Abstract
Kingship was a central institution for the Sasanian dynasty (CA. 224–651 CE). The King of Kings (Shāhānshāh) was regarded as “a cosmic figure, the first among men,”1 and a representative of Ahura Mazda (the “Lord of Wisdom,” which becomes Ohrmazd in Middle Persian). In his person, he embodied the order of society and the interdependence of the Zoroastrian religion and state. One ninth-century Zoroastrian text, the Dēnkard, states that “The king’s way is religion,”2 and asserts that it was the king’s duty to defend the Zoroastrian faith and to mediate its wisdom in order to ensure a stable, lasting government.3 The Sasanians believed that the royalty of Iran was divinely chosen and that the khwarrah, divine fortune or glory, was conferred upon the king by Ohrmazd, consecrating his rule.4
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Notes
J. R. Russell “Sages and Scribes at the Courts of Ancient Iran,” The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. J. G. Gammie and L. G. Perdue (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 141–46:142.
Dēnkard 6.173; S. Shaked, trans., The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages (Dēnkard VI) (Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1979), 69.
This concept dates back to the Avesta in which khwarenah (Pahlavi: Khwarr, khwarrah, Persian: farr), is the hypostasis of the divine grace or fortune that cleaves to those kings and worthy Iranians who are deserving and makes them strong, brave, healthy, wise, fulfilled, and powerful rulers; see Yasht 19.64, 72. If the king errs in some way, such as by telling lies, then khwarenah may depart from him, and he is disgraced; see Yasht 19.34f. The Sasanian inscription at Paikuli tells of the punishment of one person, driven by Ahriman (the “destructive spirit” of Zoroastrian mythology) and the devils to place the diadem representing the khwarrah on the head of a false ruler; see P. O. Skjaervo, trans., The Sasanian Inscription of Paikuli 3.1 (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichelt Verlag, 1983) 21f, 29.
G. Herrmann, “Shāpūr I in the East,” The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Persia, ed. V S. Curtis, R. Hillenbrand, and J. M. Rogers (London and New York: I. B.Tauris, 1998): 38–51: 46 n.6.
The Sasanians adopted and Iranized the Greek symbol of Victory, the diadem (stemma) with its long ribbon ties, as their symbol of kingship. The diadem is first found on coinage of the Parthian Mithradates I. Sasanian coins, mostly silver drachms, express the Sasanian view of world order, with the king and his crown surrounded by the diadem, often in the form of a ring of pearls, representing the khwarrah. According to the ninth-century history of Armenia attributed to Mouses Xorenac’i, “he right to wear a headband of pearls” was a royal privilege; see V. Langlois, Collection des histoires anciens et modernes de l’Arménie II (Paris: Firmin-Didot frères, 1869), 66.
For information and references concerning women’s attire, see E. H. Peck, “Clothing in the Sasanian Period, IV,” Encyclopaedia Iranica V (1992): 739–752, particularly 739–743. See also J. Rose, “Three Queens, Two Wives, and a Goddess: Roles and Images of Women in Sasanian Iran,” Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power Patronage and Piety, ed. G. Hambly (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998): 29–54.
See D. Shepherd, “Sasanian Art,” Cambridge History of Iran 3.1, ed. E. Yarshater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983): 1055–1112; 1077.
P. O. Harper, The Royal Hunter: Art of the Sasanian Empire (New York: The Asia Society, 1998), 32.
B. I. Marshak, “The decoration of some late Sasanian Silver Vessels and its Subject-Matter,” The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Persia, ed. V. S. Curtis, R. Hillenbrand, and J. M. Rogers (London and New York: I. B.Tauris, 1998): 84–92, 84.
V. Loukonine and A. Ivanov, Lost Treasures of Persia (Washington, DC: Mage, 1996), 25.
See A. S. Shahbazi, “Coronation,” Encyclopaedia Iranica VI (1993): 277–279; 278.
R. Levi, The Epic of the Kings (1967; repr. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 9.
See M. Boyce, trans., The Letter of Tansar, (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ad Estremo Oriente, 1968), 15, 20.
M. Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism II (Leiden and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1982), 21.
See J. Wiesehöfer, Ancient Persia From 550 BC to 650 AD, trans. A. Azodi (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 289 n.l.
B. Overlaet, D. De Jonghe, and S. Daemen, “Pfister’s Sasanian Cocks Tapestry Reconsidered: A Rediscovery at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,” Iranica Antiqua XXXI (1996): 179–211; 204.
Peck, “Clothing,” 747. Peck elsewhere considers the antecedents and later examples of leggings; see E. H. Peck “The Representation of Costumes in the Reliefs of Tāq-i Bustān,” Artibus Asia XXXI,2/3 (1969): 101–24: 112f.
E Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs (Berlin: E. Wasmuth, 1910), 68.
Göbi suggests that the ball of hair might have been a wig and that the silk was brightly colored; R. Göbi, “Sasanian Coins,” Cambridge History of Iran 3.1: 322–339, 325. Possibly, the silk was lowered to hide the face as a veil. Milani conjectures that the titles Pardeh dar and Hajeb (curtain holder, veil), “which came to mean the intermediary between the king and his people, could have its etymological basis in this tradition;” F. Milani, Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1992), 2.
Sarre, Iranische Felsreliefs, 68. Hinz maintains that the beard ring was made of gold wire; W. Hinz, Altiranische Funde und Forschungen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1969), 127, 130, fig. 63.
G. Herrmann, “The Dārābgird Relief—Ardashīr or Shāpūr?,” Iran 7 (1969), 85.
Harper, Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period: I Royal Imagery (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981), pl. 13. See also 36, and pis. 3, 4 6, 10, 11a, 23, 24.
G. Herrmann “The Art of the Sasanians,” The Arts of Persia, ed. R.W. Ferner (New York and London: Yale University Press, 1989): 61–79; 67.
Ammianus Marcellinus XXIII, 6, 84; J.C. Rolfe, trans., Ammianus Marcellinus II, Books XX–XXVI (1940; rev. and repr., London: William Heinemann, 1972), 397.
See G. Herrmann “Naqsh-i Rustam 5 & 8: Sasanian Reliefs attributed to Hormuzd II and Narseh,” Iranische Denkmäler 8 (1977), 10.
L. Trümpelmann, “Das Sasanidische Felsrelief von Sar Mashhad,” Iranische Denkmäler 5 (1975), 8.
For references to Persians wearing silk, see Trümpelmann, “Das Sasanidische Felsrelief,” 8. Sasanian Iran controlled the western extremity of the Silk Road and thus trade between Byzantium and other parts of the near east and the Far East. Shāpūr II is recorded by the tenth-century Muslim historian Mas’udi as settling Syrian silk weavers from Mesopotamia in Susa and other cities in Khuzistan, where they created new types of silks and brocades that were able to be exported outside Iran; see A. Christensen, L’Iran sous les Sas-sanides (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1936), 127. According to Jeroussalim-skaja, this account is somewhat exaggerated, in that silk production had already begun in the third century, and the Iranian towns cited by Mas’udi did not, in fact, become famous for their silks until his own time; A. Jer-oussalimskaja, “Soieries sassanides,” Splendeur des Sassanides (Brussels: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1993), 113. We do know, however, that sixth- and seventh-century Greek writers were impressed by the quantity and quality of Iranian silk; ibid.
G. Herrmann, The Iranian Revival (Oxford: Elsevier Phaidon, 1977), 112.
P. O. Harper, “Art in Iran V. Sasanian,” Encyclopaedia Iranica II (1987): 585–594: 588.
Tabari, Geshichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, aus der Arabischen Chronik des Tabari, trans. Th. Nöldeke, (Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1879), 352f.
C. J. F. Dowsett, trans., The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Mousēs Dasxurançi (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 111.
Ammianua Marcellinus XVII, 5, 3; J.C. Rolfe, trans. Ammianus Marcellinus I, Books XIV–XIX (1935; rev. and rep. London: William Heinemann, 1971), 333.
In the legendary history of Ardashīr I, the khwarrah is said to have departed from the last Parthian king, Ardabān, in the form of a winged ram, and to have chased after Ardashīr and leapt onto his horse, signifying that the kingly glory was now his; Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism I (Leiden/Cologne: E.J. Brill, 1975), 68. See also Levy, Epic of the Kings, 260f. Ammianus records that Shāpūr I “rode before the whole army, wearing in place of a diadem a golden image of a ram’s head set within precious stones”; Ammianus Marcellinus I, 471.
Verethragna (Pahlavi: Vahrām; Persian: Bahrām) is the yazata (“being worthy of worship”) of victory. In his Yasht (“hymn”) he is embodied in ten incarnations, one of which is a fierce boar; see Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism I, 63. There is another fragment from Antinoe showing the winged horse, another incarnation of Verethragna; ibid. The winged horse motif is found also on textiles from Astana; B. Rowland, The Art of Central Asia (New York: Crown Publishers, 1970), 191.
R. Ghirshman, Persian Art: The Parthian and Sassanian Dynasties 249 BC–AD 651, trans., S. Gilbert and J. Emmons (New York: Golden Press, 1962) 227, 232–235. For example, the sēnmurv motif appears on a Sasanian silk that was once used to cover the bones of St. Lupus; ibid, 228. Jeroussalimskaja discusses those textiles that she considers to be genuinely Sasanian and the various motifs which decorate them; Jeroussalimskaja, “Soieries Sassanides,” 115ff.
A. Grabar, L’empéreur dans l’art byzantin (1936; repr. London: Variorum Reprints, 1971), 134. The Byzantine imagery appears to be modeled largely on Sasanian illustrations of Bahrām V (Gur: 420–438 CE) killing a lion; ibid., 60.
D.Talbot Rice, Art of the Byzantine Era (London: Thames & Hudson, 1963), 34, 71.
A. M. Belenitskii and B. Marshak, “The Paintings of Sogdiana,” Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art, ed. G. Azarpay (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981): 11–73; 27.
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© 2001 Stewart Gordon
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Rose, J. (2001). Sasanian Splendor: The Appurtenances of Royalty. In: Gordon, S. (eds) Robes and Honor. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-61845-3_3
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