Cleveland Museum of Art
Fragment of a Wall Decoration from the Palace of Xerxes: "Guardsman" in Procession
- Date
- 486–465 BCE
- Medium
- gray limestone
- Culture
- Iran, Achaemenid (550–330 BCE), Persepolis
- Department
- Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
In 486 BC, Xerxes succeeded Darius I as king of Persia. His empire, then the world’s largest and most powerful, encompassed an area from Libya to western India and from Ethiopia to Afghanistan. This relief fragment of one of his guards probably comes from the west stairway of his enormous palace at Persepolis. As chronicled by Herodotus, the Greeks defeated Xerxes in a clash of conflicting political systems: democracy and monarchy. This relief was probably once brightly painted.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.
Relief-carved Fragment from Persepolis
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Xerxes, King of the Persians, Crosses a Bridge with His Army
Getty Museum
Emperor Heraclius Slays the King of Persia
Art Institute of Chicago
The Wounding of Pyrrhus
Getty Museum
Page from a Shah-nama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 934–1020)
Cleveland Museum of Art
Cyrus the Great, Founder of the Persian Empire, killed by Thamaris, Queen of the Massagetai
Getty Museum
The Crossing of the Granicus from The Story of Alexander the Great
Art Institute of Chicago
The Triumph of Caesar
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Decorative Plaque: Man; and Griffin in Combat
Cleveland Museum of Art
Darius Marching to the Battle of Issus
Rijksmuseum
Roussillon Going to Martel's Aid
Getty Museum
Rustam meets the challenge of Ashkabus, from a Shah-nama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (Persian, about 934–1020)
Cleveland Museum of Art