This fragmentary wall painting from the main hall of Temple II in Panjikent is one of the best-known discoveries from the early years of systematic excavation of the city in the late 1940s. A vivid and complex composition depicts the lamentation for the deceased, who is visible through the three arches of a domed structure. The body is dressed in red with long tresses and an elaborate headdress. Through the arches we can also see three mourning women tearing their hair; below, men and women also mourn, with the men cutting their beards. To the left of the composition appear three larger figures. The largest is a standing, haloed, four-armed goddess; to her right, another haloed figure, yet to be identified, kneels and seems to sweep the ground in front of the standing deity. Behind them stands a third figure, her left arm raised and her right holding an unidentified object.

The painting contains several layers of recessed space, an unusual composition when compared to later examples excavated from elsewhere in Panjikent, which approach pictorial space in a flatter and more abstract manner. Nonetheless, a constant in Panjikent’s wall paintings is a focus on drama and narrative, something that is poignantly expressed in this scene.

Initially thought to depict an episode from the great Iranian epic the Shahnameh [“Book of Kings”], scholars later connected the painting to texts describing mourning rituals strikingly similar to actions in the scene here. The large, four-armed deity has been identified as Nana, a major goddess whose origins can be traced back to Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE. Nana was worshipped by rulers, from Sumerian kings to Kushan emperors, and was adopted in Sogdiana, where her cult spread to all strata of the population. Both wood carvings and monumental paintings of her (typically on her lion mount) decorated many Panjikenters’ houses; Fig. 1.