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: Pasargadae
: Achaemenid
Royal inscriptions
: photos by
Marco Prins and Jona Lendering © |
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Pasargadae (3)
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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.
The
first page with pictures can be found
here.
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Actually, there was, in our sense of the word, no
palace at Pasargadae.
King
Cyrus
ordered the construction of several buildings in a park: an entrance
hall
(Gate R), a small hall (S), two pavilions (A and B), and a large hall
(P).
Probably the two halls served as an audience palace and living palace,
but this is just a hypothesis. Here
you can see it on a satellite photo. |
(©!!!)
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This is the entrance hall, called Gate R
by the excavators,
seen from the southeast. It measures about 28½ x
25½ meters,
so it must have made a considerable impact upon its visitors - often
Iranian
nomads, used to living in tents. In fact, this building -like all
buildings
in Pasargadae- can be seen as a pavilion made of stone. |
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The technical term for these pavilions is apadana.
We know that
the audience hall at Susa had this name and modern scholars have
applied
it to all rectangular buildings with columns to carry the flat roof. A
gate like this can be seen as a specific type of apadana / pavilion.
The
entrance was guarded by statues of bulls or lamassu's,
and it must have looked like the Gate
of All Nations in Persepolis. |
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On the two
above pictures a small monument under
a roof is visible. Scholars are divided about the interpretation of
this
figure. There are many parallels in eastern art for specific details,
but
the combination is a bit mysterious. The bearded man is dressed like an
Elamite, but wears an Egyptian crown and has four wings like an Assyrian
protective genius. It is possible that this a protective demon or deity
too. |
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This picture shows an example of an Assyrian
four-winged genius, on
a seal from the Allard Pierson Museum
in Amsterdam. The Pasargadae example was once standing underneath a
inscription,
which was still visible in 1861 (when John Ussher visited the site) but
had disappeared fifteen years later, when K.F. Stulze was there. It
said:
Kûruš
\ xšâyathiya
\ vazraka \ Kabûjiya
hyâ
\ xšâyathiyahyâ
\ puça \ Haxâmanišiya
\
thâtiy
\ yathâ
[...]
[...
...] akutâ [...
]
Cyrus the great king, son of Cambyses
the king, an Achaemenid,
says: When [...] made [...]
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Proceeding from the Gate in the direction of the two
halls, a visitor
had to cross the river. These are the inconspicuous remains of a
bridge.
In the background the citadel Tall-i
Takht. |
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Palace S. The white column, the
oldest known stone pillar in
Iran, is more than 13 meters high, which gives an indication of the
size
of the building. The black capitals resembled bulls, griffins, lions,
and
horses. The first three types are also known from Persepolis. The
little
roof (picture, right) covers the odd monument we will discuss on the next
page. |
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A modern reconstruction of palace S. It has all the
characteristics
of an apadana. |
From W. Hinz, Darius
und die
Perser
(1976). (©!!!)
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The hall itself was 32¼ x 22¼
meters. The two structures
on this picture are the corners of this hall. Like the monument above,
there is an inscription in Aryan
script, which is strange, because this was developed by Darius
I the Great, one generation after Cyrus. Probably, this king,
an usurper,
tried to show continuity with the founder of the Persian empire by
stressing
that they belonged to the same Achaemenid family.
Probably, the location of this hall near the gate
suggests that it served
for audiences.
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| The second and third part of this inscription,
known as CMa,
are in Elamite and Babylonian;
they say the same as the first part, which is in Persian: |
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adam \ kuruš \
xšâya-
thiya
\ haxâmanišiya
I, Cyrus the king, an Achaemenid.
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four
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