Shushan (Hastings' Dictionary)

The Snsa (Ad. Est IF) of the Greeks, now Sus or Shush in S.W. Persia, between the Shapur and the river • .Masi)ero, Dawn of Ciiyil. 351 f. Il is mentioned in the Flight of Sinuhit, under Usertesen i. (B.C. 275S-2714, Petrie) ; iljid. 489 n., 471 ; Petrie, F.qi(p. Tales, i. 100 f. ; \V. M. Miiller, ^». «. Kur. 43 f. ; Sajce, UC'M 203 ; Hogarth, .4 uf A. awl .itch. 67 f. See also Ebers, Af^]. u. die Bb. Mose's, 78-82 ; Trumbull, Katlesh-Bariua, 44 ff.

The names and destinations of persons passing these fortresses were taken down by officers : see Erman, Life in Ancient Equpt, 537 f. ; Hogarth, i.e. 60. t Brumich, Uist. of Eiiypt, ed. IS91, p. 97 ; Sayce, EBH 187 ; Tnimbull, 46, 57. Dillni. also thinks it probable. J With representations (from Kamak) of Seti I.

returning to il in triumph after his Syrian expedition, in the course of which he is said to have annihilated the Shasu (Bedawin) 'from the fortress of Ta-ru, as far as Pa-Kan* ana" Iprob. a little S. of Hebron! (Brugsch, I.e. 244 ; Hogarth, 68). $ Hommel conjectures that Shur is abbreviated from A'shOr (cf. Gn 2.=i3), the name of a trit)e mentioned by the side of Egypt (and Gaza) in t\vo Mimean inscriptions (AHT 2:ii^-45, 249, -.'2, 253). But see Konig, Fun/neue arab.

Landxchafttnainen, 17 • SHUSHAN SIBRAIM 511 of Dizful (the ancient Koprates). It was for many centurioj the capital of Elara, ami after- wards one of the three capitals of tlie Persian empire, and is sometimes uescrihed as standing on the Choaspes (Hdt. v. 49; Strab. xv. 3. 4), sometimes on the Eul.-eus (Arr. Exp. Alex. vii. 7 ; rtol. vi. 3 ; I'lin. UN vi. 27).

This was due to the fact that the Choaspes (now the Ker- khah) originally bifurcated at Pai Pul, 20 miles above Si:sa, its riglit branch fol!owin<,' its present course, while tlie left branch flowed east of Susa, ab>orbin;^ the Shapur 12 miles to the south and afterwards joining the Pasitigris (now the Karun). The ruins of Susa were excavated by Williams and Loftus in 1851-1802, and more re- cently l)y Dieulafoy and de Morgan. They covered a space about 6000 ft. long from E. to W., by 4.')

00 ft. broad from N. to S. The greater part of them, however, cover the buildings of the Persian, not of the Elamite, city. On the west is the high mound which marks the site of the Elamite cita- del. East of it are the remains of the palace of Darius Hj'sta.spis, and immediately to the nortli the ruins of the Apadana or audience-chamlier, also the work of Darius, which was restored by Artaxerxes Longimanus after a lire, and again by Artax. Mnemon.

The walls of the Apadana and palace were adorned with exquisite friezes of enam- elled brick, much of which is now in the Louvre, i Susa is probably referred to in Bab. documents of the age of the second dyn.asty of Ur [c. H.C. 2400) under the name of Sas and Sisa, which is stated to be a city of Elam, but the native name was Susiin. This seems to be connected with the words suse-ti and sassa, which in the older and later Susian dialects signilied 'former,' and so would mean 'the old' city.

In the early d.ays of Bab. historj', however, the chief city of Elam was not Susa, but Anz.an. Already in n.C. 22S.J, Kudur-Nankhundi, king of Elam, carried away the image of the goddess Nana from Erech to Susa. Susa, however, has been shown by the recent exca- vations of de Morgan to have still been at this time a province of Babylonia, inhahited by a Semitic popul.ation. It was not until after the rise of the Kassite Dynasty in Babylonia that the kings of Anzan made themselves masters of it.

Prom this time forward Susa was the capital of the non- Semitic Elamite sovereigns, many of whose names have been recorded in the inscrip- tions of Babylonia as well as in those of Elam itself. These latter, though written in the Bab. cuneiform characters, are in the agglutinative lan- guage of Elam, which was closely allied to the Amardian or Neo-Susian dialect of the second colunm of the Acha'menian inscrijitious, and is Btill l)Ut partiall}' deciphered. About B.C.

047, after a long and desperate struggle, the Elamite forces were annihilated by the Assyr. army of Assurbanipul, and Susa was captured and razed to the ground. The images of its gods and kings were taken to Assyria, and the monuments of its former jirinces were destroyed, the bones of their occupants being scattered to the winds. When Susa rose again from its ashes we do not know; Xenophon {t'l/r. viii. 6. 22) and Strabo (xv. 3. 2) state that Cyrus made it his cajiital (see also Hdt. iii. 30.

Gj, 70) ; but its palace, according to inscriptions found on the site, was built by Darius Hystaspis. In Dn a'' the prophet is said to have had a vision ' at Shushan the palace' in 'the third year of Bel- shazzar,' but Belshazzar never actually reigned over Babylonia. An account of the palace in the time of -Xerxes is given in Est 1-''. When Su.sa was entered by Alexander the Creat, he found in It twelve millions sterling and the Persian regalia (Arr. Exp. Alex. iii. 16).

After the rise of the kingdom of the Seleucids, Susa gradually fell intc decay, being superseiled by Baljyion and Seleucia. When the kingdom of tlie !Sa.s.sanids was conquered by the Arabs, the site of Susa was linally deserted. (Loftus, Chdidfvn and Stisiaiin, 1857; Dieulafoy, La Pcrsc, la ChiiUUe ct la Siisiime, 1.S87, L'Acrojmle de Susc, 1890 ; Billerbeck, Susn, 18il3 ; de Morgan, DiUgation en Perse, vol. ii., lontaining the .Semitic inscriptions found at Susa, edited by Seheil, I'JOO). A.

II. Savce.