Tomb of Daniel

History: Tomb of Daniel

The Tomb of Daniel in Shush, ancient Susa, is the most widely accepted of the places named as the burial site of the biblical Daniel. The Book of Daniel places one of his visions at "Shushan the citadel" (Daniel 8:2) but does not say where he died; the tradition that he was buried at Susa is kept by Jews and Muslims, and was also known to Syriac writers.

The earliest European account comes from Benjamin of Tudela, who visited in the 1160s. Arab historians, among them al-Baladhuri in the ninth century, record that when Muslim forces reached Susa in 638 they found a coffin said to be Daniel's and buried it beneath a stream. The present shrine, of the Islamic period, is marked by a tall, stepped conical dome and is visited today by Muslims and by members of Iran's Jewish community alike.

An interesting detail

Benjamin of Tudela was told that the people on each bank of the river quarrelled over Daniel's coffin, until they agreed to move it from one side to the other every year.