Persian Empire
Deep Dive 10 min read

Naqsh-e Rostam and the Achaemenid Royal Tombs

The cliff at Naqsh-e Rostam, in the plain of Marvdasht in Fars, holds four rock-cut tombs of Achaemenid kings, the great cubic tower known as the Kaʿba-ye Zartosht, and a row of monumental Sasanian rock reliefs at its base. The site, together with Persepolis a few kilometres to the south and Pasargadae further north, is part of the Persepolis UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most concentrated surviving gallery of Persian royal imagery from the sixth century BCE to the seventh century CE. Ernst Herzfeld, who excavated the site for the Oriental Institute in the 1930s, and the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research, which has continued the work, have given us a clear picture of the chronology and the function of the monuments. For the Achaemenid tombs, the first stop is A. S. Shahbazi’s entry in the Encyclopaedia Iranica; for the Sasanian reliefs, the work of Georgina Herrmann and Matthew Canepa’s recent work gives the cross-cultural context. Ali Mousavi’s Naqsh-e Rostam (2012, in Persian with English summary) is a useful more recent publication.

Location and setting

Naqsh-e Rostam lies about six kilometres north of Persepolis, at the foot of a limestone cliff called Hoseyn Kuh (Mount Hoseyn), which rises roughly seventy metres above the plain. The cliff face is oriented roughly east-west, with a series of vertical and near-vertical surfaces that the Achaemenid, Sasanian, and later rulers used as the backdrops for carved tombs and reliefs. The plain of Marvdasht, the agricultural heart of Persis, was already sacred in the Elamite and pre-Achaemenid periods, and the site was chosen by the Achaemenid kings for its visibility, its defensibility, and its proximity to Persepolis.

The site takes its name from a Sasanian relief depicting a mounted figure — the figure is identified in local tradition with the legendary hero Rostam, but the identification is a folk etymology. The actual figure is a Sasanian king — most likely Bahram II (r. 276–293 CE) — in mounted combat.

The Achaemenid royal tombs

The four Achaemenid royal tombs are the burial places of Darius I (r. 522–486 BCE), his son Xerxes I (r. 486–465 BCE), his grandson Artaxerxes I (r. 465–424 BCE), and his great-grandson Darius II (r. 423–404 BCE). They are cut into the cliff face at a height of about sixty metres above the plain and are reached only by a difficult climb. The architectural form of each tomb is the same: a cross-shaped chamber carved into the rock, with a façade in the form of a columned portico.

The tomb of Darius I, the earliest and the most elaborate of the four, has a façade that imitates a columned palace front. Four engaged columns with bell-shaped capitals support a heavy entablature, and the entire façade is surmounted by a low gable. Above the gable, a large relief depicts the king on a platform supported by representatives of the thirty nations of the empire — an image of universal kingship that has been the subject of intense study since the work of Herzfeld and Eric Schmidt. Below the platform, two rows of figures representing Persian and Median nobles march in procession. The composition of the façade has been much studied as a clear statement of Achaemenid imperial ideology; Margaret Cool Root’s treatment in The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art (1979) remains the locus classicus.

The entrance to the tomb, a small square doorway below the platform, leads into a short passage and a single rectangular chamber about 18 metres long, 12 metres wide, and 7 metres high. The chamber, which once contained the sarcophagus of the king, is plain except for a decorative cornice. The tombs of Xerxes, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II follow the same design, with minor variations, and the latest tomb, that of Darius II, is the simplest in its decorative programme.

The façade of Darius’s tomb carries a long trilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian — the so-called DNa or Darius’ tomb inscription — in which the king gives an account of his reign, his victories, and his devotion to Ahura Mazda. The text opens with a statement of royal genealogy, in which Darius traces his descent from Achaemenes, the eponymous founder of the dynasty, and asserts his legitimacy as a member of the royal house. It continues with a description of the empire, an account of the campaigns of Darius, and a final exhortation to the reader to honour the king and his gods. The Behistun inscription is more famous, but the Naqsh-e Rostam inscription is the principal document of Old Persian language and the principal source for the Achaemenid self-image.

The Kaʿba-ye Zartosht

At the foot of the cliff, in front of the Achaemenid tombs, stands the Kaʿba-ye Zartosht (the “Cube of Zoroaster”), a square stone tower about 12 metres high and 7 metres on each side. The structure is built of large, carefully fitted white limestone blocks, with a small chamber inside reached by a single doorway on the eastern side. The Kaʿba-ye Zartosht is one of the best-preserved Achaemenid stone structures in existence; Herzfeld’s restoration in the 1930s, sometimes controversial, has secured it against further deterioration.

The function of the Kaʿba-ye Zartosht is debated. The most common interpretation, going back to the Arab historians, is that it was a fire temple, a structure for housing the sacred fire of Zoroastrianism. Other scholars have suggested that it was a trophy or ossuary for the bones of heroes, a repository for royal regalia, or a simple commemorative monument. A long trilingual inscription on the eastern face of the tower, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, was added by Shapur I after his victory over the Roman emperor Valerian at the Battle of Edessa in 260 CE, and it is the principal source for the reign of Shapur and for the early Sasanian king-list. The inscription, the ŠKZ (Šābuhr Kaʿba-ye Zardušt), was published in definitive form by Maricq, Henning, and Back, and the standard edition now is the one by G. Carlsen.

The Sasanian rock reliefs

The cliff face at Naqsh-e Rostam was reused by the Sasanian kings in the third century CE, when a series of monumental rock reliefs was carved at the base of the cliff, beneath the Achaemenid tombs. The reliefs are arranged in a row from south to north, and they depict the investiture, victory, and ritual combat of the Sasanian kings.

The Investiture of Ardashir

The earliest of the Sasanian reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam, that of Ardashir I, depicts the founder of the dynasty on horseback receiving the ring of kingship from the supreme god Ahura Mazda. The two figures, mounted on horses whose hooves trample the defeated last Arsacid king Artabanus V, are shown in a moment of divine transfer of power. The relief is a clear statement of Sasanian legitimacy, presenting the new dynasty as the successor to both the Achaemenids and the Zoroastrian gods.

The Victory of Shapur I

The largest and most elaborate of the Sasanian reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam, and the most famous of all Sasanian rock reliefs, is the great composition attributed to Shapur I (r. 240–270 CE). The relief depicts a mounted Shapur, with a sword in one hand and a spear in the other, charging forward on a charger. In front of him, a line of captured Roman emperors, including Philip the Arab and Valerian, hold the bridle of his horse, while the dying Roman emperor Gordian III lies beneath the hooves. The composition is a vivid image of Sasanian triumph over Rome, and it became the model for Sasanian royal iconography for the rest of the dynasty. Georgina Herrmann’s “The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam” (in Iran, 1969) is the publication of record. The recent work by Matthew Canepa and by Pierfrancesco Callieri has refined the chronology and the iconographic reading.

The Investiture of Shapur

A second Shapur relief at Naqsh-e Rostam depicts the king standing before a high column, receiving a ring from Ahura Mazda, while a smaller figure, the crown prince, stands behind. A small Zoroastrian fire altar burns at the centre of the composition, and a row of courtiers stands to the right. The relief is dated by inscription to the reign of Shapur I and is the most complete example of the formal Sasanian investiture composition.

The Combat of Bahram II

The fourth of the Sasanian reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam depicts Bahram II (r. 276–293 CE) in mounted combat with a number of enemies. The composition is more elaborate than the earlier reliefs, with multiple figures and a complex narrative of victory. The relief also includes the famous inscription of Kartir, the Zoroastrian high priest, which is one of the principal sources for the religious history of the early Sasanian period. The Kartir inscription, with its account of the spread of the Zoroastrian religion under the Sasanian kings, is the major document of the Sasanian church-state relationship.

Naqsh-e Rajab

The nearby site of Naqsh-e Rajab, a few kilometres south of Naqsh-e Rostam, contains four additional Sasanian rock reliefs of the highest importance. The first depicts the investiture of Ardashir I by Ahura Mazda, in a composition similar to the relief at Naqsh-e Rostam. The second depicts the great Sasanian king Shapur I, accompanied by a court official, standing before a large fire altar. The third depicts the investiture of Shapur I, with the king receiving the ring of kingship from a female figure, perhaps Anahita, the Iranian goddess of water and fertility. The fourth depicts the victory of Shapur I, with the king mounted on a charger, his sword raised against a fallen enemy. The site was first described in detail by Flandin and Coste in 1840, and the modern study is by G. Herrmann and her collaborators.

The end of the Achaemenid necropolis

The fourth Achaemenid tomb at Naqsh-e Rostam, that of Darius II (r. 423–404 BCE), is the latest of the great royal tombs at the site. After Darius II, the Achaemenid dynasty continued to rule for nearly seventy years, until the death of Darius III in 330 BCE, but no further royal tombs were carved at Naqsh-e Rostam. The later Achaemenid kings, including Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III, were buried elsewhere — perhaps at Persepolis itself, perhaps in tombs that have not been identified. The Artaxerxes II sarcophagus, found in 1996 in the excavations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization under the direction of W. Kleiss, was recovered from a tomb at Sultanabad, not Naqsh-e Rostam, and the implications for the location of the late Achaemenid necropolis are still being worked out.

Modern discovery and study

The site of Naqsh-e Rostam was first described in detail by European travellers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including the Italian Pietro della Valle, the Frenchman Jean Chardin, and the German Carsten Niebuhr. Systematic study began in the early nineteenth century with the surveys of the British geologist Sir Robert Ker Porter and the French artist Eugène Flandin and Pascal Coste. The first modern excavation was conducted by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago under Ernst Herzfeld in the 1930s; Eric Schmidt continued the work in the 1940s. More recent work by the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research has clarified the chronology of the Sasanian reliefs and the function of the Kaʿba-ye Zartosht.

The significance of Naqsh-e Rostam for modern Iran

The site of Naqsh-e Rostam has a particular significance for the modern Iranian national consciousness. The tombs of Darius the Great and his successors, the great Sasanian rock reliefs, and the Kaʿba-ye Zartosht are visited every year by the Iranian president and by large numbers of Iranian citizens, particularly on the last day of the Persian year. The site has become a symbol of the long continuity of Persian kingship and Persian culture.

The Achaemenid inscriptions at Naqsh-e Rostam, in particular the long trilingual inscription of Darius the Great, are major documents of Old Persian language and a major element of the modern Iranian national narrative. The inscription has been widely studied, and its text is incorporated into the teaching of Persian history, Persian language, and Iranian national identity in Iranian schools.

For further reading

  • Shahbazi, A. S. The Naqsh-e Rostam entry in Encyclopaedia Iranica.
  • Herrmann, Georgina. “The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-e Rostam” in Iran (1969) and her subsequent work.
  • Canepa, Matthew P. The Two Eyes of the Earth: Art and Ritual of Kingship between Rome and Sasanian Iran (2009).
  • Root, Margaret Cool. The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art (1979).
  • Schmidt, Erich F. Persepolis (3 vols., 1953–70).
  • Stronach, David. Pasargadae (1969) and the subsequent excavation reports in Iran.
  • Curtis, John. The Persepolis chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran (2013).
  • Wiesehöfer, Josef. Ancient Persia (1996).
  • Mousavi, Ali. Naqsh-e Rostam (2012, in Persian with English summary).