The Art of the Parthians(Part 2.)

Little has come down through the ages of [8]wall-paintings of the Parthian period, though painting surely was the major art of the age. If the site of Kuh-i Kwadja, mentioned above for the resemblance of its ground-plan to Buddhist monasteries is really Parthian and not already Sasanian, and if one may draw conclusions from Herzfeld's renderings of the fragmentary paintings, they manifest a provincial Graeco-Roman style, hardened and simplified but with a certain competence in the grouping and the rendering of the human figures. Certain features, however, such as a frontally rendered eye and probably also the strong colours bespeak Eastern heritage. Similar statements can also be made about the wall-paintings of Dura Europos on the upper Euphrates, [9] especially about the two paintings in the Mithraic 'cave', which show the god Mithra as a mounted huntsman in the parade dress of the nobles of the rich desert town of Palmyra. Hence the paintings were probably copied from Palmyrene prototypes. Mithra's head and upper body are seen in frontal view. This may be a return to ancient Near Eastern traditions from Hellenistic conventions which had favoured a three-quarter view suggestive of depth and corporeality. In the hunting scenes depth and movement are only suggested by the arrangement in diagonal rows of the sharply outlined fleeing animals. Similar pictures probably served as models for the hunting scenes of the following Sasanian period.

In striking contrast to these paintings are the crude, [10]flat rock reliefs of the Parthian period in Iran with their awkwardly arranged, usually frontal figures [Fig. 100]. Only the reliefs of Mithradates II [c. 123-88/87 B.C.] [p. 188] and Gotarzes II [c. A.D. 38-51] may have been more competently carved, although one cannot really judge their quality in their present fragmentary and disintegrated state. [11]

It seems likely that the rock reliefs and other relief work were produced by relatively untutored local stone-carvers. Similarities which exist between these carvings of Iran and graffiti scratched upon the walls of houses at Dura Europos probably indicate that throughout the Parthian empire interest was centered on certain scenes and their principal features, on sacrifices before a fine altar, on the king surrounded by dignitaries, on scenes of battle and of the hunt. The factual information conveyed pictorially by these scenes is probably quite correct and makes them at least historically interesting; furthermore, they already contain many themes of later Sasanian art.

The most important [12]free-standing sculpture of the Parthian period is a male figure of bronze, slightly more than life-sized, which was found in the ruins of a temple at Shami on the plateau of Malamire in the mountain region of the Elymais [ancient Elamite territory]. The broad-shouldered Parthian wearing an Iranian costume faces the beholder in a frontal posture which seems both powerful and almost immovable. The figure stands with legs slightly spread. The feet, clad in boots of felt or leather, act as a base for the columnar legs, which are broadened by wide and loose leggings. The rest of the body is proportionately heavy. The man wears a jacket with smooth borders, probably of leather. These borders lead the eye around the hips and diagonally across the thorax. A belt accentuates the thick waist. The neck is equally thick and columnar. In comparison the head, which was separately and probably not locally cast, is small for the body. Only the main features of the head were formed in the casting. Details such as the eyes, eyebrows, moustache, short beard and hair were subsequently engraved. The date of the sculpture is indicated both by the posture and by the style of the figure. The frontal pose, here mitigated only very slightly by one foot, appears in the second century A.D. in sculpture of the [p. 189] Kushana rulers of India, where frontality is complete, in a fragmentary statue from Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan, and in somewhat less rigid manner in the sculptures of Hatra and Palmyra. [13] It almost seems as if the effectiveness of this pose for the representation of a powerful personage had been recognized only at this time. Seyig pointed out that the severe style of the sculpture was not found in related statuary from Palmyra after the first half of the second century, so that the first half of that century seems to be a likely date for the forceful statue from Shami.

Nothing in the simplified and somewhat hard stylization of the face is comparable to the soft and plastic quality of the Seleucid head which was found at the same place, nor does the style of the figure as a whole resemble closely that of the other sculptural fragments found at the site. Greater similarity, however, can be noted with the head of a ruler from Hatra [14] which belongs approximately to the same period. The head is shown here because it also resembles in its tall jeweled cap the one worn by Mithradates II and many of his successors on their coin portraits.

Among the works of minor art which seem most characteristic of the Parthian period should be mentioned the handles in the shape of an extended feline animal, a panther or leopard. Several stylistic trends which were operative in the Parthian period are noticeable in these small works of art: the naturalism of Graeco-Roman art, expressed especially in the heads of the feline creatures and in the sinuous grace of their bodies, the tendency of the peoples to the north of Iran to attenuate the bodies of animals for formal reasons, and the tendency [p. 190] of the ancient Near East, especially of Iran, to combine in one object animal and vessel for decoration.

Other works of Parthian minor art are small clay figures and plaques of horsemen, of which only the plaques really deserve to be classed as art because the three-dimensional clay figures of riders--of Achaemenid derivation--are usually too crude to be considered in a book devoted to the art of Iran. The plaques, on the other hand, are strongly influenced by Graeco-Roman art and therefore belong more definitely in a work on Hellenism in Asia [15] than in the present volume.

Bone figurines of nude females, descendants of the prehistoric figurines, vary from some fairly naturalistic and even elegant examples to others of complete and crude schematization.

Little is known as yet about glyptic art in the Parthian period. Much that is called Parthian was actually Sasanian and vice versa. The impressions of Parthian seals from Nisa show that Seleucid tradition continued both in the repertory of symbolic animals of ancient Near Eastern derivation and in the delicately engraved motifs of Hellenistic origin. Motifs derived from both styles appear to be rendered also in a schematic manner with mechanical tools like cutting wheels. [16] The full development of such a glyptic style, however, was only to come in the Sasanian period. [p. 191]

NOTES:
[NOTE: The following notes have to be edited--they are complete, but they need to correspond accurately to the Footnote # in the document--a copy of the original text must be obtained to check on possible errors in that regard.]

1. For conflicting views concerning the events at the beginning of the Parthian Dynasty, see E. J. Bickermann, 'Notes on Seleucid and Parthian Chronology,' Berytus VIII/II [1944], pp. 73-83; J. Wolski, 'The Decay of the Iranian Empire of the Seleucids and the Chronology of the Parthian Beginnings,' Berytus XII [1956-7], pp. 35-52; by the same author, 'L'historicit� d'Arsace Ier,' Historia VIII [1959], pp. 222-238.

2. M. I. Rostovzeff took issue with these views of modern historians in 'Dura and the Problem of Parthian Art,' Yale Classical Studies V [1935]; see especially pp. 159-164. This general viewpoint, however, is implied by N. C. Debevoise in A Political History of Parthia, from which is derived much of the historical information here given.

3. Adams in Early South-western Iran, p. 116, stated that the remains of Parthian towns located during the archaeoological reconnaissance suggested a substantial increase in the extent and density of settlement, although their full area is often masked by the masive Sasanian ruins which overlie them.

4. The asociation of Shiz with the Holy Grail was made by L. I. Ringbom, Graltempel und Paradies [Stockholm, 1951], p. 416 and pp. 510 ff. Excavations of the site, now called Takht-i Suleiman, have been summarized by R. Naumann et al., 'Takht-i-Suleiman und Zendan-i-Suleiman,... die Ausgrabungen im Jahre 1960,' Arch�ologischer Anzeiger 1961, col. 28-68; 'Takht-i-Suleiman und Zendan-i-Suleiman, Grabungsbericht 1961,' Arch�ologischer Anzeiger 1962, col. 633-693.

5. This was the view of Ghirshman, who compared the condition of the Parthian empire with those of medieval Europe in Iran, p. 2273. The houses in Seistan are described by Fairservis, Archaeological Studies . . . [op. cit. in note I/5], p. 28.

6. The suggestion to associate these huts with the origin of the iwan was made by Von der Osten, Welt der Perser, p. 120. H. J. Lenzen, from w hose article 'Architektur der Partherzeit...,' Festschrift f�r Carl Weickert [Berlin, 1955], pp. 121-136, much of the architectural information in this chapter is derived, thought that the originators of the iwan, whom he supposes to have once been nomads, used to living in tents, had devised it to retain even in their permanent dwellings the openness and airiness of their former abodes [Ibid., p. 124].

7. R. Ghirshman drew attention in Persian Art [1962], p. 29, to the structure at Nisa, the 'Square House' with four iwans. Unfortunately, he did not give a reference to the plan of the 'Square House' which he had in mind and which, according to him, contained the famous ivory rhytons of Nisa. For this reason I have been unable to identify the iwans in the plan of the court building described by M .-E. Masson as having contained the rhytons. See Trudy Iuzhno-Turkemenistanskoi Arkheologicheskoi Kompleksnoi Expeditisii V, p. 19, Fig. 3.

8. This is the wording of E. T. Newell, Survey I, p. 475, whose article on 'The Coinage of the Parthians,' Survey I, pp. 475-492, has been used extensively for this section.

9. Ghirshmann reproduced a strange coin ascribed to Artabanus II and dated 88-77 B.C. in Persian Art [1962], p. 114, No. 138, which shows that ruler in frontal view. Before accepting the evidence of that coin, however, one would want to see it more extensively discussed.

10. Deborah Thompson gives a summary of the problem of frontality in Partian art in her review of Ghirshman, Persain art [1962], published in the Art Bulletin XLVI [1964], pp. 95-97.

11 For a thorough discussion of these paintings, see Rostovzeff's article mentioned in note XIV/2.

12. For reproductions of the reliefs of Mithradates II and Gotarzes, see Ghirshman, Persian Art [1962], p. 52, Figs. 64, 65; Von der Osten, Welt der Perser, Pl. 79, above, and Herzfeld, Iran, Pl. CVII, middle and below.

13. The comparable statues in frontal pose from India, Afghanistan, Hatra and Palmyra are conveniently reproduced by Ghirshman, Persian Art [1962], p. 269, Figs. 349, 350; p. 279, Fig. 361; p. 89, Fig. 100; p. 94, Fig. 105; p. 71, Fig. 84. Some are also reproduced by D. Schlumberger, 'Descendants non-m�diterran�ens de l'art grec,' Syria XXXVII [1960], Pl. VII, opposite p. 160. An arresting photograph of the head of the figure from Shami is given in the book by Godard, L'art de l'Iran, Pl. 95. On p. 180 of that book he makes the suggestion that the building in which this statue and fragments of five others were found was a mausoleum. H. Seyrig's remarks about the date of the statue from Shami are found in Syria XX [1939], p. 179.

14. The head of that ruler is that of King Uthal, now joined to the body and exhibited in the Museum in Mosul. See S. Fukai, 'The Atifacts of Hatra and Parthian Art,' East and West 11/23 [June-Sept, 1960], p. 142, for the statement that the head and body of this marble statue were discovered separately. See also D. Hom�s-Fredericq, Hatra et ses sculptures parthes . . . [Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Arch. Instituut, Istanbul, XV, 1963], p. 53, no. 17: roi Uthal.

15. Among the forthcoming volumes in Art of the World is D. Schlumberger's work on Hellenism in Asia, which may be preseumed to include these plaques.

16. This opinion concerning Parthian glyptic art is mainly based on the drawings of seal impressions from Old Nisa published by G. A. Pugachenkova in Vestnik Drevnei Istorii [1953], pp. 159-169. A selection of drawings was given by Ghirsman in Persian Art [1962], p. 30, Fig. 39.
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