Susa (/ˈsuːsə/ SOO-sə) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about 250 km (160 mi) east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers in Iran.

In historic literature, Susa appears in the very earliest Sumerian records: for example, it is described as one of the places obedient to Inanna, patron deity of Uruk, in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta.

According to these texts, Nehemiah lived in Susa during the Babylonian captivity of the 6th century BC (Daniel mentions it in a prophetic vision), while Esther became queen there, married to King Ahasuerus, and saved the Jews from genocide.

[15][13] De Morgan's most important work was the excavation of the Grande Tranchée in the Acropole mound, where he found the stele of Naram-Sin, a collection of Babylonian kudurrus (boundary stones), the stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi, an ornamented bronze table of snakes, the bronze statue of Queen Napir-Asu, and thousands of inscribed bricks.

[16][17][18][19] To supplement the original publications of De Mecquenem the archives of his excavation have now been put online thanks to a grant from the Shelby White Levy Program.

The Ghirshmans concentrated on excavating a single part of the site, the hectare sized Ville Royale, taking it all the way down to bare earth.

[28] In the region around Susa were a number of towns (with their own platforms) and villages that maintained a trading relationship with the city, especially those along the Zagro frontier.

[31] Shortly after Susa was first settled over 6000 years ago, its inhabitants erected a monumental platform that rose over the flat surrounding landscape.

[32] The exceptional nature of the site is still recognizable today in the artistry of the ceramic vessels that were placed as offerings in a thousand or more graves near the base of the temple platform.

The vessels found are eloquent testimony to the artistic and technical achievements of their makers, and they hold clues about the organization of the society that commissioned them.

The recurrence in close association of vessels of three types—a drinking goblet or beaker, a serving dish, and a small jar—implies the consumption of three types of food, apparently thought to be as necessary for life in the afterworld as it is in this one.

Others are coarse cooking-type jars and bowls with simple bands painted on them and were probably the grave goods of the sites of humbler citizens as well as adolescents and, perhaps, children.

Although a slow wheel may have been employed, the asymmetry of the vessels and the irregularity of the drawing of encircling lines and bands indicate that most of the work was done freehand.

An imitation of the entire state apparatus of Uruk, proto-writing, cylinder seals with Sumerian motifs, and monumental architecture is found at Susa.

[39] Daniel T. Potts, argues that the influence from the highland Iranian Khuzestan area in Susa was more significant at the early period, and also continued later on.

[40] An architectural link has also been suggested between Susa, Tal-i Malyan, and Godin Tepe at this time, in support of the idea of the parallel development of the Proto-Cuneiform and proto-elamite scripts.

Holly Pittman, an art historian at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia says, "they Susanians are participating entirely in an Uruk way of life.

[50] In the Sumerian period, Susa was the capital of a state called Susiana (Šušan), which occupied approximately the same territory of modern Khūzestān Province centered on the Karun River.

Two Elamite dynasties said to have exercised brief control over parts of Sumer in very early times include Awan and Hamazi; and likewise, several of the stronger Sumerian rulers, such as Eannatum of Lagash and Lugal-anne-mundu of Adab, are recorded as temporarily dominating Elam.

This policy reached its height with the construction of the political and religious complex at Chogha Zanbil, 30 km (19 mi) south-east of Susa.

A tablet unearthed in 1854 by Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh reveals Ashurbanipal as an "avenger", seeking retribution for the humiliations that the Elamites had inflicted on the Mesopotamians over the centuries: "Susa, the great holy city, abode of their gods, seat of their mysteries, I conquered.

"[78] The city forms the setting of The Persians (472 BC), an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus that is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre.

In 324 BC he met Nearchus here, who explored the Persian Gulf[citation needed] as he returned from the Indus River by sea.

[84][85] Susa was a frequent place of refuge for Parthian and later, the Persian Sassanid kings, as the Romans sacked Ctesiphon five different times between 116 and 297 AD.

Archaeologically, the Sassanid city is less dense compared to the Parthian period, but there were still significant buildings, with the settlement extending over 400 hectares.

Siyah, a Persian general who had defected to Muslim side, claimed that by converting to Islam he had turned his back on Zoroastrianism and was thus a dajjal.

Soon after as the sun came up one morning, the sentries on the walls saw a man in a Persian officer's uniform covered in blood lying on the ground before the main gate.

Before the other sentries had time to react, Siyah and a small group of Muslim soldiers hidden nearby charged through the open gate.

[93] Once the city was taken, as Daniel (Arabic: دانيال, romanized: Danyal) was not mentioned in the Qur'an, the initial reaction of the Muslim was to destroy the cult by confiscating the treasure that had stored at the tomb since the time of the Achaemenids.

[95] Today the ancient center of Susa is unoccupied, with the population living in the adjacent modern Iranian town of Shush to the west and north of the historic ruins.