Sasanian Mesopotamia: Ctesiphon until the coming of Islam

The frame

The chronology list of the Met's timeline for 1-500 A.D. names "Sasanian rule, 224-636/37 A.D." According to the same page, Ardashir I (r. 224-41) founded the Sasanian dynasty from southwest Iran and ended Parthian rule, and his successors established their administrative and economic center at Ctesiphon. The page's overview sums up that from 138 B.C. until the coming of Islam in 636/37 A.D. Mesopotamia was dominated by the Parthian and then by the Sasanian empires from Iran. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

Both boundaries of the period are boundaries of rule. The start in 224 is also the end of the Parthian period, and what was built and made on either side of that year does not change all at once: according to the timeline, buildings continue to be embellished with stucco, now largely molded rather than carved, and frontality, introduced in the Parthian period, continues in Sasanian art. The end is written "636/37", so the source does not decide between two years. In Iran the site's Sasanian period ends only in 651, so the two pages overlap by about fifteen years while Mesopotamia is already in the Early Islamic period. The Met's record for the window from Ctesiphon notes that the city flourished for more than 800 years as the capital of the Parthians and the Sasanians, "before the Islamic conquest in the seventh century". Sources 1, 2.

On this site

Two items are placed in this period, both from Ctesiphon. The article "Taq-i Kisra at Ctesiphon: the Sasanian arch still standing" reads the Smithsonian page, according to which the Taq-i Kisra is the best standing example of the Sasanian monumental arch (iwan) and one of the largest arches in the world. The object "Stucco window roundel from Ctesiphon" is a window excavated at the house Ma'aridh II in the Ctesiphon area, which the museum dates ca. 6th century CE and assigns to the Sasanian period. Sources 3, 2.