Parthian Iran: from Arsaces I to Ardashir I

The frame

The Met's timeline lists the "Parthian period, 247 B.C.-224 A.D." on its page for Iran, 1000 BCE-1 CE, and the "Parthian empire" with the same dates on its page for 1-500 CE. According to the first page, in 247 BCE Arsaces I founds the Parthian (Arsacid) dynasty in northern Iran, and by 113 BCE his successors control much of the former Seleucid empire and move their capital to Ctesiphon on the Tigris; about 53 BCE the Roman legions under Crassus suffer a decisive defeat at the hands of the Parthians at Harran. According to the second, the Parthians develop the iwan, an open-fronted vaulted hall. Sources 1, 2.

Boundaries and overlaps

The row begins in 247 BCE while Seleucid rule still continues in western Iran (see the Seleucid period page), and ends in 224 CE, when, according to the Met, Ardashir I (224-241) founds the Sasanian dynasty from southwestern Iran and ends Parthian rule. Encyclopaedia Iranica, in its entry on the Shami statue, gives the Parthian period as "BCE ca. 250-226 CE": a few years earlier at the start and two years later at the end. The site follows the Met's dates and notes the difference. Sources 2, 3.

On this site

Two items: the article "The Shami statue: an intact Parthian bronze", on the bronze statue from Khuzestan that Iranica calls the only intact monumental cast bronze of the period; and the article "Bisotun after Darius: a Seleucid Heracles and Parthian reliefs", on the relief of Mithridates II (123-87 BCE) and the other Parthian remains at Bisotun. Sources 3, 4.

What is still missing

A Parthian site in Iran with a dated excavation report is still missing: the Bisotun reliefs are dated by the king they depict, and the Shami statue by proposals within the period. The two Met timeline pages cited here name no Parthian site in Iran; the examples of Parthian iwans they give are at Uruk and Ashur. Sources 1, 2.