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Lot Essay
In the Achaemenid Period, the apadanas, or columned halls of large scale buildings, were often adorned with stone panels sculpted in low relief. These decorative reliefs lined doorways and ornamented the parapets and monumental staircases when the apadana was raised on a terrace.
Although the best known examples of this relief decoration are from Persepolis, there are a number of other building complexes constructed throughout the period and across the empire that likewise would have been adorned with relief sculpture, including: the unfinished palace at Dasht-i Gohar between Persepolis and Naqsh-i Rustam; the palace at Borazjan near the Persian Gulf; a number of buildings in Fars province; the Palace of Darius at Susa; the smaller palace of Artaxerxes II on the River Shaur; the columned buildings at Dahan-i Ghulaman; and the apadanas outside Iran in Babylon; in Sidon; at Gumbati in Georgia; at Sari Tepe and Qaracamirli Koyi in Azerbaijan; and at Benjamin in Armenia. For further discussion of Achaemenid architecture and decoration see ch. 5, pp. 50-103 in Curtis and Tallis, eds., Forgotten Empire, The World of Ancient Persia.
The style of the Mirsky relief finds its closest parallels in the gift-bearers climbing the stairway of the southern facade of the Palace of Darius at Persepolis (p. 45 in Wilber, Persepolis, The Archaeology of Parsa, Seat of the Persian Kings), as well as the servant standing behind the crown prince Xerxes on the rear wall of the Treasury at Persepolis (p. 84, op. cit.). The ceremonial capital of the Achaemenids at Persepolis was founded by Darius I and expanded by his successors. Muscarella informs (p. 207 in Muscarella, ed., Ladders to Heaven) that "the Palace of Darius (522-486 B.C.) was begun during his reign but finished by his son Xerxes (486-465 B.C.), and it is probable that the reliefs sculpted there date to the early part of the reign of Xerxes." For a similar fragment now in the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem see no. 167, p. 207 in Muscarella, ed., op. cit.
Although the best known examples of this relief decoration are from Persepolis, there are a number of other building complexes constructed throughout the period and across the empire that likewise would have been adorned with relief sculpture, including: the unfinished palace at Dasht-i Gohar between Persepolis and Naqsh-i Rustam; the palace at Borazjan near the Persian Gulf; a number of buildings in Fars province; the Palace of Darius at Susa; the smaller palace of Artaxerxes II on the River Shaur; the columned buildings at Dahan-i Ghulaman; and the apadanas outside Iran in Babylon; in Sidon; at Gumbati in Georgia; at Sari Tepe and Qaracamirli Koyi in Azerbaijan; and at Benjamin in Armenia. For further discussion of Achaemenid architecture and decoration see ch. 5, pp. 50-103 in Curtis and Tallis, eds., Forgotten Empire, The World of Ancient Persia.
The style of the Mirsky relief finds its closest parallels in the gift-bearers climbing the stairway of the southern facade of the Palace of Darius at Persepolis (p. 45 in Wilber, Persepolis, The Archaeology of Parsa, Seat of the Persian Kings), as well as the servant standing behind the crown prince Xerxes on the rear wall of the Treasury at Persepolis (p. 84, op. cit.). The ceremonial capital of the Achaemenids at Persepolis was founded by Darius I and expanded by his successors. Muscarella informs (p. 207 in Muscarella, ed., Ladders to Heaven) that "the Palace of Darius (522-486 B.C.) was begun during his reign but finished by his son Xerxes (486-465 B.C.), and it is probable that the reliefs sculpted there date to the early part of the reign of Xerxes." For a similar fragment now in the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem see no. 167, p. 207 in Muscarella, ed., op. cit.