The Lost Treasures Persian Art. Vladimir Lukonin
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shown on a stepped pedestal leaning on a bow with one hand raised towards an altar on which a fire is burning. Above this scene soars the symbol of Khwarnah. This scene soon becomes part of the artistic canon and tombs of later Achaemenid kings repeat it in detail. It also appears on Achaemenid seals.
In the spring of 330 BCE, Alexander the Great burnt down the Apadana of Persepolis; this event was to be a turning point in the history of Iran and of its culture. Alexander’s campaigns in the East began an age usually referred to as the age of Hellenism.[12] Along with Alexander’s phalanxes, the artistic tastes of the Greek world, its craftsmen and its works of art all penetrated Iran.
The efforts of Alexander’s successors, the Seleucids (his generals who became the monarchs of the lands he had subjugated) to create unity throughout lands with varied social conditions, beliefs and customs, complicated by the formation throughout the East of cities granted the right of polis, were simplified by the fact that in theory a social structure and political norms similar to those in Greece had existed in the East even before the arrival of Alexander’s troops. As a result, an ideology of “cosmopolitanism” was to dominate for an extremely long period.
Initially, the Greeks themselves did not attempt to hellenise the conquered lands. Convinced of the superiority of their own political system and way of life, they nevertheless tolerated local cults and even supported them. In the end there was collaboration between the Persians and Greeks. The Persians began to aid the conquerors both in the creation of the machinery of state and in the sphere of religious cults and all of this simplified the process of syncretisation. Despite the shift in power, local rulers preserved the ancient traditions in many of the satrapies.
There is no need to list here the examples of Hellenistic art found on Iranian soil – the Greek inscriptions, the statues of Greek deities or Greek architectural monuments – since there are a number of specialist studies on this subject. The picture became a great deal more complex in the 2nd century BCE when Iran was conquered by a dynasty of eastern Iranian origin, the Parthians, who brought their own culture to Iran, and a new, Parthian, empire arose which was to last for more than 500 years.
Even today the world of Parthian art remains a colourful mosaic of isolated works, varying styles and concepts which it is difficult to amalgamate into a coherent picture. Consequently, it is necessary to bear in mind that Iranian territory during this period is a ‘blind spot’. We know a good deal about many works from Central Asia, Afghanistan, north-western India and Mesopotamia, but hardly anything about Iran itself, since there has been no archaeological research of this period. One could, of course, gloss over this period, uniting, say, the art of Mesopotamia with that of Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan. One would then find that this art (as opposed to Greek or Achaemenid art) is characterised by refinement of form, a wealth of symbolism and frontal representation. In addition there is greater movement and space, and a more illusionistic approach than is seen in Achaemenid art.
The process of artistic syncretism, especially as one era ends and another begins, is, of course, linked to definite social, economic and political changes. The rulers of both empires – the later Seleucids and the Parthians – tried to embody their own divine reflection in the form of single deities and nearly every religious system in the East of that time aspired to the role of world religion. In the early Hellenistic period a common religious language appeared. The cult of a sun deity, under various names – the Semitic gods Bel (in Elam) and Aphlad (in Syria), the Iranian Ahura Mazda and Mithras – spread across the whole Parthian empire. The same happened with the cult of the god of victory (the Iranian Verethragna and the Greek Heracles) and with the cult of the mother-goddess or goddess of fertility, called Anahita by the Iranians, Nanai or Atargatis by the Semites and who was compared to the Greek Artemis or the Cybele of Asia Minor. It is easy to imagine how many new features the religious art of the Parthian period had to absorb. There is much greater thematic variety than in Achaemenid religious art.
Imam Mosque. Isfahan, Iran.
Minaret of Imam Mosque. Isfahan, Iran.
During this very period some Iranian deities were endowed with an anthropomorphic aspect. It has been established[13] that an enormous role was played at the courts of the Parthian rulers by gosans or minstrels who sang the epic ballads celebrating the exploits of the ancient Iranian heroes, the Kayanids (the kings who first embraced the Iranian faith of Zoroastrianism), or of heroic warriors battling with demons such as Thraetaona, the dragon-slayer, or Zarer, the conqueror of nomads.
These traditions were more secular than religious and formed an extremely important part of Parthian dynastic doctrine, for the Parthian kings traced their lineage back to these ancient epic heroes. Dynastic legitimacy was founded on the epic. The epic justified the divine right of the Parthians to the throne of Iran, the epic was Iranian dynastic history. Fragments of it survive in sacred texts often preserved by Zoroastrian priests. But the Iranian epic tradition, which was vitally important for Persian art of all ages up to the 19th century, was born in north-eastern Iran and came to the Iranian plateau by the north-eastern Iranians led by the Parthians.
This epic tradition gave rise to such essential themes of Iranian court art as the depiction of hunts, battles and feast scenes. The epic cycles may have been illustrated in polychrome wall-paintings in palace. Archaeologists have found such wall-paintings, together with clay sculpted portraits of noble ancestors – on the north-eastern frontiers of Iran, particularly in Parthia, whereas in Iran itself no wall-paintings or other depictions have yet been found clearly representing such scenes, with the exception of some wall-paintings of dubious date at the palace of Kuh-e-Khwaja in Seistan.
We may, however, safely assume that these themes, so decisive for Persian art, appeared during the Parthian period under the influence of the art of the north-eastern provinces (Central Asia and Afghanistan).
Towards the end of the existence of the Parthian state, Christianity arose and spread across its western boundaries. In the state of Kushan, on the eastern borders of Parthia, at approximately the same time, one of the most important Buddhist movements was taking shape – the doctrine of the Mahayana. In Parsa, in the south of Iran, Zoroastrianism was developing into a state religion. Syncretism and the common religious language that had arisen in the Hellenistic period were giving way to the search for a dogmatic religion.
Some knowledge of the Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism, is necessary as it formed the ideological basis of Iran’s art for at least two millennia. Its name comes from that of its prophet – Zarathustra (subsequently transmitted to Europe in its Greek form as Zoroaster). Zarathustra was evidently a real figure, as is corroborated in particular by his “peasant” name meaning “owner of an old camel”; he was a member of the Spitama tribe and probably lived in the 7th century BCE. He was expelled from his community for having preached doctrines to which its priests objected and went away into the east of Iran, to Bactria or Drangiana, where he was received by a king belonging to the ancient dynasty of the Kayanids, Wishtaspa (Hystaspes), who was the first to be converted to his faith. Zoroastrianism is known primarily in its later, Sassanian version. At its heart lies a dualism: this asserts that there are two principles in the world – Good and Evil – and the essence of existence is the struggle between them. At the same time Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion, for Ahura Mazda (Iater Ormazd) is the one god, a god of goodness and light, whilst his antithesis, “the lord of darkness” Angra Mainyu (literally “evil intent”, later Ahriman) and his forces, are fiends (daevas).
According to this doctrine, space and time are infinite. Space is dual – “the kingdom of good” and “the kingdom of evil”. Within infinite time (zrvan akarana) Ahura Mazda creates a finite, closed period which lasts 12,000 years. The concept of cyclical development is fundamental to Zoroastrian philosophy. Thus, according to sacred texts, the first 3,000 years of this period were devoted to an “ideal creation” of the world, the world of ideas; in the second 3,000 years the material world was created. Here the struggle between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu takes place (everything good is created by Ahura Mazda, everything evil by Angra Mainyu). The following 3,000 years is the history of the struggle between the two forces
Hundreds of works have been devoted to the campaigns of Alexander the Great, to the Seleucid monarchy founded after him, and also to the culture and art of the Hellenistic period.
Boyce 1957, pp. 10–45.