The Age of the Parthians

Introduction

Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis (The British Museum) and Sarah Stewart (The London Middle East Institute at SOAS)

The Parthian era is worthy of considerable attention, partly because of the survival of many artistic expressions and styles. his evaluation by E.J. Keall of Parthian artistic expressions and styles and the impact these had on the Islamic art of later centuries was an innovative approach in 1977. More than forty years before, Michael Rostovtzeff had also drawn attention to the importance of Parthian art as an art style in its own right, but such views have largely been ignored by the majority of scholars in the field.

By far the most prevalent attitude to the post-Hellenistic era, including the Parthian period, is encapsulated in a passage about the architecture of the site of Khurha in western Iran written by Ernst Herzfeld in 1941:
When the Iranians attempted to accept everything Greek, as they do with everything European, they did not grasp the significance and proportion, but were entirely satisfied with semblance. The depth of things remained hidden to them. The result is a hybrid art, if art it can be called, which is neither Greek nor Iranian; it is of no inner or aesthetic value, and is worthy of study only for historical or psychological interest… It is amazing to see how quickly, in not more than two or three generations, a handicraft of unlimited power can be completely lost, and with the mere technical skill the artistic judgement also.

Such a negative view of Parthian artistic representation is the result of a number of factors. First, the Parthian era and its art have mainly been the preserve of classicists who naturally analysed and evaluated Parthian material culture from the viewpoint of classical archaeology and Hellenistic and Roman art. Similarly, archaeologists working in the Near East were not interested in the Parthian period and largely ignored Parthian levels on sites where they did exist preferring to reach more ancient structures below...