Susa
Susa names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Susa soo'sa, the Biblical Shushan
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
soo'sa, the Biblical Shushan, a celebrated city of the ancient world. It was the capital of the kingdom of Elam and later one of the capitals of Persia. It was a favorite city of Darius. Alexander the Great marched thither from Babylon and siezed an incredible quantity of treasure--$57,000,000 worth, it is said, of gold and silver. The vision of Daniel came to him "at Shushan in the palace." The scene of the book of Esther is laid here, as well as that of the Apocryphal Susannah. The site of ancient Susa has been identified in modern times. The city was situated in a well watered, fruitful valley, about one hundred miles or more from the head of the Persian Gulf. In its prime Susa enjoyed a vast caravan trade. Excavations by Loftus and others have resulted in the identification of the great palace mentioned in the book of Esther, and other imposing buildings. Cuneiform inscriptions of priceless value to the historian have been unearthed. A pillar of black stone eight feet high was found in January, 1902, on a mound in the Acropolis. It bore originally over three thousand lines of writing divided into forty-nine columns. It contains the so-called code of Hammurabi, a king of Babylonia who lived about 2200 B. C. This code is supposed to be 1,000 years older than the Mosaic Law. It is divided into 280 clauses, opening with the proclamation "Law and justice I established in the land. I made happy the human race in those days." The code contains regulations covering a wide range of topics. Witchcraft and enchantment, oaths, wages, commercial travelers, merchants' accounts, receipts, written contracts, irrigation canals, theft, bodily injury, murder, infidelity, the support of a wife, divorce, rules of evidence, and many other points of law are covered. The laws relating to agriculture and commercial matters are especially explicit. The phraseology is quite Scriptural in its style. The Scriptural, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," may be compared with the Susan code, "If any one destroy another's eye, his own eye shall be destroyed; if any one breaks another's bones, his own bones shall be broken; if any one knock out the tooth of an equal, his own tooth shall be knocked out." In case a wife became sick, the husband is permitted to take a second wife, but the "sick wife he shall not put away. In the home she shall dwell; as long as she lives, he shall sustain her." See Nineveh ; Babylon
Susa one of the capitals of ancient Persia
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
one of the capitals of ancient Persia; was situated on the Choaspes, and has now been identified with the extensive ruins on the left bank of the Kerkha, about 250 miles S. E. of Bagdad. It had a circumference of 120 stadia, and like Babylon was built of burnt bricks cemented with asphalt. It was without walls, but its citadel, containing the treasury and mausoleum of the Persian kings, was strongly fortified. The founder of Susa is not known with certainty, but it was at least much enlarged by Darius Hystaspes, the ruins of whose palace, repaired by Artaxerxes Longimanus, have been excavated by Loftus and Williams. From the time of Cambyses Susa was a favorite residence of the Persian kings. After Alexander and his successors had fixed their court at Babylon Susa declined in importance, though when besieged by Antigonus in 315 B. c. it was still one of the chief cities of Persia, and even as late as the middle of the 7th century A. D. it offered under Hormuzan an obstinate resistance to the Saracens; but in the 13th century it had become a heap of ruins. The most important of these ruins are those of the palace of Darius, the colonnade of which has a frontage of 343 feet and a depth of 244. In general construction it exactly resembles the Hall of Xerxes at Persepolis. References to Susa abound in the ancient authors, especially Herodotus, Xenophon, and Arrian.
Susa a town of Northern Italy
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a town of Northern Italy, on a tributary of the Po, at the foot of the Cottian Alps, 32 miles W. of Turin. It has a cathedral (1029), and a triumphal arch erected by the Romanized Sugusian chief to Augustus in 8 B. C. The people grow fruit and grapes, and carry on iron, leather, and silk industries.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account dates the Hammurabi stele found on the Susa acropolis to a king who "lived about 2200 B.C."; the diorite monument, unearthed by the French mission under Jacques de Morgan in the winter of 1901-02 and taken straight to the Louvre, where it still stands, is now placed around 1754 BC. Excavation did not stop with Loftus and Williams: French teams worked at the site for most of the 20th century, notably Roland de Mecquenem and then Roman Ghirshman, showing occupation reaching back to about 4200 BC, long before the Persian kings the encyclopedias emphasise. Collier's called the place a "heap of ruins" by the 13th century, but the modern Iranian town of Shush in Khuzestan grew up beside it, with the shrine traditionally identified as the Tomb of Daniel; the ruins were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. The Italian Susa of the second Collier's entry is still there below the Cottian Alps, Roman arch and all.
Written for this edition, 2026.