Frieze of Archers
Unknown · Reign of Darius I, 522-486 BC
Five soldiers march to the left in single file, each one taller than a person, their long robes patterned in yellow, brown, blue and white. Every man carries a spear planted upright before him, a bow slung over the shoulder and a quiver on the back, and their beards are dressed in tight curls. They were built up from moulded bricks of siliceous ceramic, fired with coloured glazes, so that the figures stand out slightly from the wall. Look at how the pattern of the robes changes from one archer to the next, and at the tiny rosettes and stars that fill the embroidered bands.
The panel comes from the Apadana, the great audience hall that Darius the First built at Susa around five hundred years before Christ. Long rows of such archers lined its courts and walls, a permanent parade of the royal guard whom Greek writers called the Immortals. Bricks and fragments were recovered in the eighteen eighties by the French mission of Marcel and Jane Dieulafoy and shipped to Paris, where the friezes were pieced together again. Together with the lions displayed nearby, they are the largest surviving piece of Achaemenid palace decoration outside Iran.
Did You Know? The Louvre owns not one but several archer panels, and this one was rebuilt from thousands of loose brick fragments sorted by colour and pattern in Paris.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.