COLORS, GILDING AND PAINTED MOTIFS IN PERSEPOLIS: APPROACHING THE POLYCHROMY OF ACHAEMENID PERSIAN ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTURE, C. 520-330 BCE by Alexander Nagel A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Classical Art and Archaeology) in the University of Michigan 2010 Doctoral Committee: Professor Margaret C. Root, Co-Chair Professor Elaine K. Gazda, Co-Chair Professor Carla M. Sinopoli Professor Christopher J. Ratté Professor Kamyar Abdi Through the Lens: Blue Pigment from a Squeeze of the Cuneiform Inscriptions on the Façade of the Tomb of Darius I († 486 BCE) at Naqsh-e Rustam in Iran (Ernst Herzfeld Archives, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC) © Alexander Nagel __________________________ 2010 For I., L. and W. Nagel ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation was a tr uly int ernational collaborative p roject with lots of c ollegial spirit. It could not have been written, and the project could never have happened without the dedicated contribution of a large number of people in the US, in Iran, and Europe. This di ssertation is, if nothing else, all about culture-crossing, l anguage and ot herwise. Multicultural dialogue has been imperative from the very beginning. Space permits me to mention only a few of those who have helped tremendously in shaping this dissertation. The actual decision to delve deep into the complex and rich world of Achaemenid Persia began as the result of the tremendous inspiration I got from Margaret Cool Root in Ann A rbor. It w as t hrough he r c lasses t hat I, l ike s o m any ot her s tudents, w as f irst exposed to the pre-modern cultures of Iran. She introduced me to the world of the artistic of pre-Islamic Iran and the Achaemenid Persians in the first place. Her enthusiasm for the arts and archaeology of the ancient Near East led me and others safely and infected me from t he ve ry first da y of c lass. S he he lped t o bring t he ruins of P ersepolis a live a nd encouraged m e t o pu rsue t he i deas I h ad. O ur m eetings i n h er of fice i n t he Kelsey Museum at Ann Arbor, in Cambridge/UK and in Washington, DC were filled with the exchange of ideas and I want to thank her humor in good times and bad, in e-mails, over phone, and in person. Elaine Gazda has been such a constant source of academic inspiration and moral support it is hard to express my thanks. She was the most careful reader and disciplined and dedicated advisor. I also greatly benefited and learned from discussions with Carla Sinopoli, C hris Ratté, and C laudia C hemello, w ho w as influential i n forming the iii methodological framework a nd p rovided c ritics and he lpful commentaries on specific issues and problems at the very beginning. At first, there was only a rather vague idea of what c olors a nd g ilding a re m ade of . T hen, t here w ere c hemical e lements, a nd t he uncertainties in detecting even the most basic information. I w ould l ike t o e xpress m y de epest gr atitude t o M ohammad H asan T alebian, Director of t he Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation, a nd K amyar A bdi, t raveller between the cultures, so diverse only at first sight, themselves, for the continuing support throughout the project from the very beginning. I am extremely grateful to the staff and workmen o f P ersepolis. In p articular, I would like t o t hank M aziar K azemi, G eneral Manager of Persepolis, and Hasan Rahsaz, Director of the Conservation and Restoration Group and his dedicated team, and all the staff members working on the site. A great big thank you goes out t o my ne w f riends i n Iran. F or t remendous h elp, comments a nd insightful di scussions I w ould l ike to t hank my friends A li A sadi, A lireza A sgari Chaverdi, Javad Jafari, Koroush Mohammadkhani and Afshin Yazdani, Saeid Rahmati, Maryam Rahsaz, Reza S heikholeslamy, M osa Zare, A buzir Shobeiry, Mehrnaz and Keramat Bordbar a nd Z arah M azoun i n P ersepolis, M ahnaz G orji, and Mohammad Karger, the former General Director of National Museum of Iran, and Mohammad Reza Mehrandish, t he present G eneral D irector of N ational M useum of I ran i n T ehran, a nd Anita Hemmati Pure, Curator. In Tehran, I would like to thank Abdulrasoul Vatandoust, former Director of the Research Centre for Conservation of Cultural Relics, Iran for his support f or t he pr oject, Firouzeh S epidnameh, and M argrit H akimpour a nd Barbara Helwing of the German Archaeological Institute. iv I o we m y de epest gratitude t o the di rectors and r epresentatives of t he s taff of archaeologists working on the preservation of the major Achaemenid capital in modern Shush, ancient S usa, especially M ohammad Reza C hitsas, former di rector of Shush Archaeological C omplex, Reza C hanany, General M anager, Bijan Heydari and Kazem Borhaniahang from t he C onservation T eam, and M osa Zare, Lida S ayahi a nd S ara Esmaeili f or a rranging contacts, dr iving a nd pr oviding a ccess t o s tudy s ome of t he material discussed here. I would like to thank Fatima Mohseni for sharing information on her important work on the wall paintings from the Shaour Palace. For sharing knowledge about the magnificent site of Pasargadae I would like to thank Hamid Reza Karami. For the invi tation and permission to include r ecently excavated material f rom the s ite of Qaleh Kali on the old Achaemenid royal road between Persepolis and Susa I would like to thank Professor Daniel Potts, University of Sydney, and the members of his dedicated team, Bernadette McCall, Amanda Dusting, Sydney, and Cameron Petrie in Cambridge. In Italy, I was fortunate to conduct research in the documentation archives of Ann Britt and Giuseppe Tilia, today in the branch of the Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO, former Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente) Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale ‘Giuseppe Tucci’. Access to the papers of Giuseppe and Ann Britt Tilia, who worked for IsMEO on t he colors of Persepolis during their long involvement on t he site between 1964 a nd 1978, was kindly provided b y Gherardo Gnoli, Umberto Sinatti and Oscar Nalesini. I owe special t hanks t o Pierfrancesco C allieri of t he U niversity at Bologna, w ho s upported m y w ork i n va rious w ays, a nd m y good f riend G ian P ietro Basello, Ravenna. v For pe rmission t o s tudy a nd i nclude i mportant Persepolitan doc umentation and objects from the collections and archival records of the Oriental Institute at Chicago, I owe pa rticular t hanks t o G eoffrey E mberling, G il S tein, J ohn L arson, a nd H elen McDonald. F or pe rmission t o study the s cientific r eports a nd doc umentation f rom recently conducted an alysis of a r elief s culpture f rom t he Hall of 100 Columns f rom Persepolis in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard I express my sincerest gratitude to S usanne E bbinghaus, t o c onservation s cientists K atherine E remin, N arayan Khandekar, and J udith Lerner. In N ew Y ork, J udith a nd A lan Lerner were e xtremely generous, making most important information available to me from the time when Judith was w orking on the col ors of P ersepolis: I had a great t ime at N ew J ersey and B ruce Springsteen rocks! In France, I would like to thank Beatrice A ndre-Salvini, Agnes Benoit, Brigitte Bourgouis, Annie Caubet, Francois Demange, and Elisabeth Fontan. In the UK, I would like to thank St John Simpson, Janet Ambers, British Museum, London, Lindsay Allen, and Betsy McCormick. I thank Lucilla Burn, and Anders Allen, Cambridge for allowing me to study an object f rom P ersepolis in the Fitzwilliam M useum. In Berlin, I ow e particular thanks to Stefan Simon, Sabine Schwertfeger, Regina Ricarda-Pausewein, and especially Marisa Pamplona of the Rathgen Forschungs-Labor, who joined me on one of my tr ips to Takht-e J amshid and was l eading me s afely t hrough the d ata r eports and assured me what is possible, what is not possible to detect with hard science equipment. I also thank R alf B . W artke, Barbara F eller, Evelyn Klengel-Brandt an d Beate S alje, Vorderasiatisches Museum, and Jens Kröger and Ute Franke-Vogt, Islamisches Museum. Continuing across the globe in Europe, I would like to thank Jan Stubbe Ostergaard, and vi Maria-Louise Sargent in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen in Denmark, and all members participating in the fantastic Copenhagen Polychromy Network project. In Washington, DC, I am personally indebted to Julian Raby, Massumeh Farhad, Jim Ulak, Debra Diamond, Janet Douglas, Blythe McCarthy, Stacy Bowe, Robert Foy, David Hogge, Paul Jett, Carol Mattusch, Yue Shu, Mary Slusser, Madina Thiam, Chris Wayner, Rachael Woody, Daisy Wong, who all pointed the way for me in the final year of di ssertation w riting and f or providing of fice s pace, s o m any i nsightful a nd gr eat moments and the best surroundings for this dissertation.