The Diffusion of the 'salles a quatre saillants'

Abstract

In 1965 Roman Ghirshman drew attention to a particular element of Elamite architecture which he called the “salle à quatre saillants”: this is a rectangular room with four pilasters placed near the short walls and a large doorway in the middle of its long side, opening on to a courtyard. It must have served as the reception, audience and throne hall. Ghirshman identified this architectural form in successive Middle Elamite levels on the Royal City mound at Susa in houses belonging to officials of the Sukkalmahhu, and so it may reflect Royal Palace designs, as do the Neo-Assyrian Residences at Khorsabad. He has dated these levels from c. 1800 to c. 1300 B.C. He also noted its reappearance at Susa in the Palace of Darius. Here it is slightly modified: there are two “salles à quatre saillants” placed side by side with doorways piercing through them both (see also fig. 11). It would be possible to maintain that the double and single “salles à quatre saillants” are distinct but this has neither chronological nor geographical significance.The eight centuries between these buildings cannot yet be filled with more Elamite examples of the “salle à quatre saillants” because very little Elamite architecture has been discovered. It does not appear in the funerary palaces at Choga Zanbil and has not been found on the Iranian plateau at this period. The Kassite palace at Dur-Kurigalzu shows no trace of it, and Geoffrey Turner in his recent study of Late Assyrian palace plans did not draw attention to this feature.