The Parthian Empire, a major state of ancient Iran, lasted from 247 BCE to 224 CE, in which music played a prominent role. It featured in festivals, weddings, education, warfare and other social gatherings. Surviving artistic records indicate that it involved both men and women, who could be instrumentalists or singers. Along with the older music of the previous Medians, Assyrians and particularly the Achaemenid period, Parthian music was crucial in laying the foundation for the golden age of subsequent Sasanian music.
The gōsān (Persian: گوسان) poet-musician minstrels were a central tradition, probably originating in the earlier Achaemenid period. Little is known of them, though Greek commentators recall panegyrical themes in their songs. A wide variety of instruments were used, often to accompany the gōsān. They included both single and double reed wind instruments, such as the panpipes (syrinx), transverse flute, small trumpets and the aulos, as well as string instruments such as the kithara, harps, lyres, lute and tanbur. At least some of these, such as harps, lutes and lyres, originated in earlier periods.
Compared to their Western rival, the Roman Empire, much less is known about the Parthians, but information on music can be gathered from a few Parthian texts, accounts from Greek and Roman writers, some archeological evidence, and a variety of visual sources. The last of these are usually from either the archeological sites and former settlements of Hatra or Nisa, and include terracotta plaques, reliefs and illustrations on drinking horns known as rhytons or in Persian, takuk (Persian: تکوک).
- ^ Ellerbrock 2021, p. 191.
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