THE SPLENDOR OF ANCIENT PERSIA
The artistic riches of the Persian Empire, which dominated western Asia for over a thousand years, form the subject of the exhibition “Persia: Ancient Iran and the Classical World” that just opened at the Getty Villa Museum in Malibu. It is the second in a series of exhibitions focusing on the different cultures of the classical world.
If one had to sum up the qualities of ancient Persia in a single word, surely that word would be “splendor,” as is apparent from many of the masterworks on display. Perhaps the major theme of Persian art is the unquestionable authority and divine power of the king—exemplified for example in a polychrome panel that once adorned the Palace of Darius I at Susa, showing two sphinxes with bearded human heads standing beneath a winged disc. The sphinxes are clearly guards and guardians of the ruler, with magical powers that no human should challenge, and the disc above them symbolizes the deity Ahura Mazda—the supreme deity and
