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Majestic Pasargadae and the Sivand Dam Threat
Pasargadae was the capital of the first universal monarchy, that of the “Medes and Persians” under Cyrus the Great, who reigned as the first Persian Shahanshah (Emperor) of the Achaemenid dynasty from 550 to 530 BC. “Set on its austere and elevated plain, Pasargadae is arguably the most moving of Middle East archaeological sites,” opined Bivar in 1979. (1) Pasargadae is located in northern Fars province, Iran in the fertile and well-watered Dasht-i-Murghab plateau, which stands 6234 feet above sea level.
By the time Cyrus died in 530 BC, the Persian Empire spanned from the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt to the Hindus River in what today is Pakistan. Cyrus’ monuments at Pasargadae, however, “stood unfinished, interrupted by [his] death in battle on a far-off northeast frontier. The greater part of the complex was mud-brick, once resplendent in whitewash, gilding or colours, but melted in the rainfall of 2,500 winters, to leave only the ‘torso’ of precious stonework seen in recent times.” (1)
Pasargadae became a UNESCO World Heritage site (the fifth such Iranian site) at the 28th session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee held on July 1, 2004, in Suzhoui, China. (2-3) The four reasons cited for its selection were:
There was another reason for making Pasargadae a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2004. The Iranian government planned to flood the Polvar River (also Pulvar) behind a new dam named after nearby Sivand, located northwest of Shiraz. Cyrus the Great, who loved gardens, built Pasargadae next to the Polvar River, which then flowed south to join the Kor River close to Persepolis, the famous royal capital of Darius and Xerxes, successor Shahanshahs to Cyrus, though of a different bloodline. (4) Persepolis became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. (5) The main opening of the Sivand Dam is 15.5 miles downstream (towards Persepolis) from Pasargadae.
The proposed 7-square mile lake that swells in the winter would fill the spectacular Tang-i-Bulaghi (Bologhi) Gorge through which once ran the cobbled Achaemenid Imperial Road between Pasargardae and Persepolis. (6) This road was a segment of the much longer “Royal Road” that linked Persepolis and Pasargardae to Sardis in Asia Minor. The lake would end about 5 miles downstream from Pasargadae. In other words, the Iranian government is creating an artificial lake in the deep Tang-i-Bulaghi Gorge between Pasargadae and Persepolis.
Preservationist experts and archaeologists have expressed concern that “the water stored in the dam’s reservoir [would] increase humidity, which will damage the foundations of the palaces as well as the Tomb of Cyrus the Great” at Pasargadae. Indeed, one archaeologist claimed that “the natural underground water table levels have always been high in the Pasargadae region. He stated the condition was mentioned in reports by the L’Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (ISMEO) that had made some excavations and restorations on the site and at Persepolis before Iran’s 1979 Revolution.” (7) In addition, “The area is home to 84 historical sites, including ancient mounds, metalworking furnaces, caves and shelters, stone tombs of former governors of Fars, two group graves from the Parthian era, an exclusive 4-kilometer royal road paved with stones, as well as several other historical sites which will be submerged under water if the dam becomes operational,” said Babak Kiyal, director of the Pasargadae Historical Complex. (7)
Pasargadae is not only the name of the place of Cyrus’ imperial capital; it is also the name of an ancient distinguished Persian tribe that contained the Achaemenidae clan, which historically spawned Persied kings, according to 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus. (8-9) The Pasargadae tribe loyally supported Cyrus early in his quest to lead the revolt against his mother’s father, Median King Astyages. Eventually, Cyrus dethroned Astyages, thereby ending the Median Empire (more below). Where did the Pasargadae people come from? In the second and first millennia BC, a Caucasian-appearing (eyes round, nasal ridges high, skin and hair fair, and men bearded) proto-Indo-Iranian-speaking peoples mass migrated from the geographic area known as the Eurasian steppe, as described elsewhere (10), to what is today Iran, India, and Central Asia, according to Barber. (11) One part of the original group was located in the Eurasian steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas; it carved a southeastward arc to settle the western side of the Iranian plateau.
A second part of the group was from the Eurasian steppe between the Caspian and Aral Seas; it moved southward a short distance and then split up, with one group heading in a southeastward direction to settle what is now India and the other group traveling southward to settle the eastern side of the Iranian plateau. A third part of the group from farther east along the Eurasian steppe headed eastward into Central Asia (e.g., the Tarim Basin, as described elsewhere [12]). The newcomers to western side of the Iranian plateau did not find a land devoid of people; archaeologists have found indigenous settlements dating to 7000 BC, and the Elamite kingdoms centered in Anshan (more below) flourished between 3000 BC and 1500 BC. The Mede and Pasargadae tribes of Cyrus’ time were plausible descendants of the Indo-Iranian immigrants who left the Eurasian steppe north of the Caucasus Mountains for the western side of the Iranian plateau, as described above (i.e., group one, as noted above). Indeed, some scholars have suggested that Cyrus was a Pasargadaean (more below). His mother was a Mede, so he could have been only half Pasargadaean (half Persian). The Medes lived in the northwestern portion of present day Iran and were probably part of group one, as described above, meaning they and the Persians were related anyway. One scholar conjectures that the Persians (i.e., the immigrant Iranians who settled on the western side of the Iranian plateau) had not been settled in Persis for that many generations before the birth of Cyrus the Great, even as recently arrived as in the person of Cyrus’ paternal great-grandfather Cispis (Teispes, died 640 BC), son of Achaemenes, according to old Persian texts. (13) Teispes captured the Elamite city of Anshan and called himself “King of the City of Anshan,” a first step that would lead to the rise of the Persian Empire. He was succeeded by his second son, Cyrus I, who was Cyrus the Great’s grandfather. Cyrus had a difficult entrance and exit to his otherwise stirring life on earth. His mother Mandane was a daughter of Astyages, King of the Medes, who ruled the Median Empire (585-550 BC), which covered many peoples, including all the Persian tribes, among them the Pasargadaeans (much to their disdain). Astyages had two sisters: one was married to King Croesus of Lydia (Asia Minor) and the other (named Amytis) to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Recall that Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, to assuage the pain of his homesick wife; that wife was Astyages’ sister Amytis who longed for the trees and fragrant plants treasured by Medes of the Zoroastrian faith, which revered plant and animal life and water. Astyages himself was married to a sister of Croesus. These interdynastic marriages would influence the course of history, as described below.
Zoroastrian Magi helped convince Astyages to marry off his daughter Mandane, about whom he had ghastly and threatening dreams that she would bear a son who would destroy the Median Empire, to a local Persian king (a “petty vassal king”[14]) named Cambyses (I). (15) Mandane wed Cambyses I and returned with her husband to his palace located at Anshan, one of the early Elamite capitals whose existence dated from the 3rd millennium BC. Anshan was located just 49 miles (as the crow flies) southwest of where Cyrus would later build his royal capital at Pasargadae. In Anshan, Mandane and Cambyses within a year produced a son whom they named Cyrus II after Cambyses’ kingly father whose name was Cyrus I. Upon hearing the news of the birth of Cyrus II, Astyages instructed his kinsman Harpagus to destroy the infant. Unable to commit this act, Harpagus instead switched baby Cyrus with a stillborn child of herdsman Mitradates who, with his wife (both were slaves of Astyages), raised Cyrus to the age of ten when his identity was revealed. Upon hearing that Cyrus was still alive, Astyages immediately summoned the lad to his palace where he observed the boy’s kingliness and degree of threat. Court Magi counseled Astyages: “This boy is a Persian [well, half Persian] and a foreigner, and if the power passes into his hands, we, who are Medes and of a different race [disingenuous], will be despised and enslaved by the Persians…We suggest…that you should send the boy to his parents in Persia, where he will be out of your sight.” (16) Astyages complied. Cyrus traveled to Anshan where he surprised his parents, who believed he was dead. They raised him as the Persian prince he truly was. Meanwhile, Astyages severely punished Harpagus for saving Cyrus’ life by the unspeakable crime of serving the unknowing Harpagus his own son’s flesh one night at dinner. Harpagus subsequently sought revenge on Astyages by revealing to Cyrus in Anshan that his maternal grandfather (Astyages) was his would-be murderer (which Cyrus had not known). Harpagus pushed Cyrus to “persuade the Persians to revolt, and march against the Medes.” Harpagus advised, “It makes no odds whether I or any other Mede of distinction is appointed by the king to take command against you: you will succeed in either case, for the Median nobility will be the first to desert him and join you in the attempt to pull him down. All our preparations are made. Do what I advise, and do it quickly.” (17) Another source notes that Harpagus was “at the head of the plot of the Median aristocracy against Astyages’ unwelcome heir designate, the husband of [another] daughter.” The Median aristocracy believed the son of Mandane and Cambyses, a Persian vassal king, was the more acceptable candidate for the throne of the Median Empire. (15) Cyrus, following the advice of Harpagus, developed and executed the following plan: He “wrote on a roll of paper that Astyages had appointed him to command the Persian army; then he summoned an assembly of the Persians, opened the roll in their presence and read out what he had written.” Herodotus wrote, “The Persian nation contains a number of tribes, and the ones which Cyrus assembled and persuaded to revolt were the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these the Pasargadae are the most distinguished; they contain the clan of the Achaemenidae from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder—Dai, Mardi, Dropici, Sagartii—being nomadic,” declared Herodotus. (8) The Pasargardae presumably occupied the region in which the palaces of Pasargadae and Persepolis were built, notes one scholar, who also believes the Pasargadae (along with the Maraphii and Maspii) were cultivators of the soil. (18) Iranian philologist Ilya Gershevitch suggested that the word Pasargadae means “wielders of strong clubs.” (18) Herodotus notes that the rebellion of the Persians against the Medes was preceded by a plot of the Median aristocracy organized by Harpagus as a result of the mortal offence (i.e., unknowingly eating his own son) suffered by him at the hands of Astyages.
Astyages, upon hearing of the warlike preparations of Cyrus, summoned him to appear before him. Cyrus responded to the summons with “the threat that he would be there a good deal sooner than Astyages liked.” Astyages then “armed the Medes to a man, and so far lost his wits as to appoint Harpagus to command them—having apparently forgotten how he treated him,” wrote Herodotus. (8) The armies of Astyages and Cyrus first clashed at Hyrba, a large Median city whose ruins have not yet been located, as of this writing. Astyages defeated Cyrus, according to Ctesias, a Greek physician and historian attached to the Persian court of Artaxerxes II Mnemon who ruled from 404 to 358 BC, more than a hundred years after the death of Cyrus in 530 BC. (14) Harpagus, leading Astyages’ army, defeated Cyrus’ army yet a second time in a defile (Bolaghi gorge?) leading to Pasargadae, by then the capital of Persis, to which Cyrus was retreating. (14) The year was 553 BC. As Cyrus and his army fled through the defile, their women, according to folklore that has survived to the present, shamed them by suggesting that they retreat straight into their mothers’ wombs. (14) The battle at the walls of Pasargadae was the turning point in the war between Cyrus and his grandfather, declared Herodotus. Soon various peoples ruled by the Medes, among them the Hyrcanii, a people who lived just south of the Caspian Sea, and later the Parthians, began to go over to the side of the Persians. The war between Cyrus the Persian and Astyages the Mede was prolonged with alternating success for one side and then the other. Then the decisive battle occurred in 550 BC when Harpagus and the Median aristocracy betrayed Astyages by joining Cyrus. Astyages fled to Ecbatana (modern-day Hamadan), executed “the Magi who had advised him to let Cyrus go, armed all Medes, both under and over military age, who had been left in the city, and led them out to battle,” wrote Herodotus. (8) Cyrus defeated and captured Astyages alive. Cyrus’ army sacked Ecbatana. The different parts of the Median empire, from the frontiers of Bactria to the frontiers of Lydia, submitted to Cyrus without opposition. (19) Diakonoff in the The Cambridge History of Iran (Volume 2) notes: Since the victory of Cyrus was achieved with the aid of the Median aristocracy it had to be given the appearance of a compromise. Therefore, though Ecbatana was sacked and some of the Medians were turned into slaves, Cyrus possibly did not abolish the kingdom of Media…In order to strengthen the legality of his right to the [Median] throne Cyrus, according to Iranian custom and if we are to believe Ctesias, married Amytis, Astyages’s daughter-epicleros [heiress], as the bearer of hereditary rights, having naturally first put to death her husband Spitamas. The determination to gain the sympathy of certain circles of the conquered lands, especially of the aristocracy, was constantly a part of the policy of Cyrus, as after him of Cambyses II. For this reason those members of the formerly reigning houses who had survived the immediate struggle for power, were usually spared. Such was the fate of Arsames in Persis, of Croesus in Lydia, of Nabonidus in Babylonia, of Psammetichus III in Egypt. This custom is probably to be explained by the fact that the Median and Persian empires had come about as a result of the amalgamation and federation of small, formerly independent kingdoms. (19) What happened to Harpagus? He entered the service of Cyrus and became one of his outstanding military leaders. What happened to Astyages? He had reigned for thirty-five years when Cyrus deposed him. Cyrus treated him with great consideration, according to Herodotus, and kept him at his court until he died. Cyrus may have set up his administration in Ecbatana before later building his own capital at Pasargadae between 546 and 530 BC (more below). (1) The overthrow of Astyages was unwelcome news to Croesus, King of Lydia in Asia Minor, even though Cyrus had spared him, as described above. Recall that Croesus and Astyages were married to one another’s sisters. Croesus sought an alliance with Babylon and Egypt against Cyrus and then prepared an expedition against Cyrus. Croesus crossed the Halys River into Cappadocia to savage Cyrus. Cyrus was waiting for him, having decided that Lydia with its formidable cavalry was a greater menace than Babylon and therefore heading to Cappadocia in spring 547 BC (three years after defeating Astyages) to wage battle against Croesus. The two armies engaged in battle and ended in a draw. The Babylonian chronicle notes that Croesus soon returned to Sardis, his own capital, to regroup and ask his allies for assistance. (20)
Earlier, a Lydian named Sandanis had warned Croesus about Cyrus and the Persians, as follows: “My lord,” he said, “you are preparing to fight against men who dress in leather—both breeches and everything else. So rough is their country that they eat as much as they have, never as much as they want. They drink no wine but only water. They have no good things at all, not even figs for dessert. Nor if you conquer this people, what will you get from them, seeing they have nothing for you to take? And if they conquer you, think how many good things you will lose; for once they taste the luxuries of Lydia they will hold on to them so tightly that nothing will make them let go. I am thankful myself that the gods have never put it into the Persians’ heads to attack the Lydians.” (21) Croesus never believed that Cyrus would follow him across the Halys River to Sardis, but he did. “So swift was his advance into Lydia that Croesus had no news that he was on the way. This unexpected turn of events put Croesus into a very difficult position; however, he made an attempt to resist the invader. In those days there were no stouter or more courageous fighters in Asia than the Lydians. They were cavalrymen, excellent horsemen, and their weapon was the long spear. The armies met on the level ground in front of Sardis,” whereupon Harpagus gathered all the Persian camels, which were used as pack animals to carry equipment and stores, unloaded them and mounted the Persian army as cavalrymen on their backs. When the Persians on their camels advanced toward the cavalry of Croesus, the Lydian horses reacted with their instinctive fear of camels. “No horse can endure the sight or smell of a camel,” averred Herodotus. When the battle was about to begin, the horse turned tail they moment they saw and smelled the camels. (22)
The Lydians withdrew into the walled fortress of Sardis whereupon the Persians promptly initiated a siege. On the fourteenth day of the siege, “Cyrus sent officers to ride round his lines and tell the troops that he promised a reward for the first man to scale the wall. Following this an attempt was made in force, but it failed and was abandoned; then a Mardian called Hyroeades resolved to try at a point in the fortifications which was ungraded, because a successful attack there had never been supposed possible. It was a section of the central stronghold so precipitous as to be almost inaccessible. [The Lydians thought] that the sheer drop was sufficient defence.” (23) However, the Mardian successfully stormed the fortress, ending the siege and Croesus was punished by being placed on a pyre. Apollo supposedly miraculously saved him and, seeing the Croesus was divinely protected, Cyrus allowed the former king to join his court. The important point here is that Cyrus and the Persians had subjugated Croesus’ kingdom. “Having thus added Anatolia to his empire Cyrus returned to Ecbatana, leaving his generals to deal with the insurrection that followed and crush the opposition of the Greek cities and native peoples of the coast. Cyrus began to build his capital at Pasargadae at about the time Croesus began to provoke him, circa 546 BC. Around 539 BC, Cyrus took to the road again to conquer fabulously wealthy Babylon. He then turned to Eastern Iran where he was not so successful. From there he moved northward to attack the Saka nation of Massagetae people (fellow Indo-Iranians of the Eurasian steppe), who dwelled in the immense tract of flat land to the east of the Caspian Sea. Cyrus perceived that the Massagetes were a threat to the frontier of his empire in the northeast. (24) The leader of the Massagetae was a queen named Tomyris, her husband having died. (25) She sent a note to Cyrus that said, according to Herodotus, “King of the Medes, I advise you to abandon this enterprise, for you cannot know if in the end it will do you any good. Rule your own people, and try to bear the sight of me ruling mine. But of course you will refuse my advice, as the last think you wish for is to live in peace.” (26) Cyrus persisted and finally the two armies met on a field where the Massagetae got the upper hand, destroying the Persian army, including Cyrus, where it stood. Cyrus had been on the Achaemenid Persian Empire throne for around two decades. (27)
Queen Tomyris located Cyrus’ body, which she desecrated by “pushing his head into a skin which she had filled with human blood, and cried out as she committed this outrage: ‘Though I have conquered you and live, yet you have ruined me by treacherously taking my son. See now—I fulfil my threat: you have your fill of blood.’” Herodotus acknowledges that other accounts of Cyrus’ demise exist, but he gave the one he thought most plausible. (28) Cyrus died in the high summer of 530 BC some 800 miles from Pasargadae. (29) In addition to losing to the Massagetae, he had not succeeded in subjugating Egypt, which his son Cambyses II tried to do. J.M. Cook writes in The Cambridge History of Iran (Volume 2): We know little about Cyrus, but we can say that few conquerors have won such unqualified admiration. To the Babylonians he was the elect of Marduk, to the Jews the Lord’s Anointed. The Medes do not seem to have felt that he was an alien master. Xenophon in the Cyropaedia built his ideal of monarchy round Cyrus; and the two conquering heroes that Alexander [the Great] is said to have emulated were Cyrus and Semiramis. Herodotus tells us that the Persians spoke of him as a father, for he was kind and contrived everything that was good for them. He shows him as quick to anger, but that could be a generous fault. It is only when he comes to Cyrus’ last campaign of world conquest that a harsher note creeps in: elated by unbroken success and seeming to himself more than human, Cyrus ends up justifying Tomyris’ phrase when she calls him “insatiate of blood.” But Herodotus knew that no mortal may expect good fortune to the last; and this characterization in the spirit of Attic tragedy is not one that he is likely to have heard on Persian lips. (30) Zoroastrian scholar Mary Boyce says that following the death of Cyrus in the northeastern region of his empire, his body was embalmed, taken back to Pasargadae, and laid in a majestic tomb, which still stands on the plain today. (24) The orthodox Zoroastrian funereal rite for non-royal Persians, however, did not involve embalming. Zoroastrians believe in a high degree of cleanliness and practice purity laws that date back to the Indo-Iranian times under discussion here. Zoroastrians strongly believe that “man should keep himself scrupulously clean, in person and clothing.” Boyce writes, Some of the basic injunctions of Zoroastrianism—to keep earth fertile and unsullied, to encourage plants and trees to healthy growth, to have regard for the welfare of animals—are now being generally commended to humanity. Food should be carefully prepared, with strict cleanliness, and eaten almost reverently, since everything consumed belongs to one or other of the creations; and there were special rules concerning water and fire which are particular to the faith. Most people use water heedlessly for washing; but for a Zoroastrian the cleanliness of water itself was to be protected…So nothing impure should be allowed in direct contact with a natural source of water, such as lake, stream or well. If anything ritually unclean was to be washed, water should be drawn off for this purpose, and even then, this was not to be used directly, but the impure object should first be cleaned with cattle-urine [which is normally sterile], and then dried with sand or sunlight before water was allowed to touch it for the final washing. …Similarly with regard to fire, the general practice of using it to burn rubbish was unthinkable for the Zoroastrian, who laid only clean, dry wood and pure offerings on it, and set cooking pots over it with special care. Rubbish had therefore to be disposed of in other ways. Dry and clean waste-matter, such as broken pots, or sun-bleached bones, might be buried, since this would not harm the good earth; and as for the rest, orthodox custom came to be to cast it into a small building with only a chimney-like roof-opening, and to destroy it periodically with acid. Night-soil might be put on fields, and otherwise ancient communities produced little of the waste characteristic of modern times. (31) What do the purity laws of Zoroastrianism have to do with Cyrus’ burial? For Zoroastrians, death was a great uncleanness. “The greatest pollution in death, in fact, was from the bodies of righteous people, because a concentration of evil forces was necessary to overwhelm the good inherent in them, and these evil spirits continued to hover round the corpse.” So from the moment of death the body was treated as if highly infectious, and only professional undertakers and corpse-bearers approached it, who were trained to take ritual precautions. If possible the funerary service was performed the same day, and the body was carried at once to a place of exposure. From medieval times this has been a funerary tower; but in ancient days (it would seem from the Avesta [Zoroastrian scriptures]), it was simply a bare mountain side, or stretch of stony desert—it being essential that the polluting body, laid down naked for birds and beasts to devour, should not come into contact with the good earth, or with water or plants. After the bones [the beasts leave the bones?] had lain for a while to bleach in sun and wind, they were gathered together and buried, to await Judgment Day. The primary purpose of this funerary rite seems to have been…to secure the swift destruction of the polluting flesh, and to set the spirit free to mount up to heaven. (31) Royal Zoroastrian corpses apparently received a different treatment, advises Boyce. The Achaemenians “maintained a distinctive rite of embalming the bodies of kings and placing them in sepulchres of living rock or stone, even though tombs for the dead are condemned in Zoroastrian holy writings such as the Avesta and in Pahlavi literature. The Achaemenians apparently felt they were above this particular religious law, notes Boyce, who continues: The preservation of royal bodies was probably linked with the concept of the king’s royal khvarenah, thought of as abiding at his tomb to the benefit of his successors and the people at large. There is scattered evidence for a special cult of the royal dead; and the practice of embalming their bodies, learnt presumably by the western Iranian from the peoples among whom they had settled, spread to their pagan kinsmen on the steppes, where it is well attested in the barrow burials of Scythian chiefs. (24) The tomb of Cyrus demonstrates “the care Zoroastrian kings prepared their sepulchers so that there should be no contact between the embalmed body—unclean in death, even though there was no decay—and the living creations.” The tomb-chamber is set high on a six-stepped stone plinth, which raises it far above the good earth, and it is itself all of stone. It consists of a single small chamber, thick-walled, windowless, with formerly a double stone roof and a narrow, low doorway. Over this doorway was set a caring of the sun, symbol of immortality in luminous Paradise; and Cyrus’ successor, Cambyses, endowed, as well as a daily sacrifice of sheep, a monthly sacrifice of a horse, the especial creature of the sun, to be made at the tomb for his father’s soul (Arrian, VI.29.7) These rites were maintained there for two hundred years, until Alexander conquered Persia, and the tomb was broken into and despoiled. (32)
Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who was born in Macedonia almost a century after young Cyrus deposed Astyages outside of the Median capital Ecbatana, detested most of the Achaemenian kings, but he revered Cyrus the Great. We know this from Greek historian Strabo (63/62 BC-24 AD), who wrote that after Alexander famously razed Persepolis, He next came to Pasargadae, which also was an ancient royal residence. Here he saw in a park the tomb of Cyrus. It was a small tower, concealed within a thick plantation of trees, solid below, but above consisting of one story and a shrine which had a very narrow opening; Aristobulus says, he entered through this opening, by order of Alexander, and decorated the tomb. He saw there a golden couch, a table with cups, a golden coffin, and a large quantity of garments and dresses ornamented with precious stones. These objects he saw at his first visit, but on a subsequent visit the place had been robbed, and everything had been removed except the couch and the coffin which were only broken. The dead body had been removed from its place [it was on the floor]; whence it was evident that it was the act not of the Satrap, but of robbers, who had left behind what they could not easily carry off. And this occurred although there was a guard of Magi stationed about the place, who received for their daily subsistence a sheep, and every month a horse. The remote distance to which the army of Alexander had advanced, to Bactra and India, gave occasion to the introduction of many disorderly acts, and to this among others. Such is the account of Aristobulus, who records the following inscription on the tomb. “O MAN, I AM CYRUS, I ESTABLISHED THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND WAS KING OF ASIA. GRUDGE ME NOT THEREFORE THIS MONUMENT. (33)
“Lying squarely on the traditional route from Shiraz to the north of Persia, the ruins of Pasargadae were long known to travelers to the Middle East,” write Stronach and Gopnik. (5) They continue: As early as 1474 the Venetian Giosafat Barbaro writes of “the tomb of the Mother of Solomon,” the local designation for the structure that would later be identified as the tomb of Cyrus, and a century later Albrecht von Mandelslo included an illustration of the tomb in his account of his visit to Fārs. The Dutch traveler Jan Struys, who visited the site in 1672, gives further details about the role of the tomb as an object of female devotion, a theme that recurs in the accounts of nearly all visitors to the site until the early twentieth century. James Morier, the British emissary to the Persian court, included a detailed description of several of the standing features at Pasargadae in the vivid account of his travels published in 1812. Struck by the resemblance between the tomb of the Mother of Solomon and classical descriptions of the tomb of Cyrus, Morier was also the first writer to give serious consideration to the possibility that the site should be identified as the ancient city of Pasargadae. He ventured the suggestion only to reject it, however, on the grounds that the site was too far north to match Persian geography as described by Pliny and other classical writers. A few years later, however, Morier’s suggestion was revived by Robert Ker Porter, the first visitor to attempt to take account of the testimony of Pasargadae’s still visible inscriptions. An accomplished artist, Porter sent a drawing of one of the site’s trilingual cuneiform inscriptions to the pioneer decipherer of Old Persian, Georg Friedrich Grotefend. When Grotefend was able to identify the presence of the name of Cyrus, Porter concluded that “in comparing... the account given by Arrian of the Tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae” with the still mysterious monument on the Murghab Plain, the resemblance between the two was “too exact not to bear an instant conviction” that they were “portraits of one and the same place.” In spite of Porter’s “instant conviction,” debate over the identity of the site continued through most of the nineteenth century. In particular, the detailed information provided by the finely executed drawings of Texier in, and by those published by Flandin and Coste shortly afterwards, did little to resolve the issue which centered primarily on the translation and interpretation of descriptions in classical accounts. Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy, who visited the site in 1881, and subsequently published elegant reconstructions of key architectural details, entertained the possibility that the ruins in question might represent those of Pasargadae, but insisted that the tradition of the site as a place of feminine devotion must have its roots in the identity of the tomb as that of a woman. It was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that consensus about the identity of the site as Pasargadae began to form in the scholarly community. George Nathaniel Curzon’s thorough review of the evidence, published in 1892, served to crystallize this opinion, and, with the publication of Ernst Herzfeld’s doctoral dissertation in 1908, the identity of the site as Pasargadae was established beyond all reasonable doubt. Excavations. The first excavations at Pasargadae were undertaken by Herzfeld, who carried out unspecified minor excavations in November 1923. In his subsequent four-week season in April/May 1928, Herzfeld produced a detailed site plan and, amidst other conspicuous contributions, revealed most of the stone fabric of such monumental structures as Gate R, Palace S, and Palace P. In 1933 Aurel Stein completed a map of the southern part of the plain and conducted sondages at two outlying prehistoric mounds, Do Tulan A and Tall-i Seh-Āsiāb on the banks of the perennial stream of the Pulvar, where occupations of fourth and early third millennium date were encountered. The main monuments came under renewed scrutiny two years later when E. F. Schmidt conducted his valuable aerial survey. Investigations resumed in 1949, at which time ʿAli Sami (Sāmi) embarked upon a six-year program of excavation and conservation. Apart from adding to the known plans of the Achaemenid palaces, Sami drew specific attention to the significance of Pasargadae in both the Chalcolithic period and Islamic times. The excavations of the British Institute of Persian Studies directed by David Stronach from 1961 to 1963, followed Sami’s initiative in exploring each period of settlement, beginning with the Chalcolithic occupation at Tall-i Nokhodi. In this instance, however, particular attention was paid to the chronology of the main monuments, to the characteristics of early Achaemenid stone architecture, to the prominent role of the garden in Achaemenid architectural design, and to the choice jewellery and other objects that came to light during three seasons of concentrated excavation. Since then the latest field researches, begun in 1999 and continued in 2001, have been largely dependent on geomagnetic surveys. These have revealed that extensive areas of the site were landscaped on the same governing axis as the royal garden and the adjoining palaces. Finally, the prospects for further vital research and conservation throughout the site were greatly strengthened by the decision, taken in July 2004, to place Pasargadae on the World Heritage List. Stronach and Gopnik provide a fine bibliography to direct readers to the names and resources mentioned in the above text. (6) British author Robert Byron (1905-1941) briefly visited Pasargadae in 1933 and wrote about that visit in his extraordinary book The Road to Oxiana (1937), as follows: A newly planted avenue led off the Isfahan road to Cyrus’s tomb, a sarcophagus of white marble on a high, stepped plinth, standing by itself among the ploughed fields. It looks its age: every stone has been separately kissed, and every joint stroked hollow, as though by the action of the sea. No ornament or cry for notice disturbs its lonely serenity. Enough that Alexander was its first tourist. There used to be a temple round it. One can still see how this stood from the bases of the columns. Since then, it has become the Tomb of the Mother of Solomon. In deference to this transformation, a miniature mihrab and an Arabic inscription have been carved on one of the inside walls. Across the mihrab hangs a bunch of rags and bells; leaves of an old Koran were blowing about the floor. The ground inside the temple boundary is occupied by Mohammadan graves. Half a mile further on stood a platform of the Persepolis type, supporting one plain white pillar; and near this, the ruin of a tomb-house like the one at Naksh-i-Rustam. At length, while the sun’s last rays spurted from a bank of rain-clouds, I trudged over the plough to that solitary marble stele which bears the four-winged effigy of Cyrus. Now indeed I could imagine how the visitor to Persepolis used to feel; and so dreaming was lost in the dark, till rescued by the flash of the car’s headlights. (34-35) British author Paul Kriwaczek wrote about his experience at Cyrus’ tomb at daybreak in his fine book In Search of Zarathustra (2003), as follows: Having wanted to visit this place ever since, as a schoolboy, I first learned of Cyrus from his Greek biographers [e.g. Herodotus and Ctesias], I had expected to be uplifted and moved. What I had not anticipated was that the entire area would be closed off with a high wire fence, the gates through which were firmly padlocked. After we had wandered around for some time, looking unsuccessfully for a way to bypass the barrier, the door of the shabby caravan parked next to the entrance suddenly opened and an elderly man, wearing pyjamas incongruously decorated with yellow daisies, stepped down, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He was not pleased to have woken so early. Are you mad people?” he demanded. “The tomb doesn’t open till ten o’clock.” The time was then was just after six. My Iranian companion tried to bend the truth a little: “I am from the Ministry of Antiquities in Tehran,” he said grandly, waving a grubby scrap of paper in front of the man’s nose. “Oh no you’re not,” said the man with total conviction. My companion was rather taken aback. “Why do you say that?” “No government official from Teheran ever got up so early in the morning.” Seeing my companion now reach into his pocket and bring out an American ten-dollar bill, he shook his head pre-emptively. “And, by the way, bribery is illegal and un-Islamic. Come back at the proper time.” He turned to go back into his caravan and, presumably, back to bed. I made one last effort. “I have travelled a very long way to visit Cyrus’s tomb,” I pleaded. “Where have you come from?” “From London, England. And my schedule doesn’t allow us time to wait four hours. If you don’t let us in now, I really won’t be able to come back again. That would be a great loss to me.” Perhaps my submissive tone mollified the man. “What do you want here?” “To pay my respects to the burial place of the first and greatest of Iranian rulers.” “Are you Zoroastrian?” he now wanted to know. “No , but I am a fan of Iranian history.” After an internal mental struggle lasting some seconds, he appeared to come to an executive decision, said, “Wait,” went back into the caravan, and returned with a bunch of keys and unlocked the gate. After ushering us through he firmly locked them again behind us. “Call me when you want to leave,” he said. “What if you’re asleep?” my Iranian friend asked. “I heard you before, didn’t I?” (36) News articles produced between July 2004 and August 2008 by the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) carefully cover the construction of Sivand Dam across the Polvar River between Pasargadae and Persepolis in Fars province, Iran. (37) The government’s purpose for building the dam and flooding the Polvar River is to provide irrigation for farmers in arid southern Iran. CAIS claims the area is mostly inhabited by pastoral nomads at present who build shelters they share with their flocks, a custom that has altered little over the last 2,500 years. (38) The Iranian government clearly has plans to develop agriculture in the area. The Energy Ministry of Iran started construction on the Sivand dam in 1992 and was planning to flood the Tang-e-Bolaghi gorge in March 2005, but rolled back the start date to 2006 and then 2007 ostensibly to allow for multinational teams of archaeologists to perform “rescue archaeology” for many archaeological sites that would soon be underwater. One of the Iranian archaeologists was upbeat when asked whether he was saddened by the impending flood. “Quite the reverse, we are happy to have been given this pretext to investigate,” Mohammad Taghi Ataee said. (38) Sivand Dam was finally completed in 2007 and the reservoir (Lake Bologhi) began filling. A CAIS report dated August 5, 2008 said that the filling of the dam had not been completed due to low rainfall in the area. (7) No further information is available, to the best of this writer’s information, on the status of the Sivand Dam since this last CAIS report in August 2008, although the CAIS newsletter is current as of November 2009.
The reason for the blackout on news about Sivand Dam is likely that the Iranian government has of March 2009 banned archaeologists from giving interviews, as follows: LONDON, (CAIS) -- In an unprecedented move by the Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicraft and Tourism Organisation (ICHHTO), all the active Iranian archaeologists are banned to partake in any interview or reveal any information about the organisation or the status of Iranian archaeology. Since 1979 Iranian archaeologists not only have carried out their duties as the “explorer” to shed light on Iran’s past through their scientific works, but also voluntarily they have taken the task of protecting Iranian heritage from destruction. As the result of their endeavours today, most of Iranian newspapers have an archaeological or heritage section dealing with the latest archaeological discoveries in Iran – and by doing so, they succeeded to bring the heritage matters to Iranian homes… (39) Furthermore, on June 18, 2009, CAIS wrote, “As the result of a national uprising in Iran all the archaeological activities have now being seized and as soon as we have any news we will bring them to you.” (40) It was able to continue to publish, but the content is now government controlled. (41) Pasargadae is a human civilization treasure. The importance of the history of this 2,500-year-old majestic home of Persian Cyrus the Great is reaching a broader audience, possibly because of the Sivand Dam initiative, which destroys the Bogholi Gorge. Furthermore, the water table is already high in Murghab plain beneath Pasargadae and the flooding of the Bogholi Gorge will only drive the table higher where it will likely harm the ruins of Pasargadae. The Iranian government regrettably has imposed a news blackout (beginning March 2009) on information about the status of Pasargadae post Sivand Dam. This news blackout continues as of this writing. Notes:
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