The Gestures ofproskynēsisin the Achaemenid Empire

Abstract

SummaryIn October of 2018 a new trilingual Achaemenid inscription from Naqsh-e Rostam was discovered and in March of 2019 a detailed investigation of it with linguistic and historical commentary was published online in ARTA. The inscription includes a previously unknown Old Persian verb, a-f-r-[?]-a-t-i-y, which the first publishers Soheil Delshad and Mojtaba Doroodi read as *ā-fra-yāti(perhaps “he comes forward to”) or *ā-fra-θāti(“he speaks forth to”). They conclude that “an Old Persian verb with the meaning ‘to greet, to bless’ (etc.) seems to be called for”. It is clear that as a result of this discovery we get an Old Persian verb which could refer to an act which the Greek verb προσκυνεῖν may have described relating to the Persians. This new evidence stimulates further discussion about the practice and meaning ofproskynēsisat the royal court in the Achaemenid Empire. My article shows that all literary and pictorial evidences onproskynēsismay be divided into two groups: 1) Greek authors’ information that representsproskynēsismainly as prostration before the King; 2) Persian bas-reliefs that depict the scenes withproskynēsisas a hand-kissing gesture. It is supposed that the previously unknown Old Persian verb (like προσκυνεῖν in Ancient Greek usage) refers not only to specific gestures, but relates to a model of behaviour (‘salutation’, ‘obeisance’, ‘greeting’, ‘worship’, ‘respect’ etc.). It is argued that Achaemenid officials performedproskynēsisbefore the King as hand-kissing, while the rest of the people bowed down, kneeled or prostrated. Exceptions were made only for members of the royal family who did not performproskynēsis, but kissed the King and got a kiss from him.