Pasargadae, Shiraz

Pasargadae, Shiraz

Pasargadae 

Pasargadae is a city in Iran in Zagros mountains. Pasargadae was the first capital of the Persian Empire. The site is located 87 km north-east of Persepolis, in the present province of Fars. According to an Elamite cuneiform tablet, found in the fortifications of Persepolis, the name of Pasargadae was Batrakatash at first. The common usage name of Pasargades derives from a Greek transliteration of ancient Persian Pathragada "Persian Camp", but whose exact meaning is still uncertain. Like Persepolis, Pasargadae is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

According to Strabo (Greek Geographer) the city was built by Cyrus II the Great (559-529 BC) in 550 on the site where he won the battle against the King of the Medes (His grandfather) Astyage (585-550 BC). However, this interpretation is today questionable because the battle of Pasargadae is not the last war against the Medes. There are other dates for the creation of this city according to different sources.

The archaeological evidence seems to indicate that the foundation of the city would have occurred after the conquest of Sardis, about 546 BC. For Herodotus (Greek Historian), this site was chosen to build Pasargadae because it was the cradle of one of the three Persian tribes, the one from which the Achaemenid clan came.

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Pasargadae remained the capital of the Empire until the reign of Darius I (522-486) ​​who built Persepolis. Artaxerxes II (404-359) was crowned at Pasargadae. The role of the city in the political-administrative organization of the Achaemenid Empire remains rather unknown and we do not know whether Pasargadae was a second capital, a religious center or a second administrative center. It is known that it was in Pasargadae that, during the investiture rite, the new King had to take off his robe and put on Cyrus II's robe. In fact, specialists believe that the concept of capital among the Achaemenids was understood by the place where the King settled.

The Greek writers point out that the Achaemenid rulers moved their capital according to the season. In summer the capital was in Ecbatana, in autumn in Persepolis, in winter in Susa and the rest of the year in Babylon. It should be noted that Pasargadae and Persepolis, probably functioned more like ceremonial cities than as an administrative center of the Empire. This fact would confirm in the very name of Pasargadae: Pâthragâda "Camp of the Persians".

The archaeological site
The archaeological site covers 1.6 km² and the ruins are very scattered. The heart of Pasargadae is its citadel, which is known as the Toll-e Takht. The latter consists of two small units: The residential palace and a palace courtroom. There is also a monumental gate and a tower called by the locals, Zendan-e Suleiman.

The courtroom, or Apadana, can be approached by arriving from the Southeast, the visitor must first pass a door, then cross a bridge over the river Pulvar. The residential palace of Cyrus II of 2620 m² had: A hypostyle central room with five rows of six columns, whose bases are alternately white and black, four terraces in four directions and two rooms in the corners. Finally, the east of the palace was a large hall with eight columns.

The style of Apadana belongs to the traditional architecture of the Iranian nomads who lived in large tents. However, Cyrus II used elements from other cultures. Thus the Assyrian palace sculptures served as a model and Ionian stone cutters and Phoenicians did the work. There are other ruins in the region of Pasargadae that some of them are registered at UNESCO. These include ruins dating back to the Achaemenid dynasty (Saravan Village), the Dokhtar Palace (Rastaq Village) dating back to the third century AD, a Sassanid palace (Sarvestan) dating back to 420 AD.

The most important monument in Pasargadae is the small tomb of Cyrus II, located on the south-west of the city. It is a small six-storey square mausoleum leading to the sepulcher, covered with a double creeping roof. The burial chamber, 3.17 meters long and 2.11 meters wide and 2.11 meters high, has a narrow entrance. Although there is no compelling evidence to identify the grave as that of Cyrus II, Greek historians tell us that it has been venerated throughout history by all leaders.

In 330 BC, King of Macedonia Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) found the tomb intact, but when he returned there in January 324 BC the burial had been violated. He then ordered restorations and sealed it to prevent further profanation. The tomb of Cambyses II (529-522), the son and successor of Cyrus II was never completed. The design of the Cyrus II mausoleum, which could be a copy of the Mesopotamian or Elamite ziggurats, is generally attributed to the models of Urarteens tombs, or even tombs from an earlier period found in western Asia Minor.

Indeed, the tomb at Pasargadae is almost exactly the same size as the tomb of Alyattes II (610-561 BC), the father of the King of Lydie, Croesus (561-547), but some specialists refute this comparison, (According to Herodotus, Croesus was spared by Cyrus II after his conquest of Lydia and became a member of the Achaemenid court). This tomb was surrounded by a large garden of sacred amenity, called "Paradise", like another one already found among the Assyrians.

Arrian (or Lucius Flavius ​​Arrianus Xenophon, Roman historian, v.95-v.175) in one of his writings, informs us that Alexander would have commanded Aristobulus, one of his warriors, to enter the monument. Inside he would have found a bed of gold and a gold coffin decorated with precious stones with an inscription on the tomb. No trace of such an inscription has survived today and there is a major disagreement between the specialists about this. The main decoration on the tomb is a rosette on the gable of the door. During the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Arab armies arriving on the tomb wanted to destroy it, considering that it was a direct violation of the islamic principles.

The guardians of the tomb in Pasargadae succeeded in convincing the Arabs that the tomb had not been built in honor of Cyrus II, but that it sheltered the mother of King Suleiman the Magnificent, and succeeded to save the monument. In return, the inscription in the tomb was replaced by a verse from the Koran and the tomb took the name of "Qabr-e Madar-e Sulaiman", or "The tomb of the mother of Soliman

The latest structural research on Pasargadae has shown the genius of the Achaemenid engineers who built the city. Indeed, this one was built to withstand a serious earthquake that could be considered today as ranked 7.0 on the Richter scale. Foundations had an "isolation base" in their design, the same base that is currently used in some countries for the construction of facilities such as nuclear power plants that need insulation against the effects of seismic activity. The site of Pasargadae is a growing concern because it is threatened by the project of construction of the Sivand dam (named after the neighboring town of Sivand).

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