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Susa
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How it came to be
Susa lies in south-west Iran, on the plain between the Karkheh and Dez rivers at the foot of the Zagros. Radiocarbon dates place its foundation as early as 4200 BC, and 27 settlement layers accumulated until the 13th century AD. It flourished as the capital of Elam, and around 1175 BC Shutruk-Nahhunte brought the stele of Hammurabi's law code here as plunder.
In 647 BC the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal levelled the city. Cyrus the Great took Susa in 540 to 539 BC, and Darius I launched a major building programme there. His Apadana, an audience hall of tall stone columns and huge capitals, introduced a new Achaemenid style of architecture.
In 324 BC Alexander the Great held a mass wedding of Persians and Macedonians at Susa. Later Parthian and Sasanian rulers also valued the city, but Mongol armies razed it in 1218 and it never regained its former importance. More than 150 years of excavation have produced many finds, a large share of them now in museums abroad.
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