The Gestures of proskynēsis in the Achaemenid Empire

Abstract

Summary In 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 of proskynēsis at the royal court in the Achaemenid Empire. My article shows that all literary and pictorial evidences on proskynēsis may be divided into two groups: 1) Greek authors’ information that represents proskynēsis mainly as prostration before the King; 2) Persian bas-reliefs that depict the scenes with proskynēsis as 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 performed proskynēsis before 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 perform proskynēsis, but kissed the King and got a kiss from him.