Background on Persia

The book of Esther centers on the town of the ancient Persian town of Susa (שושן‎). Livius has a nice archive of pictures from the ancient site (complete with photos of tablets and architectural schematics).

Additionally, National Geographic ran its cover story on Persia back in August. The article has an accompanying photo gallery that is also pretty nice. The pictures focus on Persepolis not Susa, but the art and architecture are similar.

This is the one of a series of posts on Esther inspired by my cell‘s close reading of the text. Some will be academic, some will be pedantic. Hopefully all will be edifying.