The capital of the ancient kingdom of Elam and winter palace and onetime capital of the Persian Empire.
Located on the bank of the River Chaour at the foot of the Zagros mountains and on the edge of the Mesopotamian plains, the city was strategically well placed to grow in properity and political influence in Mesopotamian-Iranian affairs, with trade links to lands as far away as the Indus Valley, Turkmenistan, and Dilmun (modern Bahrain).
Founded about 3900 BC, Susa was one of the oldest cities in the ancient Near East. Around 2000 BC the city became incorporated into the Elamite kingdom. In about the 12th Cent BC the Elamite king of the Shutrukids dynasty conquered Babylon; among the spoils brought back to Susa, and rediscovered in 1900, was the Code of Hammurapi. The Shutrukid dynasty, however, soon collapsed, and the Elamite empire, and Susa, entered into a dark age, including the sack of the city by the Assyrian king Assurbanipal in 646 BC, from which it never recovered.
Cyrus II the Great captured the city c.539 BC, from which time Susa became the royal winter palace, and then the capital under Darius I, until the construction of the new capital at Persepolis was completed.
All biblical references to Susa are set in this Persian period, and they indicate that Susa had a significant Jewish presence, probably as a result of the exile under the Babylonians. Nehemiah, e.g., was an official of King Ahasuerus in the city of Susa, before he asked to return home to Jerusalem (Neh 1:1). The story of Esther is set in the city (Est 1:2; 2:3). Daniel's vision, reported in Dan 8, was set in the city of Susa.
Susa fell to Alexander the Great without a fight in 331; his wedding to the daughter of Darius III, as well as that of many of his officials, was held in the city. It became part of the Seleucid empire after Alexander's death, but was lost to the Parthians c.150 BC. Though no longer a capital city, it continued to be a centre of wealth and prosperity, passing sucessively from the Parthians to the Sassinians, the Nestorians, and the Muslims. Decline followed and the city was finally abandoned in the 13th Cent AD.
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