this sense of his human limitations
which gives a special tenderness to some of his darker forebodings and doubts:
Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits, and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
Yet Omar taught him that such questions, and desires that made him ask them, were in the end futile,
and that it was better to enjoy things as they come. This was the lesson that FitzGerald, certainly an
apt and ready pupil, learned from his master and transformed into his own high poetry. It was because
he was able to identify himself with Omar on this central issue that he wrote his masterpiece, and
fulfilled a wish which he had expressed in 1851 before he had heard of the Rubaiyat:
"I was thinking . . myself how it was fame enough to have written but one song-air, or words-
which should in after .to
days solace the sailor at the wheel, or the soldier in foreign places! to be taken up into
the life of England."
His prayer was answered on a scale which he could never have imagined, and it was Persia that answered
it for him.
13
PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON CHINESE ART FROM THE EIGHTH TO

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
By Basil Gray
The two great centres of design in Asia are Persia and China. Each has its own strong tradition.
From time to time they have influenced one another, and these mutual influences have provided useful
stimulus towards fresh achievements in both countries.
Hitherto much more attention has been paid to the influence of Chinese art in Persia than of the
reverse movement, but certain specific instances of the influence of Persia on the arts of the T'ang
dynasty have been noted and admitted. Such are the bronze mirrorsdecorated on the reverse with a
design of lions among vines;' and glazed pottery ewers with Sasanian motifs, horsemen or rosettes,
in relief on the sides,2 which were made as cheap substitutesfor silver vessels for burial in the tombs.
These begin from the first years of the dynasty (A.D. 68-90o6).
In the seventh century and earlier the main route by which such influences travelled was the land
route through Central Asia, the old " silk route " by which China sent her silks to the Roman West.
All the countries along the route profited from this international trade. The route was so long and
transport by it so costly that only luxury goods were exchanged. East-bound goods were mainly the
precious metals, but glass seems to have ranked nearly as highly in Chinese eyes. The discovery of a
merchant's store-room at Begram in Afghanistan has shown that Chinese lacquer was imported and
that the exportsfrom the Mediterraneanincluded decorative stucco reliefsand glass.3 By about A.D.6oo,
Sasanian motifs were being used to decorate green-glazed celadon ware at a kiln in Shantung in
North-east China. It was made for home consumption and not for export, and thereforewitnesses to
the Chinese taste for Persian art.
This taste for foreign, Western art was characteristic of the T'ang period with its expansionist
mentality and successful political penetration of Central Asia. Indian influence was naturally felt in
the arts of Buddhist centres, but the Persian influence which accompaniedit is equally strikinglyto be
seen in many media.
The red backgroundin wall-painting, and the decorative use of the pearl-border,both of Sasanian
origin, are universal in the Buddhist cave temples at Tun-huang5, the last place in China on the route
towards the West, in the sixth and early seventh centuries.
Before the Arab conquest of Persia, this trade by the overland route to China must have been on a
comparatively small scale, but in the eighth century it greatly expanded, owing to the increase in
Chinese power and interest in foreign trade; and to the improved basis for international trade provided
by the Abbasid gold currency. Silver coins from Byzantium and the Sasanian Empire have been
found in sixth-century tombs at Chang-an the T'ang capital; but now after A.D. 695 the coinage of
the Caliphs was the international means of exchange throughout the old world.6
Equally important was the building of ocean-going ships in China, which began to appear in the
Persian Gulf in the eighth century. The earliest deep-water port seems to have been Siraf, present-day
Bandar Tahiri, due south of Shiraz, which was predominant in commerce in the ninth century, and
did not decline until after an earthquake in 977 and the fall of the Buyids.7 From the early tenth
I W. P. Yetts, The GeorgeEumorfopoulos Collection: Catalogueof On the importanceof Sirif as a port for overseastrade, see
the Chineseand CoreanBronzes,vol. 2, 1930, pls. XXI-XXIII.
2 Sekai
JeanAubin:" La ruinede SIrAfet les routesdu GolfePersique
Toji Zenshu (Catalogue of World Ceramics), vol. 9, aux XIe et XIIe siecles" (Cahiers
deCivilisation
Mididvale:II,
1956, pls. 56, 57- HeibonshaCeramicSeries, vol. 25, I96I, No. 3, 1959, Universit6 de Poitiers, Centre d'Etudes
pls. 2, 3. Sup6rieursde civilisationm6di6vale).
3 Dldgation ArchiologiqueFranfaise en Afghanistan. Tome IX, L. Vanden Berghe, " R6centes d6couvertesde monuments
1939. J. Hackin: Recherches Arch6ologiques a Begram. Sassanidesdansle Fars"; IranicaAntiqua,
vol. I, Leiden,196I.
4 Basil Gray, Early ChinesePottery and Porcelain, 1953, pl. 13. On the presentappearanceof the site, see M. Aurel Stein,
- Basil
Gray, BuddhistCavePaintingsat Tun-huang,1959, pl. 21. ArchaeologicalReconnaissancein .North WesternIndia and South
' H. A. R. Gibb, " Chinese Records of the Arabs in Central Western
Iran,I937, pp. 202-212.
Asia ". Bulletin of the Schoolof OrientalStudies,vol. II, No. 4.
century, Old Ormuz, on an inlet on the Kirman coast, became a centre for trade to India and China."
Its rival was Kays or Kish, which finally took the lead in the twelfth century with its secure island site.
This sea route was given impetus by the virtual severance of the land route for nearly Ioo years
between 763 and 851 by the Tibetan conquests in Central Asia.9 At the same time the attraction of
the Persian Gulf trade was enhanced by the foundation of Baghdad in 752, and the rise of Basra and
Samarra on the Tigris to be centres of luxury production and consumption.
On the Chinese side foreign trade began to be organized by the growing communities of foreign
merchantsin her ports, of which the chief in the eighth century were Cantonxoand Yang-chou, which
lay on the Grand Canal, completed in 605, connecting the Yang-tze valley with the Yellow River."
These communities were big enough to be placed under the administration of local Moslem chiefs
and to threaten the Chinese inhabitants, who replied with vigour. These difficultiesdid not affect the
trade which continued to expand. The Chinese were interested in the import of horses, amber, glass,
silver vessels and copper and silver ingots; mother of pearl and rhinoceroshorn.1'
A quite different movement led to the diffusion of Persian influence in Central Asia and China:
the settlement of Zoroastrian refugees from the Moslem conquerors. By the eighth century their
communities were strong enough to be granted the recognition of official status in Ch'ang-an and
Loyang, the two capitals of China under the T'ang. In the ninth century a branch of the Uighur
Turks settled down in Turfan, where for 500 years they became the most cultured and advanced
people of Central Asia, while they were mainly Manichaean and their culture largely Iranicised.'3
There were also persistentManichaean groups in China, especially in the south-east coastal provinces
of Chekiang and Fukien. All these circumstances favoured Chinese contacts with Persian culture,
and made possible the strong influence which it exercised in these centuries: so much so that Western
lands were collectively known as Po-se or Parsa, which is clearly Fars(i). The westernersin Canton
were known as Ta-chi, which is of the same root, being the name in use from early times for the peoples
of western Asia known by the land route.
With this picture of the background, we can now look at the evidence which we have for the
penetration of Persian art forms into China.
Patterned woven silks. Sir Aurel Stein recovered from the Buddhist cave temples near Tun-huang
small pieces of figured brocade which were used or intended for the mounting strips round Buddhist
pictures. These have been in the British Museum for over forty years, but have only recently been
identified by Miss Dorothy Shepherd of the Cleveland Museum as belonging to a small group which
she has shown to be the work of a suburb of Bukhara, known as Zandana, which were then famous
as Zandaniji.'4 They were produced when this area was under Sogdian rule, before the Arab conquest
which did not come here until A.D.728. The importance of the British Museum fragmentsis two-fold;
first they are practically unfaded, unlike the larger pieces which survive because they were used for
wrapping relics in Christian churches; and secondly because they had been exported to China.
Moreover, with them were found Chinese weavings which are clearly derived as copies of the Persian-
style originals from Sogdia, where the Sasanian tradition was maintained. They show confronted
lions and rams within circles of leaves or pearls. The Chinese copies also show confronted beasts;
ducks or stags, while a third design shows a winged griffin, also within a circle. The colouring of
these pieces is in the same range as the Zandaniji group; dark blue, orange, pink, and a special light
green; unlike other Chinese silks of the period. Similar silks, either original Persian or Chinese copies
of them are represented in the silk clothes painted on the clay figures in the same cave temples at
Tun-huang.'5
8 L. Lockhart, PersianCities, 1960, p. 172. G. Le Strange, The 11 Huduid
al-'Alam(composedin 982), translatedand explained
Landsof the EasternCaliphate,1905, PP. 318-32 x. by V. Minorsky,1937.
9 V. V.
Barthold, Turkestandownto theMongolInvasions,Oxford, 13 F. S. Drake, " History of the Uighurs", in ChineseRecorder,
1928. Nov. 1940,p. 676 et seq.
10 Ahbaral-sin wa'l
hind,ed. Sauvaget, p. 6. C. E. Bubler, " Alte
Arabische Berichte fiber den fernen Osten ". Asiatische
14
Dorothy Shepherdand W. B. Henning, " Zandanijiidenti-
StudienVIII, pp. 51-69, Bern, fied ? " in Aus der WeltderIslamischenKunst. Festschriftfiir
11 E. O. Reischauer, " Notes on1954.
T'ang Dynasty Sea Routes ".
ErnstKiihnel, 1959,pp. 15-41.
HarvardJournal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 5, 1940, pp. 142-164. x1 BasilGray,Buddhist CavePaintingspl. 33.
Pl. Ia. Engravedsilver-giltewer. Chinese: T'ang dynasty.
Ht. g-g9ins. (50-6 cm.). TokyoNational Museum.
Pl. Ib. Yiieh ware bowl on high foot. Chinese: T'ang dynasty. Ht. 4- ins. (II-43 cm.).
Mrs. Alfred Clark Collection, England.
Pl. Ic. Porcelain bowl with pale blue glaz. Chinese: Tenth-eleventh century. Ht. 2 ins.
(5'3 cm.).
Mr. B. Z. Seligman Collection, London.
Pl. IIb. Potterydishpaintedin cobaltblueand turquo
century.D. 10o3 ins. (26.16 c
BritishMuseum.
Pl. Ila. Stonewarevase,paintedin blackundera turquois
Tiiandynasty(128o-1368). Ht. o.-7 i
Br itish Museum.
Pl. IIIa. Reverseof Chineseblueandwhiteporcelaindishfrom Ardabil. Tehra'n
Archaeological Pl. IIIb. Blueandwhiteporcelaindish. Chinese:Fourteen
Museum. Fourteenth century.D. ins. (57-.5 cm.). Fogg Museum,HarvardUnive
22•-
PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON CHINESE ART 15
This type of Sasanian motif remained in vogue for centuries in Iran itself; as in the embossed
decoration of a brass ewer of the eighth century with Senmurv on the two sides,le or in the confronted
ducks on a Rayy pottery dish of the twelfth century."7
The silks probably went by the overland route to China; the metalwork mostly by sea. But a
group of gold ewer and cups was found in South Russia at Poltava, the shapes typical of the Sasanian
period.'8 Both ewer and cup were imitated in China in silver versions; the first is now preservedin
the National Museum, Tokyo, to which it was removed from the Horyuji temple where it had been
for many centuries.19On the body are engraved winged horses also in Sasanian style; but the dragon
cover is in purely Chinese taste. The second shape has been more modified to suit Chinese taste in the
silver cups exemplified in several western collections, of which the Sedgwick cup in London is one.20
This has a deeper bowl than the Persian prototype, and the engraved decoration is purely Chinese,
but the stem is little changed and the general form is easily recognized.
The influence of Persian gold and silverware in T'ang China was greater than this; the shapes
were also copied in porcelain, in both the green Yuiehceladon21 and the white ware which may have
been made in the same district of northern Chekiang.22 The site of the Ytieh kilns is at Shao-hsing
on the south side of the bay of Hangchow from which the port of Yang-chou was easily accessible by
the Grand Canal.23 Yiieh ware was shipped from there and has been found on western sites, but the
shapes imitating Persian silver were made not for export, but for the home market.
White porcelain was a speciality of the Hsing and later the Ting kilns of North China, but it was
also made in Kiangsi and this was probably the origin of the white porcelain sherds found on the
ninth-century site of the palace of Samarra on the Tigris.24 Whole pieces, preserved in China until
recently and now in Western collections, show the influence of Persian metalwork in many of the
most typical and successfulshapes of this white porcelain, with their cusped sides, high foot, and foliate
have
lips.25 In one case the shape can be closely paral! led in western glass; and glass may sometimes
been the medium of influence rather than directly metalwork. The lobed cup is one of the favourite
Sasanian silver shapes, but occurs also in early Islamic glass in Persia, as in an example in the Corning
Museum of Glass, lately exhibited in Paris.26
It is probable that the greater part of the foreign trade of China was not carried through to the
west in a single ship, but transhipped at entrep6ts en route. Kollam in South Malabar27has been
mentioned as one, and another has lately been identified on the peninsularcoast of Siam, on an island
called Kakao at Takuapa. Here Alastair Lamb, of the University of Kuala Lumpur, Malaya,28has
found a mass of Chinese pottery sherdswith a small amount of Islamic pottery and glass, which strongly
the
suggests a trading settlement, where the Persian and Arab seamen took over the cargoes from
Chinese ships. These remains continue till about the eleventh century; and other evidence suggests
a break, almost complete, in this trade with the West at about this time. The decline of the Caliphate
was
put an end to Moslem economic domination in the eleventh century, while Sung policy in China to
generally opposed to overseas trade. Certainly the Chinese taste of that time was far less receptive
foreign ideas, and patterns were, instead, based upon the ancient traditions of China.
The Mongol conquest brought a great change; and the routes across Central Asia were re-opened
to the Moslem merchants. Ch'fian-chou (the Zaiton of Marco Polo) became the principal port for the
16 R. Pinder-Wilson, " An Islamic Ewer in Sassanian Style ". 22 ib., pl. 22A.
British MuseumQuarterlyvol. XXII, I960. 23 See note 11x above.
24 F. Sarre, Die Keramikvon Samarra,Berlin, 1925.
17 A. U. Pope, Surveyof PersianArt, V, pl. 60o4B.
18 D. Talbot Rice, " The Third International Congress and and Ting-yao, Bulletin of the Museum
2s G. Lindberg, Hsing-yao
Exhibition of Iranian Art and Archaeology, Leningrad, of Far EasternAntiquities,No. 25, Stockholm, 1953. (PLATE
1935," in Ars Islamica,vol. III, 1936, p. 99, fig. 1. iC.)
World: The Ray Winfield Smith
1s TreasuresOriginallyfrom Horyfiji, Tokyo National Museum, s6 Glass from the Ancient
1959, pls. 200-202. (PLATE IA.) Collection, Corning Museum of Glass, 1957, No. 532.
Far 27 Ahbaral-sin wa'l-hind,p. 7: Ibn Battiita.
2o B. Gyllensvird, " T'ang Gold and Silver ", Bulletin of 28 A. Lamb, " Kedah and Takuapa: Some Tentative Historical
EasternAntiquities,No. 29, 1957, pl. 17A.
21 Basil
Gray, Early Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, pl. i5A. Conclusions ", in FederationMuseumsJournal, Kuala Lumpur,
(PLATE ixB.) vol.,V.I, N.S., i96 , pp. 69-88.
Western trade.29 Its extent in the thirteenth century may be judged from the fortune that the Moslem
family of P'u made through the perquisitesof the office of Superintendantof the Trading Ships Office.30
The exports were mainly silks and porcelain.
The porcelain was of three main kinds; celadon, white wares, and blue and white, painted under
the glaze.
Some of the celadon dishes were of great size, suited rather for the pilaw of the Moslem world than
for Chinese use, but otherwise the celadon was not affected by foreign influence. It continued the
old Chinese tradition of monochrome porcelain. But the underglaze blue was a fresh development,
unprecedentedin China except for the brush painted Tz'i-chou pottery. Even among these Tz'ti-chou
wares, there was a break between the all-over floral patterns of Sung, or the sketchy spray, and the
pictorial subjects and partitioned layout of the Yuan Tz'i-chou with cartouche panels.31
It is now established that the early supplies of cobalt required for the underglaze blue wares were
imported to China from Persia, where it was mined near Kashan.32 In fact it had been used in Persia
long before this for pottery decoration, as for instance in the typical Kashan pieces painted with floral
designs in blue and black,32a or with blue stripes radiating from the centre, under a colourless glaze.
These had been made from the early years of the thirteenth century, as for instance a bowl in the
British Museum dated A.D. I214.33 It looks as though the idea of painting designs in the cobalt under
the glaze may have travelled to China with the cobalt.34 This kind of painted pottery was in use in
Persia at the time of the Mongol invasions.
The idea would have been transmittedby the Moslem merchants; for no one would have thought
of exporting the brittle Persian pottery to China to compete with the fine porcelain there. We have
seen that the export trade by sea was under their supervision; they may well have been in a position
to control the orders to the kilns, which were around the future great pottery centre of Ching Te-chen.
The dishes which were exported were even larger than any celadon, up to 25 ins. (63.5 cm.) in dia.
The elements of the designs are purely Chinese, but the arrangement is in zones and panels, and
repeat patterns are frequent.
It has hitherto been denied that Persia can have had anything to contribute to this decor; but
fresh evidence has come to light which may lead to a modification of this view. On the back of one
of the big fourteenth-centurydishes from the Ardabil collection, now in the Tehran Museum, is the
name Husain.followed by a word which seems to be " haqir ".3* A dish of the same type and period
but of different design, acquired in India in the nineteenth century by a Britishengineer, has recently
been given to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, by Mr. Richard Hobart. Incorporated
into the main design on the face of this dish is an inscription,not easy to decipher but probably reading
" Hasan ", again followed by the word " haqir ".36 Both these inscriptions must have been written at
the same time that the disheswere decorated,since they are both under the glaze and in the same cobalt
pigment as the rest of the painting. In the second case the design of petals has been modified to make
room for this inscription, which must thereforehave been envisaged when the pattern was drawn out.
What is the significance of this discovery? Since the humble suffix would exclude the names from
being those of patrons, for whom the dishes could have been made, they must refer either to the
merchants handling the orders or to the potters who decorated these dishes. The latter would be
unusual for two reasons; first, there is no acknowledgmentof authorshipprefixed to the names, such
as " amal"; and secondly, it would be unprecedentedin Chinese ceramics to find a signature on the
front of a piece of porcelain.
29 D. Howard Smith, " Zaitdn's Five Centuries of Sino-foreign s' H. M. Garner, OrientalBlue and White, p954,p.2. Arthur
Trade ", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1958, pts. 3-4. Lane, LaterIslamicPottery,1957, p.22.
G. Ecke and P. Demi6ville, The Twin Pagodasof Zayton, 1935- 32A PLATE IIB.
3s A. U. Pope, Surveyof PersianArt, vol. V, pl. 734B.

30 Kuwabara, TTyoBunko, No. 7, 1935: cf. HarvardJournal of 34 Arthur Lane, O.C.S. Transactions,vol. 30. The Arts of The
Asiatic Studies, I, 1936, pp. 265-7. Marco Polo, ed. Yule,
pp. 238-9. Ming Dynasty, 1950, p. 26.
36 John A. Pope, ChinesePorcelainsfrom the ArdebilShrine,pl. 2o,
31
e.g. Basil Gray, Early ChinesePottery and Porcelain, pl. 59. 1956. (PLATE IIIA.)
36 PLATE IIIB.
(PLATE IIA.)
PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON CHINESE ART 17
At Chiian-chou there are a number of carved tomb-stones of the Moslem community.37 They are
carved with Arabic inscriptions in a peculiar style, just as the inscriptions on the dishes are written
in a peculiar hand. It appears that this community lived a remote and isolated life far from contacts
with their original homes in the West, and after generations were in many respects quite Sinicised.
Is it possible that this community played an important part in the development of the underglaze blue
(and red) wares of Ching-te-chen ?
There is no doubt that in the early Ming dynasty, in the reigns of Yung-lo and Hsiian-te, some of
the finest quality blue and white was made in the shape of Persian metalwork objects, although
decorated in an entirely Chinese style.38 But this is easily explained, for it was the Moslem eunuchs
who were the intimate personal advisers of the Yung-lo emperor and who advised and carried out the
series of seven expeditions by sea to the west in search of jewels and other treasures.39 Cheng-ho, who
was the commander of all these voyages, was a Moslem eunuch. The first was in 1405-7, and the
sixth, and last under Yung-lo, was in 1421-3. A seventh followed after an interval, in 1431-3, under
Hsiian-te. All reached Calicut on the Malabar coast of India, which was then an entrep6t; but only
the fourth and fifth voyages of 14I3-5 and 1417-9 got as far as Ormuz, which was by now transferred
from the mainland to an island. These expeditions were on a huge scale, with Ioo ships measuring
up to 44 chang or I43 m. in length; and they carried, it is said " 27,000 soldiers ", who were regular
troops from the frontier force who alone were liable for foreign service.40 But they were commercial
voyages, in search of jewels and other rarities. At this time the foreign goods for sale in Ormuz included
rubies, balas rubies, emeralds, pearls, coral, amber, and jade, and embroidered velvet. The Chinese
took silks and porcelain to sell, and they returned with perfumes, gems and strange beasts, all luxuries.
These voyages were extremely costly but no doubt provided the emperor with much information about
the outer world, its geography and products. Had the policy of Yung-lo been pursued it might never
have been possible for the Portuguese, and later, other western countries to gain control of the carrying
trade of the East. But the jealousy of the Confucian officials was roused, especially by the independent
command of troops gained by Cheng-ho and they succeeded in stopping the voyages; and later in
destroying the official reports of them in the imperial chancery, so that no full account survives.
Still, it is known that Hung-Wu (1369-99), the first Ming emperor, established a shipyard for
building large ocean-going ships at his capital Nanking4' and sent embassies to the Chola king of
Coromandel in 1369-70. For some sixty years, with a short interval on the death of Yung-lo in 1425,
there was a concerted drive to improve trade between China and the West. There was response from
the other side; the King of Ormuz sent embassies to the Chinese court (no doubt they were really
merchants) in 1414, 1432 and 1434.
Meanwhile, with the appearance of Timur and his conquests in Central Asia, the land contact
between Persia and China, which had been interrupted by the fall of the Yikan in. 1368, was strongly
renewed. There were eight embassies from Persia and Transoxiana to China and seven from China to
the Timurid princes between 1387 and 1432.42 They were interrupted for seven years between 1398
and Timur's death in 1405 by his plan to invade China and imprisonment of Chinese envoys. The
largest embassy was that of 1420-21 in which Shah Rukh and his sons Ulugh Beg and Baysunghur
participated.
In early fifteenth-century Chinese porcelain we may see the quite frequent use of a pattern of
pendent cartouches surrounding symmetrically the mouth of a shouldered prunus vase or of a jar.
37 John Foster, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, April 1954. J. J. L. Duyvendak, " The True Dates of the Chinese
Wu Wen-liang, Ch'iianChou Tsung Chiao Shih k'o, Academia Maritime Expeditions in the early fifteenth century".
Sinica, Peking, 1957, pls. 1-26. T'oung-pao,II, vol. 34, 1938.
40 Pao Tsen-peng, On the Ships of Cheng-ho. National Historical
38 Basil Gray, O.C.S. Transactions,vol. 18, 1942 " The Influence
of Near Eastern Metalwork in Chinese Ceramics ". Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 1961.
41 Chou Shih-te, " Notes on the great ships of Cheng Ho, a
39 J. J. L. Duyvendak, " Ma Huan Re-examined ", in Ver. discussion based on a study of the tiller found at the site of
derKon Akad. Van Wette.Amsterdam,XXXII, 1933. a Ming Dynasty shipyard ", in Wen Wu, 1962, No. 3.
P. Pelliot, " Les Grands Voyages maritimes chinois au d6but 42 V. V. Barthold, Four Studies in the History of CentralAsia,
du XVe siecle ", T'oung-pao,ser. II, vol. 30, 1933. vol. II. Ulugh-Beg, 1958, pp. 109-I I2, 179-181.
This has been comparedwith the similarpattern used on Chinese officialrobes,where it is known as the
" Cloud collar ", and supposed to have cosmic significance.43All patterns of this kind seem to derive
from roof or tent patterns where they would surround the centre which might be thought of as the
pole. Such patterns are indeed found on the tents depicted in early Timurid miniatures of the first
quarter of the fifteenth century.44 Moreover, the pattern can be seen on Persian dress design in the
Jala'ir period at Tabriz about 1360-74;45 so that it could have been introduced at the same date into
Persia and China by the Mongols. It was apparently known under the Chin dynasty (II22-1234)
in royal robes; and so may have been long endemic in Mongolia.43
The pilgrim flaskwas probablyone of the shapesborrowedby the Chinese from the West before the
T'ang dynasty; for it is a common form of Parthian and Sasanian pottery, but it was certainly revived
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in several different forms. One of these with undeniable
Persianconnectionshas the sides decoratedwith strap-workbased on a hexagonal star, which is clearly
an Islamic metal form. A flask from East Persia in the British Museum inlaid with silver on bronze
is probably a late survival of the metal prototype.
The early fifteenth century was the period when Islamic metal had its greatest influence in China;
but occasionally thereafter instances appear, as in a tazza hexagonal in plan on a high foot which
preservesthe outline of metal shaped feet at the angles. The top is painted with the kind of Chinese
brush picture which appealed to Persian taste, for there is a class of Persian pen drawing, probably of
early fifteenth-centurydate, reflectingjust such Chinoiserie.
If this then was suited to Persian taste as the shape also suggests, there is quite specific instance of
catering for that market in a late sixteenth-centuryblue and white bottle to which enamel has been
sparingly added near the foot. For in this place a quatrain from Hafiz is written.
If more is to be discoveredabout the range and dates of Chinese trade with Persia in the centuries
discussed here, a hopeful line to follow would be an investigation of the sites on the Persian Gulf
mentioned in my text above.
,1 S. Cammann, " Symbolism of the cloud collar motif ", in Art " Basil Gray, PersianPainting (Skira), I96I, pp. 73, 103-
Bulletin, vol. 33, 1951. "5 Basil Gray, "Die Kalila wa Dimna der Universitit
H. M. Garner, OrientalBlue and White,pls. 20-21. Istanbul ". Pantheon,1933, heft. 9, Abb. I.
46
J.A. Pope, op.cit., pl. 136D.
19
EXCAVATIONS AT PASARGADAE: FIRST PRELIMINARY REPORT
By David Stronach
The first of the two great Achaemenian capitals to be built in ancient Persia, Pasargadae provides
our most impressive evidence for the balance and beauty of early Persian art. Also as the capital and
final resting place of Cyrus the Great (559-530 B.c.), the founder of the Achaemenian Empire,
Pasargadae holds a special place among the great archaeological monuments of the Middle East.
According to one tradition, Cyrus chose the site as his capital because it marked the scene of his decisive
victory over Astyages the Mede-a victory that made him heir to the Median Empire and paved the
way for all his later conquests. At the present day there is still much.at the site that echoes the name
and character of Cyrus: not only his two palaces, each of which still bear inscriptions in his name, but
also, above all else, his simple yet stately tomb (P1. Ia).
PreviousExcavations
As one of the major sites of Iran, where Iranian and other archaeologists have done much
distinguished work, Pasargadae has long been a focal point of interest. Alive with its own problems,
its own clues to historical, architectural and religious development, it has attracted and stimulated
attention from the days of the first early travellers to the Middle East. In the nineteenth century
such gifted and perceptive travellers as Morier, Porter, Rich, Texier, Flandin, Coste, Dieulafoy and
Curzon all visited the site.1 To such early visitors we owe not only some accounts of great charm but
also a knowledge of important details that would otherwise be lost to us to-day.
The first excavations at Pasargadae date from 1928. In that year Professor E. Herzfeld, whose
earlier studies of the site had already established its identification beyond all doubt, began a series of
soundings designed to probe the more important monuments. Although his almost single-handed
attack on such a large site may have had its drawbacks, and his published results mainly take the form
of preliminary reports,2 his excavations revealed the greater part of the main monuments and his
forceful pen contributed an enormous amount to our understanding of the site.3
The next excavator to concern himself with Pasargadae and its surroundings was that equally
a
doughty traveller and explorer, Sir Aurel Stein.4 In the course of some three days, in the midst of
he and his Muhammad what is still
long and arduous tour of Fars, surveyor, Ayub Khan, completed
one of the most accurate site plans of Pasargadae. At the same time, as his main object, Stein carried
out a preliminary survey of the prehistoric mounds of the area, including a brief sounding at the mound
of Do Tulan A (see Fig. 2) which revealed the richness and character of the local Chalcolithic
occupation in the fourth millennium B.C.
Further important documentation followed in 1935 when the Aeronautical Department of the
aerial
Persepolis Expedition, under the direction of Dr. Erich F. Schmidt, took a brilliant series of
the main monuments.5 Among other things this pioneer approach revealed
photographs covering
for the first time the polygonal fortification wall associated with the citadel (see Figs. 2 and 3).
Finally, in 1949, the Iranian Archaeological Department started a fresh series of excavations under
the direction of Mr. Ali-Sami, who was then Director of the Archaeological Institute at Persepolis.
For the next five years Mr. Sami carried through an admirable programme of work, clearing the
1 For a more complete list of the early travellers who vigited the Sarre, Friedrich and Herzfeld, IranischeFelsreliefs. Aufnahmen
site and described its remains see G. N. Curzon, Persia and the und UntersuchungenvonDenkmiilernaus alt- undmittelpersischer
Zeit,
PersianQuestion,II, 1892, p. 71. 1910, pp. 147-186. (Hereafter IF.)
" Bericht
2 See E. E. Herzfeld, uiber die Ausgrabungen von 4 Stein, Iraq III, pp. 217-220.
Pasargadae 1928 ", AMI I, pp. 4-16.
3 See Herzfeld, " Pasargadae " (Klio VIII, pp. 1-28), Archaeo- 6 E. F. Schmidt, Flights OverAncientCities of Iran, 1940, pls. 14
logicalHistoryof Iran, 1935, pp. 27-29 and IAE, pp. 21o f.; also and x5. (Hereafter Flights.)
area around the Tomb of Cyrus; exposing and planning a number of Islamic structuresin its vicinity
and adding important details to the plan of both the audience hall and the residentialpalace. On the
platform of Takht-i-Suleiman his work revealed the presence of a fine stone staircase as well as the
remains of extensive mud brick structures. Also, in other parts of the site, he initiated the first work at
two previously unexplored Chalcolithic mounds, Tall-i-Khari and Tall-i-Nokhodi. Many details of
this wide-ranging programme,which produced much new and important information, are to be found
in Mr. Sami's book Pasargadae,which was translated into English by the Reverend R. N. Sharp and
published at Shiraz in 19566.
PresentExcavations
The present series of excavations, conducted under the auspices of the British Institute of Persian
Studies, began with a two-month season from October 16th to December 16th 1961. In part a direct
continuation of earlier work undertaken at Pasargadae, these new campaigns aim to document the
stratigraphic,topographical and architectu'raldetails of the site as fully as possible. In addition, it is
hoped that this work may make some contribution to the celebrations planned in honour of the
2,500th anniversaryof the accession of Cyrus the Great, as well as providing a practical opportunity
for a number of Iranian students of archaeology to learn and practise modern field techniques.
For permissionto work at the site we are deeply indebted to H.E. Mr. Muhammad Derakhshesh,
Minister of Education; to Dr. Baqher Nahvi, formerlyDirector-Generalof the ArchaeologicalDepart-
ment, and also to Dr. Ezatullah Negahban, Technical Adviser to the Archaeological Department and
Director of the Institute of Archaeology in the University of Tehran.
During the first season the Expedition staff consisted of the following. Mr. David Stronach
(Director); Mr. Robert Soper (Senior Field Assistant); Mr. Martin Weaver (Surveyor); Mrs. M. E.
Weaver (Pottery Assistant); Miss Elisabeth Beazley (Architect); Miss Clare Goff (Field Assistant);
Miss Olive Kitson (Photographer) and Mr. Richard Clark (Field Assistant). Miss Parveen Barzin,
an experienced member of the staff of the National Museum in Tehran, acted as the Representative
of the Archaeological Department.
Among those to whom we owe very sincere thanks are Mr. Feridoun Tavallali, Director of the
ArchaeologicalDepartment in Fars, and his colleague, Mr. Afsar, both of whom went out of their way
to assist us during the excavations. Very many thanks are due also to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Gotch of the
British Council in Shiraz, the Reverend R. N. Sharp and Dr. John Coleman, all of whom did a very
great deal to help us while we were at the site.
The work itself was made possible through the very generous support of the Iranian Oil Operating
Companieswho contributed 500,000 rials towards the cost of the excavations and the BritishAcademy
which contributed ?900oofrom the Stein-Arnold and Reckitt Archaeological Funds.
Finally, we were most pleased to welcome as guests at Pasargadae Professorand Mrs. M. E. L.
Mallowan, who stayed with us on two occasions; Sir Maurice Bowra; Sir Mortimer Wheeler and
Mr. Charles Wilmot, British Council Representativein Iran.
HistoricalBackground7
In the course of extensive Indo-European migrations, which brought both Medes and Persians
into Iran, it is thought that the first Persian tribes probably reached north-western Iran about
Iooo B.C. Certainly the Assyrian annals, relating to a campaign of Shalmaneser III in 836 B.c., place
the Persians in the area of Lake Urmia, where Shalmaneser overran " Parsua " and extracted tribute
from its rulers.
6 The Persian edition of the work (Archaeological ReportsIV, i960) dynastic capital is necessarilyvery compressed. For more
contains valuable additional illustrations together with a some- detailed accounts see G. Cameron, Historyof Early Iran,
what longer text. Chicago,1936; A. T. Olmstead,Historyof thePersianEmpire,
SThe following sketch of the early history of the Achaemenians 1948, pp. 16-93; and R. Ghirshman,Iranfrom the Earliest
down to the time when Persepolis succeeded Pasargadae as the Timesto theIslamicConquest,1954,PP. 73-139.
EXCAVATIONS AT PASARGADAE 21
Achaemenes
(c. 700-675 B.c.)
Teispes
(c. 675-640 B.c.)
I I
Cyrus I Ariaramnes
(c. 640-6oo) (c. 640-615)
Cambyses I Arsames
(c. 600-559) (615-?)
1 I
Cyrus II (The Great) Hystaspes
(559-530)
Cambyses II Bardiya
(530-522) (522) Darius I (The Great)
(522-486)
Xerxes
(486-465)
Artaxerxes I
(465-423)
Darius II
(423-404)
I I
Ostanes
Artaxerxes II
(404-359)
Artaxerxes III Arsames

(359-338/7)
Arses Darius III
(338/7-336/5) (336/5-330)
Fig. I. Genealogyof theAchaemenians.

(Based on Cameron, Historyof Early Iran, and Olmstead, Historyof thePersianEmpire.)
At this time the Persianswere almostcertainlystill dividedinto varioustribesor clans, without

a singleking or capital, and it may be that Assyrianor Urartianpressure,which they were hardly
equippedto resist,made themthinkof a furthermoveto the south. In any event, they seem to have
made a start on their long south-easterlymigrationthroughthe valleys of the Zagrosnot long
afterwards.
Towardsthe endof the eighthcenturytheyprobablyreachedtheirgoal, Parsumash,a mountainous
district to the east and north-eastof Susa. There they establishedthemselvesunder the rule of
Achaemenes,the eponymousancestorof the Achaemeniandynasty. The first mentionof the new
kingdomcomesin 690 B.C.when PersiancontingentsfromParsumash joined the Elamitesin opposing
Sennacheribat the battleof Khalulein northernBabylonia.
Fromhereonwardsthefortunesof the Achaemeniandynastymakea connected,if sketchy,narrative
downto the timeof CyrusII. We knowthatTeispes(c. 675-640B.c.), the sonof Achaemenes,suffered
an early reversein his reign when, in 670 B.C., the Medianking, Khshathrita,invadedParsumash
and forcedhim to recognizeMediansovereignty.But when the Medesthemselveswereoverwhelmed
by the Scythiansand reducedto a state of vassalage,Teispeswas able to free himselfof all external
controland, as a finalconsummation of the long migration,add, first,neighbouringAnshanand then,
Parsaor Pars,to the south-east,to his kingdom.
WhenTeispesdiedhisdominionsweredividedbetweenhis two sons: Ariaramnes(c. 640-615B.C.)
receivingthe newlyconqueredlandsof Anshanand Pars,whileCyrusI (c. 640-600B.c.) receivedthe
originalkingdomof Parsumash.
The prosperityof the time may well be reflectedin the famousgold tabletof Ariaramnes,which
was unearthedat Hamadansomethirtyyearsago. This remarkabledocument,whichis still a source
of considerablecontroversy,is thoughtby certainscholarsto representthe earliestdocumentin Old
Persiancuneiformyet found.8 Apartfromlistingthe titles adoptedby Ariaramnesas " great king,
king of kings, king of the land of Parsa", it providesa pictureof the king'sdeep feeling for his
inheritance:
" This land of the Persians,whichI possess,providedwith fine horsesand good men, it is the
greatgod Ahuramazdawho has givenit to me. I am kingof this land."9
On the death of Ariaramnesin 615 B.c. he was succeededby his son, Arsames,whosename and
titlesagainoccuron a gold tabletfoundat Hamadan. But the durationof his reignwas cut shortby
the dramaticrevivalof the Medesin the last quarterof the seventhcentury. For,in reimposingtheir
controlover the Persians,the Medesallowedonly CyrusI, who representedthe morejunior branch
of theAchaemenianroyalhouse,to retainhisthroneasa vassal.
Someyearslater,as theyoungerbranchcontinuedto prosper,Cyrus'sonandsuccessor,CambysesI
(c. 600-559 B.C.) was permitted to marry Mandane, the daughter of his suzerain, Astyages. Cambyses'
own son by this marriage was Cyrus II (559-530 B.C.), the greatest of the Achaemenians.
From the outset of his reign Cyrus II seems to have resented his position as a vassal. One of his
first moves was to unite all the Persian tribes under his rule. At the same time he most probably
embarked on the construction of his new capital at Pasargadae as a visible token of his greater ambitions.
These first steps towards independence took on a still more concrete form when he and Nabu-naid,
the Babylonian king, formed an alliance against the Medes in 555 B.C. For some time thereafter,
Astyages, the pleasure-loving Median king, was loath to leave his capital to contend with the Persian
revolt, but when he at last did so in 550 B.c. Cyrus met him and defeated him not far from Pasargadae.
This vital victory laid the foundations of his future success, for by presenting himself as the heir of
Astyages and treating the Medes with every mark of respect he was able to count on the combined
resources of the Median and Persian kingdoms from then onwards.
8 See R. Ghirshman,op.cit., pp. 12o-121. from 588 B.c.-the traditional date for the initial success of
9 One forcefulobjectionto the Zoroaster's prophetic mission. For a full discussion of the
authenticityof the tablet is that
it mentionsAhuramazda,whose worshipis thought to date dates of Zoroaster see R. C. Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight
ofZoroastrianism,1961, pp. 33 f.
However, the victory also brought fresh dangers with it. For soon afterwards Croesus, King of
Lydia, crossed the Halys-the established boundary between Media and Lydia-in an attempt to
force Cyrus into battle before he could consolidate his power and menace the security of Lydia. In
the initial encounter between the two armies Cyrus may even have had the worst of matters. But
later, by keeping his troops together and pressing home his attack when Croesushad decided he could
afford to disband a part of his forces and fall back on his capital, Sardis, for the winter, Cyrus was
able to rout his opponent and lay siege to Sardis itself.
When the city fell after a brief siege of only fourteen days Croesus, like the last of the Assyrian
kings, is said to have mounted a funeral pyre with the intention of immolating himself. But Greek
tradition maintains that Cyrus, aided by the miraculous intervention of Apollo, was in time to save
him, later making him a great noble at his court. However that may be, the campaign ended soon
afterwardswith Cyrus in complete possession of Asia Minor, including the rich Greek ports on the
western coast.
For at least five years thereafter Cyrus appears to have been engaged on a series of campaigns on
his eastern borders. After the initial conquest of Hyrcania and Parthia he pushed still further east,
Drangiana, Arachosia, Margiana and Bactriaall falling to him in turn. At length, after almost doubling
the extent of his domains, he settled on the Jaxartes as the north-easternlimit of the empire, building
a line of fortified settlements along the river to protect his new satrapies from the constant threat of
nomadic aggression.
Only when this distant frontier seemed well defended did he turn his attention back to the west
and the great opportunities that awaited him there. For some years the Babylonian Empire had been
in sharp decline: Nabu-naid himself, absorbedin his worshipof the moon god Sin, at the expense of the
principal Babylonian deity, Marduk, had lost the confidence of his priesthood and people while
Belshazzar, the Crown Prince, to whom the day-to-day business of government was entrusted, was a
weak and incompetent figure, incapable of organizing the defence of the country or securing effective
administration. In the resulting chaos the Jewish exiles and other captive minorities were probably
not alone in looking to Cyrus to come and deliver them from their difficulties.
Making his first move against Babylon early in 539 B.c. Cyrus won an almost immediate victory
somewhere near the Tigris. At the same time Nabu-naid, who had been living in seclusion at Tema in
Arabia, returned to his capital and, in an attempt to win over Marduk and his priesthood before it
was too late, went to great pains to celebrate the New Year Festival for the first time in many years.
However, this last gesture could hardly avert the consequence of years of misrule, and, in a further
engagement at Opis in October of the same year, the Babylonian forces were again overwhelmed by
Cyrus-this time with such devastating effect that virtually all resistance collapsed and the Persian
army was able to enter the gates of Babylon without opposition.
Once in possessionof the city Cyrus presented himself to the Babyloniansas a liberator rather than
a conqueror-as a " righteous prince " chosen by Marduk himself to restore proper government to
the country. As one of the first reformsof his rule, all the gods of Sumer and Akkad, who had been
carried off to Babylon in Nabu-naid's desperate attempt to ward off the dangers besetting his capital,
were returned to their former abodes, and even foreign divinities, captured and brought to Babylon
in previous times, were restored to their original sanctuaries. Then, as a still more obvious concession
to the religious beliefs of his new subjects, Cyrus legalized his successionin the time-honoured fashion
of the Babylonian kings by " taking the hand of Bel " at the great New Year Festival.
Nor was he forgetful of the minorities then resident in Babylon. In particular, a variety of factors,
his regard for justice, his shrewd political sense and perhaps also the nature of his own religious ideals,
seem to have inspired Cyrus' sympathy towards the Jews. Not only did he permit the exiled Jews
to return to their homeland, but in a special decree issued from his capital at Hamadan he gave orders
that the temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt at the cost of the royal treasury.
The successof such generodispolicies is reflected in the fact that, without all the checks and controls
that were used to hold the empire together in later times, Cyruswas able to command his vast dominions
3A
with comparative ease. At all times he strove to impose his own overriding sovereignty through the
established institutions of the people he ruled, always preserving the liveliest regard for local custom
and belief.
Cyrus' personal qualities were equally remarkable: generous and humane, tolerant of all religious
belief, a lover of justice, and never without those qualities of decision and courage that made him a
great leader and conqueror, he was as much admired for his noble character as his awe-inspiring
conquests.
Cyrus met his end while still engaged in a great variety of projects. We know that construction
work was still going forward at his original foundation, Pasargadae, and it is hard to suppose that the
same was not true of his other capitals-Hamadan, Babylon and Susa; reorganization within the
newly conquered lands of Babylonia, Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine was probably still not complete;
and, above all, preparationsfor the conquest of Egypt, the last of the majorpowersto remain unsubdued,
were almost certainly making rapid progress. But in the midst of all these activities word of some danger
on his north-easternbordersseems to have driven Cyrus to go and meet the threat himself. We know
very little about the campaign, save that Cyrus is supposed to have been engaged against the
Massagetae, a nomadic people living east of the Aral Sea. After at least one indecisive encounter the
nomads, in a more serious battle, succeeded in overwhelming the Persians and killing the great king
himself. Cyrus'body was later recoveredand borne back to his tomb at Pasargadae.
With the death of Cyrus the crown passed to his first-born son, Cambyses II (530-522 B.C.), who
had already held wide responsibilitieswithin the empire. Many of the details of his subsequent career
are in dispute, but it is clear at least that he embarked on the long-planned conquest of Egypt soon
after his accession and that he spent most of his relatively short reign there. Only a serious rising in
Persia itself eventually drew him away from Egypt early in 522 B.C. But while he and his army were
still in Palestine he seems to have either wounded himself by accident or committed suicide. In any
event it was left to his kinsman, Darius, whose royal descent probably earned him the successionin the
eyes of his fellow nobles and the army, to restorethe fortunesof the Achaemenian cause.
The subsequent history of the Achaemenian monarchs is not, perhaps, an essential part of the
present narrative since in all but a few matters connected with either religious or coronation rites
Persepolis, the foundation of Darius the Great (522-486 B.c.), took the place of Pasargadae as the
dynastic capital. But it should be noted in passing that constructionwork at Persepolisprobably only
began in 520 B.c.,"oand that for some years afterwardsPasargadae must have retained much of its
old importance.
Descriptionof the Site

Pasargadae lies in the mountain-girdled Murghab plain (Pl. Ib), an upland valley of the Zagros
range, some 19oo m. above the level of the Persian Gulf. As the crow flies Persepolisis only 43 kilo-
metres to the south-west," although, if one follows the ancient highway along the Pulvar river, the
distance is increased to about 8o kilometres.
As mentioned earlier, the Murghab plain is rich in Chalcolithic mounds of the fourth millennium
B.C., all of which seem to share much the same pottery sequence.12 To judge from the Institute's recent
excavations at Tall-i-Nokhodi, this sequence consistsof at least two building levels with painted pottery
followed by two further levels with red burnished pottery.'3 Both types of ware can be paralleled at a
number of other sites in Fars including Dehbid, some 55 kilometresfurther to the north,'4 and Tall-i-
Bakun A, close to Persepolis.'5 But after this phase of intensive farming drew to a close some time
before 3,000 B.c., there seems to have been little in the way of permanent settlement in the Pasargadae
plain until the Achaemenian occupation began in the middle of the sixth century B.c.
10 E. F. Schmidt, PersepolisI, 1953, See Miss Clare Goff's article, 52.
p. 39.
13
ll E. F. Schmidt, 14 Aurel Stein, op. cit., p. 213 f.
Flights, p. 1g.
12 Four of the chief sites (Tall-i-Nokhodi, Tall-i-Khari, Tall-i- 15 For a full account of the Bakun
pottery see A. Langsdorff and
Seh-Asiab and Do-Tulan A) occur on the plan in Fig. 2. D. McCown, Excavationsat Tall-i-BakunA, Seasonof 1932, 1942.
TALL-IKNARI
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Fig. 3. ContourPlan of CitadelArea.
Painted sherdsof late third millennium and early second millennium date are limited to a few found
on the surface of Tall-i-Nokhodi and a few more from the recently tested Yazdi Cave in the Bulaghi
Pass.i The only other material of pre-Achaemenian date is reported by Sami, who says that, in the
course of removing soil from the stone platform on the Citadel hill, he found " pieces of black pottery
resembling the pottery of the Elamite period " as well as a fragment of a carved head that may belong
to the same period.17 But it should be stressedthat no other pre-Achaemenian objects, save for some
flint flakes and small fragments of Chalcolithic pottery, have been found during the course of the
Institute's more recent excavations on the same spot. Accordingly it would seem unlikely that the
Citadel hill itself was ever the site of an Elamite settlement, although it is just possible that debris from
a neighbouring settlement of this date could have been used to fill part of the platform.
The plan of the Achaemenian site is an unusual one (Fig. 2). No outer wall defines its general
limits and as yet there is no evidence of a continuous town deposit. Instead the known monuments
stand in isolated groups, often with a common orientation but scattered over a remarkablywide area.
In seeking an explanation of these features Herzfeld has said that, " We must imagine the plain of
Pasargadae full of tents, under which passed a good deal of the-daily life ". Also, in discussing the
layout of the site, he says, " Such a plan cannot be called exactly a town. It looks more like the
first settlement of nomads."'8 But it should be stressedthat such views may have to be modified in the
light of fresh discovery. Achaemenian sherds, implying the existence of permanent settlements, occur
at no less than three separate points to the west of the Sacred Precinct and still other deposits may
exist closer to the banks of the Pulvar.19 Also, in assessingthe character of Pasargadae, proper account
must be taken of the huge Citadel Area that dominates the northern part of the site. Until we know
more about this area as a whole we can hardly hope to pass final judgment on the nature of Cyrus'
capital or on the r6le that it played in later Achaemenian times.
The main monuments at Pasargadae fall into four groups: those in the Citadel Area, those in the
Palace Area, those near the Tomb of Cyrus, and those connected with the Sacred Precinct. Also,
apart from such central features, Pasargadae provides a dramatic example of Achaemenian road
construction in the shape of a rock-cut road or canal that cuts through the narrowest part of the
Bulaghi Pass, about 30 m. above the level of the Pulvar.
As one approaches the site from the north (P1. Ic), the outstanding feature of the Citadel Area is
of the great stone platform, known as Takht-i-Suleiman or the Throne of Solomon, that thrusts out
from the western face of a conical hill some 46 m. in height. As we know from last year's excavations
at this point, the platform was almost certainly designed as part of an elevated palace enclosure, akin
to the later PersepolisTerrace. But before the huge task of construction could be finished the r6le of
Pasargadae, as the traditional home of the Achaemenian dynasty, had changed, and, as a result, the
platformitself had to find a new raisond'etre. In the revised plan all costly work in stone was brought to
a halt; the imposing stone staircaseson the northern side of the platform, that should have led up to
royal apartmentswere blocked up; and a well planned but more mundane structure,with mud-brick
magazines, broad, plainly constructedcourtyardsand barrack-likeresidentialquarters,was substituted
for the original grandiose design.
In its final form this well-defended Citadel extended over the whole crown of the Tall-i-Takht or
Throne Hill, covering an area over 200 m. long by anything up to 130 m. wide (P1. Id). In addition,
the small, enclosed valley immediately to the north of the Tall-i-Takht was guarded by a continuous
mud-brick fortification wall with projecting square towers at regular intervals (Fig. 3). It is not yet
known what implacements, if any, were protected within the valley itself although various suggestions
have been advanced.2?
16 A brief sounding in the Yazdi Cave, carried out under the 19 For a suggestion that town deposits at Pasargadae might have
direction of Mr. Robert Soper during the Institute's 196i been levelled by cultivation or covered by periodic flooding,
season, revealed traces of intermittent occupation over a long see Schmidt, Flights, p. i9.
period of time, starting early in the fourth millennium B.C. and
extending down to the present day. 20 Schmidt, PersepolisI, p. 21. It is hoped that limited excavations
17 Sami, can be undertaken in this part of the site during the autumn
Pasargadae,pp. 26 and 71.
of I962.
18 Herzfeld, Archaeological Historyof Iran, p. 28.
Continuing southwardsalong the original Achaemenian road that once connected the Citadel with
the rest of the site, one comes to the main Palace Area-an extensive walled domain that seems to have
enclosed a considerablenumber of royal buildings. Just within the limits of this walled park, standing
within its own precinct, are the remains of an impressivestone tower, identical in size and shape with
the Ka'bah-i-Zardusht at Naqsh-i-Rustam. Called Zandan-i-Suleiman (Solomon's Prison) at the
present day, the building has a number of low mounds to its east that may yet throw light on its
original function-either as an early royal tomb or a fire temple. At the moment its original purpose
is still one of the most controversialquestions connected with Achaemenian architecture,21 although
certain featuresof the building, its isolation, its imitation of a distinct type of house, and its megalithic
construction all recall the main characteristicsof the Tomb of Cyrus.
Further south again the core of the Palace Area consists of three associated structures: the Gate
House (formerlycalled " Palace R "), the Audience Hall (or " Palace S ") and the Residential Palace
(or " Palace P ,).22 The Gate House, which is much the most poorly preservedof the three buildings,
seems to have representedthe only monumental entrance to the Palace Area. According to Herzfeld's
original observationsthe main doorways at either end of the building were flanked by colossal winged
bulls similar to those found on the " Gate of All Nations " at Persepolis.23 But unfortunately not a
trace of any such sculpture remains to-day and, in the central gate chamber, which is stripped to its
very foundations, only the exceptional size of the column plinths (2 X 2 m.) still conveys some idea
of the original lofty proportionsof the building. The one detail that has survived, through force of
local superstition,is the unique four-winged figure with the triple-atefcrown that stands on the eastern
door-jambof the small, northernside chamber. Once surmountedby the trilingual inscription reading
" I, Cyrus, the King, the Achaemenian ", the figure has remained a source of speculation and con-
troversysince the days of the first travellersto Pasargadae. Regarded by some as nothing more than a
guardian genius and by others as an exceptional representationof Cyrus himself, this grave-facedfigure
is at least a striking demonstrationof the fluid conventions that still pervaded Achaemenian art in
pre-Persepolitantimes.24
The Audience Hall, which lies nearly 2oo m. north-west of the Gate House, exhibits all the more
important features that distinguish the palaces at Pasargadae from those at Persepolis. The ground
plan demonstrates the usual preference for oblong rather than square units; the few surviving parts
of the superstructure-a single, tapered column from the great hypostyle hall and three stockily
constructed antae-illustrate a characteristic contrast in elevation between the central hall and its
surrounding porticoes;25 and throughout the building one finds that carefully balanced use of black
and white stone which is such a hall-markof Pasargadae.
The Residential Palace, some 230 m. to the north, sharesthese and other featureswith the Audience
Hall.26 But at the same time Sami has suggested that its smaller doorways possibly reflect its more
informal function.27 Also a number of unusual features, such as the small rooms with mud-brick walls
that are reported to have flanked the main hall28 and the exceptional quantity of baked brick that is
said to have been found,29 may reflectdomestic additionsto the clear-cut beauty of the original structure
(P1. Id).
Immediately to the west of these last two buildings, the walled domain encloses two additional
mounds that have yet to be excavated. Neither mound shows any trace of worked stone, although
both appear to be at least partly composed of dark limestone rubble such as that found within the
core of the Citadel platform.
Further south again, beyond the southern limits of the Palace Area, one comes to the Tomb of
Cyrus itself. Built to stand in majestic isolation, its strength and balance a perfect match for the sweeping
21 See Sami, Pasargadae,pp. 78-ioo. 21 See Herzfeld, AMI I, p. I I, and IAE, pl. XLIII.
22 Ground plans of all three buildings appear in Sami, Pasargadae, 26 In particular, identical copies of Cyrus' trilingual building
p. 48 f. inscription occur on antae of each building (R. G. Kent, Old
23 AMI I, p. I . PersianGrammar,Texts, Lexicon,1953, pp. 1o07 and ix 6).
24 For a full
description of the figure see IF, pp. 155-65. Also 27 Sami, Pasargadae,pp. 58-59.
for a general account of the sculpture found in the two adjoin- 28 AMI I, p.
13.
29
ing palaces see AMI I, p. xixf. Sami, Pasargadae,p. 58.
winds and biting cold of its upland situation, it still dominates much of the surrounding Murghab
plain (P1. Ia). In devising this unusual type of tomb, of which only one other complete example is
known,30the Persiansseem to have drawn their inspirationfrom two quite separate sources. For while
the stepped plinth recalls the receding stages of a Mesopotamian ziggurat, the small gabled tomb-
chamber resembles similar religious or funerary monuments from Phrygia and Lycia.31 Yet at the
same time the constructionof the whole, with its massive,megalithic masonry,reinforcedby swallow-tail
clamps of lead and iron, such as still can be seen inside the hollow roof, is completely Achaemenian
in character.
Apart from such visible details as these, we know from the classical historians that a walled park,
with deep meadows and many kinds of trees, surrounded the tomb and that, within the paradise, the
guardians of the tomb-the Magi-had a separate house set aside for their use.32 The interior of the
tomb itself was richly furnished; Arrian relates that the embalmed body of Cyrus lay in a gold
sarcophagus, flanked by a gold table and mounted on a gold kline.33 Also several writers mention the
presence of an inscription on the tomb which Strabo, quoting Aristobiilus,gives as follows:
" man, I am Cyrus, who founded the Empire of the Persians, and was king of Asia. Grudge
me not therefore this monument."34
Fifteen hundred years later, when the monument had acquired fresh fame and sanctity, presumably
under its present local name of Qabr-i-Madar-i-Suleiman or Tomb of the Mother of Solomon, the
local rulers of Fars sought to erect a number of new buildings in its vicinity. Under the Atabeg Sa'd
Ibn Zangi, who died in I224, columns and other building materials were collected from Achaemenian
palaces in order to erect a congregational mosque round the base of the tomb. Then at a still later
date, possibly during the latter half of the fourteenth century, further materialswere collected from the
same source in order to construct the madrasehthat has since been excavated and planned by the
Archaeological Department.35
The last group of monuments to be considered lies on the north-westernedge of the site, where a
rectangular enclosure, known as the Sacred Precinct, still retains a certain air of seclusion and sanctity.
Here a partly natural, terraced mound, lying at an angle to a boulder-strewn perimeter wall, looks
down on a pair of free-standing limestone fire altars over Ioo00m. to the east. While it is generally
"
accepted that the two altars must be complementary to each other, whether they represent altars to
the tribal divinities, Anahita and Ahuramazda "36 or altars intended for offerings to fire and water,37
the original r6le of the terraced mound is hotly disputed. In excavating the mound over thirty years
ago38Herzfeld found that the first three of its six terraces were composed of cut limestone blocks not
unlike those used in the construction of Cyrus' tomb. This discovery led him to suggest that a temple
or cella, of the same design as the upper, gabled portion of the tomb, most probably stood on its
topmost stage.39 But, as has been widely recognized, there is little evidence to support this theory.
Apart from the admitted absence of any traces of a superstructureon the topmost platform, Herzfeld
himself mentions that the three top terraceswere all composed, in the main at least, of mud brick, and,
from all that is known of Achaemenian architectural practice, it is most unlikely that any substantial
stone building would have been erected on such a foundation. In other words, however important the
summit of the mound may have been for certain religious rites, there is no proof that it or any other
part of the Sacred Precinct sheltered a major religious structure. Also it would seem to follow that the
most famous shrine at Pasargadae-that of Anahita, where each Achaemenian monarch is said to
have come for certain traditional inauguration ceremonies40-must have lain somewhere outside the
Precinct's existing enclosure wall.
30 An almost exact
peplica of the tomb was discoved early in 35 For details of the constructionof bot these last Islamic
1961 by Professor L. Vanden Berghe. It lies near Sar Mashhad, buildingssee Sami, Pasargadae,
pp. Ioo-I04.
south-west of Shiraz. 3s60lmstead,op.cit., p. 6i.
A. Godard," Les Monumentsdu Feu ", Athar-e-Iran
31 See G. Perrot and C.
Chipiez, History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, 3 III, p. 67.
Caria and Lycia, 1892, figs. 264-266. 3 See AMI I, p. 6 f.
a3 Arrian, Anabasis,vi.29.7. 391
3 Ibid., 5-6. IAE, p. 215 and pl. XLIV.
40Plutarch,Artaxerxes3.4.
a3 Strabo, Geography,xv.3.7.
Finally, before turning to the details of the present excavations at Pasargadae, something must
be said about the name of the site itself. The meaning of the name is by no means certain. Owing
to the fact that it is only known to us in its transliteratedGreekform, variousinterpretationsare possible.
As Herodotus tells us that the chief tribe of the Persians was that of the Pasargadae,41it is perfectly
possible that the site owes its name to this circumstance. Equally attractive are the suggestions that
the name derives either from Parsagadeh, that is, the Throne of Pars or from Parsagert-Parsagerd,
meaning the Fortress of Pars.42 But less force, perhaps, should be attached to ProfessorOlmstead's
view that " the true name was something like Parsagard", meaning the Camp of the Persians,'43 for
this would hardly seem to accord either with the monumental character of the site or with the spirit
of high ambition that inspired its foundation.
Excavationsin theCitadelArea
Owing to the number of unsolved questionssurroundingthe Citadel Area, this particularpart of the
site became the main centre of the Institute's operations during the 1961 season. Among those who
took part in the work, Mr. Robert Soper shared in the general supervision of the excavations; Mr.
Martin Weaver was responsible for the contour survey shown in Fig. 3; Miss Elisabeth Beazley
undertook all the more detailed planning; and Miss Olive Kitson prepared the photographic record
presented in the accompanying Plates. The excavations themselveswere divided between the platform
proper, certain parts of the adjoining citadel hill and one strategic stretch of the outer fortifications."
The Platform
The main features of the huge platform known as Takht-i-Suleiman (P1. IIa) have often been
described.'5 As can be seen from Fig. 3, the outline of the structureforms a parallelogramwith central
recesses appearing in its northern and southern sides. Measuring from the eighth course upwards,'6
the length of the north side is 65-8o0m., that of the west side 78-84 m. and that of the south side
98- I5 m. The north recess, which springs from a point 23-oo m. from the north-west corner of the
platform, has a depth of m. and a length of 15-1io m., while the south recess, which begins m.
4"75 17"75
from the opposite south-west corner, has a depth of 15-oo m. and a length of 48-50 m. The maximum
height of the platform has been estimated at m.47
13"3o
Although furtherexcavation may yet reveal freshdetails concerning the constructionof the platform,
it appears to fall into three constituent parts: an outer wall, an inner wall and a loose, central core.
While the outer wall is composed of large, well-draftedlimestone blocks of varying length, arrangedin
up to sixteen horizontal courses, the inner wall consistsof roughly fitted blocks of very varied size and
shape (P1. IIb). The original core, wherever it has been tested, has been found to consist of dark
limestone rubble of local origin.
As in most Achaemenian architecture, the huge stones of the were fitted without mortar,
facade
but metal clamps, now almost entirely robbed out, added great strength to the original structure.
Wherever the stood more than a few metres high, each vertical join was bridged at the top by
facade
a clamp; in this way each horizontal course came to constitute an effective chain round the central
core.
Apart from the undoubted solidity of the faqade,its surfacetreatmentis its most remarkablefeature.
No other known Achaemenian structure possesses similar rusticated masonry. In all probability it
represents the survival of an earlier architectural tradition, inherited perhaps from Urartu,48which
41Herodotus, i.125. pp. 149-151 and pl. XXVI; Schmidt, PersepolisI, p. 21; and
,s See Sami, Pasargadae,p. 15 Sami, Pasargadae,pp. 68-73.
,' Olmstead, op. cit., p. 6o. f" 46 Clearance of the south-west corner of the Takht has shown
"4For a full account of the Institute's additional work at Tall-i- that up to seven courses of stone project from the main plane
Nokhodi, which was largely directed by Miss Clare Goff, see of the wall in order to provide greater stability.
PP.43-7o.
4 Sami, Pasargadae,p. 71.
, See M. Dieulafoy, L'Art Antiquede la Perse I, 1884, pp. 4-13
and pls. III-IV; E. N. Flandin and X. P. Coste, Perse 48 Cf. the masonry of the Haldis Temple at Toprak Kale. C. F.
Ancienne,1840/41, pl. CCII; Curzon, op. cit., pp. 71-73; IF, Lehmann-Haupt, ArmenienEinst undJetzt II, 1931, p. 460.
Pl. Ia. East viewof the Tombof Cyrus,from a moonlightexposure. P. Ib. Generalviewof Pasargadae,lookingsouth
Pl. Ic. Viewof the CitadelArea, lookingsouth.
P1. Id. View lookingnorthfrom the ResidentialPalace
CitadelHill.
Pl. Ia. from thesouth-west.
Takht-i-Suleiman Pl. IIb. Detail of thefafade showingthe nor
Pl. IId. The A stairca
P1. IIc. Viewof the northrecessand the A staircasefrom the east.
Pl. IIIa. TheB staircaseshowingarticulatedbrickblockingat left. Pl. IIIb. Top ofB staircaseshowingunfinished
flan
Pl. IIIc. Streeti lookingeast. Floor cut away to exposerubblefoundationcontainedby Pl. IIId. Viewof courtyardio lookingtowar
B staircaseblocking.
Pl. IVa. Magazines 18 and 59 showingisolatedstone block and Period II and III Pl. IVb. Rooms 2oa, 20b and 22 from the west. A P
floorlevels. originalnorthwall at left.
Pl. IVc. PeriodIII blockingand laterroomsat east end of streetr. A drain channel Pl. IVd. Detail of brickwork
of Nor
from thesouthrecessat right.
emerges
died out after Cyrus' time. Indeed, because of later preoccupation with sculptured decoration or with
highly polished surfaces in which all joins became almost invisible, no other Achaemenian masonry,
save perhaps that of Cyrus' tomb, makes an equal impression. As to the surfacetreatment of individual
stones, this varies considerably since the work as a whole was never finished. Many stones still bear
curious masons' marks or else square projecting knobs, both of which may one day tell us more about
Achaemenian masons and their methods.49
TheA Staircase
One of two staircaseslocated on the northern side of the platform (Fig. 7), the A staircase lies in
the eastern angle of the north recess (P1. IIc). Originally covered by fallen debris, its presence was
indicated by three distinctive stones that had been used to block it in early Achaemenian times
(P1.IId).
As can be seen from the detailed section (Fig. 4), ten steps once stood below the level of the blocking.
From such evidence as still survives, it is possible to calculate that eachlstep had an original width of
m., a height of 26 cms. and a depth of 53 cms. One of the more interestingfeaturesof the structure
the fact that each block from the western parapet still possessesa narrow, stepped projection on its
5.50
is
inner side (Fig. 4 and Pl. IId). This allowed the whole parapet to be firmly clamped to the rest of the
staircase. But unfortunately the very use of such clamps has denied us much other detail, for almost
every step was later broken up in the relentlesssearch for metal.50
Behind the stone blocking, a deep cut into the core of the platform revealed the foundations of a
broad stone landing with the first tread of an upper flight running along its western edge, at right
angles to the lower flight (Fig. 7). Although the work of excavation is still not complete at this point,
it is clear that the upper flight was intended to be considerably wider than the lower one and that the
top of the staircase was intended to fall in line with the western limit of the north recess.
TheB Staircase
The B staircase (Pls. IIIa and b), which was first discovered and partly excavated by Sami in 1951,
stands at the eastern limit of the northern stone fagade at a point where ground level is only 4 m.
below that of the platform. It is shrewdly placed; apart from being set back within the line of the
fagade it is also protected by an outward extension of the perimeter wall to its east (Fig. 7).
Altogether nine steps have been revealed, seven of them in a more or less undamaged condition
(Fig. 5). Each complete step has a width of 5-85 m., a height of 26 cms., and a depth of 53 cms.
Neither the side walls nor the steps themselveswere left in a finished state. Instead both were left with
the minimum of prepared surfaces, such as were strictly necessary for fitting the blocks into position.
Guide channels, indicating the depth for subsequent dressing, are a frequent feature (P1. IIIb and
Fig. 6). In addition, there is no sign of any wear on the treads and hardly any evidence that the stones
were damaged in antiquity.
In seeking an explanation for certain of these singular features, Sami suggests that all the existing
steps were simply the base for a further course of polished stone steps, formerly superimposedand now
removed.51 But in fact a more complete examination of the upper half of the staircase conclusively
proves that it was never built beyond its ninth course, and that it was neither finished nor used before
being protected by a solid blocking of mud brick. As P1. IIIb shows, the whole upper surface of the
ninth step was covered by a carefully prepared layer of small stones set in mortar, such as would never
have been used to support further stone steps. In addition, a small stone ramp was built against the
unfinished flank wall so that the mud brick blocking would have an even footing as it ran over it.
As for the blocking itself, parts of it were found to have survived over most of the eastern half of the
staircase, both near the top, where it could be seen to be bonded in with other mud brick walling
to the east, and again near the bottom where at least one stump of walling still stood seven courses
high (P1. IIIa).
illustrations of typical masons' marks see Herzfeld, IAE, Pl. Vd illustrates the only clamp to have excaped notice. It
"1 For 60so
p. 237. still connects block D to an adjoining stone.
ex Sami, Pasargadae,p. 70o.
FLANK STONE
REPOSITIONED
TO BLOCK FLIGHT
ENTRANCE STEPS FLI G HT A
12TAKHT-I -SU LEIMAN

,K )Q .
.i,P• ,O
0 IMETRE
VI
INDICATING
STAINON FLANKMASONRY
OF
FLIGHT
LINE
___
//4? / I
0FLANK
WALL
MASONRY
DRESSED
SMOOTH
/FACE ROUGH-PUNCHIE
C~C
& E FORM
BLOCKS
MISSING STEPS/
//, .
letters show separate blocks from which

flank walls, steps8& foundation slabs are cut. S EC T I 0 N A-A
,WALL FACE
OFTAKTT
Z
z
82-89 O
STEP
FOUNDATI N 0
z.
0 2_
FLANK WALL
86-47
WALL FACE
OF TAKNT
PLAN
I O 5 METRES
EB 1961
Fig. 4. SectionandPlan of A Staircase.

ENTRANCE STEPS FLIGHT B
T AK HT - I -SULEI MA N
POSSIBLE INTENDED
ROOM I CONTINUATION OF STEPS
1 TO PLATFORM LEVEL
EXISTING
STONE STEPS
SECTION
*971
RLOOM1I0/ 6 S4 3 2 1
PLATFI
FOUND ON 9
UT
SOBBE
PLAN
0 0p 2 S SM
9Lm "'I
Fig. 5. Sectionand Plan of B Staircase.

7
.FLANK.WALL
I'SECTION"E IAITR D/
t)r Jk
~ 0 ik-, _
INE OF DDSMOTHS/
.5Z-/;
/DRSEH z /, ?/
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•II • . 0)C - 13AE 4
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___ _ ________ /'

,
"
ELEVATION f-
PLAFOUNDATIONAN/
SMOOTH
DETA LS
SECTIONMASONRY
c•,..• •,..
C
S•TO A'ovDRE "SSED
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•.•
XIiii
OF ROUGH O -PUNCH
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;.•:.• :•,
,(,63
0 .
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0 ol
PLAN
Fig. 6. MasonryDetails.
From the point of view of dating the Takht as a whole the discovery of the A and B staircasesis
most valuable. For the presence of two separate, adjoining entrances, one of which consistsof a simple,
straight flight of steps, at once recalls the numerous straight flights that afford access to the early
Achaemenian platform at Masjid-i-Suleiman. But against this link with a structurethat most probably
dates back to the seventh century B.C.,52 it must be remembered that the elaborate design of the A
staircase is infinitely superiorto anything found at Masjid-i-Suleiman,and that the general plan of the
Pasargadae platform, with its long intervals between towers or other flanking devices, is very much
closer to that of Persepolis than that of Masjid-i-Suleiman. In short, the balance of architectural
evidence fully accords with the view that the Takht was founded at the same time as the rest of
Pasargadae-round about the middle of the sixth century s.c.
Finally, with regard to the intended function of the original structure, the staircasesare helpful on
two counts. In the first place, their position-facing into the defended valley to the north-proves
beyond all doubt that the Takht was designed as part of a broad citadel, embracing the fortifications
shown in Fig. 3. And secondly, their very quality and appearance; added to the testimony of the
Takht's impressive fagade, must convince us that, despite the-presence of two other palaces in the
plain below, Cyrus had every intention of erecting further royal residences on the Takht.
ObjectsAssociatedwith PeriodI
Only a few excavated objects from the platform can be associated with this first phase of con-
struction (Period I). Among them are two huge blocks of white limestone that were left in situ when
the later mud and brick structure of Period II came into being. They bear no relation whatsoever to
the rooms or walls around them and they seem to have been left where they were simply because it
would have taken enormous efforts to move them. The smaller of the two blocks, which had been
partly worked into the shape of a column drum or column base at one end, was found lying at the
north end of room I8 (P1. IVa and Fig. 7). At first it was evidently left protruding above the floor,
although later, in a series of renovations in the area, the opportunity was taken to bury it completely
beneath a higher floor level. Other objects that probably date from Period I, although they represent
loose finds that could have been carried to the Takht in later times, include a large number of
fragmentary column bases; a large piece of white limestone with three carved rosettes;54 and a tiny
fragment of a cuneiform inscription cut in black limestone (P1.VIc). This last find, which was one of
many chips of black limestone found near the middle of the platform, was recovered from disturbed
soil near the north wall of courtyard 4. As can be seen from P1. VIc, the fragment shows the greater
part of the sign KU, which occurs as the second and fourth sign in the Babylonian version of Cyrus'
standard building inscription.55 Therefore, although the origin of such a small fragment must remain
in doubt, it could represent part of a standard inscription that was intended for some building on the
Takht itself.
Transitionfrom PeriodI to PeriodII
It is clear from the well-preserved condition of the B staircase and the fact that mud-brick walls
were sometimes built up from a deep level instead of merely resting on the central rubble foundation,
that no time was lost in turning to purely mud-brick construction once the decision was taken to
revise the plan of the Takht. Along the north face of the platform, for instance, it is evident that
mud-brick walls were used to contain the upper part of the rubble core wherever the original stone
walls had not reached the necessary height to do so. In P1. IIIc the surviving stump of a mud-brick
wall can be seen running over the top of the unfinished B staircase while also retaining the rubble
foundation beneath street I (see also Fig. 5). By abandoning all work in stone and turning to mud
brick in this fashion, it would seem that the builders intended to complete their revised building plans
as quickly as possible, while also perhaps wishing to free large numbers of stone masons for fresh work
elsewhere.
52 R. Ghirshman, op. cit., p. 123, suggests that either Achaemenes 4 Sami, Pasargadae,p. 68.
or Teispes may have founded the Masjid-i-Suleiman platform
58 The larger stone was found in room 9 (see fig. 7).- 5 See ibid., p. 137 f.
TAKHT-I1-SULEIMAN
0 30 40
2,0
, ,p •i
A
26
Ob
20 2
457
21
9
8CC
4 62
!N 16
10
13
SPERIOD I EXPOSED STONEWORK
*g PERIOD II MUD BRICK WALLS

E ADDITIONS TO THE ABOVE
PERIOD III MUD BRICK WALLS
Fig. 7. GeneralPlan of Takht-i-Suleiman,96.

In the absence of any sealed dating evidence, we mustassumethat themoment of transitionoccurred

either directly after the death of Cyrus or, as seems more likely, after Darius had succeeded to the
throne and decided to build his own capital at Persepolis. Either way the new work must have begun
somewhere between 530 B.C. and 520 B.C.
PeriodII
From the accompanying plan (Fig. 7) it will be seen that quite an extensive part of the Period II
mud-brick building has been planned and excavated already, although it should be stressed that
rooms 7, 8 and 9 were entirely excavated by the Department in previous seasons and that much of our
work to the south and west of these rooms was assisted by the Department's earlier excavations.
Altogether the present plan shows a residential wing, or possibly a range of barracks, towards the
north-eastern corner of the platform, while the remainder of the area, flanked by outer defences and
parallel open streets, seems to have consisted of storage magazines grouped round two central courts.
The whole shows a carefully integrated complex in which rooms, courts and streets were laid out with
great precision.
In courtyard 10 (P1. IIId) the work disclosed what seems to have been an important industrial
area. Two separate kilns or ovens stood against the court's southern wall, while, on the adjoining east
side of the court, a baked-brickstaircase led up to two large storage tanks, each with plastered, baked-
brick sides (P1. Va). Beyond the tanks, a further kiln was found in the south-west corner of room 12.
Its immediate area was still partly covered with ash and various fragments of copper, including one
object resembling a copper spear ferrule. The long life of the courtyard was illustrated in various
ways. Although its handsome buttressedexterior to the west was never added to, both its eastern and
northern walls show extensive signs of reinforcement (Fig. 7). In addition, its original doorway into
corridor 6 was eventually blocked and replaced by another doorway leading into room 9. The high
threshold of this last door can be seen above the crouched figure in P1. IIId.
Passing through this north doorway one comes into a group of three spacious rooms or magazines
(7, 8 and 9), all of which were excavated by the Department and later supplied with protective stone
facings. The original entrance to the area consists of an unusually wide doorway in the west wall of
room 7, which is masked-like the west doorway into courtyard io-by a long north-south wall. To
the east a particularlynarrow door provided access to two furtherchambers, 18 and 19. Both the latter
clearly demonstrate the existence of two floor levels, the firstof which produced a fair range of medium
to coarse ware, including one complete jar. But in many ways the second is the more interesting level,
since it possessesa distinctive type of twin hearth (P1. IVa) known elsewherefrom a Period III room."6
To judge from the high door sill in room 9, and also an adjoining wall reinforcementfounded at the
same level, all five rooms in this group were re-floored at the same time. The probable date of this
change will be discussed below.
Immediately to the north of the magazines the most important feature is the outline of what seems
to be a staircase climbing eastwards from room 3. But since there is no trace of any baked brick,
such as would have seemed essential for at least the treads, and the mud-brick substructure,excavated
several years ago, is in a badly weathered condition, it is very difficult to judge whether or not a
staircasereally did exist at this point. When further excavation has taken place in room 2, for instance,
the nature of the surrounding plan may help to decide the issue one way or the other.
To the east of courtyard 1o, part of our more recent work revealed yet another court (16) together
with two adjoining magazines (i 7 and 21). As the ground begins to slope upwards towards the top of
the Tall-i-Takht at this point, careful thought had to be given to the problem of drainage and we
find that two separate drains were used to carry rainwater away, either to the north or south edge of
the platform. To the south, as the Department discovered earlier,57 a large subterranean drain ran
56 Room 27. 6'
Sami, Pasargada, p. 71.
out over the top of the stone faqade at a point 14 m. east of the south recess. For the last part of its
journey, beneath the heavy weight of the Takht's outer mud-brick wall, it was provided with solid
stone walls capped by thick roofing slabs of white limestone. The north drain seems to have been a
somewhat smaller affair, although none the less interestingfor that. It begins in the north-west corner
of court 16, from whence it slopes downwards, beneath the floors of the rooms to the north, finally
emerging at street level in the south recessof street I. From there the water was most probably carried
along some central gutter till it reached the next outlet in the faqade. The drain itself consists of a
line of pottery pipes of varying length, each equipped with a slim projecting neck that fitted into the
tail of the next pipe (P1.Vb).58 In addition a row of stones was laid just above the line of the pipe in
order to protect it from any casual excavation.
North of room 21, the Period II plan consisted of something quite different to anything excavated
elsewhere. This was the three-roomedbathroomsuite (P1.IVb); the firstpart of a hitherto unsuspected
residential block. Both its outer rooms (22 and 2ob) are unremarkablesave for their small size and
their paved, baked brick floors. But the inner room, the bathroom itself, seems to have been quite an
elaborate affair with completely plasteredwalls, provisionfor what looks like a small, elevated fireplace
and chimney, a form of plastered chute in its south wall, and a plastered floor with at least one drain-
hole still in perfect preservation. However, towards the end of Period II there are various signs of
slow change and deterioration; not the least of these comes from room 22, where the northern half of
the room was finally converted into a small kitchen with a crude hearth.
A similar sort of secondarycooking area also seems to have grown up in the south recess of street I,
where we may assume that at one time the area was kept clear for the inspection and repair of drains
emerging from the adjacent elevated face of the boulder platform (see Fig. 8). But at least this last
domestic addition produced several fragmentsof small bottles and bowls of the very best Achaemenian
quality.59
Finally, with regard to the rest of street i, it is clear that we are dealing with a thoroughfarethat
was once of considerable importance. Before it was deliberately blocked in Period III, it probably
led from an outer gate further east, past what may have been a buttressedgate north of room 2, to a
strongdefensivetower on the north-westcornerof the Takht. In addition, its north wall shows elaborate
surface treatment unparalleled in the rest of the building; apart from being coated with fine white
plaster, it appears to have been originally decorated with wood inlays set in vertical grooves in the
middle of each buttressand recess (P1.IIIc).
PeriodIII
Towards the end of its life the platformillustratesa third building phase in its long history. At this
stage in the excavations it is still hard to estimate its full significance. But on present evidence it looks
as if it had relatively little effect on the main courts and magazines, while involving very considerable
changes in the residential quarter towards the north-east of the platform. In this last area the whole
occupation level was raised and the ground plan changed.
The date of these changes may well have fallen some time between 400 and 350 B.C., for we know
that parts of the original mud-brick building were already in poor repair before they were covered by
Period III structures. In addition, if we take into account the fact that none of the Period III rooms
possess any of those secondary features that usually point to a prolonged occupation, we can hardly
suppose that they were long in use before the Empire fell and the site was finally abandoned.
58 Rather similar drains of still earlier date are known from 5 One fine grey ware bowl shares the deep flutes found on a glass
Bogazk6y in Anatolia. See R. Naumann, Architektur bowl from Persepolis. See E. F. Schmidt, The Treasuryof
Kleinasiens,
1955, p. 182 and fig. 214. Persepolisand OtherDiscoveriesin theHomelandof the Achaemenians,
1939, p. 84. (Hereafter OIG No. 21.)
thesouth. floor of room21.
Pl. Vb. Detail of potterydrainfound beneath
Pl. Va. Twin storagetanks(I S and N) seenfrom
A
Pl. Vc. Maskedfoundation
blockfound east of theB staircase. Pl. Vd. Iron and lead swallow-tailclampfromfoundationsof
staircase.
Pl. VIa. Impressionfrom cylinder seal shown at bottom left.
Pl. VIb. Stone cylinder seal, height 2-6 cm. Pl. VIc. Fragment of cuneiforminscriptioncut in black
limestone.Height5-1 cm.
SUWRFACE O LOOS
PAto
LOOSE PALE SOI 0 0LOOSE PALE SOI
ROOM 24 I'iIPERILOD o I1( FLOOR
PEA.IOD ROBBER
vA
MUD BRICK Th)ENCH':: " CLAYESOL
ROWN
WEATHERED
?A. COLLAPSED
"'RICE FILL
PERIOD WALL
II / ROOM 20 PERIDI
01,•Y
TWOO *BEATENEARTHFLOORORALEOUNAELONS bAKED BRICK
PLATFORM STONE LIMIT OF
FOUNDATI ONS EXCAVATIONS
0 1METREI PERIOD II MUD BRICK
AERIODIlI
RAKED
IRICK
Fig. 8. North-south fromNorthWallof Streeti to SouthWallof Room2oa.
Section
The nature of the blocking and levelling that took place in the north-east part of the platform
is illustrated by the section in Fig. 8. It illustrates the completely level flooring that was carried over
the stepped floors of Period II. It also reflects the trouble that was taken over the security of all deep
foundations. Not only were foundation stones laid beneath the brick blocking in street I (P1. IVc),
but care was taken to cut away most of a suspect wall in room 2oa before it was thought safe enough
to support another wall (P1. IVb).
The Period III rooms themselves call for little comment. All are small in size with thin, poorly
built walls (Fig. 7: 25, 27, 28, 40 and P1. IVc). Their orientation tends to vary and few show any
regular shape. Pottery is quite plentiful but identical to that found in sealed rooms of Period II.
The domestic nature of most rooms is indicated by a simple form of hearth.
Limitsof theCitadel
Apart from our work on the platform another of our main concerns was to define the area of the
citadel as a whole, tracing first the ultimate limits of its stone fagade and then the outline of its
extensive mud-brick perimeter. Starting on the south side of the platform, where the stoneworkof the
could be seen running into the hillside some 20om. east of the south recess,we found that a single
facade
course very roughly dressedblockscontinued eastwardsfor a further I2 m. However, at this point (D)
of
the last stone of all rested directly against an uncut face of rock without any indication of the wall's
subsequent direction; even such mud brick as had survived above the stones had been washed out
beyond them. But the fact that the contours of the hill turn out sharply at this point almost certainly
indicates that the mud-brickcontinuation stepped out at right angles for several metres before resuming
its eastward course. Further proof of this comes from the next trench to the east (0), which produced
an immensely thick section of mud-brick walling, parallel with the stone fagade and some distance
out from its main line.
Continuing eastwards, a further trench (H) revealed the line of a somewhat slimmer portion of
the perimeter wall, only 2 m. thick, which evidently guarded the south-east angle of the citadel
enclosure. Nestling against its inner face are the remains of two successive buildings, each of which
may have served as guard houses at this strategic point. Certainly each produced a surprisingnumber
of bronze trilobate arrow heads, such as seemed to represent the standard Achaemenian issue.
Mid-way along the eastern side of the hill, the inner face of a third section of perimeter walling
appeared in trench K, at a point 200 m. east of the platform'swest fagade. A deeply cut ditch parallel
to the wall's inner face may have served as an open drain before being covered by an ash and pebble
flooring.
No excavation was undertaken at the north-east angle of the enclosure, but two obvious mounds
suggest the presence of a pair of towers: one on the corner of the perimeter wall and another on the
line of the outer fortificationsthat run up to join the citadel at this point. From here onwards, indeed,
the surface of the hill reveals considerably more detail and the main outline of the northern wall) can
be made out with perfect clarity from various viewpoints (P1. Ic). In preliminary tests one small
trench (G) confirmed the line of the wall's inner edge (over I10iom. from the opposite south wall in
trench (0), while another trench (P) revealed the point at which the outer face of the perimeter again
turns back towards the platform.
Finally, within the thickness of the last stretch of perimeter walling, immediately in front of the
B staircase, we were able to locate the last fitted block belonging to the platform's north face (Fig. 7).
It consists of a huge block, with a rough, unfinished outer edge, not yet cut smooth but marked for
further cutting by four deep-set guide marks (P1. Vc). From the position of the stone, set at right
angles to the main facade, it is clear that the original had every intention of carrying the
builders'
60 See ibid., fig. 28, PT4 1122. Vast numbers of these arrowheads can be seen in the collections at the Persepolis Museum.
limits of such stoneworkwell past the position of the B staircase. What their final intention may have
been one cannot say. It is possible that at one time the whole perimeter wall was intended to have a
stone foundation, although, on the whole, it is more likely that both the north and south stone faiades
were meant to end where the perimeter makes its first big expansion-in line with trenches P and D.
OuterFortifications
The last feature to be examined in the Citadel Area was the north tower of the outer fortification
system. The workrevealed the solid mud brickfoundationsof a roughlysquaretower (c.6-50m. X
that still stood to a height of almost 2 m. The adjoining walls varied in width from 3-35 m. to 7.50?m.)
3-45 m.
From these measurements it is clear that we are dealing with massive defences on much the same
scale as those guarding the entrance to Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud-where the walls are thought
to have been about Io m. high.61 Like the tower itself, the walls are built entirely of mud brick, set
in hard, white mortar. There is no trace of a central rubble core such as that found in the defensive
walls at Persepolis62nor is there any sign of an outer ditch. The pottery from the original ground
surface is identical with that associated with Periods II and III on the Takht although, as has been
stated earlier, there are good reasonsfor thinking that the constructionof the outer defences must have
accompanied the first building phase.
Smallobjects
Although a full description of the pottery and small objects from the excavations will be reserved
for future reports, it may be mentioned that the range of small objects from the Takht is already very
similar to that recovered from the terrace at Persepolis. The finds include silver jewellery; " eye
stones " of agate, often with a diametrical perforation;63 bronze fibulae;64 trilobate arrowheads;65
signet rings of both bronze and iron; bronze plaques; parts of stone bowls; and lumps of blue paste
such as may have been used for inlay work.
The most outstanding object, however, is the dark brown stone cylinder seal (Pls. VIa and b) which
representsa surfacefind from the south-west slopes of the Tall-i-Takht, close to the limits of the Palace
Area. Although unstratifiedit is an important addition to Achaemenian seals of known provenance.
Beneath a moon symbol, we see a king or hero engaged in combat with a lion while the winged figureof
Ahuramazda hovers above a large spoked wheel. Dressed in the candys, the normal Persian outer
garment, the king wields a scimitar or similar weapon in his left hand, while his right hand, drawn in
tight against the shoulder, holds the ends of a doubled rope with which he has lassoed the upright hind
leg of the lion. His whole stance shows him braced against the strain. This quite unusual representation
recalls the description that Herodotus gives us of the fighting methods of the Sagartian nomads, a
Persian-speaking people represented in the army of Xerxes. Describing their manner of battle,
Herodotus says that they scorned the use of armour, trusting alone in their daggers and the use of
" when at close
ropes of twisted leather: quarters . . . they throw their ropes, these having a noose
at the end; and whatever they catch, be it horse or man, the thrower drags it to himself, and the
enemy thus entangled in the prisoning coils is slain ".*6 The figure of Ahuramazda is without the sun
disc that often encircles his body and only one uncertain diagonal line appears at the point where one
of two " scrolls " would normally have parted from such a disc. The eight-spokedwheel with its milled
edge recalls another Achaemenian cylinder seal in which a winged disc stands over a similar wheel
with seven wedges for spokes.7 Although the precise significance of such isolated chariot wheels may
not be wholly certain, they recall the more familiar star of Ishtar, which often appears in a free field
in Mesopotamian seals. The height of the seal, which is unperforated, is cm. Its date may well
be fifth century B.C. 2.6
66 Cf.
61ex
David Oates, Iraq XXIV, part I, pl. II. ibid., fig. 28, especially PT4 I I22a.
66 Herodotus
6 Schmidt, OIC No. 21, p. 10o. vii, 85.
68 Cf. ibid., fig. 54. 6 See W. H. Ward, Cylindersand Other Ancent Oriental Seals,
" Cf. ibid., fig. "
55. p. I 17 and pl. XXXVI, 274. Dated to perhaps 500 B.c.".
Conclusion
Among other results,the presentexcavationshave confirmedthe existence of a continuous perimeter
wall round the summit of the Tall-i-Taklit and the Achaemenian date of both this wall and that
enclosing the valley to the north. At the same time, within such fortifications,part of what seems to
have been a great storehouse has been uncovered on the platform itself, although a more complete
plan, and a more extensive range of original furnishings, will be needed before we can hope to pass
any final judgment on the function of the building. But at least it is clear that the structureremained
in use throughoutthe greaterpart of the Achaemenian period. And, since we have also found a defaced
Greek and Aramaic inscription of probable late fourth-centurydate on a crenellation stone from the
upper floor of courtyard 16, 68 it is more than possible that we are engaged in clearing the royal store-
house at Pasargadaethat Alexander of Macedon took special pains to plunder.69
68 For the dating of the inscription I am much indebted to Mr. for the Expedition by Dr. A. D. H. Bivar.
David Lewis, who is at present working on squeezes prepared 9 Arrian, Anabasisiii,
18.x1o.
NORTH TOWER
SCALE0 METRES
Fig. 9. Plan of North Tower.

43
EXCAVATIONS AT TALL-I-NOKHODI
By Clare Goff
Dotted about the Pasargadae plain, between the more famous monuments of the Achaemenian
city, are the remains of a number of small Chalcolithic mounds dating back to the latter half of the
fourth millennium s.c. These mounds first attracted attention in 1934 when Sir Aurel Stein, in the
course of an archaeological tour of Fars, undertook a two-day sounding at a site called Doh-Tulan A
as well as examining another mound called Tall-i-Seh-Asiab.' As a result of his investigationsit became
apparent that the Pasargadae region possessed a uniform Chalcolithic sequence, characterized first
by painted pottery and secondly by red burnishedpottery.2
Furtherworkon these early culturesat Pasargadaehad to wait until 1951. In that year Mr. Ali-Sami,
working on behalf of the Iranian Archaeological Department, began a series of soundings at two fresh
sites: Tall-i-Khari, which lies immediately to the north-east of the Achaemenian Sacred Precinct, and
Tall-i-Nokhodi, which lies further south, about 8oo00 m. north-west of the Tomb of Cyrus, on the edge
of a small water-coursethat debouches into the River Pulvar.3
Describing his excavations at these last two sites Mr. Sami has written as follows:4 " We worked
for a few weeks on two prehistoric tepes known as Tall-i-Nokhodi and Tall-i-Khari-i-Abu'l-Wardi
which were close to the villages of Abu'l Wardi and Mobarrakabad. These tepes were not very high,
nor were they extensive. Unfortunately we found neither complete nor semi-complete vessels, only
broken pot sherds which were characterized by the same forms, designs and colours as the pottery of
Tall-i-Bakun. These sherdswere at a depth of i m. 30 cm. They had stylized and attractive designs of
animals, flowersand geometric patternsin light and dark brown, dark green and black. The discovery
of these sherds proves that the plain of Pasargadaewas settled in prehistorictimes by tribal groupings,
whose artistry and craftsmanshipbore a close resemblance to the work of other cultures in the same
century, and progressedalongside them."
PresentExcavations
During the course of last year's excavations at Pasargadae, conducted under the auspices of the
British Institute of Persian Studies, it was felt that the opportunity should be taken to give closer
definition to the architecture, pottery and stratigraphyof such sites. Accordingly it was decided that
the most profitablework might be undertakenat Tall-i-Nokhodi, where the depth of both the red ware
and painted pottery was known to be considerableand where ash layers promiseda chance of obtaining
carbon samples for dating. The work at the site was carried out between November i oth and
December i6th 1961, under the joint direction of Mr. David Stronach and the writer. Miss Elisabeth
Beazleyjoined in the work of surveying the site, while Mrs. M. E. Weaver assistedwith the pottery and
Miss Olive Kitson had charge of the photography.
Descriptionof the Site

Tall-i-Nokhodi is a small mound, 120 m. long and 8o m. wide, its limits being roughly defined by
a modern irrigation ditch. It is somewhat saucer-shaped with a slight depression in the centre, and at
its highest point rises only a little over 2 m. above the level of the surrounding plain.
x A. Stein, Iraq III, part 2, p. 218 f. Langsdorff Tall-i-BakunA, Seasonof 1932, p. 32-3. (Hereafter
2 An almost identical pottery sequence was discovered a few this publication is referred to as Bakun.)
years earlier at the mound of Tall-i-Bakun A, 2 km. south of 3A map showing both Tall-i-Nokhodi and Tall-i-Khari appears
Persepolis. The results of the Bakun excavations were published at Fig. 2. in Mr. David Stronach's article describing the
in great detail in 1942, but unfortunately the evidence failed Pasargadae excavations.
to reveal the precise nature of the transition between the 4 Ali-Sami, ArchaeologicalReportsIV, 1960, p. 36. (Translated
painted ware and the red ware. See D. McCown and A. from the Persian.)
T I
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Fig. 2. Plan andsectionof LevelI ovenfrom TrenchC.
SECTION
ELEVATION
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Fig. 3. Level II ovenfrom Trench C.

Courseof Excavations
We decided to use the main sounding of the Department as an " observation trench " for our own
excavations. Besides the obvious advantage of being able to see, in advance, the position of floor levels
in section, the remains of walls and ovens within the abandoned trench led us to hope that the area
was the centre of a redware building complex. Accordingly two trenches A and B, each 4 by 5 m. in
size, were sunk i m. to the east of the Department'strench, close to the middle of the central depression
(Fig. i). In addition, a small sounding that the Department had made to the west of the main trench
was named C and extended for II m. to the north, in order to ascertain the limits of a small room
containing an unusual type of oven, previously only partially excavated.
Trench C was not dug below level II. The two main trenches, however, were carried down to
virgin soil, which was reached about 4 m. below the highest point of the mound, giving a total depth
of deposit in the trenchesthemselvesofjust under 3 m. Within this deposit we were able to distinguish
four main building levels. The first two, together occupying about i m., produced red slipped and
grey pottery related to that already known from Tall-i-BakunA V. The remaining two levels produced
buff and painted waresof the type known from Tall-i-BakunA I-IV.
LevelsI andII
In trenchesA and B these levels appeared to consist of four successivecourtyard deposits. Three of
these, in level I, were marked only by a few scattered hearths, mere circular patches of pebbles, and
the remains of a more elaborate plastered oven on the western edge of trench A. This oven backed
on to a wall within the baulk, and directly behind this wall, a second similar oven had been left in
place by the previous excavators. A child's skeleton had been sunk into the Ib floor of the B trench,
either from the Ia floor above, or from some later period of occupation. In the north of trench A, a
small bowl-shaped pit, 50 cm. wide and 32 cm. deep, had been sunk from the floor of Ic. It was
provided with a coarse pottery lining and the interior was painted bright red.
In level II, the remains of a pis6 wall protruded from the western baulk of trenches A and B. It
stood on a foundation of large river pebbles. A thick layer of similar pebbles covered most of the
floor of trench B. This layer produces a great deal of rather coarse red pottery, including one complete
small jar as well as fragments of the conical base of a buff ware bowl (Fig. 14: 16) and a painted
bowl with a ring base (Fig. 9: 3). A second complete red ware jar together with a miniature painted
one (Fig. 12: 27) were found directly beside the wall in trench A. These large buff ware pottery
fragments are important as an indication that the Bakun A I-IV pottery tradition continued for a
short time at any rate into the later period.
Better evidence as to the character of the red ware culture came from trench C. The extension to
the north revealed two intermediate floors in level I, both associated with two well-preservedcircular
ovens. The westernmostone (Fig. 2) was i m. in diameter across the interior which was filled with a
thick layer of powdery grey ash above one of very small pebbles. It was surrounded by a wall of
hard clay io cm. thick, elaborately plastered on the interior and protected on the south by a block of
pis6.
In level II we found the western end of a small room, 4 m. 8o cm. across. The west wall stepped
out to accommodate a large oven which backed against it (Fig. 3). This oven was of the same plastered
type as that previously discovered in trench A, but being on a lower level was far better preserved.
It consisted of a plastered platform, roughly 85 cm. square, with a plastered channel 30 cm. wide to
the north. A plastered step, also 30 cm. wide, ran along the whole of the front of the oven and was
continued to the north by a carefully plastered " horn ". The oven was backed by a wall from which
two low arms projected to enclose its northern and southern sides. A flue ran diagonally through the
wall to the passage outside.
A large block of masonry, which had fallen in a solid mass from one of the walls into the centre of
the room, enabled us to obtain both brick sizes and an idea of the method of bonding. The bricks
were roughly 45 cm. square, although sides could vary from 48 to 43 cm. The bricks themselves were
set in a form of thick mud mortar.
EXCAVATIONS AT TALL-I-NOKHODI 47
LevelsIII andIV
These two building levels can be further subdivided into five floor levels, IIIa and b, and IVa, b
and c. Plans of levels III and IVc appear in Fig. 4. In trench A, a small house built at the beginning
of level IV was subsequently rebuilt to a different plan in level III. Not only were the walls of these
III and IV structuresbuilt on a different alignment to those of the two higher levels but their bricks
were far softer and harder to identify. The main wall in level IV had a thick coat of painted red plaster
running along the greater part of its south face, while both it, and the level III walls above it, stood
on stone foundations.
OVEN 3B
1 #01 PITHOS
/ \
//
DOOR HEARTH 3A.
/ / STONE
/ /,..WALLS 3A FOUNDATIONS i IM
T R E N C H 'B' T R E N C H 'A'
RED PLASTER-
OVENS
f0 0
TR ENCH TB RENCRH 'A
B•
Fig. 4. Top: Plan of LevelII.
Bottom:Plan of Level IVc.
In trench B some badly preserved cross-walls,discovered in level IIIa, were replaced in IIIb by
the first of a remarkableseries of ovens. The type was already known from a single example at Tall-i-
Bakun A, level III.5 We found six and the corner of a possible seventh. Three of these ovens, those
from levels IIIb, IVa and IVb, were built directly one above the other (Section, Fig. 5). Thus, despite
the change of plan in trench A there can have been no real break between levels III and IV. A
further slight change occurred in level IVc, when no less than three ovens were discovered within the
two trenches, with traces of a fourth in the extreme south-west corner of trench A. Trench B had two
floors in this level, both composed of small, closely packed pebbles.
" Bakun,pp. 13-14.
3-00-
PALE SOIL
LOOSE,
ASH .PEBBLES A CSKELETON L

I BI
.
HARD PACK "
HARDER PALE PEBBLY INoPLA ES
SOIL.,
-0
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BROWN
LIGHT U RATHER
HARD SOIL
CLAYEY T E
3A
AS 3A "
-.
3B "PLASTEErO N
100AS- HA SHEARTHlCHARCOALFLECKS 1-00

~ASH C"116DI PIr ,
ASH
PIT 4B
CLAYEY OVEN
PLASTERED dr
GREYISH;
LOWERPEBLED4 FLOR.*??RE DDIP
•-'
VIRGIN SOIL
T -0-00
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E X C A V A E 0
Fig. 5. mud-brickwalling).
Sectionof westface of TrenchB. (Hatchedareasrepresent
Other discoveries from these two levels consisted of a complete storagejar sunk into the corner of
the house in IIIb, and a complete ring-basedbowl (Fig. 9: 1) from the floor in IVa. Numerous other
large fragments, including most of the jar illustrated in Fig. 13: 1, came from a midden in trench A,
to the north of the IVa oven. A second nearly complete jar (Fig. 3) was found scattered in frag-
ments all over the floor in trench A, together with human and 13"
animal figurines.
The PlasteredOvens
The best preservedoven was that in IVa (Fig. 6). It was oval in plan with slightly flattened sides,
measuring I m. 8o cm. in width and 2 m. 20o cm. in length. It consisted of a large, flat baking plate
which sloped slightly towards the front, composed of two layers of very hard, very smooth, blackish
plaster, each 15 to 20 mm. thick. To the south was an unplastered ash-box, 50 cm. wide, and about
2o cm. deep. On either side of the oven were mud-brick walls which, on Tall-i-Bakun analogies,
should have provided support for a domed roof. The walls were lined with a thick layer of orange
"
plaster which curved gently down to join the plaster of the baking-plate. A carefully plastered pot
"
stand was attached to the north wall. The entrance was in front of the ash pit.
While the IIIb and IVb ovens were very similar, the main oven in IVc was perhaps the most
carefully constructed of all. It was completely elliptical with very evenly curved sides. To the south
was a beautifully plastered channel, which doubtless served as an ash box. The whole oven was
surrounded by the remains of an enclosing mud-brick wall, plastered on the interior. The entrance
was presumably at the eastern end of the ash box, within the baulk. Only a small area of grey plaster
and part of a low supportingwall testify to the existenceof a second oven in trench B. The third oven
in trench A, was the largest found, being 3 m. 6o cm. long. It had traces of the same orange plaster
around its edge and a possibleash pit to the north.
ISOMETRIC RECONSTRUCTION
OVEN 4A
01 1
, ,M
of LevelIVa ovenfrom TrenchB.

Fig. 6. Reconstruction
Fig. 7. from Tall-i-Nokhodi,includingonebuttonsealfrom Dehbid(No. 4).

Small objects
Small Objects
Of the small finds from levels I and II the most interesting are a copper pin (Fig. 7: 6), which came
from the fallen masonryin C I, and a coplperknife (Fig. 7: 7), discoveredin the second stratum while
cleaning the north face of the Department'smain sounding. Both are unusually developed formsfor the
Uruk period, to which the red ware seems to belong. Unriveted knives or razors with a single cutting
edge are unknown elsewhere before the third millennium. Probably the nearest parallel to the knife
comes from Anau III," while pins of a somewhat similar type occur in Susa Cb.7 As C II also produced
a small ring of copper wire, and a well-preservedcopper dagger came fromjust below the top stratum
of Bakun A,8 it is now clear that metal objects were far from uncommon in Iran at this period.
Artifacts of other materials from the upper levels were poor in quality, presumably because they
came mainly from courtyard deposits rather than the interior of a house. Chert blades, common in
the two lower levels, were rare above. Other objects included small sub-rectangulargrinding stones,
part of a circular granite mace head;9 an oblong pounder of green stone and another of coarse red
ware pottery. An oblong scraper or polisher (Fig. I2: 28) cut from a piece of painted buff ware
resemblessimilarfinds from Tall-i-Bakun.x0 The only button seal found in the course of the excavations
came from CII (Fig. 7: 5). It was made of unbaked clay, provided with pierced projection at the
back and decorated with incised cross-hatching. Both the use of clay as opposed to stone and the
use of cross-hatchingas opposed to radial designs, are typical of buttons dating from Bakun A IV or
later." Thus it seems likely that both traits are characteristic of the incoming red ware culture. A
button seal of the more typical early Bakun A type was picked up at the mound of Dehbid, 45 km.
further to the north (Fig. 7: 4). Mother of pearl shellsindicate possible contact with the Persian Gulf.
Neither metal objects nor button seals were found in levels III and IV. On the other hand there
was a great increase in the number of worked blades. With the exception of one tiny fragment of
obsidian, chert was the only stone used. Most chert blades were I-2 cm. wide and up to 6 or 7 cm.
long (Fig. 7: 1). The ends were either simply brokenoff or more carefullyrounded. One, or sometimes
both sides showed subsidiary working and several had a very high silicacious polish indicating use as
sickle blades. One rather broader blade had a carefully serrated edge while two others probably
served as awls (Fig. 7: 2, 3).
Bone instruments,rare at Bakun, were not encountered in the limited area under excavation.
Two spindle whorlswere discovered,one bi-conoid and the other octagonal in section with a slightly
scalloped edge.12 Both were of unpainted clay. Pegs (Fig. 12: 29-32) and circulardiscs (Fig. I2: 33-34)
cut from fragmentsof painted pottery may have been used as gaming counters.'3
Animal and human figurineswere well represented. Two of the animals were recognizable Bakun
varieties.'4 One (Fig. 7: 14) of unbaked clay, probably representeda sheep, the other, of slipped and
baked clay (Fig. 7: 13) some sort of ox. Fig. 7: 12 possibly represents a mountain goat with all
four legs bunched together on the summit of a rock. The amazingly naturalisticbear'shead (Fig. 7: I 1)
is in complete contrast to such crude stylized forms, and in fact to most animal figurines of the
Chalcolithic period in Iran. The same contrast between decorative abstractions and attempts at
representationoccurs in the animal designs on the pottery.
Human figurines, as at Bakun, were always of baked clay, slipped and painted. Both flat, stylized
forms with wing-like arms (Fig. 7: 8) and more naturalistically rounded figures (Fig. 7: IO) were
is
produced. The former resemble examples from the' Ubaid levels at Ur and Arpachiya.
6 R. Pumpelly, Explorationsin Turkestan,Expeditionof 1904 1xxIbid., pl. 82: 13, 18, 19.
I,
Is Cf. ibid., pl. 82: 29, 31.
1908, p. 153, fig. 273.
7 L. Le Breton, Iraq XIX, part 2, fig. 27: 5. Le Breton's x3Cf. ibid., pl. 83: 7; P. 69.
nomenclature has been adopted for the Susa sequence through- 14 Ibid., p. 61.
out. I7, 23; M. E. L. Mallowan
1sFor similar figurines see ibid., pls.
SSee E. F. Schmidt, The Treasuryof Persepolisand OtherDiscoveries and J. Cruikshank Rose, Iraq II, fig. 45: I1, for an example
in the Homelandof the Achaemenians,
p. 123, fig. 92. dating from the Tall Halaf period; and C. L. Woolley, Ur
ExcavationsIV, pl. 21, U.184i6, U.I8415A, for two rather
9 Similar maceheads occur at Bakun A, level IV and above.
cruder forms. A lizard-like head, closely resembling the more
Bakun,pl. 84: 21. moulded forms at Ur (ibid., pl. 20so)was discovered at Tall-i-
o Ibid., pl. 83: 4. Bakun A (Schmidt, op. cit., p. 123 and fig. 94).
The Pottery
The following classification is tentative in the extreme. Not only was a very small area dug but
not very many whole pots or even complete profiles were found within it. It is difficult, especially in
the two lower levels, to assign many of the rim sherds to a particular base, although an attempt has
been made to do this from analogies with Tall-i-Bakun. The fact that many shapes and designs
common at Bakun are not representedat Tall-i-Nokhodi may be simply fortuitous. For instance, were
we to rely on the sounding of I 961 alone, we would think that a very common type of Bakun design
composed of anthropomorphicfigures (Type XVIIIB)16 was not represented at all at Nokhodi. The
Department, however, had already found a complete bowl of this type in the course of their excava-
tions.17 Greater reliance can perhaps be put on our findings when they provide examples of types
unknown, or practically unknown at Bakun. Finally the same laws of chance may perhaps apply to
our own sounding. Within the small area dug, level IV, and particularly the midden in level IVa,
provided the majority of the best sherds and complete pots. Thus again it may simply be a matter
of chance that one or two varieties of shape or design, very common in the lowest levels, are rare or
absent in level III. The main impression which the pottery gives is undoubtedly one of continuity
within the two main cultural periods.
Typesof Warefrom LevelsI andII

By far the commonest type of pottery in these levels is a hand-made " red ware ",. The paste is
grit tempered, usually rather coarse and often crumbly, though better quality sherds with a hard,
close-textured core, do exist in small numbers. The colour of the core varies from pink, in the better
quality wares, through a dirty buff to greyish-buff or brown. Pots of this type are invariably slipped
or washed. The commonest colour is brick red, but yellow ochre, pinkish and brownish shades also
occur fairly frequently, particularly the first. Variations of colour often appear on the same pot
owing to uneven firing. The slip is sometimesthick, but more often thin and rather streakyas if painted
on with a large brush. The great majority of the sherds are unburnished, but a few have a very fine
burnish indeed, the slip in such cases being a bright apricot. Red wares occur in all the main shapes
listed below.
A second class of pottery is yellowish to blackish-grey. The paste is usually coarse, and the tempering
of black or white grits easily visible. The surface is smoothed rather than slipped. It appears to have
been used only for the manufactureof some of the large jars and, surprisingly,for two miniature pots
(Fig. 8: 37, 38). Certain thinner sherds of this ware have been burnished until they are almost black.
They invariably come from straight-sided bowls or small hole-mouthed jars with a simple rim. In
addition there is a considerable amount of coarse ware, unslipped and mottled buff, pink or black.
It is confined, as might be expected, to the simplest shapes-straight-sided, bag-shaped or hole-
mouthed bowls and large jars.
PotteryShapesfrom LevelsI andII

i. Straight-sided bowls. These usually have the simplest of profiles and occur in black or coarse
wares (Fig. 8: Less common forms are illustrated in Fig. 8, Nos. 2 and 3.
I).
2. Bowls with everted rims. These seem to be the finer red ware variants of Type I. Both almost
straight-sided (Fig. 8: 4, 5), and more " S "-shaped profiles (Fig. 8: 6-9) seem to occur.
3. Hemispherical bowls. These have simple (Fig. 8: Io) or more rarely club-shaped (Fig. 8: I i)
rims, and are usually burnished, whereas purely bag-shaped bowls (Fig. 8: 12) are uncommon
and appear to be the coarse ware equivalent.
4. Shallow bowls with inverted rims (Fig. 8: I3).
16Bakun,pp. 49-50. Henceforward Bakun " types " are referred 1s One or two sherds show possible tournette marks, e.g. fig. 8:
to without footnotes. 4, 28.
" For an illustration of the bowl see A. Sami, op. cit., p. i8i.
5. Bowls with " carinated rims " are uncertainly representedby one unstratifiedsherd (Fig. 8: 14).
6. Carinated bowls (Fig. 8: 15-23). These representone of the commonest types on the site. The
bowls vary somewhat in size and depth but are almost invariably of slipped red ware and in
some cases are beautifully burnished.
7. Carinated jars (Fig. 8: 30). These are less common, but again are always red slipped and
sometimes burnished.
8. Hole mouthed jars. These vary from rather coarse, heavy pots with simple rims (Fig. 8: 29)
to fine globular jars with everted rims (Fig. 8: 24-28) often slipped and burnished.
9, Large jars. These occur in red, grey and coarse wares. The shapes can only be guessed at
from rim fragments. Some (Fig. 8: 32) seem to be heavier versionsof Type 8. Others (Fig. 8: 33)
have short vertical necks. The most common examples (Fig. 8: 34) have short, slightly out-
turned necks above narrow, flask-like,or more globular bodies.
Miscellania: Pedestals occur in either hollow (Fig. 8: 36) or solid (Fig. 8: 35) forms. Fragments
were also found of simple red ware handles, circular in section. Ribbing (Fig. 8: 25), sometimes
combined with incision, occasionally occurs on the widest part of a jar. Ring bases (Fig. 8: 31) are
fairly common. Fig. 8, Nos. 37 and 38 illustrate two miniature pots.
ExteriorConnections of theRed Wares
The most obvious parallel for the red ware of Tall-i-Nokhodi is that of Bakun A V. Most of our
main shapes, including types I,19 2,20 321 (with club-shaped rim), 422 and 8,23 occur further south.
Pedestals and ring bases also occur at Bakun though in rather different forms. Two strikingdifferences
do however exist. One is the coarser quality of most of the Nokhodi pottery as compared with that
from Bakun. The other is the absence, at Bakun, of carinated bowls and jars.24 A possible explanation
of this might be that the red ware came into Fars from the North25and that it reached the more
southerly sites in a more developed form. This might account both for its improved quality and for
the lapse of certain shapes, although it would make levels III and IV at Nokhodi contemporarywith
Bakun A I and 2 as opposed to 3 and 4. The alternative solution would be to regard the Nokhodi
pottery simply as a coarser local variation.
In a wider context, the pottery of both Tall-i-Nokhodi I and II and Tall-i-Bakun A V at once
invites comparison with wares of the Uruk period from Mesopotamia. Not only do red, grey and a
few black polished wares occur together but certain shapes also seem to be common to both areas.
These include bowls of type 126 and type 227 (particularlyFig. 8: 8); hemisphericalbowls with simple
rims;28 bowls with carinated rims;29 and hole-mouthed jars with plain, slightly everted and flaring
rims30 (these last being better representedat Bakun).31 At Nineveh III, bowls with clubbed rims occur
in grey ware;32 grey ware bowls of types 4 and 5 occur at Warka; 33and at Grai Resh carinated bowls,
albeit with clubbed rather than simple rims, also occur.34 Flat bases and ring bases are found in both
areas. But although the quality of the Bakun A V red wares seems in part to resemblethat of the Uruk
wares, the Iranian pottery is hand rather than wheel made, and the Nokhodi grey and black wares
are unslipped. Pedestals, found at both Fars sites, do not seem to occur in Mesopotamia, whereas
they are known in Iran from Sialk III and Hissar I and II. The solid pedestal of Fig. 8: 34 seems to
19Bakun, pl. 20: 1, 26 S. Lloyd, Sumer1948, chart 1: 21-2.
3.
20 Ibid., pl. 20:
6, 9. "7 Ibid., chart 1: 17.
Ibid., pl. 20: 17.
x21 28Ibid., chart I:
22 Ibid., pl. 2o: io. 23.
23
Ibid., pl. 2o: 8, I1.
29Ibid., chart I: 31.
24 A single carinated form is illustrated in
Bakun, pl. 21: 12.
30Ibid., chart 1: 5, 29-30, 40.
26 Slight evidence for this supposition is provided by the site of 31Bakun, pl. 2o: I2.
Qasr-i-Bahram, Dehbid, about 55 km. north of Pasargadae. 32 S. Lloyd, op. cit., chart 2: 38.
Here it is possible to distinguish several metres of red ware
deposit in contrast to the single metre at Pasargadae, and the 33Ibid., chart 2: 25.
single level at Bakun A. Cf. also A. Stein, op. cit., pp. 213-17. 34 Ibid., chart 2: 56-7.
Fig. 8. Red warepotteryfrom LevelsI andII (Nos. 1-38) with selectedbuffwaresherdsfrom LevelsII-IV (Nos. 39-50). Scale 1:4.
Fig. 9. Buff warering-basedbowls. ScaleI:4.
Pl. L (a) Ring-basedbowl with a processionof doesin reddishpaint.
(b) Squatjar with animal pattern in dark paint.

Pl. II. (a) Shallowring-basedbowl with stylizedboarson interior.
(b) LevelIVa ovenfrom TrenchB.

find its closest parallel in a small vase from Hissar IIb,35 while jars with everted rims (Fig. 8: 3')
occur in Hissar IIa.36 Finally the preference for carinated forms at Nokhodi may again be partly
due to influences from Northern Iran. The profiles of the upper part of some of the Hissar Ic and IIa
pedestal bowls and of the carinated jars from Sialk III 7 often resemble Nokhodi forms.37
Buff Waresfrom LevelsII, III andIV
The majority of at any rate the finer buff wares from these levels seem to have been made with the
aid of a tournette. In addition certain sherds,for example Fig. 9: 4; Fig. i o: 4; Fig. i i: 6; Fig. I4:
14, 15, seem to have come from vessels made on a fast wheel, since they show very pronounced and
closely spaced horizontal markings. Judgment may have to be reserved on this point however, since
the excavators at Tall-i-Bakun observed the same wheel-like marks on small sherds but discounted
them on the evidence of their more complete vessels.38
The clay is usually well mixed, fine, and fairly hard. The most usual colour for the core is pale
buff or cream, but differences in firing produce variations from a red or yellowish orange to a pale
green. As might be expected the red or orange wares are mostly typical of the heavier, unpainted
bowls and jars, whereas the green, over-firedpottery is usually confined to the finer sherds.
Most of the finer wares and some of the heavier ones have a thin slip of practically the same colour
as the core on at least the outer edge of the paste. Otherwise the surface is wet smoothed. Large pots
sometimes show signs of scraping. A two-colour effect is sometimes created on the heavier sherds by
uneven firing, the core being reddish and the surface creamy. Some of the heavier, more lightly fired
bowls have a " floury " feel to them. Other finer sherds occasionally have a slightly spongy surface.
A few body sherds show faint parallel grooving and ribbing on the surface, a phenomenon also
occurring at Bakun and in the 'Ubaid wares of South Mesopotamia.39
The paint is matt and basically brown in colour, but can vary, according to the intensity of firing,
from crimson through reddish or purplish brown to black, and on over-firedpots it is often dirty green.
On these last it has often eaten into the surface of the pot and vitrified where thick, as is also the case
at Susa A and Bakun. In certain other cases it has a smudgy appearance as if it had been applied
when the surface of the pot was still damp and had " run ". Where it is reddish or purplish-brown
it is often flaky and impermanent. The decoration is always monochrome.
Buf WareShapesfrom LevelsII, III andIV

The shapes of the buff ware vesselsfrom Tall-i-Nokhodi are closely related to those of Tall-i-Bakun.
Ring-based bowls40 are very common. Conical bowls,41, beakers, 42 cups43and globularjars" with a
low carination are also well attested. On the other hand, certain other Bakun shapes, notably fine
hemisphericalbowls,45bowls with spiked bases,4"campaniform bowls47and cones48are absent. Jars
as a whole are poorly represented, being known in most cases only from small fragments from the
neck and shoulder.
i. Ring-based bowls (Bakun types I-III). Both deep, steep-sided vessels (e.g. Figs. o10: 3-10o;
12: 1, 6) and shallower forms with widely flaring sides (Figs. 9: 2, 3; I I: 6, o10, i16) occur
within a wide diameter range from about I i to over 30 cm. Particularly satisfactory are some
of the intermediate forms (Figs. II: 4, 5, 7, 8 ; I2: IO, Ii). Fig. 9: I, the only complete
example found, is perhaps also the most beautifully proportioned. In addition, certain vessels
have slightly inverted rims (Figs. 9 : 4; I3: 2) and one example (Fig. has a high carina-
tion. 9: 5)
35 E. F. Schmidt, Excavationsat Tepe Hissar, Damghan (1931-33), 4' Ibid., type XI A and B.
1937, pl. XXIV: H478o. 43Ibid., type XII.
* Ibid., pl. XXIII: H2992.
7 Ibid., pl. IX: H4527; pl. XXI: H4693, H446o. R. 44 Ibid., type IX.
Ghirshman, Les Fouilles de Sialk, vol. I, pl. LXXIII: Si12. 45 Ibid., type IV.
38 Bakun, p. 46
24. Ibid., type V.
3 D.
Stronach, Iraq XXIII, part 2, p. I09. '4 Ibid., type VI.
40
Bakun,Types I-III.
,1 Ibid., type V. 48 Ibid., type XIC.
5
Fig. io. Buff warebowlsfrom LevelsIII andIV. Scale : 4.
Fig. ii. Buff ware beakers (Nos. i-3) and bowls (Nos. 4-13) from Levels Ill and IV with three buff ware vesselsfrom Level II
(Nos. 14-16). Scale i:4.
Nearly all the bowls within this class are fine and well made and decorated with elaborate,
well-executed designs. Exceptional are the vessels illustrated in Fig. 14: 2, 3 which are slightly
coarser and heavier, and which have'a very simple decoration of vertical and wavy lines. This
type is common in levels IVb and c but does not occur thereafter. As might be expected the
larger, deeper bowls are usually decorated only on the exterior (Figs. 13: 2 and I2: 5 are
exceptions) whereas interior decoration, particularly in the form of stylized boars (Fig. 9: 2) is
found on the majorityof smaller, shallowervessels. Decoration on both the interior and exterior
of the same bowl (Fig. I I: 6, 8) is exceedingly rare.
2. Saucers. Nos. 12 and I3 in Fig. I2 illustrate shallow, probably flat-based bowls from level II
and the surface. This shape is also rare at Bakun.49
3. Simple bowls with flat or rounded bases. The only two complete examples of this type are
illustratedin Fig. 14: 14, 15. Other plain buff ware bowls, of which the shape of the base is less
certain, appear in Fig. 14: 9-13. Such bowls are sometimes decorated by a painted stripe or
stripes around the rim, and one example (Fig. 14: 9) was covered inside and out with a layer
of thin reddish-brownpaint or slip. Of the painted wares, Fig. I I: 12 and Fig. 12: 3-4 possibly
also belong to this category, while Fig. 13: 5 shows a coarser, more conical bowl with interior
decoration. Very fine hemispherical bowls (Bakun, type IV) have not occurred so far at
Pasargadae. It is interesting that they also appear to be absent from the lowest level of
Tall-i-Bakun A with which, as we have seen, Tall-i-Nokhodi III and IV possibly correspond.
4. Conical bowls. These correspondto Bakun, type V. They are vessels with flaring sides, slightly
incurving towards the rim, and with small, conical bases.
The lower sections, usually plain, are found in all levels except I (Fig. 14: i6). Fig. Io: 2
could represent the upper part of a fine painted example although there is no evidence for the
shape of its base.
5. Beakers. The typical Tall-i-Nokhodi beaker has a rounded base and slightly flaring sides
(Fig. I: 1-3), thus corresponding to Bakun, type IXA.5? Part of a rare variety with a ring
base comes from level II (Fig. 14: 21). A very coarse, thick-sided storage jar from IVb
(Fig. 14: i1)should perhaps be included within this group since it closely resemblesTall-i-Bakun
type IXB in shape.51
6. Cups (Tall-i-Bakun type XII). Fragments of small carinated bowls with rounded bases and
slightly flaring sides were found in levels III and IV (Fig. I I: I1i). The fabric is inclined to be
slightly coarser and the designs simpler than in the other bowls. Vertical sides and inverted
rims, most common at Tall-i-Bakun, are absent.
7. Jars. Although fragments of jars were found in all levels, only one or two complete shapes can
be definitely attested. Both small fine jars, corresponding to Bakun type VIII and heavier
storagejars, correspondingto Bakun type IX occur. Small jars are made of the same thin fabric
as the finer bowls. Fig. 13 3 is only 2 mm. thick at the shoulder. This jar and Fig. I3: I
both have medium to narrow necks with slightly everted rims, globular bodies, low carinations
and slightly curving bases. Pots of this general shape also occur at Bakun52 but usually have a
higher carination, like the smaller, squatter vessel illustrated in Fig. I2: 19. Necks can be
straight (Fig. I2: 20), slightly flaring (Fig. 14: 4) or with an overhanging rim (Fig. 8: 43),
this last shape being particularly typical at Bakun A.53 A unique bottle top is illustrated in
Fig. 14: 7.
The only complete large jar was found standing in one corner of the house in trench A, level IIIb.
It had a simple rim and a large, rather elongated oval body terminating in a very small, flat base.
Other jar necks from similar vessels are illustrated in Fig. incline slightly outwards
14? 5-6. They may
or inwards and are usually painted solid or with a band around the rim. Whereas the smaller jars
"OIbid., pl. Io: 14. 61Ibid., pl. 16: I.
;o Ibid., pl. 15: 8. 62Ibid., pls. 4: I, 13: 1o.
are usually painted with the same sort of elaborate designs as the bowls, large jars are most usually
left plain or decorated with simple combinations of vertical, horizontal or wavy lines, or the same in
reserve.
Certain sherds are difficult to fit into any category. Fig. I I: 9 illustrates a very small, fine rim
sherd which could belong to a small bowl or possibly a beaker. Fig. I I: 14 could be a shallow tumbler
mid-way between a beaker and a cup. Fig. I I: 13 has a rim design reminiscent of that around the
tops of shallow beakers in Susa A54but could, from its size and shape, equally well come from a jar
rim. Fig. I I: 16 is either a bowl or a largejar. A very large unpainted bowl is illustratedin Fig. 14: 8.
Fragments of two plain handles, circular in section, came from level IVc. Ring bases are usually of
medium height and painted solid, although one unstratified example (Fig. 14: 19) was ornamented
with triangles in reverse. A more squat variety with projecting foot (Fig. 14: i8) occurs in level IV,
while in level II a very simple shape similar to that found also in the red ware seems to predominate
(Fig. 14: 17). An unusual miniature form is shown in Fig. 14 20o.
PotteryDesignsfrom LevelsII, III andIV

The buff ware designs at Tall-i-Nokhodi can be divided fairly easily into those identical with or
related to the main Bakun tradition, and those peculiar to the site, or pointing to connections with
Susa, Mesopotamia or elsewhere. Beaker designs form a good example of this. In level IV the sides
of the beaker are divided into panels by wide vertical stripes of dark paint, and the panels are filled
with horizontal bands of paired dashes (Fig. i i: I; 8: 39). In level III on the other hand the
vertical stripes are left in reserve and the main design centres around a central zig-zag (Fig.
i1: 2, 3).
This arrangement is very common at Bakun55whereas the earlier design is not found. Cross-hatched
panels around a central zig-zag (Fig. I I: 14) occur in level II and cross-hatching itself occurs
predominantly in level III and upwards.
As at Bakun, bowls are generally decorated with a wide band of repeating elements bordered by
narrow horizontal stripes and sometimes rows of triangles. Looser arrangements (Fig. I I: 7) also
sometimes occur. Motifs common to both sites include panels with a diamond fill56 (Fig. 1o: 8),
horizontal zig-zags with a fill of denticulated lines57(Fig. Io0: Io) and an unusual form of reversing
triangle5s (Fig. io: 9). Local variations of designs from further south include a progression of
isosceles triangles between denticulated right-angled ones (Fig. o10: 3),59 the triangle rhomboid
designe60 with one of its triangles reversed (Fig. I I: 5) and, in particular, diagonally divided panels
with a fill of denticulated triangles, which appears to be one of the most common designs on the site61
(Fig. o10: 2, 4-7). Rhomboids also occur alone (Figs. 10: I; I I: 4). Stylized plant motifs (Figs. 9: 3;
I i: 6) have Bakun prototypes,62but not the more realistic "tree " design of Fig. 9: 4. Also difficult
to parallel are columns of solid eyes arranged around a central vertical stem (Fig. 13: 12) and columns
of denticulated triangles (Fig. 12: i1). Divided ovoids63 (Fig. 13: Ii) and hatched diamonds"4
(Fig. 13: 15) extend south-east as far as Mddavdn, although a progressionof semi-ovoids (Fig. 13: Io)
is more unusual. Other motifs common to both sites include hatched eye shapes (Fig. 13: 14) ;65
bull's eyes (Fig. 13: i3);66 thin chevrons (Fig. 8: 49);67 and horizontal zig-zags in reserve (Fig. I2:
I I).68 Denticulation (passim) is almost more common at Tall-i-Nokhodi than it is at Bakun.69 A good
53 Ibid., pl. 1 2: 12. 65Bakun, pl. 46: 9, Io0.
"5 R. de Mecquenem, M.D.P. XIII, pl. 1: 4 et passim. 66 Ibid., pl. 38: 13.
55Bakun, pl. 23: I I. 67 Ibid., pl. 32: 2,
4.
56Ibid., pl. 34: I. 68 D. McCown, The ComparativeStratigraphyof Early Iran, 1942,
57 Ibid., pl. 56: 9. fig io:
6 Besides 63.being one of the commonest elements in the designs
5 Ibid., pl. 59: 3.
59 Cf. ibid., pl. 47: I2. of Tall-i-Nokhodi, denticulation is also frequently employed
60 Cf. ibid., pls. 62: on the buff wares of Bakun, and very frequently at Dehbid.
2, 45: 7.
61 Cf. ibid., pl. 34: 10. (Stein, op. cit., pl. XXVI: 39, 47, 62. It is also the most
characteristic feature of " Quetta ware ", discovered by
6 Ibid., pl. 78: 21. Professor S. Piggott in Baluchistan, and regarded by him as
63
Ibid., pl. 45: 2. Stein, op. cit., pl. XXVIII: 31, 32. an offshoot of the chalcolithic buff ware cultures of Fars. See
64Stein, ibid., pl. XXIV:
32. S. Piggott, AruientIndia III, pp. 131-42.
Fig. r2. Selectedbuf waresherds,includingvarioussherdsshapedas scrapers(No. 28), pegs (Nos. 29-32) and discs (33 and
Scale z:4. 34).
Fig. 13. Buff warejars, bowlsandselectedsherds. Scale 1:4.
many exampleshave alreadybeen mentionedabove while a varietyof other denticulatedpatterns

appearin Fig. 12: 18-26. Fragmentsof lineardesignsappearin Fig. 8: 44, 47.
Verticallinesdrawnbetweenthe rim and baseof a bowl (Fig. 14: 2, 3) are occasionallyfoundat
Bakun70but thesweepandsimplicityof the examplesillustratedrecalls'Ubaidpottery.Alsoultimately
stemmingfromthe Mesopotamian repertoireare shapedmotifs-" arrowheads ", " V "s, and double
and multiple blobs (Figs. I I: 10, 12; 12: 10, I1I; 13: 9; 8: 46); stylized birds (Fig. 8: 41); and
maltese crosses (Fig. 13: i1, 2, 4). Short wavy lines occur either in blocks (Fig. 13: 8) or alone
(Fig. I I: 3, 9).71 Grids of triangles with or without hatched backgrounds (Fig. 12: 14-17)72 and
horizontalzig-zags with a fill of denticulatedlines representstill other patternsthat probablydeveloped
from Mesopotamianmotifs.73
Links with Tepe Giyan, particularly level Vc, are fairly numerous but are invariably the
same as those known already from Bakun. Certain other designs equate fairly closely with Susa A.
Most interestingare some that do not seem to occur furthersouth-a line of birds' necksaround the top
of a beakeror smalljar (Fig. I I I3),7 and the use of pairsof suspendedtrianglesand elongated animals
to decorate the interior of bowls (Fig. I2: 4, 5).7- A row of small suspended triangles (Fig. I2: 3)
is also more typical of Susa, whereas suspended fringed triangles (Fig. I2: 7) are very common at
Tepe Musyan.76 Reminiscentof Musyan, too, are rows of ladders77(Fig. 8: 48) and narrowdiamonds
(Fig. 8: 5o).78 Step designs79(Fig. 8: 40) and dovetailed denticulated triangless8(Fig. 8: 45) occur
both at Susa and Bakun.
AnimalDesigns
It was in the animal designsof Tall-i-Nokhodi that the individuality of the local potters made itself
felt, for although ibex forms8'(Figs. 13: 6; 12: 8), lizards,82and miniature animals typical of Susa A
and Bakun83are fairly common they co-exist with far more realistic or even fantastic creatures that
seem to be more typical of the site.
The nearest attempt at portraiture occurs in the animals racing around the side of the pot in
Fig. 9: i1. Although the " skid " position is adopted, the legs are attached separately to the body
instead of being a continuation of it and definite attention is paid also to such details as cloven hooves,
knees, and the shape of the head (which is hornless). Such stumpier forms do occasionally appear at
Bakun but are static in comparison. On the other hand some of our heads strikinglyresemble that of
a doe with long pricked ears, found on a sherd at Tepe Musyan84and identified as a species still living
in the forestsof Luristan. It is also tempting to regard the lines trailing from the necks as lassoes or
snares into which the animals had incautiously blundered-though whether one can go further and
deduce that some form of hunting magic was also involved is uncertain. Similar lines trail from the
noses of some of the Bakun deer.85
The animals of Fig. 13: 3 are probably the same species despite their curious resemblance to
donkeys. Here the fantastic element is creeping in in the curiously elaborated tails and whirling
70 Bakun,pl. 30: 8. The example illustrated is from
7 Ibid., p. iog, fig. 174.
n Cf. A. Perkins, ComparativeArchaeologyof Early Mesopotamia, Khazineh. Similar thin diamonds are very typical of Susa A.
1948, fig. Io: 19, and M.D.P. XIII, P1. III, 8, for an example M.D.P. XIII, pl. IV: 3, 4.
from Susa. See also D. Stronach, op. cit., pl. XLIX: 1, 78 M.D.P. XIII, pls. 5: 9, 8: 6. See also Bakun,pl. 27: 18.
7;
pl. LIV: i.
7 Cf. C. L. 7
D. McCown, op. cit., Fig. 9: 17. Bakun, pl. 43: 13.
Woolley, op. cit., pls. 48, 50; also Bakun, pl. 49: 20o.
7 See D. McCown, op. cit., pl. 12: 32. (The last type of design
Bakun,pl. 69: 16-18.
80o
occurs at Bakun in both its original and denticulated forms.
See Bakun,pls. 53: 1o and 56: 9.) 81 A. Sami, op. cit., p. 181. Bakun,pl. 68: 1.
"7Cf. R. de Mecquenem, M.D.P. XIII, pl. 1: 4 et passim. 82Bakun,pl. 74: 6, 7.
76 For double
triangles see ibid., pl. III: 4. For rows of single 83 Ibid., pl. 70: 2.
triangles ibid., pl. II: 5. The triangles in fig. 12: 6 should 84 T. E. Gautier and G. Lampre, op. cit., Fig. 207, p.
probably be regarded as part of a divided panel design, cf. 1i19. The
Bakun,pl. 42: 7.- identification is by the excavators.
76 T. E. Gautier and G. Lampre, " Fouillesde Moussian", M.D.P. See also Sami, op. cit., pp. 70o-1 for an
865Bakun, pl. 8o: 17.
VIII, fig. 158. Compare the triangles in Bakun, pl. 43: 9, illustration of a second complete jar of this type discovered
where almost all feeling of suspension has been lost. during the course of the Department's excavations.
crab-like forms surroundingthem. Utterly crude and fantastic are the stylized " boars" found only,
but then very frequently, on the interior of small ring-based bowls (Figs. 9: 2; I2: 3). Fragments
of over twenty-two different vessels were discovered with this last motive, of which all but four came
from level IV. Similar boar-motivesare only representedat Bakun by one or two doubtful sherdsand
only a single example has so far been published from the Susa wares. Thus it seems likely that the
boar had some special significance for these local potters,86unless further examples are found from
unexcavated sites in the future.
Stratigraphy
The results of a sherd count from our main control trench B are tabulated below. It will be seen
that in levels IIIb and IVa-c buff and painted waresare found in fairly equal proportions,with straw-
tempered coarse wares forming only 4-5 % of the total. As we have seen, certain beaker and animal
designs are more favoured in level IV and are supersededin III by more typical Bakun motifs. But
since classical Bakun designs (Fig. Io: 3) and figurinesoccur in the lowest levels as well, the present
distinction may simply be due to the accident of excavation. Isolated red ware sherds occur as early
as IVc-the undoubted result of pitting. In IIIb, however, red ware sherdsoccur in increasednumbers
and in IIIa coarse grit tempered wares, typical of levels I and II, begin to outnumber coarse straw-
tempered ones.
Grit- Straw-
Red Grey and Unpainted Painted tempered tempered
wares black buff wares coarse coarse
wares wares wares wares
Ib 645 112 101o II O0

Ic 448 68 60 20 o
II 484 47 55 24 o
IIIa 6 i 78 56 7 5
IIIb 4 o I35 126 I 12
IVa I I 116 146 I 12
IVb 2 o 202 139 o 7
IVc I o 35 34 o 4
Chartillustratingrelationship
of varioustypesof warefrom trenchB.
(Note: In levelsI andII redwares,andgrit tempered coarsewareswerecountedtogether.)
In level II the new culture almost entirely supersedesthe old. Not only is there a change in the
pottery, but the walls of the houses are better built of solid, well-definedbricksat a differentalignment
to those below. Two new types of oven appear, and the use of copper is well attested. Buff ware sherds
continue in fair numbers through to level I, but they now form between only 10-13 % of the total,
while painted sherdsamount to only 4% in level II, i % by Ib. The presence of many of these sherds
can probably be explained by pitting. On the other hand it is difficult to similarly explain the large
pot fragments which came from the mixed stratum of stones in level II, for while it is possible that
these were merely older vessels re-used at a later period, many of the fragments found are rather
heavier than the painted wares of the earlier period and the designs on them are less imaginative
(Figs. 9: 3; I I: 15). The most logical explanation would seem to be that there was a general decline
in the local tradition, which hung on tenuously in level II but faded out thereafter.
With regard to the general nature of the transitionin Fars between the buff and red ware cultures
this last evidence is particularly important. For although it is hardly proof of a true transitional
86Wildboarstill inhabitthe Tang-i-Bulaghi,
a shortdistancefromthesite.
period from one culture to the next-when the red wares immediately, and almost completely, supplant
the buff ones-it does seem to rule out any possibility of a long gap between the two cultures. This
in turn means that if the buff wares of Tall-i-Nokhodi and Tall-i-Bakun A can be equated with Susa A
and the beginning of the Uruk sequence in Iraq, there is good evidence for supposing that the red ware
culture was contemporary with the middle phase of the Uruk period.87 Also if we accept this date,
it must be conceded that several points of interest, such as the red ware culture's advanced metal work
and its possible relationshipto the Uruk culture, make it an interesting new factor that calls for further
investigation.
87
It should be added that stratified organic material from level IVc has been submitted to the British Museum Research
Laboratory for Carbon 14 examination.
Fig. 4. Buff warevessels,eitherplain or with simplepatterns. Scale : 6.

Figure7: Small Objects

No. i Blade in light brown chert; both edges worked, silicacious gloss on one side. L. 6-8 cm., W. 1-4 cm.
A. IIIb.
No. 2 Awl in light brown chert. L. 4-8 cm., W. i.* A. IV. PAS/61/139.
rcm.
No. 3 Awl in green chert. L. 2-8 cm., W. 1-2 cm. A. IVc. PAS/6i/I 16.
No. 4 Black stone button seal pierced centrally. Incised decoration on face. Loop at back, now broken.
D. 2 -5 cm. Dehbid, surface.
No. 5 Button seal of unbaked clay with incised decoration. Underside with pierced knob. D. cm.,
W.I-7 cm. C. II. PAS/61/62. 4"
No. 6 Copper pin with scroll head. L. 8 cms. C. II. PAS/6 I/1 I8.
No. 7 Copper straight-backed knife or razor with tapered tang. L. 17 cm., W. 5 cm. C. II. PAS/61x/72.
No. 8 Fragment of baked clay female figurine. Pale cream slip. Paint brown. H. 3-7 cm., W. 6.-5 cm.
A. IVc. PAS/61/83.
No. 9 Fragment of baked clay figurine. Creamy slip. Paint brown..L. cm. A. IVc. PAS/61/I19.
No. io 5"5
Fragment of human figurine in baked clay. Creamy-buff slip. Blackish-brown paint. L. 5 cm.,
W. 4-5 cm. A. IVb. PAS/61/9o.
No. Ii Head of bear in lightly fired brownish buff clay. Reddish-brown slip. H. cm. A. IVc.
7"4
PAS/6I/143.
No. 12 Animal figurine (goat ?) in lightly fired buff clay. Traces of reddish-brown paint on surface.
H. 6-5 cm. A. IVb. PAS/6I/xi14.
No. 13 Hind quarters ofbaked clay animal figurine. Creamy-buffware. Paint brown. B. III. PAS/6I/6I.
No. 14 Unbaked clay figurine of sheep. Horns broken. H. 3-5 cm., L. 4'3 cm., W. 1*3 cm. A. IIIb.
PAS/6z/6o.
Figure 8
No. I Type i. Core: greyish-black, coarse; surface: same, rough burnishing marks on interior. Dia-
meter 24 cm. B II.
No. 2 Type I. Core: buff, medium coarse; surface: streaky slip or wash, greyish-yellow on exterior,
dark reddish-brown on interior. Diameter 24 cm. B I.
No. 3 Type i. Core: buff, coarse; surface: thin slip, reddish on exterior, yellowish on interior. Diameter
30 cm. A II.
No. 4 Type 2. Core: pinkish, rather fine; surface: thick brick red slip, traces of slow (?) wheel marks
on interior and exterior, burnished. Diameter 22 cm. A I.
No. 5 Type 2. Core: grey to buff, fairly coarse; surface: slipped, red on interior, grey on exterior.
Diameter I8 cm. B I.
No. 6 Type 2. Core: pinkish-brown, coarse; surface: same, slipped. Diameter 6o cm. B II.
No. 7 Type 2. Core: orange-buff, fairly coarse; surface: red slip, lightly burnished on exterior. Diameter
i8 cm. C II.
No. 8 Type 2. Core: buff to pinkish, fairly coarse; surface: dark red slip, thin on interior. Diameter
28 cm. B II.
No. 9 Type 2. Core: buff to pinkish, medium coarse; surface: dull red slip. Diameter 14 cm. C II.
No. Io Type 3. Core: orange-buff, medium; surface: thick orange slip, lightly burnished. Diameter
14 cm. C II.
No. II Type 3. Core: buff, medium; surface: pinky-orange slip. Diameter 30 cm. B I.
No. 12 Type 3. Core: pinkish-buff, coarse; surface: same. Diameter 32 cm. B II.
No. 13 Type 4. Core: buff, grit tempered, rather coarse; surface: red slip, thin on base. Diameter
cm. A I.
25.5
No. 14 Type 5. Core: pinky orange, fairly coarse with small white grits; surface: same, smoothed.
Diameter I2 cm. Unstratified.
No. 15 Type 6. Core: buff, fairly coarse; surface: brownish-yellow to greyish wash, rather streaky.
Diameter i8 cm. A I.
No. I6 Type 6. Core: brownish-buff to pinkish, rather coarse; surface: red slip, absent on lower part
of interior. Diameter cm. B I.
17"6
No. 17 Type 6. Core: greyish to pinkish brown, fairly coarse; surface: red slip, thin on interior. Diameter
21 cm. A II.
No. 18 Type 6. Core: orange-buff, fairly coarse; surface: bright orange-red slip, very highly burnished.
Diameter 16 cm. A I.
No. i9 Type 6. Core: pinkish-buff, rather coarse; surface: dull red to yellowish slip. Diameter 26 cm.
B I.
No. 20 Type 6. Core: pinkish-buff, fairly coarse; surface: thick brown slip, reddish on interior. Diameter
22 cm. B I.
No. 21 Type 6. Core: pinkish-buff to grey, fairly coarse; surface: same, mottled. Diameter 18 cm. B I.
No. 22 Type 6. Core: brownish-buff, fairly coarse; surface: dark red slip. Diameter 12 cm. A II.
No. 23 Type 6. Core: pinkish-buff, rather coarse; surface: red slip. Diameter I5 cm. B II. PAS/61/35.
No. 24 Type 8. Core: buff, fairly coarse; surface: thick red slip; lightly burnished. Diameter 12 cm. A I.
No. 25 Type 8. Core: buff, fairly coarse; surface: red slip. Diameter 14 cm. A II.
No. 26 Type 8. Core: buff, medium coarse; surface: orange-red wash, thin on interior; finely burnished.
Diameter 7-5 cm. C II.
No. 27 Type 8. Core: greyish-buff, fairly coarse; surface: dark reddish-brown slip. Burnished. Diameter
Io cm. C II.
No. 28 Type 8. Core: pinkish-buff, slightly coarse; surface: red slip; lightly burnished; slow wheel
marks visible. Diameter 24 cm. (?) B I.
No. 29 Type 8. Core: buff, fairly coarse; surface: red slip. Diameter 8 cm. A II.
No. 30 Type 7. Core: pinkish-buff, rather coarse; surface: red slip; slightly burnished. Diameter I 3 cm.
A Ic. PAS/61/34.
No. 3x Core: buff, fairly coarse; surface: red slip; A II.
No. 32 Type 9. Core: pinkish-buff, coarse; surface: same. A Ic.
No. 33 Type 9. Core: pinkish-buff, coarse; surface: same. Diameter i cm. B II.
No. 34 Type 9. Core: pinkish-buff, coarse with small grits; surface: pinkish-red slip. Diameter 12 cm.
AII.
No. 35 Core: buff, rather coarse; surface: pink to yellow slip. Diameter 7 cm. B II.
No. 36 Core: pinkish-buff, rather coarse; surface: same, smoothed. Unstratified.
No. 37 Core: greyish-yellow, coarse with large grits; surface: same, smoothed. Diameter 6-6 cm. B II.
No. 38 Core: greyish-yellow, coarse with large grits; surface: same, smoothed. Diameter 4-5 cm. B I.
No. 39 Type 5. Core: buff; surface: same, smoothed, slow wheel marks on interior. Paint: brown. A IVa.
No. 40 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: brown. A II.
No. 41 Core: pale orange-buff, fine; surface: exterior: orange-buff slip; interior: wet smoothed only.
Paint: purplish-brown. A IIIa.
No. 42 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: exterior: wet smoothed only; interior: thin creamy-buff slip.
Paint: brown. A IVa.
No. 43 Core: Buff, rather coarse; surface: interior: wet smoothed. Paint: thick blackish-brown. Dia-
meter cm. B IVa.
9"5
No. 44 Core: whitish-buff, very fine; surface: same, slipped. Paint: dark brown. Slow wheel marks on
interior. A IVa.
No. 45 Core: creamy-buff, fine; surface: interior: wet smoothed, slow wheel marks clearly visible;
exterior: thick creamy-buff slip. Paint: brown. B IIIa.
No. 46 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: dark brown. A IIIa.
No. 47 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: purplish-brown. Unstratified.
No. 48 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: dull green. A IVa.
No. 49 Core: buff, medium fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: brown. B IVa.
No. 5o Core: buff, medium fine; surface: exterior: creamy-buff slip; interior: wet smoothed. Paint:
dark brown, flaky. B II.
Figure 9
No. I Type I. Core: pinkish-buff, fine, with small white grits; surface: thin, cream slip, thicker at top,
with slow wheel marks on interior. Paint: Reddish-brown. Diameter cm. B IVa.
23.6
PAS/6I/IO8.
No. 2 Type I. Core: greenish, with fine grits; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: brown. Diameter
cm. A IVc. PAS/61/i12.
18.3
No. 3 Type i. Core: buff, a little coarse; surface: thick cream slip. Paint: purplish-black. Diameter
I4-8 cm. B II. PAS/61/I13.
No. 4 Type i. Core: buff, fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: reddish-brown; wheel marks visible on
interior. Diameter i3 cm. B IIIb. PAS/61/1o2.
No. 5 Type I. Core: greenish-white, fairly fine; surface: greenish white slip. Paint: dark brown.
Maximum diameter 13 cm. PAS/61 /ioix.
Figure io
No. i Core: buff, slightly spongy; surface: pale buff slip. Paint: brown. Diameter 26 cm. A IVa.
No. 2 Core: creamy-buff, fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: brown. Diameter I8 cm. B IVa.
No. 3 Type I. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: same, wet smoothed,, a little spongy. Paint: brown.
Diameter 22 cm. A IVc.
No. 4 Type i. Core: buff, medium fine; surface: buff slip. Pant: thin, greenish. Diameter 22 cm.
A IVa.
No. 5 Type I. Core: pinkish-buff, fairly fine; surface: pinkish-buff slip. Paint: thin purplish-black.
Diameter 22 cm. A IIIb.
No. 6 Type I. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: pale buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only.
Paint: brown. Diameter 24-6 cm. A IVa.
No. 7 Type i. Core: pinky-buff, fairly fine; surface: pale pinky-buffslip. Paint: dark brown. Diameter
25-8 cm. A IVa
No. 8 Type i. Core: pinkish-buff, fine; surface: cream slip, thin on interior. Paint: purplish-red.
Diameter 22 cm. B IVb. PAS/6i/105. Base reconstructed from fragment from similar pot.
No. 9 Type I. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: thick cream slip. Paint: purplish-brown. Diameter
cm. A IIIb.
25"5
No. io Type I. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: yellowish-buff slip; inside, wet smoothed only.
Paint: yellowish-orange. Diameter I9 cm. B IVa.
Figure II
No. i Type 5. Core: buff, a little spongy; surface: outside: pale buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only.
Paint: brown. Diameter 14-6 cm. A IVb.
No. 2 Type 5. Core: buff, fine; surface: pale buff slip. Paint: dark purplish-brown, vitrified where
thick. A IIIb.
No. 3 Type 5. Core: buff, very fine, 2-5 cm. thick; surface: cream slip, bottom of interior wet smoothed
only. Paint: purplish-brown. Diameter cm. A IIIb. PAS/61/i io.
12"4
No. 4 Type I. Core: buff, fine; surface: cream slip, thin on interior. Paint: purplish-brown. Diameter
I8cm. B IVa.
No. 5 Type I. Core: buff, fine; surface: cream slip, thin on interior. Paint: purplish-brown. Diameter
26 cm. A IVa. PAS/61/TTo4.
No. 6 Type I. Core: greenish-buff, fine; surface: thin greenish-buff slip. Paint: green. Diameter
22 cm. B IVb.
No. 7 Type i. Core: greenish-grey to buff, fairly fine; surface: pale greenish to buff slip. Paint:
greenish-brown to greenish-black, vitrified where thick. B IVb.
No. 8 Type I. Core: pinkish-buff, fine; surface: pinkish-buff slip. Paint: reddish-brown. Diameter
22 cm. B IVa.
No. 9 Core: pinkish-buff, fine; surface: slipped, pinkish on outside, creamy on inside. Paint: thick
purplish-brown. Diameter 14 cm. A IIIb.
No. io Type i. Core: buff, fine; surface: inside: greenish-buff slip; outside: wet smoothed only. Paint:
greenish-brown, vitrified where thick. B IVa.
No. iI Type VI. Core: greenish-buff; surface: outside: same, slipped; inside: wet smoothed only.
Paint: green, " smudgy ", vitrified where thick. A IIIb.
No. 12 Type III. Core: greenish-white, medium fine; surface: greenish-white slip. Paint: dirty green.
Diameter io cm. A IVa.
No. 13 Core: creamy-white, fine; surface: cream slip. Paint: blackish-brown, flaky. Diameter io cm.
B IIIb.
No. 14 Type 5. Core: buff, slightly coarse; surface: wet smoothed only. Paint: red. Diameter I icm.
AII.
No. 15 Type I. Core: buff, slightly coarse; surface: same, wet smoothed only. Paint: black, slightly
vitrified. Diameter 20 cm. C II.
No. i6 Core: buff, slightly coarse; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: dark purplish-brown, rather flaky.
Diameter 15 cm. B II.
Figure 12
No. i Type i. Core: buff, very fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: brown, vitrified where thick.
Diameter 26 cm. A IVc.
No. 2 Type i. Core: greenish, slightly spongy; surface: thin pale green slip. Paint: greenish black.
Diameter 17-6 cm. A IVa.
No. 3 Type 3. Core: buff, medium, with small black grits; surface: creamy slip. Paint: thin purplish-
brown, a little flaky. Diameter I17cm. A IIIb.
No. 4 Type 3. Core: pinkish-buff, slightly coarse; surface: wet smoothed only, rather spongy. Paint:
dark brown, flaky. Diameter 17-8 cm. A IVa.
No. 5 Type i. Core: pale greenish-buff, medium fine; surface: greenish-buff slip. Paint: brownish-
green, vitrified where thick. Diameter 28 cm. B IVa.
No. 6 Type i. Core: buff, fine; surface: pinkish-buff slip. Paint: dark purplish-brown, thick and
rather flaky. Diameter 20 cm. A IIIa.
No. 7 Type i. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: blackish-brown. Diameter
16 cm. A IVc.
No. 8 Core: cream, very well levigated; surface: creamy slip. Paint: thick purplish-brown. A IVb.
No. 9 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip, cream on interior. Paint: brown. A IVa.
No. io Type i. Core: buff, a little spongy; surface: outside, pale buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only.
Paint: black. Diameter 22 cm. A III.
No. ii Type I. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: brownish-red. Diameter
22 cm. C II.
No. 12 Type 2. Core: buff, very well levigated; surface: buff slip. Paint: dark red. Diameter 28 cm.
AII.
No. 13 Type 2. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buffslip. Paint: dark red. Diameter 24 cm. Unstratified.
No. 14 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: creamy-buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only. Paint:
light brown. B IIIb.
No. 15 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: dark purplish-brown, flaky. A IIIa.
No. I6 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: reddish-brown. Unstratified.
No. 17 Core: buff, slightly coarse; surface: outside: creamy-buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only.
Paint: greenish-brown, vitrified where thick. Unstratified.
No. 18 Type i. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: brown. Diameter 15 cm.
A IVa.
No. I9 Type 7. Core: buff, fine, very well levigated; surface: outside: thin buff slip; inside: wet
smoothed only. Paint: light reddish-brown. Slow wheel marks very clear on interior. Maximum
diameter i5 cm. B IIIa.
No. 20 Type 7. Core: buff, fine; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: brown. Diameter 6.6 cm. at
rim. B IVa.
No. 21 Core: whitish-buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: brown. A IVc.
No. 22 Core: buff, fine; surface: paler buff slip. Paint: brown. IVa.
No. 23 Core: yellowish-buff, medium fine; surface: outside: cream slip; inside: wet smoothed. Paint:
dark brown. B IIIb.
No. 24 Type I. Core: pinkish-buff, medium fine; surface: pinkish-buff slip. Paint: purplish-brown,
flaky. Diameter 24 cm. A IVa.
No. 25 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: creamy-buff slip; inside, wet smoothed only. Paint:
dark brown. C I.
No. 26 Core: greenish, fairly fine; surface: inside: wet smoothed only; outside: whitish-green slip.
Paint: dark green, vitrified where thick. B IVa.
No. 27 Core: buff,fairlyfine; surface: whitish-buffslip.Paint: red. Diameter cm. A II. PAS/61/38.
3"4
No. 28 Potteryscraper. Core: buff; surface: buff slip. Paint: black. A I.
No. 29 Pottery peg. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: blackish-brown.L. 3-5 cm.,
W. I cm. A IVb. PAS/6I/85.
No. 30 Potterypeg. Core: pinky-buff,fine; tracesof purplishpaint on shank. L. 3-4 cm. W. 3-6 cm.
A IVb. PAS/61/84.
No. 31 Pottery peg. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: buff slip. Paint: blackish-brown. L. 2 -6 cm.
W. 2-1 cm. B IIIa. PAS/61/88.
No. 32 Pottery peg. Core: creamy-buff, fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: blackish-brown. L.
2-4 cm. W. cm. B IVb. PAS/61/86.
i.6Core:
No. 33 Pottery disc. buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: buff slip; inside: wet smoothed. Paint:
blackish-brown. Diameter 3-2 cm. Unstratified.
No. 34 Pierced pottery disc. Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: black. Diameter
2-8 cm. B IIIa. PAS/61/iI 15.
Figure 13
No. I Type VII. Core: greenish-grey, fairly fine; surface: cream to greenish slip, inside wet smoothed
only. Paint: brown to black. Maximum diameter 26 -6 cm. A IVa. PAS/6 i/ I I.
No. 2 Type I. Core: pale green, slightly coarse; surface: thin green slip. Paint: dark green, vitrified
where thick. A IVa.
No. 3 Type VII. Core: pinkish-buff, very fine, 2 cm. thick on shoulder; surface: outside: cream slip;
inside: wet smoothed only. Paint: purplish-black, rather flaky. Maximum diameter 17-8 cm.
B IVc. PAS/61/xog.
No. 4 Type I. Core: whitish-buff, slightly spongy; surface: whitish-buff slip. Paint: dark reddish-
brown. Diameter 18 cm. A II.
No. 5 Type III. Core: pinkish-buff, slightly coarse; surface: exterior: wet smoothed only; interior:
pinky-buff slip. Paint: brown. IVa.
No. 6 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: cream slip. Paint: reddish-brown. B IVa. PAS/61/I o6.
No. 7 Core: orange-buff on exterior to cream on interior, fine; surface: same, wet smoothed only.
Paint: brownish-black, thick and rather flaky. A IIIb.
No. 8 Core: creamy-buff, fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: brown. B IIIa.
No. 9 Core: buff, slightly spongy; surface: buff slip. Paint: brown. A IVb.
No. Io Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only. Paint: greenish-
brown, vitrified where thick. Pronounced slow wheel marks on interior. A IVa.
No. i i Type i. Core: pale green, slightly coarse; surface: same, wet smoothed and slightly spongy.
Paint: dull green, vitrified where thick. Diameter 24 cm. A IIIa.
No. I2 Core creamy-buff, fairly fine; surface: cream slip. Paint: dark brown. B IIIb.
No. 13 Core: pinkish-buff, slightly spongy; surface: interior: wet smoothed; exterior: paler pinkish-buff
slip. Paint: brown. A IIIa.
No. I4 Core: buff, medium fine; surface: outside: whitish-buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only. Paint:
brown. B IIIa.
No. I5 Core: buff, fairly fine; surface: outside: creamy-buff slip; inside: wet smoothed only. Paint:
dark brown, vitrified where thick. B IIIa.
Figure 14
No. i Type 5. Core: buff, a little spongy; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: greenish-brown.
Diameter 12 cm. PAS/6x/107. A IVB.
No. 2 Type I. Core: buff, a little spongy; surface: pale green slip. Paint: thin green. Diameter
32 cm. A IVB.
No. 3 Type i. Core: greenish-white, rather coarse: surface: greenish-white slip on exterior, wet
smoothed on interior. Paint: greenish-brown. A IVC.
No. 4 Type 7. Core: buff, rather coarse with small grits; surface: same, smoothed. Paint: brown.
Diameter II -6 cm. A II.
No. 5 Type 7. Core: buff, fairly well levigated; surface: creamy-buff slip on exterior, wet smoothed only
interior. Paint: brown. Diameter I5-7 cm. A IVa.
No. 6 Type 7. Core: buff, fairly well levigated; surface: buff slip on exterior, wet smoothed only on
interior. Paint: brown. Diameter 20 cm. A IVa.
No. 7 Core: creamy-white; surface same, wet smoothed. Paint: brown. Diameter 3-7 cm. B IVA.
No. 8 Core: orange-buff, hard and very well levigated; surface: same, unevenly smoothed. Diameter
56 cm. A IVc.
No. 9 Type 3. Core: pale brownish-buff, medium; surface: inside: reddish-brown slip; outside:
probably similar but worn away; slow wheel marks visible. Diameter 28 cm. A IVb.
No. io Type 3. Core: pinky orange, rather " floury "; surface: partially slipped pinkish. Paint:
blackish-brown. Diameter I8 cm. B IVa.
No. i i Type 3. Core: dark buff, fine; surface: same, wet smoothed. Paint: purplish-brown. Diameter
30 cm. A IIIa.
No. 12 Type 3. Core: creamy buff, fine; surface same, slipped. Paint: brown. B IVb.
No. 13 Type 3. Core: pinkish-buff, moderately well levigated with small pieces of grit; surface: exterior:
wet smoothed only; interior: yellowish-buff slip, rather " floury " in texture. Paint: brown.
Diameter 28 cm. A IVa.
No. 14 Type 3. Core: fairly fine, greenish; surface: greenish-white slip. Paint: blackish-brown. Wheel
marks visible on interior. Diameter 13 cm. A IVb. PAS/6 / i oo.
No. 15 Type 3. Core: fairly fine, buff; surface: pale cream slip. Paint: thin purplish-brown. Wheel
marks visible on interior. Diameter I3 cm. A IVa. PAS/61/99.
No. 17 Type 4. Core: creamy-buff, a little coarse and flaky; surface: same, smoothed. B II.
No. I8 Core: brownish-buff, hard and rather coarse; surface: greenish-white slip. Paint: black. B Ib.
No. I9 Core: pinkish-buff, a little coarse; surface: same. Paint: purplish-brown. A IVc.
No. 20 Core: pinkish, soft; surface: same, slipped. Paint: dark red. Unstratified.
No. 21 Core: buff: fairly fine; surface: creamy-buff slip. Paint: black. Slow wheel marks on exterior.
A IVa.
No. 22 Core: buff, rather coarse; surface: cream slip. A II.
British Institute of Persian Studies
Iranian Bronzes in the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney

Author(s): Judy Birmingham
Source: Iran, Vol. 1 (1963), pp. 71-82
Published by: British Institute of Persian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4299542
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71
IRANIAN BRONZES IN THE NICHOLSON MUSEUM,

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Part i
ByJudy Birmingham
Some apology is needed for the presentationof yet more " Luristan" bronzes of well-known types
without known provenance. It is hoped that the results obtained by using spectrometricanalysis on
these pieces will be considered sufficientjustification for this paper. To my knowledge this technique,
which has already yielded most interestingresultsin the field of Britishand Europeanbronzes (cf. PPS,
1959, pp. i88-208) has not been applied extensively, if indeed at all, to Near-Easternmaterial, and
there seemed a good chance that it would produce informationon early metal technology, even if it
did not add any new chronological criteria. The following work has been done in close collaboration
with the School of Metallurgy at the University of New South Wales and the CommonwealthDefence
Standards Laboratories, and thanks are due to both these institutions for the use of their facilities.'
The bronzes are a miscellaneousassortment,and were acquired by purchase. They comprisefour
daggers, two fibulae, five axes, two torcs and two armlets, a horse-bit, decorated pole-top and an ibex
mounting. On topological evidence, as shown in the catalogue below, their dates are imprecise. Of
the axes 247 (Fig. 3b) can be dated, on Ur parallels, to the mid-third millennium with some certainty,
and 245 (Fig. 3a) to the later third or early second millennium; 246 (Fig. 3d) and 244 (Fig. 3c) may
well be of first-millenniumdate from their more sophisticatedform. The daggers are more securely
dated to the late second millennium from similar inscribed examples, while the decorated bronzes,
including the iron-bladed axe, are well-known first-millennium types. The fibulae, on Nimrud
parallels, are seventh-century types; the torcs, armlets and the typologically simple horse-bit are
known in both second and first millennia.
CATALOGUE
(All measurementsare in centimetres)
Dagger (Fig. ia) 48.242
Overall length 38-4; Length of hilt i ii; Hilt to top of ricasso 7-75; Length of blade 27-2; Width of
blade at top 3.o; Depth of flange at ricasso Diameter of hole o04; Depth of decorated band 0-5.
I"3;
Hilt cast in one with blade. Cast flanges on hilt with secondary working, and a flanged pair of
wings cast on each side near junction of hilt with blade and hammered over inlay now missing. Three
of these wings are now broken. Crescentictop to hilt with flaredflangeshammeredafter casting; single
rivet hole near top of hilt. A band of incised chevronsoccursalong the outside of the flanges, and four
ridges across the top of the hilt. The blade, flat for 3 cm. below the junction with the hilt, with blunt
edges thereafter, has forged edges on both faces, leaving a thicker central section which tapers to a
point. Slight flattening on alternate faces of the blade shows the method of sharpening.
Cf. Two examples, Musde du Louvre (Godard, Bronzes du Luristan, pl. VII I6, L. cm., and
L. du L. inscribed Ninurta-nadin-shumi 37"3
17, cm.); Musde Louvre, 36 cm., (c. I140-28 B.C.)
34"2
(Pope, SurveyI, pl. 55B); Iraq VIII, 1946, Type 32, p. 36f. and pl. IV citing the following references:
British Museum 120938, L. cm., Musde du Louvre (ILN 29.I0.32, fig. 3) inscribed Marduk-
36.75
nadin-akhe (end of twelfth century B.c.), Cambridge Museum of Archaeology 34.903, L. 36"7 cm.
VIII, IV Syria XIV, 2 (end of twelfth century B.c.).
(Iraq pl. 32), I933, pl. I, fig.
1I am also indebtedto many colleaguesin Sydneyfor discussion Bronze Ltd.), Mr. Carr (D.S.L.), Mr. Sharkey and Mr.
and assistance,especiallyto Dr. Ian Ross(PhysicalChemistry), Krivohlavy (D.S.L.), and Mr. A. Malin and Mr. N. Kennan
Mr. Glasson(Geology)of SydneyUniversity,Mr. GeorgeBell (School of Metallurgy, University of New South Wales).
(Div. of Applied Physics)of C.S.I.R.O., Mr. Stead (Austral
6
Dagger(Fig. 2b) 48.240

Overall length Length of hilt Hilt to top of ricasso 9-3; Length of blade Width of
33"5;
blade at top 3-o; of at 12.o;
ricasso (max. existing) 21.5;
Depth flange I.4.
Type as last. Hilt cast in one with blade. Cast flanges on hilt with some secondary working.
Ricasso flanges worn, and no evidence of flanged pairs of wings as on last. Slightly convex top to hilt.
Blade flat for 3-o cm. below junction with hilt, with blunt edges and parallel sides, then a pronounced
taper to a point with forged edges on both faces and thicker central section. The section shows
sharpeningon alternate faces.
Dagger (Fig. Ib) 48.241
Overall length 35-5; Length of hilt Hilt to top of ricasso 9-o; Length of blade Width
of blade at top of I2.O;
at ricasso 24.5;
Depth flange I-5.
3"5;with blade. Cast
Hilt cast in one flanges on hilt, slightly hammered over, in good state of preserva-
tion. Incurved ricasso, convex top to hilt. Blade flat with blunt edges for 2 cm. below junction with
hilt, then with forged edges on both faces, leaving a thicker central section tapering gradually to a
point. The section shows sharpening on alternate faces.
Cf. IraqVIII, Type 36, p. 44f. and pl. V citing the following references: Cambridge Museum of
Archaeology 34.904, L. 34 cm., Speelers, Bulletin des Musies Royaux 3, I932, 64d; British Museum
123061, L. 36-8 cm., inscribed Marduk-nadin-akhe, BMQ VII, 1932-33, p. 44f. and pl. XVIII and
Ingholt, Hama,pl. XXV 6, level F; also British Museum L. 41-3 cm. (Vanden Berghe, pl. i1I7a, I and
p. 91). To these may be added another inscribed with the name of Marduk-nadin-akhe (Coll.
Christian Holmes, Pope, SurveyI, pl. 55D, E) and another with three runnels (Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, L. 40 cm., Pope, SurveyI, pl. 54C).
Dagger (Fig. 2a) 48.243
Overall length 21'75; Length of hilt 7-2; Width of blade at top 2-3.
Hilt cast in one with blade. Narrow square-sectionhilt with winged crescentic pommel. Three
ornamental rivets are cast into each face of the hilt, and wings are roughly indicated on either face
of the ricasso. The whole is carelesslymade, out of true, and is too small to have been effective as a
weapon.
Cf. Musde du Louvre (Godard, Bronzesdu Luristan,pl. VIII 19 and p. 38); Staatliche Museen,
Berlin, VA 10322, L. 36-5 cm. (Moortgat, Bronzegeritaus Luristan,pl. I, 2).
Axe (Fig. 3b) 48.247
Overall length of shaft of blade at cutting edge 4-2; Internal diameter of shaft hole
7"2; Height
I-8-2-0.
Tubular socket with single hammered flange at lower end and four ridges at the top extending
into the narrow part of the blade. Top of blade flat, cutting edge straight and slightly angled. Blade
narrows sharply towardsjunction with socket.
Cf. IraqXI, 1949, p. 93f., Type 4a, Cambridge Museum of Archaeology 34.911 (ibid.,pl. XXXVI
13) and less closely the Savery Collection ribbed axe (ArchaeologiaLXXXVIII, 1938, pl. LXXII c).
The dates suggested for the pieces are late third and second millennium respectively.
Axe (Fig. 3a) 48.245
Overall length of shaft Height of blade at cutting edge Internal diameter of shaft hole
The tubular socket 6"5;
has an outward curve at the back and 3.6;
pronounced flange at the top which
2.o.
has been hammered flat on the blade. The bottom of the socket is horizontal with heavy flange and
triple ridges above it. The blade is slightly splayed, the cutting edge convex showing signs of wear.
Cf. Iraq XI, Type 1o, p. 99f., especially pl. XXXIV Io from Tell Djamshidi (c. 2300-2Ioo B.C.);
also the Brussels axe (ibid., pl. XXXIX 7) and one illustrated by Dussaud, Syria XI, I930, fig. 32 and
p. 266 of the first millennium, both more elaborately decorated.
Axe (Fig. 3d)
48"246
Overall length of shaft of blade at cutting edge Internal diameter of shaft hole
6.5; Heigh 3"o; 2.o.
IRANIAN BRONZES IN THE NICHOLSON MUSEUM 73
The tubular socket has flanges top and bottom with double ridges; it rises to a point front and
back at the top, and at the bottom of the socket these points are more emphatic, that behind the
socket being extended i cm. below its opposite number. Behind the socket is a projection, while the
blade, long and narrow, flaresslightly at the cutting edge. Its rhomboidalsection is flattened towards
the edge, which is convex.
Cf. Iraq XI, Type 15a, p. 104f. and pl. XXXV 15, especially the Brussels example, Musees Royaux
0937 (ibid.,pl. XXXVIII io), but lacking the eye decoration at the base of the blade. While the type
originates in the third millennium (cf. the British Museum axe 125686, ibid., pl. XXXV 15) the
Brusselsaxe appears to be stylisticallylater.
Axe (Fig. 3c) 48.244
Overall length of shaft 7-8; Height of blade at cutting edge 3-8; Internal diameter of shaft hole 2-0o.
The tubular socket has a pointed flange at the top with two horizontal incisions at the back,
and a plain flange at the bottom. A solid cast pointed knob projectsat the back of the socket opposite
the lower end of the blade. There are five shallow moulded ridges on the lower part of the socket,
and another ridge imitating a binding encircles the knob and crossesto pass under the blade junction.
Cf. Iraq XI, Type 4a, p. 93f., especially Brussels,Musees Royaux 0984 (ibid., pl. XXXVIII 2),
which is probably first millennium from its advanced mouldings.
Axe (P1. Ib) 55.50
Overall length of shaft 6-35; Height of blade at cutting edge (existing) 18-5; Internal diameter of
shaft hole 1i6 top, 1I8 bottom.
The bronze tubular socket was cast with a tubular extension at right angles to itself opening
into a pair of palmettes. These were hammered down to grip each face of the crescentic iron blade.
A couchant lion surmounts the socket; its up-curled tail forms a continuous loop extending beyond
the socket. A rosetteis lightly incised on the shoulderand flank on one side only, which in other respects
also is the more carefully worked. An eye-shaped protrusionsurroundedby a triple ridge decorates
the socket extension and a down-curled triple-edged crescent marks the centre of the palmette on
each side. The iron blade is badly corroded but retains its original shape; an X-ray photograph
revealed no trace of decoration. An impressionin the corrosionc. I cm wide showing parallel incised
lines runs obliquely across the blade.
Cf. Iraq XI, Type B5, p. I2If., and for the type in bronze, pl. XXXVII io from the Coll. A.
Godard (Godard,BronzesduLuristan,pl. XXIII 68, also pl. XXII 67); also Staatliche Museen, Berlin,
VA 10317 (Moortgat, Bronzegerdtaus Luristan,pl. 1,3), and one in the British Museum (BMQV, 1930-I,
p. io9f. and pl. LIVa). For bronze axes of this kind with iron blades cf. Pope, SurveyI, pl. 5oA with
surmountingleopard and especially pl. 5oB with crouching lion and similar zoomorphic crescent and
palmette decoration at the junction of hilt and blade to the Nicholson axe, but more carefullyworked.
Torc (Fig. 4c) 49.50
Overall length 43-o; Maximum external diameter
I4"0.
Cast from an approximatelysquare-sectionbar not less than o0-7cm. square. Flattened interlocking
ends.
Cf. Godard, Bronzes du Luristan, pl. XXVI 78, Dm. cm., and p. 64, fig. 3, from Talish; de
15"4
Morgan, La Pre'histoireOrientaleIII, fig. 209.
Torc (Fig. 4d) 49.51
Overall length Maximum external diameter
Cast from approximately square-section bar withI3.6.
43.o;
flattened interlocking ends. More tightly twisted
than last.
Cf. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Max. Dm. 19 cm. (Pope, SurveyI, pl. 57A); Cemetery B, Tepe
Sialk (Tepe Sialk II, pl. XCIII, SI754).
Armlet (Fig. 4a) 48.250
Maximum internal diameters and
8.o 8"7.
Circular-sectionbar twisted into an ellipse with flat terminals. Central section plain, each end
decorated with five panels of incised decoration divided by a double vertical stroke, with a triple row
of chevrons at the inner limit of decoration.
Cf. Godard, BronzesduLuristan,pl. XXVI 79, Din. 9-3 cm., p. 64; Savery Collection, Archaeologia
LXXXVIII, pl. LXXIX 44 and p. 265; Cemetery B, Tepe Sialk (TepeSialk II, pl. XXVIII 13) with
open ends.
Armlet (Fig. 4b) 48.251I
Maximum internal diameters 7-7 and 8-5.
Decorated as last.
Fibula (Fig. 5a) 48.254
Overall length 3-7; Height 215-.
Triangular with ribbed and beaded mouldings on each arm. Double-coiled spring, and catch-plate
in the form of conventionalized hand. Pin broken.
Cf. Seventh-century example of Nimrud, Iraq XXI, I959, pl. LI I, with which the moulding of
our fibula is identical. Cf. also op. cit., Type III, 7.
Fibula (Fig. 5b) 48.255
Overall length 3-65; Height 1i-85
Triangular, similar to last but with slightly different moulding. Spring and pin broken. (The
spring of this fibula has been slightly damaged since the drawing was made.)
Horse-bit (P1. IIb) 49.52
Overall length Height of side piece I -1.75; Width at top of side piece
21.o;bit is a 4"4.
The single piece square-sectionrod beaten flat at either end into spirals turning in opposite
directions. The side pieces consist of flat-section openwork panels, with a circular hole in the centre
of each, through which the bit passes. Six prongs on either side-piece imply that these must originally
have been attached to leather backings.
Cf. Legrain, LuristanBronzesin theUniversityMuseum,Philadelphia,pl. XVI 58 and p. 18, where the
side-pieces are openwork rectangles with six spikes each. For more elaborate development of this
type cf. Godard, BronzesduLuristan,pls. XLI-XLVII and Pope, SurveyI, pls. 28-38, etc.
Chariotpole or standard-top (P1. IIa) 48.248
Overall height Io-6; Internal diameter of hole at top o-8; at bottom
o.6.
Depicts in conventionalized form a figure between two beasts. The central tubular socket is treated
anthropomorphically, the forelegs of the two beasts also forming human hands, and genitalia appear
to be indicated. The beasts are treated more realistically, with tails hanging down behind the hind-
quarters and forming loops at the base. There are no subsidiary animal heads curving back from
their necks as are frequently found, and stylistically this appears either early or simple work. Both
sides are equally carefully worked.
Cf. Coll. Leigh Ashton, Ht. 14-0 cm. (Pope, SurveyI, pl. 45B); two examples in the Musee du
Louvre, Hts. iO-6 and cm. (Godard, BronzesduLuristan,pl. L 187-8); Coll. David Weill (Vanden
Berghe, pl. 121a); Coll. I2.I
Graeffe, Ht. 36-o cm. (ibid., pl. I2Ib).
Ibex mounting(P1. Ia) 48.253
Maximum width Maximum height
seen from the side with 3.8.
The animal is 3.o; stylized head turned forward, and the back is flattened with
two broken projections for mounting.
Conclusions
The bronzes were analyzed spectrographically using a pulsed arc technique on a Hilger large quartz
spectrograph, a process which left only a very slight mark on the objects. Percentages over 5 o are
difficult to measure with accuracy by this method, and bronzes with a high tin content were analyzed
chemically.2
The results are set out in the table below; figures obtained by chemical analysis are marked with
an asterisk.
* Tin analyses were carried out at the Defence Standards Laboratories by Mr. G. Carr.
Pl. Ia. Ibex mounting48.253
Pl. Ib. Iron and bronze axe 55.50

5
5
4
4
3
3
2 CI
On
1
Cm
Pl. IIa. Standard-top 48.248
Pl. IIb. Horse-bit 49.52
Sn Pb Ag Sb Bi As Ni Fe Zn
Axe 48.247 '2 I 01

-o 05 2-'5 '5
"4 '5-1-o
Armlet 48.250 I -o0 I *05

2.o ?1 .o5 ?I
Armlet 48.251 2o0i *05 oo0 i o01
. .I
Horsebit 49.52 *6.2 I 01 1 0
o o05 .05 o5
Axe 48.244 *13.-1 I *2--3 01 I *2 *2
" "2
Dagger 48.242 * 1 - I
o10.3 -05 0o5
?1 ?x
Dagger 48.240 *13.5 - -
o01 -o -o 0o5
?I
Dagger 48-241 *13'9 '05 '05 -o01 - I 05
-o01
Dagger 48.243 *11 o *05 I o01 - o01 I -o01
Torc 49.50 *8.2 *2 2 '3

-2 ?I ?I .2
Torc 49.51 *7-6 1*o -I -I *3 -05 '2
"2
Axe 48.245 *12.8 I-o *2 o01x 0o5 '3 '2 2
Axe 48.246 *8-3 i -0o -2 3 1i 2

?I
?1 ?
Standard top 48.248 * 10o.5 3-o
?I .2 o5 o5 '0o5
Ibex mounting 48.253 *1 I I
50o I0o o5 'I "3
"2 ?
Axe 55.50 *11*2 10O *o5 I *0O5 'I I '2
Fibula 48-254 *I I *3
I"2 x 0o '05 '05 '05 I *0o5
Fibula 48.255 *1 1.2 i-o0 -05 05 *05 '1 3 0o5
?I ?
It must be emphasized that the number of pieces examined is small and any conclusions are rather
in the form of hypotheses for future guidance. They show that further work in this field, allied to
an investigation into the distribution of different copper ores, can yield interesting results, although
the necessity to keep the objects intact prevents any detailed metallographic examination.3 So far
there are few comparative figures from Iran, although Pope quotes Desch's analyses of eight pieces
(Pope, SurveyI, p. 278), and figures for the earlier periods are available from Tepe Sialk, Tepe Hissar
and Tepe Giyan.4 Other referencesare given in the bibliography at the end of this paper.
The most significant of the elements traceable in ancient bronzes appear to be nickel, arsenic,
sometimes antimony, tin and lead, where they occur accidentally, since copper ores rich in each of
these can be traced, in theory at least. The other elements traced occur too commonly in copper ores
to be significant, like iron, or else are usually associated with one of these five, as silver or bismuth-
* A Luristan dagger in the possession of the writer has recently University of New South Wales, School of Metallurgy, as to its
been thoroughly examined by Messrs. Malin and Kennan of the mode of manufacture, and a detailed report is in preparation.
arsenic-antimony with lead. With quantities over 5 % or 6 %, it is safe to assume that tin has been
added intentionally, and in certain instances lead also may have been added to the alloy.
The nickel and arsenic content in most of the objects examined here is too constant and too low
to be significant, apart from excluding the nickeliferousores of Arghana in Turkey, and others like
it in East Turkey and North Iran. The axe 247 (Fig. 3b), however, of a common Ur type is excep-
tional, and the high nickel and arsenic content accounts for the somewhat surprising hardness (150
Vickers, in an as-cast condition) of what is technically an impure copper rather than a bronze.
The tin content is more revealing. It varies from accidental bronzes of o0-2% and 2'O% to high-
grade bronzes of I3'9 % tin. The higher the tin percentage up to about 15%, the harder, stronger and
more corrosion-resistantthe resulting bronze, while still apparently allowing both hot and cold-working
of the comparatively primitive forms used in antiquity.5 Significantly then the highest tin content is
found in the daggers and axes, where such qualities are most desirable. The daggers particularly are
high-quality bronzes of almost uniform standard, and the blades of this group, where they have been
examined metallographically,show evidence of forging on each edge. It may be significant that they
are all closely datable to the twelfth-eleventh centuries; the axes 244 (Fig. 3c) and 245 (Fig. 3a), also
high in tin, may well both be late second or early first millennium in date, and the discovery of the
value of high-tin bronze may well have been comparatively late in Iran. Similar alloys are found at
Tepe Giyan in level I, also of the second millennium. Neither of the other axes (246, Fig. 3d, and
247, Fig. 3b) respectively of the early second and third millennia is of this quality, although 246, with
8-3 %tin, must certainly be considered an intentional bronze. However, axe 245 with I2-8 %tin may
equally be considerably earlier on its Tepe Giyan parallel and this is a hypothesis which needs much
additional evidence. Another interesting point about the daggers is that they are of surprisingpurity,
a fact which would have facilitated hot-working on the blades; this suggests that either the ores were
hand-picked before smelting, or more probably that native metal was used. Coghlan points out that
a good source of native copper was being mined near Arghana until quite recently.6
As may be expected, the ornamental bronzes are not all of such high quality. The tin content
is sufficient to facilitate casting, and to give reasonable hardness, but there is no wastage. There is
some uncertainty in the dating of several of these objects, notably the torcs and armlets, and even the
horse-bit is stylistically if not chronologically earlier than the first millennium; and the analyses so
far shed little light on this problem. Even after the introduction of high-tin-content bronzes, inferior
alloys would naturally continue to be produced. The torcs, horse-bit, fibulae and standard-top all
contain more than 6 %tin, and can be presumed intentional bronzes, but the armlets and the axe 247
(Fig. 3b) suggest a stanniferouscopper or a natural combination of tin and copper ores as the source of
their tin.
The lead content is also of interest. While the majority of the bronzes are low in lead, several,
especially of the later group, contain as much as I %,while the standard-top and ibex mounting have
3.-o0%and 5 -o% respectively. Only in the ibex mounting, with its low tin content (1.2%), does it
seem likely that the lead was added intentionally, and even here it is by no means certain. In spite of
the popular belief that lead was added in antiquity to compensate for a growing shortage of tin, lead
adds little to a bronze even if the tin supply is decreased. Consequently the higher lead contents can
best be explained as accidental, with the possible exception of the two most ornate pieces, the standard-
top and the ibex mounting. In each of these a slightly softer alloy would assist the bronze-smith in
cutting the final detail of the decoration.7 From Nos. 245, 246, 55.50, 254 and 255, however, there is
evidence of the use of copper ores rich in lead apparently being exploited from the end of the twelfth
century onwards. Once again it is the investigation of the distribution of these significant ores which
is now needed.8
STepe Sialk II, p. 205f.; Tepe Giyan, p. 135f.; Tepe Hissar, 6 H. Coghlan, Prehistoric Metallurgyof Copper, Ant.J., 1942, p.26.
PP. 359-360. Desch's analysis of a standard-top also showed a high lead
SUnder modern conditions it is not considered practicable to content (33 lead, tin) (Pope, SurveyI, p. 278).
cold.work bronze with more than 7%• tin, or to hot-work it 8 I am indebted for Ix-1•%
the drawings and photographs of these
unless the tin content lies between the limits o %-5~% or bronzes to Mr. Derek Howlett and Mr. Richard Harding, both
20%•-25%•,cf. D. Hanson and W. T. Pell-Walpole, Chill-Cast of the Technical Department of the Department of Archaeology,
Tin Bronzes,p. 317f. University of Sydney.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aitchison, L.: A Historyof Metals I (London, I96o). Stronach,D.: The developmentof the fibula in the Near East,
Coghlan, H. H.: Some FreshAspectsof the PrehistoricMetal- Iraq XXI, 1959, p. 18if.
lurgy of Copper, Ant. J. XXII, 1942, p. 22f. Vanden Berghe, L.: Archiologiede l'Iran ancien (Leiden, 1959).
Coghlan,H. H.: Notes on the PrehistoricMetallurgyof Copper Przeworski,S.: LuristanBronzesin the Collectionof Mr. Frank
and Bronze in the Old World, OccasionalPaperson Technology4 Savery, British Consul-General at Warsaw, Archaeologia
(Oxford, 1951). LXXXVIII, 1938, p. 229f.
Coghlan, H. H.: The Evolutionof the Axe from Prehistoricto
Roman Times, Man, JRAI LXXIII, I943, p. 27f.
Analyses
Forbes, R. J.: Metallurgyin Antiquity(Leiden, 195o).
Braidwood,R.: Ancient Syrian Coppersand Bronzes,Journal
Hanson, D., and Pell-Walpole,W. T.: Chill-CastTin Bronzes of ChemicalEducationXXVIII, 1951, pp. 87-96.
(London, 1951).
Burton Brown, T.: Man XL, I950, p. 4If. (Geoy Tepe).
Limet, H.: Le travaildu mital au pays de Sumer(Les Belles Lettres,
Paris, i96o). Contenau, G., and Ghirshmann,R.: Fouilles de Tepe Giyan
(Paris, 1935), p. I35f:
British MuseumQuarterlyV, 193o-I, p. Io9f.
Delougaz, P.: The TempleOvalat Khafajah(O.I.P. LIII, Chicago,
British MuseumQuarterlyVII, 1932-3, p. 44.
1940), p. 151f.
Contenau,G., and Ghirshmann,R.: Rapport Pr6liminairesur Ghirshman, R.: Fouillesde Sialk II (Paris, 1939), p. 205f.
les fouilles de Tepe Giyan, Syria XIV, 1933, p. if., pl. I 2.
Lucas, A.: AncientEgyptianMaterialsandIndustries(London, 1948,
Dussaud,R.: Hachesi douillede type asiatique,SyriaXI, 193o, 3rd edn.), p. 54of.
P. 245f.
Schmidt, E.: Excavationsat Tepe Hissar, Damghan (Philadelphia
Godard, A.: Bronzesdu Luristan(Paris, 1931). 1937), PP. 359-60.
Ingholt, H.: Rapportsur les campagnesdefouilles de Hama en Syrie Smith, M. A., and Blin-Stoyle,A. E.: A sample analysisof
(Rapportprdliminairesur la premierecampagneet Rapportpri- BritishMiddle and Late BronzeAge materials,using optical
liminairesur septcampagnesdefouilles) (Copenhagen, 1934 and
spectrometry, PPS, 1959, p. I88f.
194o).
Speiser, E.: Excavationsat Tepe Gawra I (Philadelphia, 1935),
Legrain, L.: LuristanBronzesin theUniversityMuseum(Philadelphia, p. o0f.
1934). Von der Osten, H.: The Alishar Hiyiik: Seasonsof -93o-2 III
Maxwell-Hyslop,K. R.: Daggersand Swordsin WesternAsia, (O.I.P. XXX, Chicago, 1937), pp. 338-9.
Iraq VIII, 1946, p. If. O.I.P. XXX, Chicago, 1937), PP- 359-6o.
Maxwell-Hyslop,K. R.: Shaft-holeAxes in WesternAsia, Iraq
XI,1949, p. 9o0f. Woolley, C. L.: Ur II: The Royal Cemetery(London & Phila-
delphia, 1934), pp. 284-98.
Moortgat, A.: Bronzegerdtaus Luristan(Berlin, 1932). Ur IV: The Early Periods (London & Philadelphia, 1956),
Pope, A. Upham: A Surveyof PersianArt, Vols. I-IV (London, pp. 164-5.
1938-58). British Associationfor the Advancementof Science, 1928, p. 437?f;
Speelers, L.: BulletindesMuslesRoyauxd'Artet d'Histoire,I-3, 1932. I929, p. 264f.; 193o, p. 267f.; 1931, p. 269f.
Fig. ia. Dagger 48.242 : 2
Fig. ib. Dagger 48.241 I1: 2

Fig. 2a. Dagger 48.243 2 : 3
Fig. 2b. Dagger 48.240 2: 3

Fig. 3a. Axe 48.245 2 :3
Fig. 3b. Axe 48.247 2 :3
Fig. 3c. Axe 48.244 2 :3
Fig. 3d. Axe 48.246 2 :3
Fig. 4a. Armlet48.250 2:3
Fig. 4b. Armlet48.251 2: 3
Fig. 4c. Torc49.50 2:3
Fig. 4d. Torc49.51 2:3
Fig. 5a. Fibula 48.254 2: I
Fig. 5b. Fibula 48.255 2 9:
83
THE FUNCTION OF RELIGION IN PERSIAN SOCIETY'
By B. J. Spooner
Observations on the religious aspect of rural life made during periods of
residence and travel in the north, east and south of Persia between 1959 and 1962.
AreasVisited
Main periods of residence during the above period were within the limits of the bakhshofJajarm
and the shahrestdn of Gunabdd in A short period has also been spent in the villages around
Lasht e Nesha in Gilan. OtherwiseKhorasmn.
the main route of survey has been southwards from Gundbad,
through Qa'enat (including Asadabad to the east and Khisf and Khor to the west), SIstan and
Balfichistan, to the coast and Dashtidrl in the Makran; thence westwards along the coastal plain
through Chthbahlir, the mobile villages of Kahir and Bir, Bandinl, Jask, Sirlk, Kfihestdk, Minab,
Bandar Abbds, and through the Bandderas far as Bushire; thence to Shirdz and acrosscountry through
Nairiz and Slrjan to Kermin and Bam; and lastly, north-west from Bam to Gik and Shahdid
(formerly Khabis), north-east across the Lilt to Fedeshk and Knor, north-west again through Dihik
to Tabas and down to Yazd.
Purpose
The purpose of the journey was to observe the practice of the established or majority religion of
each particular area-generally the Ja'farl Shi'a, but Sunni, for example, in Balichistan. Little
attention was paid to sects and creeds outside the pale of the majority religion of a particular area, or
to cities and large towns where official religious teaching, politico-religiousconsiderations,or " dkhund-
bdzi", might influence the religion of the ordinary people unduly. The intention was to study the
majority religion in its own community as unaffected as possible by foreign and modern influences and
alien contacts, i.e. in conditions
whereit was notself-conscious,
and thereby to make a contribution to the
study of Persian at
society large by an attempt to see the function of the religion within it.
The MosqueandtheMulld
The average Muslim community is perhaps generally pictured as being centred, religiously if not
socially, on the local mosque. The situation in the following villages, whose populations range from
approximately 6,ooo in Jajarm to as little as 50ooin some of the villages around Lasht e Nesha, may
serve as a guide to the validity of this impression.
(i) Ja-jarmhas a total of eight mosques, built mainly in the last century or earlier when the district
was apparently much more prosperous. Only one is now in regular use. Most of the remainder
are in various stages of ruin. The community is served by three resident mullas, two of whom
are native.
(ii) Mehnd, which is rather smaller, has two mosques, but no resident mulla.
(iii) Khor has one mosque and one resident mullt.
(iv) In the district of Lasht e Nesha in Gtlin not one of five villages visited had a resident mullt,
though each community had its mosque.2 According to the local people there had been
mullas there until five years ago, but, owing to a drop in the standard of living due to the
shortage of water, the people were no longer able to support them, and they had gone elsewhere.
'The method used in the transliteration of names and author to be more suited to the nature of the article.-Editor
technical terms in this article is designed to represent 2 The village mosque in this area, however, is without a mihrdb,
modern Persian pronunciation, this being considered by the and is known not as a mosque, but as a tekyd. Cf. footnote 25.
e4
S(
AM# IL. S. S. R.
. " CASP. SEA
kz AReB b b. *
M
.* * M
oiiii'e"
/ s.Tehr An
AA- *shhTai..
.Qum .Mehne I
Gungbid. kaimorgh \
/Kikhk
*.Tabas 7
r1.As'adma~b
s .ot*DhfI1L
Whur0
0oBirjandd
* *Sht
.Yazd
*Sire*1i... Left"**
e
elMAdar 0Sbah~dd/ Z
olrmian
....o4v%" Sulainiman .
o~/iz "(........
Bushire ?th.
*Qatru e\a
NtiriztMn
Tdhiri
Bandar
Ma J7
*
F._s osd+
9 go 190 lXo 2
5,
U
&014A 13 IA-
Fig. i. article.
in theaccompanying
Map of Iranshowinglocationof placesmentioned
THE FUNCTION OF RELIGION IN PERSIAN SOCIETY 85
However, in periods of particular religious significance, such as Ramazdn and Muharram, all
villages (except the very smallest), both those with resident mullas and those without, appear to receive
visits from mullds and tulldb3from the towns.
Where there are no mullds there may be a darvish,a du'd nevis, or a qur'dn-khdn.At least somewhere
within tolerably easy reach there will normally be someone with some form of religious designation.
The du'd nevIs writes charms; the qur'dn-khdn,though probably illiterate, chants passages from the
Qur'an at funerals, and is often mordehshfir as well-he washes the dead. The darvishhas claims to
mysticism and may be of no fixed abode. There may be friction between him and any mullas. There
is usually something mysterious about the darvish, and mystery always attracts the ordinary man in
the hope that it may be a short cut to divine favour.4
Finally there are the sayyids, descendants of the Prophet, who would appear to fulfil no particular
function in the life of the community, except in so far as their presence is a continual reminder to the
community of the relevance of the Prophet and Islam to them. The sdyyidis a more valuable specimen
of humanity, for he is dearer to the Prophet than his fellows, ceterisparibus. Therefore, a man who had
a sayyid as a servant would feel guilty if he beat him. Kindness to a poor sayyid carries with it a special
savdb, and poor sayyids may be chosen to carry out various ceremonies connected with averting the
evil eye,5 and other religious or quasi-religious functions.
There is, of course, no official clergy in Islam. There is no closely knit hierarchical organization
which it would be possible to refer to, in comparison with European situations, as " The Church ".
Many villages-even quite large ones-do not have mullds. However, in the normal village, which
does have one or more, the mulld may have land, and so a private income, or may work, but would
more normally live off the community and many communities are too poor to support them. In
Jajarm it was estimated that the two mullds who, practically speaking, live off the community receive
about I,ooo t6mdnsper year each from the people,6 though it is doubtful whether the estimate is reliable.
Normally the mulld will belong socially to the lower strata of society. He will have received more
formal education than his neighbours, but this will normally have been limited to the study of the
Qur'dn and cognate subjects. His position in his community will depend more on his personal
qualities than custom or precedent, but whatever his personal qualities he will tend to start at a
disadvantage, for he is, either more or less, a parasite. His ex officio activities include a khutb6or
sermon in the mosque on Fridays, reading rozd as required, and officiating at weddings, etc. Outside
these functions he may be despised or he may be respected, he may be a man of considerable social
power (through ownership of land or family connections) or he may not. He may be quite enlightened
and scholarly with a genuine interest in and knowledge of the history of his locality. He may spend
a large amount of his time in a pedantic study of Arabic, Islamic tomes.
In proportion to the amount of respect and social power he enjoys, he may bring the generality of
the local population closer to, and make them more dependent on, the religion of the mosque and the
historical principles and tradition of Shi'ite Islam. For the most conspicuous religious act in the life
of the community is, of course, the regular, set prayers. The illiterate peasant has little idea of their
meaning, but this is not important. The important thing is that, in the first place, at intervals
throughout the day they direct the believer's attention towards his God and the religion he confesses,
and, secondly, by punctuating the day and the day's work for him-as sunrise, noon and sunset, they
become an integral part of daily life. In Shi'ite Islam these prayers need never be corporate, and there
is no compulsion to attend the mosque, even on Fridays. One result of this is that in the ordinary
Shi'a village the mosque is often a prestige building rather than a religious functional necessity, and is
STheological students. denotes the follower of a particular tariqat-generally the one

in Gunabad.
4 In the East of Persia the term darvishis applied to occasional 5 See below " The Evil Eye ".
wandering mendicants with religious pretensions and little or 6
no connection with the official religion; while the term sifl] ?47 Ios.
SSee below " Roz6-khAni ".
regularly attended only by the old people and the excessively devout. Any improvement on this
congregation depends on the personal qualities of the preaching mulld. In these circumstancesthe
mosque tends to function as the symbol of the religious persuasion of the village-of the fact that it
is a Muslim village. And for this reason the community as a whole is conscious of a duty towards the
upkeep of the mosque. Now the respected, powerful, capable mulla may make full and efficient use
of this type of consciousnessin the community, attract them more and more to the mosque by his
preaching, and consequentlyperhapsraise their moral and religiousstandardsby appeal to the religious
law of Islam. So the mulli who is really good at his job has it within his power to focus the religious
attention of the community on the mosque and the strict, traditionalreligion of rulesfor which it stands.
It would appear that this situation does not occur over frequently to any conspicuousdegree. But
the mulla (supported perhaps by the will be the only power in the village to attract the com-
munity in this direction. He will seldom have
h.jjis) much obvious connection with the local shrine, and the
conflict between the two directions is sometimes quite patent. For instance, in the architectural plan
of the village the mosque may occupy a more peripheral site or the shrine may be by far the more
sumptuous and conspicuousbuilding.8
It may be that the main importanceof the mosqueis that it providesa place for assemblyand a pulpit
from which the community may be corporately taught. For outside the mosque there is no provision
for any corporate activity above the level of the family and the personal relationship pattern.9 And
attendance at the mosque is optional. In Islam all believers are essentially equal before God. In the
Shi'a, which has no prescribed provision for corporate activity, religion becomes essentially private,
and the importance of the personal relationship9in the social structureis emphasized.
Rzze-khdni,Savdb,Du'd, Nazr
The following are religious functions and terms which may be considered essential parts of the
ritual and practised religion, but which have no defined connections with the mosque-the official
house of worship.
The rize-khdnd can best be described as an intoned exposition or interpretation, by one practised
in the art, of the general faith, of which the climax and major part will be concerned with the passion
and death of Husain,x10 or some related aspect of the Muharam story. It is calculated to arouse the
emotions of the gathered faithful, who will weep profusely (as they would in ordinary mourning). It
may last as little as ten minutes or as much as an hour. Those who gather round to hear the recital,
which can be moving in the extreme, in fact rehearse their faith and deepen their sympathy with
Husain and his companions in their suffering, and thereby gain a savdb,i.e. become eligible for a
spiritual reward in heaven.
This is, of course, only one method of obtaining a savdb. Another obvious way is the ordinary
good turn, particularlyin respect of the poor and orphans. Savdbis the exact opposite of gundh: sin.
The term du'd may be understood in the same sense as the popular use of the word prayer in
English, and the term nazrmay be translatedvow. The believer will make a du'd-prayer for something
-and at the same time will make a nazr-will vow-that if the prayer be fulfilled, he will, for instance,
make the pilgrimage to Kerbala, or finance so many r6z6-khdni.
8
E.g. Masill in Glldn. son will not smoke in the presence of his father, or even of his
SIn Persia, society is bound together almost exclusively by the elder brother. Each member of the family seems to feel he has
personal relationship, which takes the form of a deep, to insist on constant recognition of his status for the sake of
unquestioningly loyal friendship and provides the links between his personal security.
families, which are the basic units of society. The only thing Outside these two types of relationship all relations between
a man can definitely rely on outside his own family circle is individuals are governed by a comprehensive system of verbal
such a friendship, which naturally becomes the more intense and behavioural etiquette, known as ta'druf (this is far more
because of the greater need of social security, which in a sovereign than its western counterpart, because of the greater
western society is provided rather by institutions and a need for it), the aim and function of which is to eliminate
relatively sovereign respect for the law. surface friction in social relations and prevent the loss of
The relationship within the family itself is less secure: a " face ".
senior member will expect a definite display of respect from any 10The Third Imam and Prince of Martyrs who died on the field
member junior to him. For instance, the junior member must of KerbalA. See below "Days of especial religious signifi-
be the first to greet, otherwise no greeting will take place. A cance in the yearly cycle ".
Sin (gundh)
The conception of sin in Persian rural society is closely linked with the norm in outward conduct.
Inward things are little concerned. Love has nothing to do with it. A man is much freer than, say,
his Christian counterpart, who, however hard he tries, knows he has no hope of living quite as he
ought. He must live by the law of the Qur'dn and the Prophet. He must pray in certain ways at
certain times; he must fast in Ramazin; and, being Shi'a, he must be filled with sympathy for Husain
and identify himself with the " party" of the Holy Family. In the law he is not asked to do anything
unreasonable. Everything is quite logical and moderate. He is never required to forego his pride and
turn the other cheek, or love his enemy." And if he keeps the law he goes to paradise, i.e. he is not a
sinner. There is no original sin to impede his progress.
The most important sin for the ordinary Shi'a villager is that he or she should fall behind in prayer
or fasting-should fail in the obvious routine of the law. It is the only thing responsibilityfor which
would never be attributed to destiny (sarnevesht).For it is the one thing which depends on the individual,
with no reference to the particular community he lives in.
The Foregiveness of Sins: ShrinesandPilgrimage

A Shi'a Muslim, who feels he is guilty of sin, of not living as God through his Prophet and the
Qur'dn informed him that he should, must place his hope in finding favour with the Imams and
" saints ", who will then intercede for him with God at the Resurrection. Even if he is not particularly
conscious of sin, he will, if he is devout, seek the favour of the Imams and visit their shrines, simply
for the sake of the love he has and knows he should have for them, for they are nearer to God than
he himself can ever be. Some of these shrines have a universal appeal, e.g. that of the Imam Reza
at Meshed, his sister Fdteme at Qum, and Husain at Kerbald. Then there are a multitude of localized
sons and relatives of Imams and holy men, known and reverenced only in small particular districts
and villages, where modest shrines have been constructed for them over their tombs.
The normal means of obtaining the favour required is pilgrimage. The main pilgrimage in Islam
is, course, the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is enjoined once in a lifetime on all the faithful
of
with the means to perform it. But, perhaps because of this proviso, and the means required for the
journey from Persia to Mecca, the haJjhas become very much a prestige symbol. Every devout Shi'a
on the other hand would like to be able to go to Kerbald, and many do. Meshed and Qum are
perennially full of pilgrims. But within easy reach of practically every community in Persia, however
small, a shrine of some sort is to be found. If it is actually in a village it will never be empty for long.
Even if it is several miles from the nearest village there will always be evidence of attention paid to it.
Very often only the name of the holy man, whose reputed tomb the shrine is, is known and often there
are variants on this also.
The following is a random selection of shrines in the east and south of Persia:
Khordsdn
(i) One kilometre to the south-east ofJajarm stands a small dilapidated shrine known by the name
of Khajti Mahziyar or 'All ibn Mahziyar, of whom nothing is remembered. Although no attempt has
been made to repair it for some time, it still fulfils a definite function in the religious life of the district.
(ii) At Kakhk there is an important shrine dedicated to a brother of the Imam Reza-Sultan
Molhammad. This shrine is particularly popular during the three-day festival of Barat which precedes
the birthday of the Twelfth Imam. Coaches bring people from the surrounding district, including
Meshed itself. Gypsies and beggars pour in, and the third day culminates in a firework display.
(iii) Baimorgh has a small shrine dedicated to the Imam Reza.
(iv) Mehn6 contains the tomb of the mystic Shaikh Abli Sa'id Abi'l-Khair (A.D. 967-1o49), which
is used as a shrine.
x1This is an argument frequently offered to prove the superiority of Islam over Christianity.
7
(v) Gunbdbd itself has two shrines: one opposite Mend known as Pir Kallk, i.e. Pir va Kallk (the
pr and the Head), for legend has it that besides being the grave of a pfr the head of Husain's son
Qdsim was also buried there.
(vi) The other, known as Ddru'sh-Shaf- or Qadamgdh in Delui, is built over the spot where in
an old man's dream 'All, the first Imam and son-in-law of the Prophet, was seen to place his foot.
Qd'endt
(vii) At Khor, some 6o miles west of Birjand and a veritable island in the north-east corner of the
Dasht e Lit, there is a shrine known by the name of Khaje Nasir. The shrine is in ruins, and there
is no evidence of any attention being paid to it. The people also tell of another shrine having existed
there dedicated to a certain Khaje 'Abdullah, of which no trace now remains. It would appear to
be exceptional for a community to have allowed its shrine to fall into complete neglect without having
an alternative focus for their religious attentions elsewhere in the vicinity.
The village of Khor is also interestingfor the fact that it has a large number of long qandts,popularly
said to number seventy-two, all in a state of disrepair and neglect, while the local population occupy
themselves almost exclusively with their flocks. No attempt is made at agriculture. Though all admit
it would be a rewarding activity in the district, they say they do not know how to cultivate the land.
The present population may almost be described as semi-nomadic, the visible village being a base for
operations. In the Hudid al-'Alam Khor is mentioned together with Khfsf (Khisb) as obtaining its
water from qandts,and the wealth of the inhabitants being chiefly in cattle-as early as A.D. 982. It
is possible that the shrines were built by a previous generation which also built or kept up the qandts,
but no information was available which would suggest a reason for the neglect of both shrines and
qandts,except perhaps that the Ismailis at one time had considerable power in the area.12 The fact
that the community is of semi-nomadic character may be relevant. Religion is reckoned generally to
be less conspicuous among nomads.13 However, FredrikBarth in his book " Nomads of South Persia "
mentions that many points along the migration route of the Basseri " are marked with shrines in the
form of the graves of holy men. Few of these have any great significance to the nomads, but they
usually pray or show respect as they pass by, though they often have no name, and rarely any myth
about the actions of the Saint who was buried there. Nor do any of these shrines serve as centres
around which large groups congregate. Individuals may seek such shrines for prayers and special
requestsfor help and support from the dead Saint; in the southern areas of winter dispersalare several
shrines which are visited by nomads and villagers alike."'4
The tribe whose migrational trail passes through the valley of Pasargadae in the province of Fars
pay attention to shrines to the extent that on arriving at the tomb of Cyrus they drive their flocks
around it three times before passing-in the fashion of the Islamic ritual of tavdf(tawwdf).
The village next to the tomb of Cyrus is known as Madar e Solaimdn-Solomon's Mother-and
the local population regard the tomb as that of Solomon's Mother, and treat it as a shrine. There
is no other place of religious significance in the area, not even a mosque in the village, and there are
no mulls. The people would call themselves orthodox Shi'a. RamazTn In the months of and
Muharram, as in most villages, mullas are imported for held at the tomb, and outside these
rJz6-khdni
months, owing to the lack of any other focus for the people's religious attention, religious activity
beyond the set prayers is apparently confined to du'd and weddings at the tomb. The procession on
'Ashura,'5 headed by the usual 'alam, is once again attracted by the tomb, and like the nomads performs
a three times round it. Inside the tomb an Islamic mihrdbhas been carved and inscribed with
the.tavdf
first part of the " Victory " sura of the Qur'an, and the usual pieces of cloth tied to nails and sticks
stuck into the wall abound, tokens of vows. It would appear then that this is a place which has long
a1There is a largish ruined fort in the centre of the village. 14 Fredrik Barth: Nomads SouthPersia, Oslo
of 1961, p. 137-
a13Since the most conspicuous feature of nomadic life is the
16See below " Days of especial religious significance in the
migratory routine, the religious routine must be an integral and
subsidiary part of this-if it is possible to distinguish between yearly cycle ".
the two.
attracted reverence almost irrespective of or separate from, and perhaps previous to, the established
religion-though the entry into this context of the Mother of Solomon remains a " mystery ".
(viii) At Khfisf (coupled with Khor in the Hudadal-'Xlam), between Khor and Birjand, a new
building has recently been constructed over the old gravestone of Mauland Mulld Muhammad ibn
Hisdm (780-870 A.H.), and this is also taking on the functions of a shrine.
Balachistdn-Makrdn
In the south of Balichistdn, the Makrdn, although the people are Sunni, there is little outward
differencein this aspect of religious behaviour. For instance in Dashtiari, the easternpart of the coastal
plain which stretches across the artificial border into Pakistani Balichistan, there are two important
shrines.
(ix) One of these lies 7 miles from Rlmdan, and is dedicated to a Shaikh Portos, an ancestor of
Shaikh Cheragh, the present holy man in the district and the leader of the " setri" sect.'6
(x) While the other lies some 18 miles from RImddn, within sight of the border, and would seem
to be more important. It is dedicated to a certain Shah Husain, about whom the only information
available was that he had been a sayyid.
(xi) In Chdhbahdritself there is a shrine to a certain Ghuldm Rastil, which according to the local
people had been built by a group of men from Hyderabad in Pakistan about I io years ago. Ghuldm
Raslil was a sayyidwho died at Chdhbaharon his way to Mecca to perform the hajj, and ordered that
after his death a wedding celebration of eight days' duration should be held for him each year on the
anniversaryof his death, since he had planned to marry on his return from the hafjj.This shrine would
appear then to have been built and at first controlled by foreigners,in honour of a foreigner. Gradually
the festival attracted and included the local population-who are themselves a very motley mixture
anyway-and still flourishes, although apparently forgotten in Hyderabad.
(xii)But Chahbahar also has another shrine, perhaps less imposing in its appearance, but receiving
just as much regular attention from the ordinary people. And this is built over a mile outside the town
on the point which divides the Sea of Oman from the relatively large bay of Chahbahar, and it is
dedicated to Khezr (Khidr). It is in fact a qadamgdh.7There are five buildings: (i) a small white shrine
approximately 8 ft. x 8 ft. x 12 ft. high, including the tall, conical dome; (2) an unroofed shrine,
covering roughly the same ground area, with a white flag on a pole fixed in the ground to mark the
site of the footprint, and a rudimentary mihrdb; (3) three mud-brickrooms, described as guest rooms.
There is also a semi-circle of stones pointing towards the qibla. This is perhaps the most elaborate
Khezr shrine the writer has seen, but smaller shrines are relatively frequent along the coast of the
Makrdn, and several points are considered sacred to Khezr, though having no building.'8
Banddere Fdrs
(xiii) Just outside Tihiri, a village on the beach of the Persian Gulf between Bandar 'Abbds and
Kangan, on the site of the ancient SIraf, there is a derakhte murdd-deh-a tree that answers prayers.
The tree is treated in very much the same way as the more normal shrine. This is the only such tree
noticed on the route described above, but there are reports of similar trees from Khorasan, Azarbaijin
and Mazandaran. They are rendered conspicuous by the pieces of coloured rag tied on their branches,
representing nazr. Such trees tend to be explained away now by the invention of saints buried under
their branches. There is, of course, a copious literature on sacred trees and theories regarding their
16 The " " sect to distinguish itself from the
setrl appears style to influences from the Indian sub-continent. The religion
surrounding Muslims mainly by extra severe seclusion of its too is centred on the eastern side of the Pakistan border. The
women. zekrt sect has spread from the other side of the border, and
17 The place (gdh) where Khezr (Khidr) placed his foot (qadam). most of the remainder of the population acknowledge the
All the buildings described in the Makran, and also the primacy of a Shaikh 'Abdullah in Pakistan.
s18
mosques in Chahbahar and Kundrak, appear to owe their
origin. It is, however, sufficient here to note the importance of a shrine in the ordinary village
community and the things which may be called on to serve the purpose of a shrine in substitution for
the more normal pVr'sgrave.
These shrines may be readily classified into six types:
(I) Tombs and places alleged to have some real connection with an Imam or the close relative
of an Imam, e.g. at Kdkhk and Baimorgh.
(2) Tombs of well-known historical persons, e.g. Abai Sa'id ibn Abi'l-Khair and Ibn Hisam.
(3) Tombs of comparatively recent and presumably historical persons who had commanded
unusual respect in their own communities, e.g. Shaikh Portos and Ghulam Rasfil.
(4) Tombs of Shaikhs and Khajes about whom little or nothing is remembered but who were
perhaps once equivalent to type 3, e.g. Khaje Mahziyar, the pzr in Pir Kalle, Shah Husain.
(5) Pre-Islamic shrines or monuments still reverenced by the local population, e.g. the tomb of
Cyrus.
(6) Shrines, etc., based on legends and dreams, or a-historical phenomena, e.g. Ddru'sh-Shafa,
the shrines to Khezr, and sacred trees.
It is significantthat the two examples cited in type I both relate to the Imam Reza and are situated
in the districtof Gundbddwhere the shrine of the Imam Reza in Meshed owns much property. Types 2,
3 and 4 are comparable and there is little distinction between them. It has been theorized before,
that the spiritual trouble with Islam is that it leaves too big a gap between the believer and his God;
that this was the attraction of the Imamate, Sifi and saint systems, exampled on both sides of the fence
-both in the Shi'a and the Ahl e Sunnat.This easy and traditional theory would lead to the conclusion
that once the link between God and the believer had been personified locally by a spiritually out-
standing man, the shrine grew over the man's grave in preservationof that link. Types 5 and 6 could
be explained in the same manner. The memory of the peasantry is notoriously bad with regard to
the great men of the past. All ruins come in time to be attributed to Shah 'AbbAs,or perhapsAlexander,
Rostam or Solomon. There are scarcely any other candidates. But it is almost the rule for pre-Islamic
ruins to retain, or perhaps even improve on the sense of wonder and awe they once commanded, even
though the man who built them be completely forgotten. With the course of history their existence
becomes a mystery, and once this has happened it is quite a simple step for them to assume the same
function as types I to 4 above.
However, this classification does not really concern the function of the various shrines, except
perhaps with regard to examples of type i, which in so far as they are linked to, almost subject to, a
shrine of universal appeal (e.g. Meshed) attract pilgrims from outside; whereas the religious business
of the smaller shrines is confined to du'dand nazr.
One of the corollaries of the importance of shrines in the religion of the Shi'a is the travel which
pilgrimage encourages. As far as official Islam is concerned pilgrimage started with the hajj. But in
the Shi'a the practice spread on a high level when it was introduced for the shrines of the Imims.
The main universal shrines of pilgrimage for the Shi'a are Kerbala, Meshed and Qum, in that order.
Kerbals probably at least equals Mecca in spiritual appeal, if not on the scale of prestige, and is now
within the reach of a surprisinglylarge proportion of the population. Everyone has been to Meshed
and Qum. This means travel on a large scale, and although it does not take the believer outside his
own culture, it is an important factor in the spread of ideas inside the Muslim world, and inside Persia
helps to neutralize the effects of enormous distances and slender lines of communication.
Days of EspecialReligiousSignificance in the YearlyCycle

Of the sixteen days of official religious holidays marked in the Persian calendar three occasions are
singled out for special attention by the ordinary faithful. Two are celebrations: the 'aid e fetr after
the fast of Ramazdn, and the 'aide GhadirKhum,19which justifiesthe Shi'a interpretationof Islam. The
third is 'Ashfra, the tenth of Muharram and the anniversary of the martyrdom of Husain, and the
days leading up to it.
Of these, by far the most religiously significant is 'Ashiri. The whole of the month of Muharram
is a season of mourning, which reaches its climax on the tenth of the month, when, as the Shi'a
authorities tell the story, the most shameful and pitiful event of history became fact on the field of
Kerbala. The overriding religious importance of Muharram in the mind of the ordinary believer is
proved again and again by the intensity with which it is observed from year to year despite official
attempts to restrain it, and the general difference of view between the ordinary man, who makes the
occasion live, and the religious class, i.e. not the ordinary mulld, but the religious leaders, which often
feels it necessary to hold him in check. This religious class would appear to be particularly worried
about ideas and practices which misrepresentthe religion they preach. But it seldom happens in the
long run that a religious intelligentsia succeeds in shaping or even controlling the religion of the people
over whom they sit. Rather the*contrary. The religion, in so far as it has any real existence, lives
in the ordinary man or woman, who lives unthinkingly and unquestioningly byit. It is for the educated
religious thinker to interpret this for his community, and, if he wishes, to rationalize it, not to change it.
Governmentfrom the top has, however, always been a feature of the Shi'a, and this will help to account
for any difference we may find between the official and the actual religion.
This year I was privileged to be able to spend the significant days of Muharram in a village of
some five to six thousand inhabitants in Khorasan. By a lucky coincidence restrictionswhich had been
imposed during the last few years were lifted, and the " passion plays " known locally as shbi (= shabih,
resemblances,imitations)-the ta'zye'of standard Persian-were once more being performed. In this
particular village each of the first ten days of Muharram had traditionally its own shabih. The first
few of these did not directly concern the actual Maharramstoryat all but were,so to speak,introductory.
The first play of all, traditionally set for the first day of Muharram, concerns Hazrate Masih (Christ),
and takes place in the time of Qaniy•aan unidentified King of Farang (Europe), who tries to put
an end to dzdddr (the mourning of Muharram), whereupon he sees Christ in a dream. Christ turns
away from him, and however much Qaniya implores, Christ will not look on him as long as he stops
the Muslims mourning Husain. This play is particularly moving. The Shi'a are always out to show
that they respect Christ and Mary and indeed all the prophets as much if not more than Christians,
and further, that Christwas a good Muslim before and after Muhammad. And this play is ajustification
of the whole Muharram practice-from Christ's mouth! But the educated mulld can find no basis
for it in the Qur'an, the traditions, or histories, and so would rather not have it. What provides the
main bone of contention between the leaders and the faithful in this particularis the actual representa-
tion, whether by painting or acting, of religious figures-which is strictly forbidden in official Islam
During the first nine days of Muharram the plays take place in the afternoons and last two or
three hours. After sunset in each district of the village someone who can afford it claims the honour
of providing dinner-a simple meal, but of the best quality-for the dasti of the district,20prominent
residents and the poor. As soon as the dinner is eaten the leader of the dasti sets to chanting a nihe'2
accompanied by the timed of the dastd. After a time, keeping the same rhythm and continuing
the ndh6,they move outsidesin6-zani22
and form a procession before the house with standards ('alam) at the front
and rear held by small boys. They then process slowly round the village, stopping outside each of the
mosques. Despite the stylization of the ceremony, the intensity with which chests continue to be beaten as
late as midnight is impressive, at times almost terrifying and reminiscent of Jung's theory that " when
many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group
is below the level of the individual psyche Even the little boy on the end of the line who takes
".23
advantage of the situation to hit his mate rather than himself is less frequent than would be expected.
19 This is the Persianisedform of Ghadiral-Khumm. 22Beatingthe chest with both hands.

Grouprepresentingthe districtin
o20 the Muharramceremonies.
21 Lamentin verseon the
tragedyof Kerbald.
23 Jung: Collectedworks,vol. 9, part I, par. 225.
As it draws nearer to the tenth, the shabikof the day becomes more definitely connected with the
Muharram story itself until on the seventh it is the story of Hazrat e 'Abbds, on the eighth of 'Ali
Akbar, and on the ninth of Qasim.24
At sunrise on the tenth one is woken by the noise of a crowd running through the alleys carrying
the standards and shoutirig " YId Husain", summoning the people to the final shabih. Then the dasti
of each district forms up and the sine'zanistarts once more, having stopped not very many hours before.
This brings the time to approximately8 a.m., and the dastismeet in the maiddn-the largest open space
available in the centre of the village-and offer a final magnificent chorus of sini-zani. Along one side
of the maiddnan iwdnof shops is decked out in black and coloured materials and rags and is referred
to as the " tekye' on an exalted seat sits the mulld who now reads rze". After the
Inside the tekye'
".25
rjzd the tekydserves as a grandstand for the shabih.
By now the greater part of the population is assembled around the maiddn,and the nakhl'sand
'alam'sare brought out. The nakhlis explained as a large similitude of what Husain and his relatives
travelled in to Kerbald. In this particular village there were two, one measuring approximately
I2 ft. x 8 ft. x 8 ft. high, the second slightly smaller. They have been waiting just out of sight of the
maiddn. Two small boys perched on top shout " Yi Husain, Husain ", while thirty to forty full-
y•
grown men station themselves round the sides, lift it and carry it at a trotting pace towards the maiddn,
turning about on themselves twice on the way. On reaching the maiddn they make a tavdfthree times
round the dastisstanding in the centre and finally settle somewhere on the outside. The dastis then
form themselvesinto large circles and accompany the n/hi of the leader in the middle by beating their
chests and moving one step to the right with each beat. As with all forms of sinde'-zani and nihi there is
a refrain in which all join. The whole gives the impression of a controlled mystic dance and forms an
emotionally effective ritual. By 9 a.m. the centre of the maiddnwas clear again, the drums (tabl) beat
and the final shabihbegan. This, the final day, covered the whole Muharram story and continued
non-stop for four hours in the hot sun until i o'clock.
When it ended the nakhl'swere raised again, rushed round the maiddnseveral times, and away.
Finally, the people adjournedoutside the town to a small shrine. The climax was over, and the evening
was spent in quieter and less energetic mourningfor those of Husain's family widowed and orphaned by
the event.26
TheLife Cycle
The only stage of life of truly religioussignificanceis puberty, which is the qualificationfor religious
responsibility, but it is not marked by any ceremony. The stages which are in fact marked in the
religion are circumcision (khatnd),betrothal ('aqd),wedding ('arasi),and death, of which the first three
are occasions for celebration and the last for mourning and division of property.
Circumcision takes place normally between the ages of io and I2, and may be marked with
festivity, including music and dancing, and presentsfor the sufferer. But the only reason adduced for
it is that it is desirable27 from the point of view of the religious law, and from the point of view of
cleanliness.
Betrothal may take place any length of time before marriage and at any age, and is technically
more important than 'arasi. Between betrothal and marriage the man is expected to visit the girl
every evening. The man will normally be somewhat older than the girl, and it is normal for the girl
to marry well before the age of 18. Divorce is a matter of still less religious significance. It is, in
fact, the religion which provides the basis for its facility. Any problems it involves are usually material
since it requires the payment of the mehriydor marriage portion which was settled on at the time of
betrothal. It is perhaps surprising at first how much importance is attached to a girl's virginity before
marriage and to the chastity of women in general, when so little importance is attached to divorce.
2 The step-brotherand two of the sons of Husain respectively. thisreasontermedtekylinsteadofmasjid.
26
Literally a place of repose, used with the meaning of a 2 Shim e
gharlbin.
temporaryplace of worship. In the villages around Lasht e
Nesha mihrdbswere not built into the mosques,which were for 27 Mustahabb.
Sex, however, is accepted as indispensable to normal life, both for men and women, and since the
society is orientated round the man, the marriage contract is concerned with the pleasure, convenience
and freedom of the man rather than the woman. For marriage is first and foremost a contract, and if
it later becomes in practice a partnershipthis is lucky or rather through force of circumstances,though
of course not rare. There is no mystical union.
TheEvil Eye
Intimately linked with the conception of sin and evil in day-to-day life is the chashme shailr-the
salt or evil eye-that which, the saying goes, only the chashme ndz-the fond eye-is more dangerous.
For it is mostly unconscious envy that harms. It is sometimesconsideredto be an unconscious property
of certain people, particularly persons with green eyes.
The evil eye is a concept which has attracted much interest and scholarshipin various parts of the
world. The fear of envy becomes exaggerated into the fear of praise. The following will serve as not
untypical examples in Persia:
(I) A newly married girl returned from Europe with her four-month-old first baby to stay a few
months with her village-bred mother in Tehran. The baby was pretty, and the young mother,
having spent some time in Europe, dressedit in very pretty clothes. The grandmother,however,
insisted that it should be dressed almost in rags, so that visitors should be less likely to notice
that it was pretty and it would be less likely to attract the evil eye.
(2) In one of the villages of Gundbid a daughter returned to stay with her mother after a long
absence. One by one the women of the village, according to custom, came to visit the new
arrival. After their departure the mother, who is terribly fond of her daughter and therefore
fears the evil eye, must take precautions. If one of the visitors praised the daughter or said
how well she looked, the precautions would be all the more necessary. Perhaps one or two
women in the village will even have the reputation of having chashme shir.
The normal precautions are twofold, of which either one or both may be taken:
(I) Espanj-wild rue-may be burnt, and the room filled with the odour thus produced.
(2) Zamd-rock alum-may be burnt. As it burns it is said to take on the appearance of an eye.
Its ashes are poured into water and the water into a running stream.
The person who fears the results of the evil eye never takes the precautions in person. Normally
a poor woman is chosen to do it-her performanceof it may be reckoned to be particularlyefficacious,28
or she may be a sayyid-so that a savdbis to some extent entailed.
The custom of giving shirini-sweetmeats-to all visitors on various occasions, including moving
to a new house, passing an examination, any sort of personal success, etc., most likely originates in
fear of the evil eye. Similarly, formulas like In shd'alldhwhich are designed to avert the slightest
opportunity for Nemesis.
Conclusion
We wish here to point out a certain dichotomy in the religious life under study, as it appears from
the observations set out above. We may perhaps make this clearer by exaggerating the definition of
the two strains.
On the one hand is what we shall call the official religion,29 which would appear to be in a state
of being continually exported by the movement of mullas and pilgrimage from the great urban centres
of religious thought and education into the general village life. It is a religion in the practice of which
the all-important principle is that of the golden mean. It contains rules of ritual prayers, fasting,
celebration, mourning and general conduct, which concern the will rather than the heart (in their
as Dast-ash the headings of the Mosque and the Mull!, the Yearly Cycle
khafb6.
9 Which is,
broadly speaking, the religion described above under (excluding the shablh), and in the relevance of puberty.
common interpretation). That is, they require in the first place an act rather than an attitude. And
in so far as an attitude is produced in the believer by the performanceof these acts it is this:
(i) a ready awareness of the unchanging, omnipotent, separate unity of God, who is responsible
for everything except the actual decisionsof our own free will;
(2) below the station of Imam and Prophet a definite feeling of equality with and independence
of all conditions of one's fellow men before God.
This feeling of detachment (outside the personal relationship pattern already outlined) from one's
fellow men is an integral part of the social order, whether that social order be viewed as a religio-social
equality before God, or a politico-social equality before the Shah.
Ramazan provides a useful example of the general moral standpoint of the official religion. The
faithful are commanded to refrain from allowing anythingto pass their lips for roughly half of each
twenty-four hours throughout one month of the year. And the reason: everything they have is the
gift of God's bounty: acknowledge this bounty by freely refraining from the use of these gifts for half
of each day for just one month per year. This surely is a religion of moderation.
The conception of the evil eye fits well into this pattern. Sin tends to be regarded as a form of
misfortune of almost unaccountable origin. Success is dangerous. So, almost, one feels, is unusual
virtue. The danger of this conception is that it stands in the way of social and spiritual progress. We
might almost dare to say that it combats the evolutionary urge.
The second strain is more difficult to define. To determine its origin would be outside the scope
of this article, for it would require an investigation into the syncretic residue of all the creeds which
have passed through Persia in the course of her history. We may, however, conveniently label it the
religion of the shrine, as distinct from the religion of the mosque. The following aspects of it may be
noted:
(i) Instead of a standard equality it is characterized by a hierarchy, the stages of which are not
very well defined, from the ordinary man through holy men, the Imams and Prophets to God.
This is also paralleled on the politico-social side, where side by side with the theoretical position
of general equality before, and thereforeaccess to, the Shah (which may still be made use of),
there exists for the convenience of everyday life a hierarchy, the stages of which are likewise
not clearly defined, since social position depends so very much on personality and personal
relationships. To bridge the gap to God the station of the Imams is exaggerated. To counteract
this, in the official religion it is noticeably played down.
(2) Sin has a differentquality. For even without its burden the believer feels the need of comforting
grace from the higher echelons of the hierarchy, whereas in the official religion grace, unless it
be the inalienable property of the Imams, is not known.
(3) While the religion of the mosque denies the power of fate in a man's choice of action, the
religion of the shrine scarcely credits the will with any free choice of its own.
These distinctions which we have made are artificial to the extent that nowhere does one strain
exist independently of the other-not even in the centre of the most sophisticated urban community.
The religion of the rural community will always support the organized religion of the towns, given
occasion. And it is, of course, the official religion which is the conscious religion. ordinary man
is conscious first and foremost of his " muslimness ". The second strain we have.The identified is quite
unconscious in so far as it is distinct. Nevertheless, the theoretical contradiction is there and the
distinction may be outlined on paper.
The real business of day-to-day spiritual life is performed at the occasional rkzi-khdni,and at the
local shrine as required by means of du'd and nazr. While the official religion provides unchanging
rules for the unchanging spiritual world of Islam, the rkze'-khdni focuses the attention on a past event
and aims at renewing faith by evoking sympathy for the sufferer in that event. According to the
official view, was killed because he did what his duty required him to do. He might have been
.Husain
successful,he might not. In fact, he was not. He was killed in such pitiful circumstanceswithout
waveringin the leastfromwhat he knewto be his duty, that we like to rememberhim and the event
in this way over and aboveall the otherImdmsand theirworks. For the ordinarybeliever,however,
attendanceat a rze'-khdniand the artificiallyinduced,vocal sympathyfor Husainand his companions
in theirfate has takenon an almostsacramentalvalue. But this, insteadof being directed,is ignored
and discountedby the officialreligionand remainsan eventin the past with no religioususe madeof
it. The mostimportant eventof theShi'ayear is an occasionfor straightmourning.
In the popular religion the elements of spirituality which a psychologist of the Jungian school
would consider necessary for the healthy life of a western community (in its integration with its
a-temporal " collective unsconscious") are probably distinguishable and exist within the framework
of the official religion, yet the official religion treats them as a series of rules (God-given, it is true)
and historicalfacts and tries to keep them so. It does not unite theminto one spiritualsystemindependent
of history, or allow them to become mysteries, but leaves them isolated and unexploited in the mind
of the ordinary believer. Shi'ite Islam, while claiming to be a universal religion has not seen fit to
universalize the particular in its doctrines.
Nevertheless, the system lives. It is-and this is one of its major claims in its dialogue with
Christianity-a rule of life by which it is possible to live and which has been lived by without essential
change for many centuries. It demands a certain amount of time and even thought per day and in
return provides spiritual comfort and security. For the uneducated enquiring mind it explains every-
thing apparently very logically, proves itself the true religion, fixes the social order, gets him up early
in the morning, marks noon and sunset, shows him the middle way through life, while allowing him a
decent amount of latitude in following it.
Once he has set his foot outside this middle way, there is no conception of atonement because of
the distance between man and God, and the only way of regaining his lost place in paradise is to
attract the attention of the Imims-particularly Husain-by pilgrimage and riz6-khdni,who will then
be expected to intercede.
The function of such a religion is positive only in so far as it enframes and conserves the social
status quo, sanctions and to a large extent provides the rules by which the community lives as a com-
munity. And it does provide hope for the believer to live by. On the negative side however, there
is this, that the only incentive provided concerns the individual personal relations between the believer
and the Imdms. In the progress of the community as a community it has no direct interest.30
that throughoutthis articlewe have beenconcernedonlywith the religionas generallypractised
so It must be remembered
in theareaswehavevisited,andnotwithitsidealform.
97
THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL VIEWS NIZAMI OF GANJEH
By M. V. McDonald
There is a remarkablediversity of opinion on the subject of NizAmi's social and religious beliefs.
To some he is a romantic, to others a mystic; the Russians see him as practically a Communist, some
Persiansas a Shi'a. All these groups have been able to find something in his writings to support their
opinions, yet, as I hope to show, none of them is more than partly right.
If we are to reach a correct evaluation of his work, we must first consider it in its historical context.
Nizdml was born in Ganjeh (now Kirovibid) in the region which was known then as Arrdn and
to-day as the Azarbaijan S.S.R. In the twelfth century North-west Persia was in a state of continuous
upheaval. The sourcesfor this period are extremely meagre, but it is clear that the death of Malikshih
in o1072 had released all the centrifugal and destructive forces which had been imperfectly held in
check during the Seljfik ascendancy. After fifty obscure years of bloodshed and destruction, we find
power first in the hands of Aqsunqur, the ruler of Mardgheh, then of Ildigiz, the powerful Atdbeg of
Azarbaijan. These two rulers and their descendants were intermittently engaged in wars almost up
to the Mongol invasion. The utter devastation caused by these wars was remarkableeven by Persian
standards, and was added to by the ever-increasing inroads of the Georgians to the north, and the
Ghuzz and other Turkish tribes from the east. This process laid the country open to resettlement by
alien ethnic elements and marks the beginning of Turkish speech in all but the most remote parts of
Azarbaij*n and Arran. Ganjeh did not escape these tribulations, for it was temporarily occupied by
the Georgians in I195, during Nizaml's lifetime.
The social situation at this time was hardly any better. The most notable feature of Seljfik rule
in the economic and financial sphere had been the spread of the system of iqtd',whereby the revenue
of certain lands was assigned to military leaders in lieu of pay. Decay of central authority naturally
led to abuse of this system, with the holders of iqtd' assuming more rights than they were entitled to
and extracting excessive sums of money from the unfortunate peasants. NizAml, as we shall see later,
was painfully aware of this state of affairs.
Religious life in this part of Persia appears to have been fairly orthodox, i.e. Sunni; indeed, even
in the time of ShAhIsma'll, we are told that two-thirdsof the population of Tabrlz were Sunni, though
the Safavi dynasty itself sprang from Azarbaijan. Ganjeh may have been strengthened in its faith by
the circumstancesof its position as a border town. Bands of Ghdzls were continually passing through
it on their way to do battle with the unbelievers, while Ganjeh in its turn was always exposed to the
Georgian forays. Such a situation encourages a practical rather than a contemplative view of life
and may well explain much in Niz•im's writing.
Persian poetry, too, was passing through a crucial period. Hitherto it had been mainly confined
to the Eastern provinces of Persia. It had grown up at the court of the rulers of Ghaznl and had
later been patronized by the Seljflks, who were also based on the east of Iran. Most Persian poets
were of Eastern extraction and the result of all this was that new Persian developed from an Eastern
dialect, the " Dart ", and not from the classical dialect of Fars. This new Persian literature did not
take root immediately in the West, for it was not properly understood. For example, Nasir-i-Khosrow
says of Qatran of Tabrtz that he " wrote good poetry, but did not know Persian (Dart') well ". In
any case, Persian was not the language of Azarbaijan. Al MaqdisI mentions seventy languages as
being spoken in the district of Ardabil alone, and Ibn Hawqal (tenth century) mentions ArranI as still
being spoken in Arran, Nizamt's native region.
These factors had retarded the spread of Persian literature to the western regions of Iran, but, by
Nizimt's time, this was no longer the case. The appearance of independent or semi-independent, local,
native dynasties in North-west Persia had stimulated a demand for court-poetry in the Persian language.
The poetry requiredwas not of a very elevated nature; congratulationson royal birthdays, celebration
of important occurrences, the occasional lampoon on the ruler's enemies-it did not call for any
special poetic ability beyond skill in versification and abundance of output. The uninspiring nature
of the events commemoratedforced the poets to concentrate on complicated conceits, obscure allusions,
puns and word-plays and so on in order to avoid complete banality.
The first great name in Azarbaijdnipoetry is that of Qatrdn, about whom Ndsir-i-Khosrowmade
the patronizing remarks quoted above. Although most of his creative life was spent in Tabriz, he
began his career in Ganjeh and may possibly have gone back there later on. He was followed by
Abu'l'Ald of Ganjeh, Falaki (born in Shamdkhl), 'Izz-ud-Din of Shirwdn and KhdqdnI, also from
Ganjeh. If we add to these the names of Mahsetl, who was born in Ganjeh and had evidently returned
to it by the time that Khosrow and Shirin was written (K.S.17,1), and her lover, the poet Taj-ud-
Din-i-Ganje'I, it is clear that Ganjeh in particular was a flourishingcentre of poetical activity.
With these facts in mind, we can examine Nizaml's work more closely to see where he is in agree-
ment with his predecessorsand contemporaries,and where he differsfrom them. His first major work,
the Makhzan-ul-Asrdr, which contains much of the material for any study of his religious philosophy,
was inspired by Sana'I's " Hadiqeh". Nizaml himself alludes to this fact with characteristic lack of
modesty in the introduction (34,4). Sand'I, though not the inventor of the didactic genre of poetry,
which is almost as old as Persian literature itself, was its first great exponent. The " Hadrqeh" is
commonly regarded as the first of the three great mystical mathnavis, but, as Browne has remarked,
it is more a moral and ethical than a mystic poem. It contains little that could be described as
specifically Stfif or mystic. Together with the Shdh-ndmeh, to which Nizaml constantly alludes, it
was the most renowned work in Nizaml's time, and would have been a natural model for an aspiring
young author, who did not as yet feel sufficiently confident to make a break with tradition. At the
same time, he had ideas of his own to express and he adopted Sana'I's ethical-mystical form as a
vehicle to express them. On comparing the " Hadiqeh" and the Makhzan-ul-Asrdr, we find certain
differenceswhich underline this idea. The Makhzan-ul-Asrdris much shorter, barely a quarter of the
length, and it is much more purposefullyarranged. After a long introduction (69 pages), containing
praises of God, Muhammad, Bahrdmshdhand himself, and a descriptionof the discovery of the heart,
that most vital part of the body and the revelations, which enabled him to write the book, it is set
out in the form of twenty " maqdldt " or discourses,each followed by an illustrative anecdote-which
may not be much shorter than the discourse itself. These discourses form an organic whole, one
leading naturally to the next, with the anecdote forming a kind of bridge between the two.
Although the whole tone of the book is deeply religious, Nizdml is very much concerned with the
practical side of religion. He exhorts the King to forsakeoppression (i), and to practisejustice (2, 4),
pointing out that justice will benefit the King both in this world and the next, to seek wisdom (3), and
to provide for his old age (5). The latter part of the book includes sweeping denunciations of hypocrisy
(i8), envy (15), the world in general and the men who inhabit it (20). There is nothing unusual about
the introduction of such topics into a poem of this nature but what is significant is the proportion of
the poem which is devoted to them. Browne described the poem as "mystical " and indeed there is a
certain amount of undeniably mystical material in it, but it is small compared to the amount of purely
practical advice referred to above. Nizaml then did take over the form of a mystical mathnavi in order
to express his own ideas and even if he was not the only Persian poet to adopt this artifice, he might
well be the first. A closer inspection of the Stifl passages in the Makhzan-ul-Asrdrtends to bear out this
view. Nziami produces no bold mystical conjectures, no original thinking but just makes passing
references without elucidation or elaboration. Certainly Nizaml repeatedly advocates renunciation of
body and self, but this is not inconsistent with orthodox Islam, and taken in conjunction with insistence
on striving for the more positive qualities of justice, etc., it can only mean that what he intends is
renunciation of the evil desires of the body and of preoccupation with self, and not the more extreme
practices employed by mystics desirous of union with God. Nizami speaks of reaching God after death,
not before it. Two noted Stfifs are mentioned in this work; Rabi'a (89, 7), and Hallaj (I66, 13). He
cites Ribi'a's example when speaking of kindness to animals and the case of IHallaj is used to illustrate
THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL VIEWS OF NIZAMI OF GANJEH 99
the desirability of keeping secrets. He suggests that Hallaj's sin in saying " and 'l-haqq " (I am God),
was not blasphemy but betraying a secret, for he said what should have been left unsaid; and for this
he was properlypunished. This is the nearest Nizdml gets to approval of the Sft1 position and, even
so, he uses the incident as an illustration, not as a topic in itself.
Nizdml was, at this period of his life, a genuine social reformer, but his ideals were those of the
twelfth century. Thus he does not reject the idea of kingship, which was an integral part of the Persian
way of life, or object to the immense privileges enjoyed by the ruling classes. His idea is rather that
they should pay more attention to their duties toward their subjects. Equally his protest is inevitably
a religious protest. Religion and the state were not separate entities in Nizdml's day, and no improve-
ment of social conditions could leave God out of account. Essentially Nizaml was a deeply religious
and devout Sunni (c.f. Sharaf-JNameh24, 14-25, 1), and to think of him as a Socialist would be an
anachronism, as well as being completely inaccurate.
The gulf between Makhzan-ul-Asrdr and his next book "Khosrowand Shirin" is far more than a
" " "
merely temporal one of ten years or so. This, together with Laila andMajnzn and Haft Paikar"
does not tell us very much about Nizaml's spiritual and religious development. What is left unsaid is
far more significant than what is said. Why did NizamI stop writing for ten years ? Any why, when
he started again, did he turn to romantic poetry, abandoning religious poetry for good ? The main
reason must surely have been his marriage to the Qipchaq slave-girl, Af-q, with whom he was obviously
deeply in love (K.S. 430, 3). By the time he wrote "KKhosrow and Shirin" she had borne him a son,
but was herself dead. Before his marriage Nizaml was an earnest scholarly young man, intent on
putting the world to rights; after it he had little time for other people's troubles. He was never very well-
off, and we know from " Laila and Majnin " (29, IO-I i) that he had other work beside his writing.
Probably until his wife's death he had neither time nor inclination for his poetry, and when he started
writing again he was a very different man from the youth of ten years earlier. Though still religious,
his life was no longer wrapped up in his religion. He was saddened by his wife's death; his castigations
of the world and its occupants are no longer the product of the cynicism of youth, but of the bitterness
of experience, and he has come to appreciate the value of earthly love.
Beside all this, there are in the Makhzan-ul-Asrdr signs that he was not entirely satisfied with the
genre he had chosen. For one thing, the work is, as noted above, very short-I8o pages in the edition
of Vahid Dastgerdi. This is partly explained by the extreme complication of many of the lines, which
must have taken a lot of thinking out. Further, the proportion taken up by anecdote is extremely
large, and it is in the anecdotes that we find traces of the author of "KKhosrow and Shirin", not in
"
the maqalat "-and even in these Nizdml cannot resist straying from the subject.
Not everything had changed, of course. Nizaml still refused to have anything to do with court life,
and still reserved the right to be as rude as he liked about it. But from now on his great interest,
like that of Ferdowsl, was in the past of Iran. His religious passages became rather more perfunctory.
Each book contains a eulogy of God and Muhammad, and a description of the mi'rdj,or ascent of
Muhammad to heaven, but none of these passages could be said to make any important contribution
to religious thought. Their main function is to serve as vehicles for Nizdmi's eloquence and poetic
skill, and perhaps to compensate for the completely non-Muslim character of the books themselves,
as does the introduction of certain Muslim topics into them-Muhammad's letter to Khosrow,
Majnain's prayer to God, etc. Nizimi was still deeply religious as is shown by many other passages.
"
In Haft Paikar ", for example, he comments on the folly of astrology in seeking to avert God's will.
His interest in the past was linked with his new-found interest in human nature or perhaps he was
interested in history because more than any other science of his time it is concerned with human nature.
If we accept this view, it is very easy to account for his disgust at being asked to write " Laila and
Majna "-the story is completely unhistorical and has no plot worth mentioning. Even its setting,
the Arabian desert, offers no opportunities for the luxuriant descriptions of nature in which he delighted.
Most of all, there is practically nothing that can be said about the main characters. Majnfin was mad
and lived in the deserts with the wild beasts, and the figure of Laila is very shadowy. Thus neither
of the main characters lend themselves to very much development.
The development that Nizdml offersin compensationis the development of the nature of Majniin's
love and madness. At the beginning of his madness, Majnfin is simply the distraught lover, but by its
end he is so consumed by his love that its object, Laila, ceases to have any importance for him, and
when Laila's husband dies and the obstacle to their union is removed, it is already too late. This is
obviously open to a mystical interpretation, with Majnin representing the mystic who becomes so
absorbed in the love of God that nothing else has any interest for him, the earthly love evolving
into the divine. But this is certainly not the only interpretation, for this development is surely
necessary from a purely literary point of view. If Nizaml is to avoid complete stagnation his main
character must develop somehow, and in Majnfln's case the only possibility is that he should become
increasingly insane, increasingly absorbed with his obsession, until he is completely beyond hope, and
even the person who was the cause of this obsession can no longer have any effect on him. Nizami
has left no indication of which of these two interpretationshe wishes us to follow-it would be quite
like him to have them both in mind at once-but from what we know of his other works, particularly
those written after his marriage, it would seem rather rash to maintain that the whole work was
intended as nothing more or less than an allegory. If this were so, many of the episodes would be
completely pointless. For example, what function does the visit of Salam of Baghdad fulfil ? If we
take the visit literally, its purpose is quite clear. It explains how the songs of Majnfin, which were
supposedly sung in the desert with no audience but his faithful retinue of wild beasts, came to be
preservedfor posterity.
"Haft Paikar " representsa still furtherswing away from the austere devoutnessof Nizdml's youth.
It is the most inconsequential of all his works, little more than a selection of good stories, surprisingly
reminiscent of Boccacio or Chaucer in places. The story of Bahram was a well-known one, and had
been treated by Ferdowsl; the tales of the seven princesses are clearly Nizdmi's own, the pick of a
lifetime's collection of stories worth retelling. Some of them are highly moral, some like the first, the
best of all and obviously Nizdml's own favourite, unashamedly ribald. They have no common factor
except their excellence. The book points no moral and seeks only to amuse. Perhaps Nizdml wrote it
as a kind of counterbalance to the " Iskandar-Ndmeh ". These books were to some extent written
concurrently, a fact which has caused some confusion as to which of them is his last work. The
" Iskandar-Ndmeh " involved a lot of research, critical effort and plain hard work, from which the
" Haft Paikar" must at times have provided a
pleasant relief. Even the heavy mutaqdrib metre of
the former work must have become monotonous in large quantities. In spite of this rather piecemeal
composition both books remain masterpiecesof their kind.
This article is not concerned with the development of the Alexander myth in Eastern literature,
which has already been thoroughlyinvestigated elsewhere,or even with Nizdml's treatmentof it, except
in so far as this reflectshis own religious and philosophical ideas. Until now we have heard very little
of his philosophy, possibly because books like " Khosrowand Shirin" or " Haft Paikar" offer little
scope for it, or possibly because this was an interest that came to him later in life. It must have grown
after he wrote " Makhzan-ul-Asrdr ", during those years when he produced no literary work, but this,
of course, cannot be proved. On the one hand, we know that he was always outspoken and would be
unlikely to conceal any leanings he might have in this direction, but his subjects,which he alone chose
except for " Laila and Majntln ", offer no opportunity for the introduction of philosophical themes.
On the other hand, he may have wished to reserve this matter for the " Iskandar-Ndmeh", which was
to be his most important work. Certainly he must have been collecting materials for it long before
he wrote the first line and the kind of outlook on life revealed or suggested by these other works is
certainly not inconsistent with this hypothesis.
Philosophy was far more congenial to his temperament than mysticism. We have already noticed
in the " mystical " " Makhzan-ul-Asrdr" that he never once abandons himself to any kind of theological
speculations, and that he devotes far more of his attention to the matters of this world than to those of
the next. He was not an emotional man. He is always praising moderation, and we may be sure that
he took his own advice. He never advocated extreme religious practices. Everything is good in
moderation. Further, his preachings in the " are nearly always based on pure
Makhzan-ul-Asrdr"
THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL VIEWS OF NIZAMI OF GANJEH 101
logic, religious logic of course, but incontestible if one accepts the premises that he argues from. Greek
philosophy, once he had become aware of its existence, would be bound to fascinate him, even if he
did not allow it to affect his faith. However, the philosophical aspect of the " Iskandar-Ndmeh " should
not be over-emphasized, as by far the larger portion of the book consists of simple narrative.
The most curious thing about this last book is that, according to Nizaml, Alexander became a
prophet. His mission was announced to him by the Archangel Gabriel, the sign of his prophethood
was his great wisdom, and his " book " was Aristotle's " Book of Wisdom " (Khiradndmeh).This is
certainly most unorthodox, but what is even stranger is Alexander's mission---or lack of it. He never
seems to do any preaching, but spends all his time wandering over the world like some kind of knight-
errant, rescuing people in distress. Even his religiousbeliefsare ratherobscure. We learn that he believes
in a Creator (p. 131) and wishes to destroy the idol in Qandahdr, although he is prevailed upon not
to do so for humanitarian reasons. The only suggestion that one can make regarding the nature of
his mission is that it must be the spreading of knowledge, although he does seem to learn more than
he imparts.
Although Niznml may have bad a profound admiration for Alexander, it would be wrong to assume
that he necessarily identifies himself with his hero, or with his hero's beliefs. For example, in the
discussionof the creation of the world (p. 131), he makes it clear that although he regardsAlexander's
opinion on this subject as sounder than those of the other wise men, it is not perfect. He goes on to
give the correct explanation. This should be borne in mind when considering Alexander's visit to the
people of the North, the Hyperboreans of classical literature. Certain Russian commentators have
suggested that these people represent a kind of socialist society, and that Nizdm1 is in this passage
describing his own ideal world. But Nizami took his description of this society from the Greeks, and
does not personally maintain that it is any better or worse than any of the other societies which he
describes. In any case, certain features of this society are not very materialist. For example, they tell
Alexander, " We only eat half of what we could eat ", voluntarily, that is, and they refrainfrom taking
the life of animals, except when absolutely necessary. This society may be Utopian, but it is not
revolutionary.
CONCLUSION
In spite of the little we know of him, Nizaml's character is more real to us than that of most other
Persian poets, for he never attempts to hide his feelings, as so many of his less fortunate colleagues
were impelled to do. The importance of placing primary reliance on his own writings as a guide to
his philosophy needs to be stressed,for it seems possible that some of them may have seemed offensive
to later generations of Persian writers. There could be no question of suppressingthem, for they were
immensely popular, but they could be misrepresented,in the same way that Nizaml himself was made
made out to be a Shl'a and a native of Qom. One should likewise be wary of the term " mystical "
which tends to be used as a blanket description of all Persian religious poetry. The fact is that there
is very little evidence for a mystical interpretation of Nizimt's work. To be sure, it is possible to find
in it certain references, for example, the one to Hallaj, particularly in the Makhzan-ul-Asrdr; but they
are all quite superficial, used illustratively, and furthermore had already become part of the stock-in-
trade of the twelfth-century Persian poet. He was essentially a practical man; in his youth he sought
to propagate his ideas through the medium of religion, and in his later years he turned towards
history and philosophy, though always retaining his personal faith. He was a progressive, a would-be
reformer; but his progressiveness was in the context of the twelfth century, a context that was shortly
to be shattered irrecoverably by the invasion of Chenglz Khan and his Mongol hordes.
All quotations referred to in this article are taken from the

edition of " Vahid Dastgerdi ", Tehran 1334. Numbers refer
to page and line.
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IRAN

Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies

THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PERSIAN STUDIES

c/o British Academy, Burlington Gardens, London, W.I

Price: ?2 1os. od.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE INSTITUTE

Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies

Foreword, by H. E. Dr. 'Isa Sadiq iv

Edward FitzGerald, by Sir Maurice Bowra. . . . . . 1

Persian Influence on Chinese Art from the Eighth to Fifteenth Centuries,

Excavations at Pasargadae, First Preliminary Report, by David Stronach 19

Iranian Bronzesin the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, by Judy

THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF PERSIAN STUDIES

c/o British Academy, Burlington Gardens, London, W.I

c/o The BritishAcademy, P.O. Box 2617,

April 1st g961-March3rst 1962

By Sir Maurice Bowra

In the nineteenth century, England, despite its reputation for ruthless

'Tis a dull sight And there I sit

Oh Thou, whose memory quickens Lovers' souls,

Beforethe phantomof falsemorningdied,

Earthcould not answer; not the seas that mourn

Oh Thou, who Man of baserEarthdidst make,

Asked about the last line Cowell wrote in 1903:

While the Rose blowsalong the River Brink

In the second edition this has been remodelled:

So when at last the Angel of the Drink

So when that Angel of the darkerDrink

One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

It is in truth iniquity on high

O Immanence, That reasonest not

O loveless, hateless! past the sense

Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire

PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON CHINESE ART FROM THE EIGHTH TO

3s A. U. Pope, Surveyof PersianArt, vol. V, pl. 734B.

EXCAVATIONS AT PASARGADAE: FIRST PRELIMINARY REPORT

Artaxerxes III Arsames

Fig. I. Genealogyof theAchaemenians.

At this time the Persianswere almostcertainlystill dividedinto varioustribesor clans, without

Descriptionof the Site

TAKH\l SULEIMA4 '

TALL-I-NOKHODI ( MADAR-I- SULEIMAN

Fig. 2. SketchPlan of Pasargadae.

12TAKHT-I -SU LEIMAN

letters show separate blocks from which

Fig. 4. SectionandPlan of A Staircase.

Fig. 5. Sectionand Plan of B Staircase.

___ _ ________ /'

SPERIOD I EXPOSED STONEWORK

*g PERIOD II MUD BRICK WALLS

Fig. 7. GeneralPlan of Takht-i-Suleiman,96.

In the absence of any sealed dating evidence, we mustassumethat themoment of transitionoccurred

Fig. 9. Plan of North Tower.

Descriptionof the Site

Fig. 2. Plan andsectionof LevelI ovenfrom TrenchC.

Fig. 3. Level II ovenfrom Trench C.

TR ENCH TB RENCRH 'A

ASH .PEBBLES A CSKELETON L

100AS- HA SHEARTHlCHARCOALFLECKS 1-00

of LevelIVa ovenfrom TrenchB.

Fig. 7. from Tall-i-Nokhodi,includingonebuttonsealfrom Dehbid(No. 4).

Typesof Warefrom LevelsI andII

Dagger 48.243 11 o 05 I o01 - o01 I -o01

Torc 49.50 8.2 2 2 '3