Polychromic friezes from the Apadana palace of king Darius the great at Susa- Iran. Susa was the winter capital of the Achaemenid king Darius the great and Apadana palace was built on kings order circa 521-515 BC. An inscription in the palace describes how king Darius built it, materials used and people involved in the construction work. The palaces walls were made of brick and its columns made of stone; the photo of the double headed bull column (the capital itself 4 meters tall) is one of the 36 columns which held the ceiling of the audience hall; The walls were covered with these glazed bricks decorated with images of winged bulls & lions, sphinxes, and Achaemenid guards. ************************ In 1880 a group of french archaeologists under the supervision of Madame Jane Dieulafoy excavated the Apadana palace and cut apart every one of the columns and the walls and transferred them to France where they are located now. The palace at Susa in Iran had survived thousands of years of environmental disasters, but did not survive the last human attack, and the remains now look nothing like the glorious once winter capital of our Achaemenid kings. The walls, columns and most of the excavated objects are now located at the Louvre - France. Jane Dieulafoy in her book of Memoirs says: Yesterday I was watching with great regret the Large stone Bull column capital that had been discovered in recent days.. I watched with regret, it was about twelve thousand pounds of weight, solid stone! Transferring such a large mass was definitely impossible. Finally, unable to control my anger anymore, I got a sledgehammer and started biting the poor animal with cruel blows over his head..The column capital as a result of my blows broke apart, it broke apart just as a ripe fruit does!
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 18:46:48 +0000
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