Relief Fragment: Head of an Archer of the Royal Guard

As indicated by the vestiges of a bow slung over the shoulder and a quiver behind the head, these two fragments (1943.1063 and 1943.1064) are of royal guards. Each has a carefully groomed beard, wears a tiara, and once held a spear. Persians were expert archers: the king even appeared as an archer on his coins (see the case behind you). At Persepolis, images of guards on stairway facades and inside doorways likely mirrored actual guards posted there according to court protocol. The two fragments come from a palace built by King Xerxes I; the lower body and quiver of one figure remain in place. Taken from the site in the earlier part of the 20th century, these and the other Persepolis fragments on view here were acquired by Harvard alumnus Grenville Winthrop (Class of 1886), who left them to the university. Fragments from Persepolis Persepolis (City of the Persians) is the Greek name for one of the capitals of the Achaemenid Persian empire (c. 550–330 BCE). The Persians called it Parsa—like the people and the region at the empire’s heart, today’s Fars province in Iran. Especially significant to ancient Persian identity, the city is a key site for Achaemenid archaeology. The empire was the last of the great Middle Eastern empires before Alexander’s conquest, extending from Egypt in the west to the Indus Valley in the east. The massive terrace at Persepolis contained monumental stairs, gate buildings, audience halls, residences, and a treasury; royal tombs were carved into nearby cliffs. The walls were of mud brick, but stairways, doorways, and columns were made of limestone and decorated with sculpture in relief and in the round. Subject peoples from across the empire contributed materials, labor, and know-how to the building efforts, and the site’s architecture and sculpture incorporated motifs from conquered regions. The result was a unified visual representation of Achaemenid kingship and empire.