A Comparative Study of the Paintings in Kuh-e Khwaja with the Wall Paintings in Doura-Europos

The region in Kuhe-e Khwaja located in Sistan, and the one in Doura-Europos located in modern Syria are outstanding regions from the painting point of view in Parthian Empire period; the art was never seen in Iran before the Parthian Empire. This paper tends to provide a comparative study of the wall paintings in Kuhe-e Khwaja and the ones in Doura-Europos focusing on the artistic methods, motifs and the contents utilized in the wall paintings in the two regions while also comparing with the other archeological objects belonging to Parthian Empire. The results showed that despite differences, especially the ones concerning characters and religious contents in Doura paintings, similarities could be found between the paintings in the two regions in artistic methods like full-faced pictures, outlining, perspective, and in painting contents such as using older styles and models like hunting and levee all having their roots in Iranian local arts.