The Shami statue: an intact Parthian bronze

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

The statue and its place

The entry "Shami statue" in Encyclopaedia Iranica (Trudy S. Kawami, 2016) describes a bronze statue of a male figure with a commanding presence, 1.94 m high, from Shami in Khuzestan, "the only intact monumental cast bronze" of the Parthian period. According to the entry, it was found in 1935 by the residents of the small settlement of Qal'eh-e Chandar, on the edge of the Shami ravine north of modern Izeh (Malamir) in Khuzestan Province; six months later Sir Aurel Stein photographed the statue and described the site. The statue is listed in the Iran Bastan Museum, Tehran, museum no. 2401. Source 1.

How it was made

The statue was made in two parts: the head was manufactured separately and fits closely onto the body. Both arms are missing, except for a small fragment of the upper right arm. The figure wears a sleeved jacket with a V-shaped front closure and loose, full leggings, a garb the entry describes as typical of Parthian-period Syria, Mesopotamia and Central Asia. The ribbed or striped fillet binding the hair, the author writes, gives no suggestion of the figure's identity, date or origin. Source 1.

A date within a period

According to the entry, the sculpture has been dated to various centuries within the Parthian period, with a most probable date in the 1st century CE; new finds suggest that a 2nd-century CE date is also possible. Both proposals fall inside the site's Parthian row. Iranica itself dates the Parthian period "BCE ca. 250-226 CE", whereas the Met's timeline, which the site follows, gives the Parthian empire 247 BCE-224 CE, the year in which Ardashir I ends Parthian rule. The difference of a few years at each end does not change the statue's placement. Sources 1, 2.

What the site suggests

At Shami, according to the entry, seven limestone bases with sunken "footprints" to receive the feet of metal statues show that many monumental bronzes were once installed there. The author reads the finds as suggesting that the site was a repository or treasury for accumulated items reflecting power or ancestry, more a redoubt than an administrative centre; the entry does not call it a shrine. The figure caption calls the man "an Arsacid nobleman", but the text does not identify him by name. Source 1.

Scope of reading: the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry "Shami statue" (published 10 October 2016, updated 12 October 2016) was read on 24 October 2026, together with the Met's timeline page for Iran, 1-500 CE. Stein's report and the Tehran museum's own record were not read, so this page gives no further measurements, no account of the discovery beyond the entry, and no information on how the statue is displayed today.