Violence as Dominant Order: An Analysis of Power Hegemony in the Late Fourth-Millennium BCE Seal Impressions from Susa and Chogha Mish

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Rouhollah Yousefi Zoshk 1
Khalil-Oallah Bik-Mohammadi 2
Haeideh Khamseh 3
1 Associated Professor, Department of Archeology, Faculty of Literature and Human Science, Varamin-Pishva Branch, Islamic Azad University, Varamin, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran.
3 Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Literature, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
10.48311/eijh.2026.119015.82833
Abstract
This article investigates the origins and functions of violence in Proto historic Iran, focusing on Mid fourth-millennium BCE figural seal imagery from the sites of Susa and Chogha Mish. The principal aim is to analyze violence not as an exceptional act or an immediate reaction, but as a hegemonic mechanism in the formation of power and social order. The theoretical framework integrates Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Michel Foucault’s power/knowledge paradigm, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, synthesized here under the rubric of “the hegemony of violence”. Methodologically, the study employs a descriptive–analytical approach informed by semiotics, treating five selected cylinder-seal motifs as visual texts of power. The findings indicate that the examined motifs represent a coherent cycle of hegemonic violence comprising four interlinked phases: the pre-configuration of violence through bodily discipline and collective organization; the enactment of violence via physical elimination and military confrontation; the legitimation of violence through its alignment with sacred spaces and cosmic order; and, finally, the stabilization of violence through the disciplinary control of captives and the management of bodies. This cycle suggests that, in early historic Iranian societies, violence was a structural, generative force that simultaneously contributed to the production of political authority, social order, and ideological legitimacy. The article concludes that, in the absence of writing, the seals of Susa and Chogha Mish functioned as the earliest political media, not merely depicting scenes of warfare, but disclosing the internal logic of power. Thus, in these images, violence emerges as the shared language of power and the foundational semantic apparatus of domination in proto historic Iran.

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