The Abbasid historian al-Balāḏurī recounts a story about how the...

The Abbasid historian al-Balāḏurī recounts a story about how the Arabs encountered the grave of the prophet Daniel in Sus after conquering the city. Their general, Abū Mūsā, removed his corpse, dammed the river outside, and then it in the river bed...

The story is told by other scholars of the period, too, like the geographer al-Iṣṭaḫrī, who add further details...

Reading this story in class today, a student pointed out that the story resembles closely the story of the burial of Gilgameš. The details appear in a Sumerian poem, *The Death of Bilgamesh*, and quite close to story of Daniel's burial.

Another connection comes to mind, too. Al-Ṭabarī gives an account that claims Daniel’s corpse wore a ring that bore an inscription of “a man between two lions” (see the image on the cover above), though the “masters of beasts” motif is widespread in the ancient world ...

Two 7th-century accounts also mention Daniel’s grave in Sus. One by Ps.-Sebeos in Armenian from before the Arab conquests [left]; another in the Syriac Khuzistan Chronicle from after the Arab conquests [right].

Their description of the bronze/silver coffin brings to my mind a bronze Achaemenid coffin discovered during the excavations of Jacques de Morgan (1897-1912) in Sus over a century ago. The only image of the coffin known to me is his watercolor painting.