Iranian art and architecture

Iranian art and architecture, the art and architecture of ancient Iranian civilizations.

Any reservation about attributing to Iran primary status among the countries contributing to the art of the ancient Middle East must be associated with the discontinuity of its early history and the comparatively incomplete state of its archaeological exploration. Nevertheless, it is clear that Iranian art maintained a distinctive identity from prehistoric times onward; thus, characteristics seen in designs on painted pottery of the 4th millennium bce can also be recognized, for instance, in the sculpture of the Achaemenian Persians. One of these characteristics—manifest in bronze casting and stone carving as well as in painted ornament—is the predominance of decoration over representation. Such purely Iranian predilections seem, surprisingly, to have survived the historical hiatus in the 2nd and 3rd millennia bce, during which the more culturally advanced regions of the country were so profoundly influenced by the ideas and artistic formulas of neighbouring Mesopotamia. During the better-documented years of the 1st millennium, they again survived, side-by-side with the innovations imposed by Greek and other foreign craftsmen, and were later in fact reciprocally transmitted to Europe.

Early Iranian period

The most artistically important, though not the most ancient, prehistoric painted pottery of Iran is derived from Susiana (Elam). The stylized shapes of animals and birds are used, their curves and contrasting angularities skillfully adapted to the sensitive shapes of the clay vessels in a manner that implies a long history of evolutionary experiment. The simplified silhouettes, which once must have appeared as individual figures, are linked together in a repetitive frieze to form a band of enrichment or to articulate some plastic feature. Nothing of this sort is to be seen in the contemporary Ubaid pottery of southern Mesopotamia, although the two cultures show a parallel progression.

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In the succeeding Protoliterate period, each culture produced an independent form of pictographic writing. In Iran, this development took place in Elam, a region bordering on southern and central Mesopotamia. The Elamite use of pictographs was short-lived, however, and for a long time no further attempt was made to develop a written language. Modern knowledge of Elamite history during the centuries that followed thus depends exclusively on references in Mesopotamian literature, occasioned by the perpetual contacts between the two countries. Trade was on a large scale, and even the wars that so frequently interrupted it supplied the Elamites with Mesopotamian goods, including works of art that could serve as a pattern for Iranian artists. The stelae of Naram-Sin and Hammurabi were among major works brought as loot to the Elamite capital at Susa, where they have since been found. It is thus understandable that the native products of Elamite artists in the 3rd millennium bce—statues, reliefs, and smaller objects, such as cylinder seals—followed the conventions current in Mesopotamia. One interesting exception is a type of carved steatite bowl, at first thought to be an Elamite product but since found at sites as far apart as Mari on the Euphrates and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus valley, where it originated, thus emphasizing the part played by Susa in transcontinental trade.

During the late 2nd millennium bce, Elam experienced a period of great prosperity and political stability under a line of powerful rulers. The character of Elamite architecture at this time was revealed by the discovery and excavation of a vast temple complex at Choghā Zanbīl (Dur Untash) in the Susa area. It was built by King Untash-Gal (c. 1265–c. 1245 bce) to fulfill the functions, first, of a holy shrine and centre of pilgrimage and, second, of a mausoleum for his family. Its central feature is a remarkably well-preserved ziggurat, 345 feet (105 metres) square and originally 144 feet (44 metres) high, built for the most part of baked bricks each weighing about 40 pounds (18 kg). Apart from the fact that it has been reconstructed with four receding stages and a summit temple, the structure of the ziggurat has little in common with that of Mesopotamian ziggurats. As described by one scholar,

gates in the centre of each face led to diverging staircases up to the first stage, except on the southwest face, where a triple diverging staircase also led up to the second and higher stages.

Gates to the main stairways were flanked by glazed terra-cotta guardian animals—bulls or griffins. The paved area adjoining the ziggurat had a surrounding wall with imposing gateways. A similar outer wall enclosed a number of subsidiary temples, their dedication indicated by cuneiform inscriptions in the Elamite language. The ornamental sculptures from this complex were predominantly of glazed terra-cotta. A more striking example of contemporary Elamite sculpture is the life-size bronze statue of Queen Napirasu from Susa.

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