In this innovative study, Matthew Canepa shows how local dynasties of the pre-Islamic Middle East articulated their claims to legitimacy through creative engagement with the material remains and ideological legacies of earlier empires. With characteristic clarity and insight, Canepa reveals how elites in Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, and the Caucasus all tapped into the visual and narrative traditions of ancient Iran to forge their own technologies of power."—Joel Walker, Lawrence J. Roseman Endowed Associate Professor of History, University of Washington, Seattle “This book is as expansive in scope as the phenomenon it explores. Never before have landscapes of power in Persia and the wider Iranian world received such exhaustive treatment. Canepa’s ambitious work will take its rightful place as a definitive text in the art, archaeology, and history of ancient Iran.”—Lori Khatchadourian, author of Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires