Dukkan-e Daud (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

: David's Store) is a late

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...

rock site located in the vicinity of

Sarpol-e Zahab Sarpol-e Zahab () is a city in the Central District of Sarpol-e Zahab County, Kermanshah province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district. The town is close to Qasr-e Shirin and the Iraqi border. Demographics Langu ...

, Kermanshah Province, Iran. Henri Rawlinson visited this site in 1836. It consists of a rock tomb dug several meters high in a rock face overhanging a relief called Kil-e Daud (or David's tomb).

The tomb

The tomb consists of a cavity opened by a wide and deep anteroom bordered by a double frame. held by 2 cylindrical columns whose shape resembles those of the

Pasargadae Pasargadae (; ) was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (559–530 BC), located just north of the town of Madar-e-Soleyman and about to the northeast of the city of Shiraz. It is one of Iran's UNESCO World Heritage Site ...

palaces. The capital and the bases of the columns alone remain, having the form of tables. Take a brief look at the roundabout where the barrels were located. Rectangular entrance to an arched room decorated on one side with 5 niches that may have been used for lamps, and on the other with a larger niche for the body. The design of this tomb is similar to the design of other stone tombs located in Sahna, Qiz Qapan and Fakrika.

The relief

The relief shows a priest wearing a Bashlick (a tapered cap with a pointed point projected forward) and holding a Barsom (staff of power) or a bundle of sacred twigs in the left hand. His right hand is raised as a sign of

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

ritual. The post-Achaemenid reliefs, also called late Achaemenid, correspond to rock panels whose execution date is controversial. They were originally attributed to the

Medes The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...

Roman Ghirshman Roman Ghirshman (, ''Roman Mikhailovich Girshman''; October 3, 1895 – 5 September 1979) was a Ukrainian-born French archeologist who specialized in ancient Persia. Ghirshman spent nearly thirty years excavating ancient Persian archeologic ...

because of their locations corresponding to 12the old Media or Median style of dress. These reliefs were most probably carved in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC at the end of the Achaemenid period, or at the beginning of the

Seleucid The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, a ...

or even Parthian era. The authority of the Seleucids was actually exercised rather in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, upper

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

, and

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

. It only extended to the western part of Iran, to towns on the main roads. Several provinces and most of the countryside therefore escaped Greek power. The reliefs made at this time therefore kept an Achaemenid style, and contains no trace of

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

influence. Their execution is technically crude, attesting to a "provincial" character which clearly differentiates them from the official royal Achaemenid art in effect from

Darius I Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...

until the fall of the

First Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

The tomb

The relief

Gallery

References

See also