#hamadan

Bedecked with elaborate silver jewelry, a large 'abayye (floral wrap), and hennaed fingernails. Her large disk and sheath amulets suggest that she is from the western part of Iran, perhaps in Persian (Iranian) Kurdistan near Kermanshah, Tabriz, or Hamadan, all areas with large Jewish communities.

statuette of a woman with eye inserts | c. 2750–2250 BCE | possibly from hamadan (modern-day iraq)

"The early masterpiece belongs to the group of erotic figures, characterized by small breasts, wide hips and a large pubic triangle. Without knowledge of the circumstances of the find, however, the exact interpretation is uncertain: Was the statuette made for a special love spell, perhaps to promote female fertility or to bewitch a man? Or is it a grave offering, as similar examples suggest?"

For this week's culture blog, I read a scholarly article about whether or not Queen Esther and Mordechai were actually buried in Hamadan. This past weekend was the Jewish holiday of Purim, a celebration of Queen Esther, the Jewish wife of a Persian king who revealed her religious identity when one of the King's advisors announced his plan to exterminate the Jewish people in the kingdom. Esther is celebrated as she revealed to the King that she too was Jewish and encouraged him to stop the advisor, Haman's, evil plot and thus saved the Jewish people in the kingdom.

In Hamadan, Esther and Mordechai are allegedly buried in a set of modest tombs and its location is recognized as the only holy place for Jews in Persia. In 1067, Jewish Persian source Sahin describes Esther and Mordechai's dreams before dying inside the synagogue that their tombs are now in front of. There aren't any other sources on their place of burial until the 1850s, when Israel Ben Joseph visited Hamadan and explained how the Persian Jews came to the tombs once a month to pray and said that there was a community of about 500 Jews in Hamadan and three synagogues. Yehiel Fischel Castelman, a Galician Jew, and Jakob Pollak, Naser Al Din Shah's physician, both described the tombs as magnificent and of great importance to the Jewish people.

In spite of all of these accounts and the traditions of the Jews of Persia, the archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld and the lack of sources outside of Persia that say Esther and Mordechai were buried in Hamadan argue that these tombs are not the burial place of Esther and Mordechai. Herzfeld instead says they were buried in Susa and that Susandokt, the daughter of the Jewish Exilarch actually resides in the tomb.

I found these stories really interesting because my grandfather was from Hamadan and I'd never heard of him mentioning any Jewish holy sites there. I also did further research and found out that the Iranian regime actually added the tomb to its national heritage list in 2008. It was really surprising to read about the actual location where an iconic biblical figure, Esther, is supposedly buried and to discover that it was in Hamadan. Growing up, my family always celebrated Purim because there are not many Jewish holidays that detail the stories of Persian Jews, and it was really cool to read that there is an actual tomb in Iran that is protected because of this story and the religious traditions of Iranian Jews and Christians.

https://www.ou.org/life/history/where_is_the_tomb_of_mordechai_and_esther/

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/esther-and-mordechai

tomb of esther and mordechai in hamadan

Achaemenid gold appliqué of a bull and a gold lamassu, 404-359 BC.

The two extraordinary objects were reputedly discovered during an excavation at the city of Hamadan, in northwest Iran, in 1920.

The most dazzling discovery by far was a trove of 23 gold items that included statues of goats and camels, items of jewellery, and two tablets with inscriptions dating the hoard to the reign of King Artaxerxes II (404-359 BC).

Artaxerxes II was a powerful leader who successfully defended the largest empire the ancient world had ever seen — stretching from Greece to India — against his brother, Cyrus the Younger, and his army of Greek mercenaries known as ‘The Ten Thousand’. He also waged successful campaigns against the Spartans, Athenians and Egyptians.

Much of the king’s wealth was lavished on building projects, including the restoration of the palace of his forebear, Darius I, at Susa, a new hall at Hamadan and his own tomb at Persepolis.

Greek and Roman historians described how Achaemenid buildings were covered in spectacular amounts of gold. Persepolis alone is said to have contained 2,500 tonnes of it. Herodotus wrote that Achaemenid soldiers ‘glittered all over with gold, vast quantities of which they wore about their person’.

- An Achaemenid gold appliqué of a winged bull, reign of Artaxerxes II, 404-359 BC. 9⅝ in (24.4 cm) high,

- An Achaemenid gold appliqué of a lamassu, reign of Artaxerxes II, 404-359 BC. 9 in (23.1 cm) high