The Elamite artistic heritage of Persia

The study and interpretation of Persian art has traditionally been dominated by two academic approaches. The first, and earliest, emphasized Greek influence and developed into an entire school of thought giving license to the elaboration of often farfetched theories regarding the presence of Greek-inspired elements of style and direct Greek authorship in Persian arts. The second viewed Persian art as eclectic in nature and during the 1970s developed a voice, independent from classicist biases, that sought to understand it within a Near Eastern context. Common to both of these approaches was that Elam was seldom, if ever, part of the analytical equation. Yet by the mid-6th century BC, just before the emergence of the Persian Empire and following a period of Iranian and Elamite acculturation, the inhabitants of southwestern Iran were embedded in landscapes bearing a legacy of Elamite monumental architectural and sculptural arts. As a counterbalance to previous interpretations, the present synthesis seeks to place Persian arts within the context of this Elamite heritage.