Roman Ghirshman

Roman Ghirshman (1895-1979) was a Russian-born French archaeologist who directed the French Archaeological Mission in Iran from 1946 to 1967. His excavations at Susa — succeeding the earlier campaigns of Marcel Dieulafoy and Roland de Mecquenem — recovered substantial portions of the Achaemenid royal city that forms the setting of the books of Esther and Daniel.

Ghirshman's Susa excavations exposed elements of the Apadana audience hall built by Darius I and rebuilt by Artaxerxes II, the Royal City quarter, and the deep Elamite stratigraphic sequence beneath the Persian-period remains. His work clarified the city's history from prehistoric occupation through the Elamite empire (the Susa of the Mari letters and the Old Testament's Shushan), the Achaemenid expansion, and Hellenistic and Sasanian phases. The recovered architecture and inscriptions directly illuminate the palace setting described in Esther 1, Nehemiah 1:1, and Daniel 8.

Before his Susa directorship Ghirshman had excavated at Tepe Sialk (near Kashan), where his stratigraphic work documented Iranian Iron Age culture and chronology, and at Bishapur, the Sasanian royal city. He also undertook a substantial campaign at Tchoga Zanbil, the Elamite ziggurat complex, between 1951 and 1962 — recovering some of the best-preserved Elamite architecture in existence.

Ghirshman's accessible synthesis 'Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest' (Penguin, 1954, multiple editions) became the standard introduction for English-speaking students of Iranian archaeology and remained in print for decades.