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Deh Bid
Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jona Lendering. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius.
Deh Bid pass. Photo Jona Lendering. Deh Bid pass is not very famous, nor is the landscape particularly impressive. Actually, it is not even a real pass at all: it resembles a broad plain, with mountains of the Zagros range on both sides. It connects modern Fars with central Iran. In Antiquity, anyone who traveled from Persepolis, Naqš-i Rustam, and Pasargadae in Persis to the north (to the towns now known as Yazd and Isfahan/ancient Gabae) had to cross the Zagros over here.
Deh Bid pass. Photo Jona Lendering. In 559 BCE, the last king of Media, Astyages, marched across this pass to pacify Persis, but was defeated at Pasargadae by Cyrus the Great. During the Persian civil war after the coup of Darius I the Great (522-521), his adjutant Hydarnes occupied this area and made sure that the rebel armies of Phraortes and Vahyazdâtadid not unite. In the spring of 330, Alexander the Great, pursuing the last Achaemenid king, Darius III Codomannus, crossed Deh Bid pass too.
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