Overview
Susa was an Elamite city long before the Persians. Darius I built a royal palace there, and its audience hall (apadana) was a forest of columns on a raised terrace. Marcel and Jane Dieulafoy excavated the apadana for the Louvre in 1884-1886 and shipped the glazed-brick Frieze of Archers and a column capital with double bull protomes to Paris. Jean Perrot's later excavation of the palace was published as The Palace of Darius at Susa (2013).
The site's own inscriptions give its history. On the column bases, Artaxerxes II states that 'this apadana Darius, my ancestor, made', that 'later under Artaxerxes my grandfather it was burned', and that he rebuilt it. So the hall Darius built stood through the reigns of Xerxes and into that of Artaxerxes I before it burned.
The Book of Esther is set in 'Shushan the palace' under Ahasuerus. Dieulafoy devoted a chapter of his excavation report to Esther, and Perrot's 2013 final publication includes a chapter on 'Susa and the Bible'. The text names a royal gate, inner and outer courts, and a garden pavilion with pillars and coloured pavements, and the palace provides a real setting of that kind. Nothing found at Susa names Esther, Mordecai or Haman.
In its own words
Says Artaxerxes the great king … this apadana Darius, my ancestor made; [later under Artaxerxes my grandfather it was burned; By the grace of Ahura Mazda, Anahita and Mithra I built this apadana; may Ahura Mazda, Anahita and Mithra protect me].H. C. Tolman, Ancient Persian Lexicon and the Texts of the Achaemenidan Inscriptions (Vanderbilt Oriental Series 6; New York: American Book Co., 1908), p. 49, 'Art. Sus. a.' (now A2Sa), 'On four pedestals of column hall; Persian, Elamite, Babylonian.' Tolman's square brackets mark the portion restored from the parallel versions.
What the evidence shows
- The palace terrace, residence and apadana at Susa were built under Darius I. The Louvre dates the palace objects to 'Achéménide : Darius I (-522 - -486)'.
- The Frieze of Archers (Louvre AOD 488) is a panel of four archers flanking a trilingual inscription of Darius, in moulded, polychrome glazed siliceous ceramic, 475 × 375 × 17 cm. It came from the Dieulafoy mission.
- The Apadana capital (Louvre AOD 1) is limestone with double bull protomes, 532 cm tall overall. It was acquired 'en mission' and was excavated by Dieulafoy.
- Artaxerxes II's column-base inscription (A2Sa) records that the apadana was built by Darius, burned under Artaxerxes I, and rebuilt by Artaxerxes II (Tolman 1908, p. 49).
- Excavation reports: the Dieulafoys (1884-1886) published L'Acropole de Suse (1890-1893), and Perrot's team produced The Palace of Darius at Susa (2013).
- No inscription or object from the palace names any figure from Esther, Nehemiah or Daniel.
Open questions
- Which Persian king is Ahasuerus? The book of Esther names 'Ahasuerus… from India unto Ethiopia' (Esth 1:1). The Hebrew ʾăḥašwērôš corresponds consonantally to Old Persian Xšayāršā (Xerxes), and the Susa texts show that Darius's apadana was standing in Xerxes' reign. The Septuagint of Esther instead calls the king Artaxerxes. The identification is linguistic, and no Susa find confirms either name in connection with the story.
- How closely does the palace plan match the narrative? M. Dieulafoy (L'Acropole de Suse III-IV, 1890-1893, ch. XIII 'Le livre d'Esther') read the book against the palace he excavated. J. Perrot (The Palace of Darius at Susa, 2013, ch. 'Susa and the Bible') revisits the question with the later excavation. The narrative details are a king's gate (Esth 2:19, 21; 5:13), an inner court facing the throne room (5:1), and a garden pavilion with pillars and coloured pavement (1:5-6). How far each maps onto a specific excavated unit is the excavators' interpretation, and neither text has been reviewed in full for this entry.
- What burned under Artaxerxes I? A2Sa states the fire but gives no cause or year within the reign (465-424 BCE). The sources are silent on whether that fire relates to anything in Nehemiah, whose master was an Artaxerxes.
Since 2024
- 2025-03Brill publishes a new edition of the trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions of Susa, vol. I (Aliyari Babolghani), including a chapter on the palace-building texts ('A Marvelous Palace Built by a Righteous King'). It was reviewed in Iran and the Caucasus in 2026. [6]
Sources
- Musée du Louvre, Département des Antiquités orientales, 'Frise des archers', AOD 488 link museum record
- Musée du Louvre, Département des Antiquités orientales, 'Chapiteau de l'Apadana', AOD 1 link museum record
- H. C. Tolman, Ancient Persian Lexicon and the Texts of the Achaemenidan Inscriptions Transliterated and Translated (New York: American Book Company, 1908), pp. 48-49 ('Inscriptions of Susa', Art. Sus. a) link translation
- M. Dieulafoy, L'Acropole de Suse d'après les fouilles exécutées en 1884, 1885, 1886, sous les auspices du Musée du Louvre, parts III-IV (Paris, 1890-1893), ch. XIII 'Le livre d'Esther', p. 359ff. link excavation report
- J. Perrot (ed.), The Palace of Darius at Susa: The Great Royal Residence of Achaemenid Persia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013), incl. J. Perrot, 'Susa and the Bible'. doi:10.5040/9780755625659.0037 link excavation report
- S. Aliyari Babolghani, The Great King's Word under Ahuramazdā's Protection: Trilingual Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions of Susa I (Dariosh Studies III; Leiden: Brill, 2024/2025). doi:10.1163/9789004700307 link translation
Corrected from the earlier edition of this page
- The old entry dated the palace 'c. 450 BCE' and called it a '5th century BCE' complex. The palace was built under Darius I (522-486 BCE), and the apadana burned under Artaxerxes I and was rebuilt by Artaxerxes II (A2Sa). About 450 BCE is not a construction date.
- The old entry said the palace features 'elaborate reliefs' and 'intricate architectural details' generically. The concrete surviving decoration is moulded glazed-brick friezes (the archers, lions, griffins) and giant limestone bull capitals (Louvre AOD 488, AOD 1).
- The old entry said 'Script: N/A'. The palace carries trilingual royal inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, including the Artaxerxes II column-base text that dates the fire and the rebuilding.
- The old entry called it the 'palace where Esther and Daniel narratives occur' as fact. Esther and Nehemiah are set at the Susa palace. Daniel 8 is a vision set 'at Shushan in the palace' in Elam. No find at Susa names any of them, and the correspondences are of setting.
- The old entry tied Daniel 9 ('seventy weeks') to Susa. Daniel 9 is set in 'the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus' (Dan 9:1) and does not mention Susa.
- The old entry gave the discovery simply as '1884+'. The first systematic excavation of the palace was by Marcel and Jane Dieulafoy for the Louvre (1884-1886). The palace was later re-excavated by Jean Perrot, whose final publication appeared in 2013.
Checked against new publications through 2026-09.