The Egyptian statue of Darius I is a statue of Achaemenid ruler

Darius I Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his ...

with Egyptian iconography and inscriptions. This is the best known example of in-the-round statuary that has remained from the

Achaemenid period The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

. Darius I is depicted wearing a Persian dress, and armed with a dagger at his belt. The pleats of the right side of the robe are inscribed in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...

. The other side of the robe is inscribed with

hieroglyphs A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carvings") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatonis ...

. According to these inscriptions, the statue was made in Egypt at the request of Darius. This would have followed the

Achaemenid conquest of Egypt The Achaemenid conquest of Egypt took place in 525 BCE, leading to the foundation of the Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the "First Egyptian Satrapy" (). Egypt thus became a province (satrapy) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire until 4 ...

. The base of the statue is in Egyptian style. The front and back has a depiction of Hapi, the Egyptian god of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...

. The sides represent rows of vassals from numerous countries, with a total of twenty-four cartouches. The statue was made in Egypt from grey granite, but was then transported to Susa, possibly by

Xerxes I Xerxes I ( peo, 𐎧𐏁𐎹𐎠𐎼𐏁𐎠 ; grc-gre, Ξέρξης ; – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, ruling from 486 to 465 BC. He was the son and successor of ...

. The statue is of grey granite that chemical analysis has indicated comes from the Wadi Hammamat in eastern Egypt. It was made in Egypt and later brought to Susa possibly in the reign of Xerxes.

Details

File:Detail of Darius I statue.jpg, Detail of the base. File:Darius I statue list of subject countries.jpg, List of subject countries on the base of the statue. File:India Sattagydia Gandhara on the Statue of Darius I.jpg, Territories of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Sattagydia Sattagydia (Old Persian: 𐎰𐎫𐎦𐎢𐏁 ''Thataguš'', country of the "hundred cows") was one of the easternmost regions of the Achaemenid Empire, part of its Seventh tax district according to Herodotus, along with Gandārae, Dadicae and ...

and

Arachosia Arachosia () is the Hellenized name of an ancient satrapy situated in the eastern parts of the Achaemenid empire. It was centred around the valley of the Arghandab River in modern-day southern Afghanistan, and extended as far east as the In ...

on the statue.

References

{{National Museum of Iran 6th-century BC works 1972 archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in Iran Darius the Great Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire Susa 1972 in Iran