Susa

Susa was inhabited from about 4200 BC and was in turn an Elamite capital, an Achaemenid royal city, a Parthian and Sassanid centre and an Islamic town, which gives it an occupation sequence covering roughly five thousand years on a group of mounds beside the Karkheh river. The Achaemenid palace of Darius stood here, and the Code of Hammurabi and the Stele of Naram-Sin were both found on the site, carried here as spoils and now in the Louvre. The most striking thing on the ground is not ancient: French excavators in the 1890s built themselves a fortified brick castle on the acropolis, using bricks from the ruins, and it still stands over the site. The tomb attributed to the prophet Daniel is in the town below.

History

Calibrated radiocarbon dates put the first settlement here as early as 4200 BC, when its people raised a monumental platform above the plain and buried nearly two thousand painted pots in a cemetery at its foot, most of them now in the Louvre. Susa became the capital of Elam, and around 1175 BC the Elamites under Shutruk-Nahhunte carried the stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi here as plunder; in 647 BC the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal levelled the city, which later served as the winter capital of the Achaemenid Empire and remained a strategic centre under the Parthians and Sasanians, until invading Mongols razed it in 1218 and it never regained its importance. William Loftus identified the site in 1851, Marcel and Jane Dieulafoy began the first French excavations in 1885, and Jacques de Morgan dug here from 1897, finding the stele of Naram-Sin and the Code of Hammurabi, building the castle on the Acropole mound from bricks taken from the site and wrecking many of the later layers through negligence and demolition; in July 2015 Susa became a World Heritage Site (Wikipedia, Susa).

What you'll find

• The French excavators' castle - a brick fort built on the acropolis in the 1890s.
• The Achaemenid palace platform - Darius's residence at foundation level.
• Five thousand years of mounds - the layered occupation of the site.
• The tomb of Daniel - a conical white shrine in the town below.

When to go

November to March; Khuzestan is one of the hottest places in the country from May onward. Half a day. Mornings are best. The site museum holds some finds, though the famous ones are in Paris.

Good to know

Most of the site is at foundation level and the great objects are in the Louvre, which is a sore point locally. There is very little shade. Signage is limited and largely in Persian. Summer visits are genuinely dangerous for heat.

Nearby

Chogha Zanbil is south-east; Shushtar lies east.

Key facts