The chronology of "Sassanian" buildings has been much dis puted; indeed the two great ruins on Persian soil, the palaces at Firuzabad and Sarvistan, were described by Dieulafoy as Achaemenian, and the theory has not yet been completely aban doned in all quarters, although it is generally modified to a sug gestion of Parthian date. On archaeological grounds neither build ing can reasonably be ascribed to a period earlier than the palace at Hatra, and a date in the third century is more plausible. No sound objection can be reared against the view that Firuzabad was built by the first Sassanid king and that Sarvistan shows a further development of the same plan. In the former, a large vaulted entrance flanked by side chambers, forms a block, which is connected with a triple row of domed rooms and these in turn lead to the small rooms that surround the great court. The blank external walls are relieved by arcades and pilasters, of no structural import, as at Hatra and in Roman Syria, while arched doorways and niches break the line of inner walls, and a cornice with the Egyptian cavetto rises incongruously over the arch to emphasise the resemblance to Persepolis. At Ctesiphon, in the palace built during the next reign, the entrance again serves as audience-hall, but at Sarvistan a shallow porch communicates with the great domed hall and this again leads into a court behind, while the smaller rooms to right and left form separate entities, which communicate with the outside as well as with the central block. The result has more the character of a resi dence than has Firuzabad, which might serve in case of need as a fortress.
The walls bore no ornaments except perhaps of stucco or other applied work ; legend says that the walls of Ctesiphon were encrusted with precious stones, suggesting that some kind of col oured ornamentation, perhaps friezes, were present. Persian in fluence may be traced in pictures in the caves of Chinese Turkestan and presumably that influence was directly pictorial. Statues must have been as rare as under the Achaemenids and in the nor mal course of events Muslim prejudice would prevent their sur vival; indeed a !Statue near Shapur, the colossus of a standing king, is the sole example. There remain a few statuettes at tributable to the Sassanian period but the characteristic sculpture of the epoch was the rock-cut relief, in which as in other forms of art the relationship to Achaemenian work is noticeable ; more over the carvings of the Sassanids were sometimes placed next to monuments of the earlier dynasty with the deliberate inten tion of provoking comparison. For instance, a relief of the first king, Ardashir is cut in the cliff of Nakht-i-Rustam, which holds the tombs of Darius and his successors. Here the god Auramazda (on the right) hands the king the symbol of sovranty, a large ring tied round with ribbons; a servant holds a fly-whisk over the king's head. Beneath the feet of each horse is a human figure, that on the right representing Ahriman, the Evil Spirit, the other the last of the Parthian kings. This relief, though less adept than later works, yet exemplifies most of the virtues and defects of Sassanian sculpture; in monumental power the style has had few rivals, but it suffers from laboured symmetry, heaviness, and a lack of grace in the minute details, in which, as with the coins and gems, the mixed classical and oriental art of the Parthians enjoys a renaissance after the Achaemenian model. The limitations of artists' knowledge led to distor
tions of the human body, though it is questionable whether these have a deleterious effect ; thus the figure is represented in profile though the breast and the eye are seen from the front. The style grew more naturalistic with time, the more obvious errors being corrected : this was largely due to Roman influence, which rapidly becomes very marked ; portions of the reliefs depicting the capture of the emperor Valerian, in 26o, might even be mistaken for classical work, and lend colour to a legend that Roman prisoners were employed on the royal monuments.
Towards the latter end of the third century, sculpture reached its acme, simultaneously with the coins. Reliefs of the mid dle of the dynasty are inclined to be traditional and have less merit, but an interesting theory traces in some battle-scenes the influence of China, a country with which Persia had come into close contact through a mutual interest in the silk trade. Re markably pictorial in treatment is the latest group of reliefs, cut by order of Khosru II. (59o-629), in which an Indian influence seems to have provoked the large landscape scenes, while de based classical elements are conspicuous in other panels; the latter have parallels in the paintings of Chinese Turkestan and were probably derived from the Gandharan or Bactrian art of this region, instead of from the Mediterranean world, where they had long since passed out of fashion. Although contemporary coins are deplorable, the details of these reliefs are excellently carved ; they give in particular much information as to the fine vestments worn by the Sassanians.
Muslim historians tell of a magnificent tapestry at Ctesiphon, but such work survives only in small scraps, which bear designs of flowers and animals (more or less fantastic), scenes of the king at the chase or in battle, etc. These silk tapestries travelled to the ends of the known world, to both the Merovingian and the Chinese courts, and were much imitated abroad. Equally wide was the vogue for Sassanian plate, showing the exploits of king Bahram Gur (420-438) : the old treasuries of Europe contain other pieces, south and east Russia is full of such work, and it seems to have been extensively imitated round the Caspian sea, while a Persian shape of jug was adopted in eastern Asia. After the Muslim conquest, the manufacture of plate and textiles continued without appreciable alteration ; moreover Sassanian motives were taken into the arts of nearly every region of the east and long survived the dynasty. Thus the characteristic re cumbent animals, enclosed in the curling tendrils of plants, were used in the Caliphs' palace at Samarra, the Sassanian type of bird was adopted both in 'Iraq and in Chinese Turkestan. Turkish patterns have their exact Sassanian prototypes, and in many respects the decorative work of Persia has remained unchanged. Sassanian influence reached Europe when naturalism had ceased to satisfy, and the development of the Byzantine school must have been stimulated by contact with its formal ideals, while the Byzan tine architects followed the Persians in the use of the dome.
(See also BEHISTUN, ECBATANA, PASARGADAE, PERSEPOLIS,