World Heritage in Iran

Home , Achaemenid family tree, Blogging in Iran, Buddhas of Bamiyan, Hashti, Mozaffari (newspaper), Sivand

An excellent introduction to the historical and modern significance of this World Heritage site. It is an important milestone in the development of the heritage literature, because it explains the world-historical importance of the site for our own cultural heritage (in which it has been overshadowed by Greece), and for Iran in the modern Middle East. Brian Spooner, University of Pennsylvania, USA Heritage, Culture and Identity Series Editor: Brian Graham, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster, UK

Other titles in this series

Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage Edited by Ronda L. Brulotte and Michael A. Di Giovine ISBN 978 1 4094 42639

Who Needs Experts? Counter-mapping Cultural Heritage Edited by John Schofield ISBN 978 1 4094 3934 9

The Making of a Cultural Landscape The English Lake District as Tourist Destination, 1750–2010 Edited by John K. Walton and Jason Wood ISBN 978 1 4094 2368 3

Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain Ross J. Wilson ISBN 978 1 4094 4573 9

Many Voices, One Vision: The Early Years of the World Heritage Convention Christina Cameron and Mechtild Rössler ISBN 978 1 4094 3765 9

Partitioned Lives: The Irish Borderlands Catherine Nash, Bryonie Reid and Brian Graham ISBN 978 1 4094 6672 7

Ireland’s 1916 Uprising Explorations of History-Making, Commemoration & Heritage in Modern Times Mark McCarthy ISBN 978 1 4094 3623 2

Cosmopolitan Europe: A Strasbourg Self-Portraint John Western ISBN 978 1 4094 4371 1 World Heritage in Iran Perspectives on Pasargadae

Edited by

Ali Mozaffari Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute (AAPI), Curtin University, Australia © Ali Mozaffari and the contributors 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Ali Mozaffari has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street Union Road Suite 3-1 Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818 Surrey, GU9 7PT USA England www.ashgate.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: World heritage in Iran : perspectives on Pasargadae / edited by Ali Mozaffari. p. cm. – (Heritage, culture and identity) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-4844-0 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4094-4845-7 (ebook) – ISBN 978-1-4724-0639-2 (epub) 1. Pasargadae (Extinct city) I. Mozaffari, Ali, author, editor of compilation. DS262.P35W67 2014 935–dc23 2013041507

ISBN 9781409448440 (hbk) ISBN 9781409448457 (ebk – PDF) ISBN 9781472406392 (ebk – ePUB)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD Contents

List of Figures and Tables vii Notes on Contributors xi Acknowledgements xv

1 Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 1 Ali Mozaffari

2 Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 29 Rémy Boucharlat

3 The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae: Problems and Prospects 61 Mohammad-Hassan Talebian

4 Archaeology and Useful Knowledge: Pasargadae and the Rationalities of Digging ‘Real’ Places 91 William M. Taylor

5 The Costs of Paradise: Temporalisations of Place in Pasargadae 115 Riccardo Baldissone

6 Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ: Placing Pasargadae within its Present Rural Context 139 Soheila Shahshahani

7 Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 155 Tod Jones and Mohammad-Hassan Talebian

8 The Past in the Present: Using Poetics as an Interpretative Strategy at Pasargadae 173 Jennifer Harris

9 The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 197 Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook vi World Heritage in Iran

10 Antinomies of Development: Heritage, Media and the Sivand Dam Controversy 225 Elham Shamoradi, Ebrahim Abdollahzadeh Translated by Ali Mozaffari

Index 255 List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 General topography of Pasargadae core zone 5 1.2 Remains of water courses (right) and Palace P in the background. Takht-i Solaiman fortress is seen on the far centre 6 1.3 The tomb of Cyrus in 2004 7 1.4 The tomb of Cyrus the Great prepared for the Celebrations 12 1.5 New developments underway with modern material (above) and the older structures within the village (below) 17 1.6 Place as the network 20

2.1 Depictions of the tomb of Cyrus by Flandin and Coste in 1843 31 2.2 Herzfeld’s 1928 plan of Pasargadae 33 2.3 Map of Pasargadae region produced by Aurel Stein (1936) 36 2.4 Reconstruction drawing of Pasargadae gardens by Stronach 39 2.5 Left: Zendan-i Solaiman as recorded by Dieulafoy in 1881; Right: the structure in 2002 41 2.6 Aerial view of the Royal Gardens with Palace P in the background 42 2.7 Plan of Pasargadae monuments by Stronach in 1961–63 44 2.8 The plan of the buildings in Pasargadae, as known from the British excavations in the 1960s and from the geomagnetic survey in the 2000s 45 2.9 Detail of electromagnetic survey of the site in 2002 showing stone building with buttresses behind the Zendan as revealed by the geomagnetic and electrical maps. This building is linked to a rectangular enclosure to the south 46 2.10 The trapezoid pool with sluices gates at the two ends for regulating the water flow. A large canal continues to the west along Palace S, then turns right as a narrow channel. Top of the map shows a part of the channels of the ‘fourfold garden’ 47 2.11 The ashlar masonry water device 20km north of Pasargadae set on the top of a dam/dike (visible on the right photo top). This sophisticated dam and another one nearby aimed at regulating the water flow of the Polvar River 52 2.12 Side view and exploded axonometric of water control device in Shahidabad 52 2.13 Detail of the water canals in ashlar masonry, as perfectly cut and joined as its contemporary Royal architecture in Pasargadae 53 viii World Heritage in Iran

3.1 Location of Pasargadae relative to nearby villages and the main road of Shiraz-Esfahan 63 3.2 Structures in Pasargadae site; Top: tomb of Cyrus the Great, Centre: audience palace, Bottom: private palace 64 3.3 Administrative position of the Pasargadae Base within the official structure of ICHHTO 70 3.4 Organizational chart of Pasargadae Base (WHS) 71 3.5 Model of archive of Pasargadae site 73 3.6 Conservation action 74 3.7 Conservation funds priorities 75 3.8 Monitoring in core and buffer zones 76 3.9 Funding resources 78 3.10 A sample of multidisciplinary activity 79 3.11 Education training and introduction 79 3.12 The location of Pasargadae’s core and buffer zones 81 3.13 Aerial photo of Pasargadae landscape 82 3.14 The disorganized state of residential and commercial buildings which have not observed traditional and indigenous patterns on the access route to Pasargadae site 83 3.15 General view of the Bolaghi plain (above) and seasonal migration of nomadic tribes through Tang-i Bolaghi passageway before the inundation of the Sivand Dam (below) 85 3.16 Ancient remains of grape juice workshop in Tang-i Bolaghi and its modern instance in graveyards of Dasht-i Kamin 86

4.1 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, ‘L’Acropole, Athènes’ 93 4.2 Excavation of Pasargadae (Iran): Mashhad-i-Madar-i-Suleiman at mausoleum of Cyrus the Great: ground plan [drawing] 95 4.3 Excavation of Pasargadae (Iran): Gate R (gate house, palace with the relief), north-west doorway 99 4.4 Aerial view of Gate R (gate house, palace) showing the site after excavations and the application of preservation measures 103

5.1 Reconstruction of the tomb of Cyrus the Great by Giosafat Barbaro (1414–94) 116 5.2 The Madrasa in its reconstructed form 117 5.3 The Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship (October 1971) the Shah is laying a wreath at Cyrus the Great’s tomb 117 5.4 Tomb of Cyrus in 2011 119 5.5 Diagram of the Golshan Garden in Tabas, Iran 120

6.1 Marriage connections between the Saidis and the Sheibanis 143 List of Figures and Tables ix

6.2 Pedigree of various clans 145 6.3 General view of the village cemetery with the Martyr’s section raised on a platform in the background 147 6.4 The living room of Leilâ Saidi (Shirvâni) residence with Leilâ sitting on the couch 148 6.5 The perimeter wall of Yek-o-Yek College (above) and shelves of Yek-o-Yek products in a local shop (below) 150 6.6 The unfinished stadium 151 6.7 The Achaemenid style façade 152

7.1 International, domestic and total visitation between 1997 and 2011 160

8.1 Excavation of Pasargadae (Iran): mausoleum of Cyrus the Great, from the south, remains of the old mosque were apparent at the time (1905) 177 8.2 A nomadic tent in the Pasargadae region 182 8.3 Ruins of Palace P 183 8.4 Detail of the stone fortification of Tall-i Takht 186 8.5 The tomb within the mountainous backdrop 187 8.6 View of the Tall-iTakht from the main road on site 187 8.7 General view of the ruins of the Zendan-i Solaiman, the Palaces and Tall-i Takht in the far background 189

9.1 The tomb of Cyrus from the main entry to the site 199 9.2 General layout of the World Heritage site (marked by the tomb) and the museum in relation to the village Madar-i Solaiman 200 9.3 Model of the museum in its unfinished state 201 9.4 One of the unfinished courtyards of the museum 203 9.5 Longitudinal section through the main gallery of the museum 206 9.6 Plan of the museum at level -4.00 207 9.7 Section across the main gallery showing the inclining walls and ‘domed’ roof structure 210 9.8 View through the service passage around the main gallery 211 9.9 Le Corbusier, Mundaneum, Musée mondial, Geneva, Switzerland, 1929 (top) and Musée à croissance illimitée, 1939 (bottom) 216 9.10 Entry to the unfinished museum 217 9.11 View toward the corner of the central gallery at the heart of the structure 217 9.12 Plan diagram of Kahn’s first unitarian church, Rochester 1959–65 219

10.1 General map of Iran and the province of Fars 230 10.2 Location of Sivand Dam relative to the tomb of Cyrus the Great 230 10.3 An example of a website logo reading ‘we oppose the Sivand Dam’ 237 x World Heritage in Iran

10.4 Protest in front of the ICHHTO headquarters in Terhan, 7 February 2007 241 10.5 Human chain around the tomb of Cyrus, 25 March 2007 241 10.6 This provocative image of a semi-submerged tomb of Cyrus was circulated through email 242

Tables

3.1 A summary of restoration and archaeological operations at Pasargadae 68 3.2 Composition of the Board of Trustees, the Technical Committee and the Base Management Team 72

7.1 Factors influencing the success of a heritage tourist attraction for both visitor experiences and sustainable tourism outcomes 164

10.1 Iranian dams divided by various stages of development (2012) 228 10.2 Dams constructed in Iran in the past 24 years 228 10.3 Date and topic of the most important proclamations with regard to Sivand Dam 239 10.4 A summary of most significant officials who received a campaign letter 240 10.5 Title and frequency of examined media during 2006–2007 period 244 10.6 Well-known news agencies and daily papers for and against the construction and inundation of the dam 244 10.7 The percentile of the total news items on the Sivand Dam to the negative news items published in the period of focus. The shaded row relates to the period when the inundation was announced 245 10.8 The total news items and their position with regard to the dam during inundation period. The grey column represents the day of inundation 246 Notes on Contributors

Ebrahim Abdollahzadeh has a Master Degree in Media Studies. Since 2003, he has been Public Relations expert and journalist with the Iranian Water Resources Management Company (IWRMco). Abdollahzadeh teaches in the areas of media studies and public relations at a number of universities in Tehran. He is also a member of the Iranian Association of Public Relations Specialists (IAPRS.IR). Abdollahzadeh has published articles and essays in Persian include The Analysis of Reporting on Iranian Ethnicities in Newspapers (HAIA Monthly, 2013) and The SMS and Commercial Advertisement in Iran (The Communication World, 2004) and The Evolution of Communication and Development Theories (The Communication World, 2004).

Riccardo Baldissone is Honorary Fellow at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London, and adjunct researcher at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. His last major completed project was an attempt to rethink both human rights and modern theoretical discourses, which he construed as a family of related fundamentalisms. Riccardo is now addressing Western thought’s denial of multiplicity. In particular, he is considering the Platonic and Aristotelian constitution of ontological discourse, its medieval recasting as conceptual framework, and the modern attempts (from Stirner onwards) to transcend the conceptual horizon. As a counterpart to this genealogy of the logic of identity, he is also exploring the operativity of analogical logic in Roman law and in Western arts and literature.

Rémy Boucharlat is Emeritus Senior Researcher at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and Lyon University, completed his PhD from Paris 1 – Sorbonne University in 1978. He has been interested in history and archaeology of the Great Empires, from the Achaemenians to the Sasanians. He excavated in Iran before in the 1970 (e.g. Susa), then directed field projects in the Persian Gulf countries (1980–1992), conducted survey and rescue excavations in Pasargadae and Persepolis plain (1999–2009) and is now excavating in Turkmenistan. He directed the French Institute of Research in Tehran in the 1990s, and recently the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies in Lyon. He is the Editor of two journals of Humanities and Social Sciences on the Iranian World, co-author of two books, co-editor of two conferences and more than 100 papers including excavations reports, studies on ancient sites in their landscape, urbanism, and irrigation techniques. He has taken part in numerous international conferences and lectured widely in Europe, USA and Iran. xii World Heritage in Iran

Jennifer Harris lectures in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Curtin University in Western Australia. Her research interests include World Heritage, popular culture heritage, monuments and museum theory. She is an editor of the book series, Heritage Studies and an active member of the International Council of Museums for which she is a board member of ICOFOM, the International Committee on Museology.

Tod Jones is Research Fellow at Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute in Perth, Australia. His research interests are cultural and heritage policy and sustainable tourism. He is currently pursuing research in the areas of heritage movements in Asia and the contribution of heritage to Aboriginal sustainable livelihoods in Australia. He received the 2010 Vice-Chancellors Award for Humanities Highest-Performing Early-Career Researcher at Curtin University and spent the first half of 2013 as a Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies Fellow. His book, Culture, power and authoritarianism in the Indonesian state, was published by Brill in June 2013.

Ali Mozaffari is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australia Asia Pacific Institute within the Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University. He obtained his Master of Architecture at Tehran University and his PhD from the University of Western Australia, working across the fields of architecture, anthropology and heritage studies. His areas of interest are the relationship between heritage, identity and place in modern Iran, the politics of architecture in late-twentieth Century Iran and the changing image of urban space in post-revolutionary Iran. Mozaffari’s latest publication Forming National identity in Iran: The Idea of homeland Derived From Ancient Persian and Islamic Imaginations of Place was published by I.B. Tauris in 2014). He currently works on a number of projects related to World Heritage site of Pasargadae as well as contemporary heritage movements in Asia.

Soheila Shahshahani is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. She is the chief editor of Anthropology of the Middle East (Berghahn) and Culture and Human Being (in Persian). She received her doctorate degree from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York in 1981. She was (-2013) Senior Vice-President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), and was on the editorial board of World Social Science Report of ISSC of UNESCO (2010). In 2010 she started Commission on Anthropology of the Middle East within the IUAES. She is author of many articles in English and Persian. Her books include The Four Seasons of the Sun (1987), A Pictorial history of Iranian headdresses (1995), Meymand, we were one people one territory, an ethnographic study of a grotto-village (2005), and editor of Body as Medium of Meaning (2004) and of Cities of Pilgrimage (2009). Her forthcoming books include Clothing of Persia Notes on Contributors xiii

During the Qâjâr Reign 1779–1925 (in English and Persian), and Anthropological Theories Regarding Ethnic Groups (in Persian).

Elham Shamoradi has a Master Degree in Media Studies. She has been active in the fields of media and journalism since 2001. Since 2006, she has specialised in the analysis of news coverage on water resources in Iran and since 2009, she has specialised in the public relations and social research related to dam construction. Her co-authored paper Crisis Prevention Management of Saymareh Dam with a case study of the Sivand Dam was awarded the best paper of the year by the organising committee of The Seventh International Iranian Conference of Public Relations. She is also interested in social research and the management and reduction of social impact of dam building activities in Iran. Her interest in this area has led to another co-authored paper, An Applied Model for Strategic Public Relations in Iranian Dam Building Projects. In January 2014, she was appointed and introduced as the outstanding expert of Public Relations at the national level by the Festival of Iranian Premier Public Relations.

Mohammad-Hassan Talebian has a PhD in architecture from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran majoring in Cultural Heritage. During the last two decades he has been engaged in research, restoration and management of various World Heritage sites of Iran. He is the founder of Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation in Persepolis (with a base in Pasargadae). Since 2009 he has been involved at highest levels in managing other World Heritage sites such as Chogha Zanbil, Bam as well as in formulating nomination dossiers for World Heritage inscription. At present he is serving as an Assistant Professor for the Higher Education Centre of Iranian Cultural Heritage, handicrafts and Tourism Organisation (IHHTO) as well as the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning of the University of Tehran. He has published collections of essays and monographs.

William M. Taylor is Professor of Architecture at UWA where he teaches architectural design and history and theories of the built environment. He has published widely on architecture, landscape and visual arts, including design project reviews. Major publications include Prospects for An Ethics of Architecture (with Michael Levine, Routledge 2011) and The Vital Landscape, Nature and the Built Environment in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Ashgate 2004). He co-edited a collection of essays on urban photography An Everyday Transience: The Urban Imaginary of Goldfields Photographer John Joseph Dwyer (with Philip Goldswain, UWA Publishing 2010). Taylor is currently working on an Australian Research Council funded project ‘Catastrophe: a historical and philosophical assessment of urban disaster, ethics and the built environment’.

Nigel Westbrook is Associate Professor and immediate past Discipline Chair in Architecture at the University of Western Australia. He has lectured in the areas of design, architectural history, urban design and urban studies at RMIT, Melbourne xiv World Heritage in Iran

University, the Urban Design Centre Perth, and the University of Western Australia, and has participated in international architecture and urban design studio teaching in Chicago, Istanbul and Athens. He has published and researched extensively in the areas of architectural criticism, and urban and architectural history, focusing upon the urban topography of historic sites, including heritage sites in Melbourne, Istanbul and Iran. Acknowledgements

The idea of this book was first conceived towards the end of 2009. It was one of a set of broad topics that were formulated with a postdoctoral project in mind and then it and those other topics were put on hold to make space and time for more immediate concerns. In 2010, I obtained a Lectureship at Curtin University’s Department of Architecture, which lasted three years, until the end of 2012. In that period, I coordinated and led design studios for Master of Architecture students who signed up for a ‘Complex Architecture Studio’. This gave me the opportunity to rework some of the broader ideas informing this book and to pursue my interest in Pasargadae through the architecturally specific case of a site museum; a building type and a space that is complex on many levels. Those studios were an ideal context for exploring various aspects of Pasargadae through the practice of design and the reformulation of some of the problems in which the site is tangled. My field trips to Iran which included regular visits to Pasargadae and its environs reinforced my interest in the topic and the issues surrounding the site made the allure of a contested place all the more irresistible. This love affair, of course, continues. The present collection was formulated in 2011, when I was lecturing at Curtin and serving as a Research Associate at the Centre for Muslim States and Societies, University of Western Australia (UWA). In formulating the publication project and throughout the subsequent processes, I benefited from intellectual generosity, critical thoughts and experiences of Michael Levine (Philosophy, UWA), Graham Seal (AM, Director of Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute, Curtin) Roy Jones (Humanities Past Dean of Research, Curtin), Nigel Westbrook (Architecture, UWA). I am particularly grateful to Rémy Boucharlat (Archaeology, Lyon) who was extremely generous in sharing information, images and enthusiasm for this project. Panizza Allmark (Edith Cowan University) kindly reviewed my translation of Chapter 10 and provided useful and constructive comments. In my last field trip I was the guest of the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation at their Pasargadae Base for which I should thank the director of the Institute and, Dr Mohammad Hassan Talebian, Director of the base, Mr. Nasiri and their kind and generous colleagues there and in Tehran. Bakhtyar Lotfi my friend and colleague helped me with various aspects of my field trip and I was also a guest of the lovely people of the Mother of Solomon (Madar-Solaiman), particularly the Saidi and Shirvani families who have been most congenial and hospitable. I also wish to acknowledge Suvendrini Perera (Curtin), Rizwan Zeb (UWA) and Lindsay Allen (Kings College) for conversations, exchanges or assistances in the course of the project. xvi World Heritage in Iran

Valerie Rose and Brian Graham at Ashgate were extremely supportive of the idea of the book and Sarah Charters and the rest of the team took care of production with great efficiency. This collection was made possible through the generous institutional and financial support of the School of Built Environment, Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute and the Faculty of Humanities’ Graduate and Research Studies at Curtin University and in part through a Research Development Award granted in 2011 at the University of Western Australia. Chapter 1 Conceptualising a World Heritage Site Ali Mozaffari1

Introduction

This volume proposes a holistic approach to the understanding of the World Heritage site of Pasargadae and, through that approach, positions the following chapters in this collection. The current studies of Pasargadae, as indeed of many other World Heritage sites, tend to alienate the site by circumscribing it within disciplinary frameworks and this results in a partial, inadequate picture, the specific benefits of such studies notwithstanding. To avoid this problem, the site and its environs must be conceptualised holistically through an approach that can accommodate both the transdisciplinarity and the empiricism that are required in examining an entity. To this end, this chapter proposes a concept of place and then applies it to Pasargadae, explaining its transformations in history and provisionally identifying some of the various factors that influence the site’s conception. It is indeed the examination of these various factors (which include the social, theoretical, historical and philosophical) in various forms that has provided the rationale for this volume.

The Problem of Pasargadae

Perhaps a useful starting point is to ask what happens to an historic site when it becomes registered as World Heritage. As an immediate transformation after such designation, larger echelons of bureaucratic power – the state and the heritage industry – take over the affairs of the place. The presence of these new structures of power often leads to the site’s alienation from its surrounding living context. As a set of abstract heritage values conflict with its daily life, the site is identified with and reduced to those historic monuments that provide picturesque and romanticised visions of a distant past. The monumental remains are, to various degrees, ‘revised,

1 I wish to thank Roy Jones for reading a draft of this chapter and providing useful feedback, although I am solely responsible for any shortcomings. The fieldwork for this chapter was in part supported by generous grants from the Place and Identity Research Cluster at the School of Built Environment and generous seed funding by the Australia- Asia-Pacific Institute, Curtin University. Some of the ideas of this chapter were discussed in a shorter article in Mozaffari (2012). 2 World Heritage in Iran restored and touristified’ to communicate national pride (Jarzombek 2011 p. 127) and to endorse dominant political discourses. Chief among these discourses is nationalism (accepting that it comes with various definitions and implications). Through heritagisation, a site is instantaneously transformed into a state symbol, an emblem. Depending on the context, such value-laden symbolism often results in the entanglement of the site in larger scales of politics and this may overshadow other issues such as archaeological research on the ground, though these too, possess their embedded political values. Such broader, often state-level, politics has been observed and usefully examined on various heritage sites in different countries.2 However, examining the state-level politics in itself, while useful, remains inadequate and reveals little about the experience of place. Instead it is likely to reify the site by avoiding its daily life and by applying all too predictable ‘frames’ of analysis. Pasargadae (est. 550 BCE) represents a case in point. Its importance as an archaeological site dates back to the latter part of the nineteenth century. However, as it is pointed out here and frequently throughout this book, the place was established as a political and commemorative gesture by Cyrus the Great. Even before the twentieth century, as Stronach (2011) points out, the place was involved in politics in various ways and subsequently and most spectacularly in the latter part of the twentieth century, during the 1971 Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship to which we shall return. In the early Islamic era, the original, Achaemenid meaning of Pasargadae, which hosts the tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire, was committed to oblivion. The place was adapted for Islamic practices and the tomb of Cyrus was ascribed to the Mother of Solomon. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld proved the association between this site and Cyrus. Since then, the site has been the focus of archaeological activities. The historical significance of the site resulted in its appropriation for different reasons into conflicting political discourses, particularly at State level, between nationalism and Islamism. Whereas the Iranian Monarch appropriated it as a tangible legitimating symbol for authenticating his kingly ambitions, the Islamic Republic initially ignored it with an air of hostility, only to gradually readmit it – particularly in recent years – into political discourses as a symbol of national identity. However, Pasargadae is not an isolated World Heritage site, nor purely a symbol of abstract state politics. Pasargadae and its immediate vicinity constitute a living landscape occupied by villagers, nomads and tourists. Whilst there is much scholarship on the archaeological aspects of Pasargadae, there has been little research to date on any other aspects of this place. The major problem is that the

2 For an example of the complex relationship between nationalism, politics, heritage and archaeology see Meskell (2002); for general reading on the politics of heritage see Harrison (2010), Timothy and Nyaupane (2009) and Smith (2004) and for a comparable and specific reading on the state-level heritage politics in Egypt see: Mitchel (2001). Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 3 current understanding of Pasargadae is often limited by disciplinary boundaries, which usually interpret it under the rubric of art history or archaeology, and are likely to perpetuate the site’s reification and to miss the more complex meanings and constitution of the place. While yielding important insights to particular issues, this approach is piecemeal; it cannot offer an integrative account of the problems related to and posed by Pasargadae. Another issue that this living heritage site confronts is the various perceptions espoused and perpetuated by different groups of stakeholders on site. In response, this book explores a holistic approach underpinned by the idea of place. Pasargadae is imagined differently by various individuals and groups or collectives; it is a multiple place. Who are these groups and how do they mutually inform and transform one another and how does this influence conceptions of this site as place? How stable are these groups and what are their commonalities and differences? In other words, how many renditions of Pasargadae as a place exist? This book identifies some of these groups and some of their concerns. The multiplicity of Pasargadae is rooted in its long history and is compounded by contending political, economic and representational discourses that operate upon the site at a range of scales, from local to national and even global (including as World Heritage). Furthermore, these political contestations of the site can cause immediate existential threats. A report in 2004 suggested that the site was suffering from a general disintegration caused, amongst other things, by state-level ‘political divisions’, conflicts of interest between locals, non-locals and authorities, physical and natural erosion and shortage of infrastructure and facilities (Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO) 2004, pp. 14–15). Disintegration could be partly mitigated if different groups of users felt shared ownership of the site. To this end, various facets of Pasargadae should be allowed to coalesce in an ‘assemblage’ that represents concurrent and equally valid constructions of idea(s) of place. This is not limited to a concern for ‘interpretative flexibility’, (Latour 2005, p. 120) stopping at deconstruction, and is distinct from a single meta-narrative voice that suppresses difference. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the existence of concurrent social realities and the facilitation of their construction into perspectival (meta)narratives. In this chapter, after introducing the site, I will outline the theoretical approach to place and then provide examples of Pasargadae’s transpositions and a provisional list of the collectives that play a role in interpreting sites such as Pasargadae. This will lead to the positioning of the other chapters in this collection.

Pasargadae, a Brief Introduction

Pasargadae is located approximately 90 kilometres northeast of the City of Shiraz, the Capital of the province of Fars, in southern Iran (Figure 1.1). It is within the Morghab Plain, an area of 20 × 15 kilometres with diverse geographical features comprising mountain passes, riverbeds, agricultural and dry land, permanent 4 World Heritage in Iran village settlements, archaeological sites and annual nomadic encampment and migration routes (Sami 1971, p. 140). Pasargadae is adjacent to an ancient north- south highway that connected Shiraz and Isfahan and was in use until the 1950s (Stronach 1978, p. 11). The site is the location of the first royal residence planned and built by Cyrus the Great after he founded the Achaemenid Empire (Wiesehofer 2004, p. 26; Stronach 1978, p. 97). It contained a sacred district (Wiesehofer 2004, p. 26) and an administrative and ceremonial capital for Cyrus and his successors and retained its relative administrative significance until the fourteenth century (Sami 1971, p.140). While the original function of the place is subject to speculation, as is the exact extent and form of Pasargadae, some historical sources suggest that the Achaemenids could have used the site for succession (investiture) ceremonies or as a religious training centre (Plutarch 75 CE; Sami 1971, p. 102, p. 137). Cyrus planned the core area of Pasargadae as a geometrical ensemble (Sami 1971, p. 12, pp. 13–14; Stronach 1978, p. 107), of what would become known as ‘paradise garden’. In Xenophon’s words: ‘there are gardens, which are called paradeisoi, full of everything good and beautiful that the earth cares to grow, and in these [the Persian king] passes most of his time when the season does not prevent it’ (Xenophone quoted in Lincoln 2001, p. 142). The gardens would become the prototype for all later Achaemenid gardens and the subsequent Islamic garden (Figure 1.2). This design was an innovation by Cyrus following a long history (dating back to 900 BCE) of using gardens as royal accomplishments or emblems and as the affirmation of the cosmic position of the monarch or as a symbol of foreign conquest (Stronach 1990, pp. 171–2, 178–9). Their innovation was also in the relationship between built form and landscape as structures became pavilions within the gardens. Today the most iconic of these structures is his tomb, which would have been located within a walled garden (Sami 1971, p. 12; Stronach 1978, p. 24), although it is now sitting as a singular monument within a dry piece of land (Figure 1.3).3 Architecturally, the tomb is a hybrid of Mesopotamian and ‘traditional Iranian tomb and house’ typologies. Hybridity is characteristic of all the structures on site and shows the highly innovative nature of the nascent Achaemenid architecture (Stronach 1978, p. 51).4 Pasargadae was also a Royal political statement expressing the geographical extent and uniqueness of the Empire through its use of architecture (Stronach 1978, p. 40, pp. 42–3). While the design innovations informed Persian architecture for the next two and a half millennia, the idea of a paradise garden was teleological in that it represented an originally ideal state of being, followed by the fall and then the hope to restore life back to that ideal within the material world and this could have been the Achaemenid justification for the expansion of their Empire (Lincoln 2001, p. 145).

3 For a detailed description of these monuments refer to Sami (1971) and Stronach (1978). 4 For proof of Hybridity refer to Nylander (1970). Figure 1.1 General topography of Pasargadae core zone

Source: courtesy of Parsa- Pasargadae Research Foundation 6 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 1.2 Remains of water courses (right) and Palace P in the background. Takht-i Solaiman fortress is seen on the far centre

The tomb was transformed into a mosque in the Islamic period (between tenth and eleventh century BC) and this has turned it into a palimpsest featuring the remains of a prayer niche upon which the Victory Surah of the Koran is inscribed (Sami 1971, pp. 29–31, p. 34). Today, Pasargadae is designated as World Heritage, in accordance with the first four criteria designated by UNESCO, namely (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2012, p. 20):

1. to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius, 2. to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design, 3. to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilisation which is living or which has disappeared, 4. to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history. Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 7

Figure 1.3 The tomb of Cyrus in 2004

In the above discussion, art-historical and archaeological values seem to be of prime concern (Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO) 2004, 1,7). This understanding and interpretation often ignores other important aspects that relate to the site’s life, such as its socio-political milieu. Perhaps it is in reaction to such a focus that its management plan emphasises ‘the cultural value of the site’ by ‘introducing it as cultural landscape’ (and identifying a number of issues, chiefly cultural tourism and social development).5 The terminologies of cultural landscape or cultural value are vague and say little about the current and changing relationships between different groups, such as local residents and tourists, at this site. Pasargadae is a multiple place. It has become a site of national origin and the tomb of Cyrus is an emblem for national political debates, and an allegory for the construction and contestation of sanctioned versions of collective identity. This can potentially expose the site to neglect through dwindling protection measures or, worse, to political or even physical violence. This was seen for the first time

5 For a UNESCO definition of cultural landscape see UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2012, p. 14). 8 World Heritage in Iran in March 2013 during the celebrations for the Iranian New Year, the Nowrouz.6 Since 2008, a growing number of people have been gathering around the tomb to celebrate Nowrouz. The actions on the part of some of the revellers had caused some concerns. For example their chanting of nationalist slogans or reciting poetry which was perceived as politically sensitive or the occasional prostrating at the foot of the tomb that had offended religious sensibilities. This had at times caused strong, even violent, reactions, but not to the monuments. This year, as revellers began chanting ‘Cyrus is our father’, someone from among the people threw a fire cracker at the wall of the tomb and chanted ‘Death to America’. The incident was recorded by smartphones and then shared online and shortly thereafter removed (‘Complete Film of Attack with Hand-Made Grenade to the Tomb of Cyrus [Persian Title]’ 2013). This incident was an overt expression of one of many types of conflict in which Pasargadae is implicated. As this incident demonstrates, the problem is concrete and immediate. If Pasargadae and similar sites are to be preserved, attempts have to be made to engender and negotiate divergent senses of identification and belonging among different groups of users and ‘stakeholders’. Such identifications underpin the multiple perceptions of place. The question is: what are the different figurations of Pasargadae and how can they coexist and even enter into a dialogue? To understand this, it is necessary firstly to formulate a notion of place and, secondly, to identify those who imagine the site’s various connotations, which is to ask: who are the (particularly) collective actors?

Conceiving Place

Place should be formulated from a collective perspective, as the outcome of a process of associating identities (which are ever-changing) with sites – in this instance the heritage site of Pasargadae.7 I have elsewhere identified this process as inscription, which relies on the imaginations of a given site (Mozaffari 2010, p. 28; 2012, p. 8; 2014, pp. 7–10). The collective here signifies groups of individuals assembled through the common grounds of cultural practices, social and political inclinations or economic status. As such, collectives are fleeting indiscrete formations and are always provisional. From this perspective, individuals are important in so far as they inform and shape collective imagination. Place is conceived once a site or locale is imagined through four components: textual references, performative actions, spatial interventions and political colligations (Mozaffari 2010, p. 28; 2014, p. 9). Textual references are citations, pictorial,

6 Iranian New Year at 21st March and celebrated with a 13-day national holiday. 7 For an introductory text to summarise various other formulations of the idea of place see Cresswell (2004), for examples of discussions on place from various other angles consider Adams, Hoelscher and Till (2001), Castello (2010) and Massey (1999). Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 9 written or aural (and, with the advance of technology, multi-media), through which the locale is described, imagined and remembered. Performative actions designate human presence and movement within a locale, be it a religious or civil ritual, or the annual nomadic transhumance, or else, as in this case, the almost ritualized movements of visitors and tourists upon a site. Spatial interventions designate any addition, transformation or restriction that results in a spatial change or a change in the perception of space. These may include constructing a structure such as a museum, or more subtle acts, such as determining patterns of movements upon a site – designating a visitor path or fencing off the old transhumance route. Finally, political colligation suggests the deliberate appropriation of a site for an ideological narrative, as its symbol or emblem, such that the sanctioned version subsumes all other existing narratives upon the site; it is, therefore, totalising. Together, these four elements form a collective imagination that transforms the site into different places. Place is, therefore, relational and is determined by other connections, including those to other sites, outside the locale. Furthermore, place has an inherent aesthetic aspect – it is perceived and experienced through the senses.8 This model of conceiving place can help to identify the multiplicity of Pasargadae and acknowledge the different layers of history and experience that underpin it. An overview of the transpositions of Pasargadae over the past few centuries clarifies the operation of different collective imaginations upon the site and the multiplicity of places arising from that process. In the following chapter, Boucharlat provides a thorough description of the history of archaeological discoveries at Pasargadae. The intention in the following is to discuss some of these transpositions throughout the site’s history in order to highlight their relationship to place.

Transpositions of Pasargadae9

After the fall of the Achaemenids at the hands of Alexander and his troops, Pasargadae gradually fell into oblivion. It took until the nineteenth century for Western travellers and explorers to make the connection between the tomb – then buried under layers of subsequent appellations and historical functions – and Cyrus. During that period of oblivion, the tomb was designated as the Martyrium of the Mother of Solomon (Stronach 1978, p. 1; Sami 1971, p. 18) and was considered sacred and, among other things, a place of feminine pilgrimage

8 I am deploying this term as distinct from the Kantian notion of ‘disinterested delight’, but closer to A.G. Baumgarten’s notion of the term, as sense perception. For further see Kinnaman (2008, pp. 578–82). 9 The narrative of transpositions is constructed based on the writings of Sami, Stronach and others whose work is cited in this chapter. This includes the document presented to UNESCO for the inscription of Pasargadae as World Heritage. 10 World Heritage in Iran

(Stronach 1978, pp. 1–2).10 The tomb, and by extension the site, would have been cloaked in a sacred aura and religious stories and citations would have emerged from it (textual references). As such, the place was a pilgrimage site (place for performative actions) and as an administrative centre, it combined political and religious signification. In 1223, the tomb was transformed into a mosque built of materials spoliated from the ruins of the palaces on site (Sami 1971, pp. 128–9). This constituted spatial intervention upon the site, reinforced by the inscription of Koranic verses on the interior wall of the tomb. Almost a century later, (between 1358 and 1374) and in close proximity to the tomb, an Islamic school (Sami 1971, pp. 131–2) or caravanserai (Gharavi 1997) was established for pilgrims and, possibly, religious education purposes. The site was decisively Islamised and its memory as a sacred Islamic place would linger until the present. The Achaemenid origin of the site was identified gradually and through speculations about the true identity of its structures, such as the tomb of Cyrus (then a mosque), in particular by the German Grotenfend in 1818. It was only in 1908 that the German-American archaeologist, Ernst Herzfeld, conclusively ascertained the ascription of the site to Cyrus the Great through material archaeological evidence (Stein 1936, p. 217). This revealed the Islamic layer as an afterlife of the Achaemenid site. In the course of the next few decades, the site would become the focus of archaeological attention and state ideological projections. In the mid-twentieth century, in a nationalist milieu, the site would be politically colligated. Ali Sami, a former director of Pasargadae, described the structures of the Islamic period as the ‘ugly and unsightly’ work of ‘graceless and inexpert builders’ (Sami 1971, pp. 128–9). He endeavoured to restore the supposedly pure Persian architectural and artistic qualities of Pasargadae ‘before any admixture and association with other countries’(Sami 1971, p. 146, p. 155), a statement which could be interpreted as ideological since it was not supported by scientific archaeological evidence. In 1955, Sami oversaw the construction of a stone platform around the structure within a 1.8 metre high wall ‘enclosing the area surrounding the tomb in such a way that the view of the tomb is [remained] unobscured’ (Sami 1971, p. 48). Although this was a preservation measure, it contributed to definitively historicising an otherwise living religious monument. This was not the only measure of spatial intervention. Sami (1971, p. 63) notes:

In order to protect and preserve with care what remains of this palace [of Audience of Cyrus], so recently unearthed, from injury and depredation at the hands of the inhabitants of local villages, and the tribes who pass by every spring and autumn we built a wall of sundried bricks to a height of two meters around the site to prevent foolish and mischievous persons entering the building.

10 Even before 1638, when, during the reign of the Fourteenth Caliph, Albrecht von Mandelso travelled through Fars province, the attribution of the tomb was to the mother of Shah Suleiman (King Solomon), (Stronach 1978, p. 1). Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 11

In describing the local inhabitants and nomads as (potentially containing) ‘foolish and mischievous persons’, Sami is practically eliminating the local stakeholders of Pasargadae and its custodians, denying their care for the site and thus alienating them from the place.11 The appearance of the perimeter wall and other protective measures would have transformed the movement patterns of locals, thus changing their rendition of the site. It would have also assisted in the cessation of traditional ritual and religious practices, which transposed the place by changing its performative aspect from ritual ultimately to heritage tourism. Such transformations were apparently undertaken independently of state political intentions, but existing and future state politics would render them otherwise.12 In the Achaemenid period, Pasargadae was the centre of a network of royal Achaemenid sites. In the latter part of the twentieth century, it would be included in another network of sites. A monarchic nationalism that appealed to archaic origins significantly informed the cultural policies of the Pahlavi Dynasty (the last monarchy to rule Iran before the Islamic Revolution), particularly in the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1942–1979). The public manifestation of this policy was the Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship. Without going into details, the Celebrations were intended as a show of magnificence and power to other nation-states, authenticating Iran as a modern state with ancient origins. To prepare the site, a further spatial intervention was carried out by the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East (IsMEO). They dismantled the Islamic period structures in order to restore the Achaemenid palaces – this would provoke a desire to restore the Islamic layer almost 40 years later (see below). On 12 October 1971, the Shah inaugurated the Celebrations in Pasargadae. In a formal procession toward the tomb, which now looked pristine (Figure 1.4), he laid a wreath upon Cyrus’ tomb and addressed him, thus positioning himself as a legitimate heir to the Achaemenids. Combined with that speech, which was an instance of a textual reference, the performative actions on Pasargadae and at the other important Achaemenid site, Persepolis, transposed Pasargadae and colligated it into the state

11 In an interview with this author in September 2011, Mr. Saidi, the elder of the village, described how Iranian officials gave his father the title of honorary guardian of the site for saving valuable artworks from the hands of an illegal English treasure hunter. This is but one incident that shows that the former perception that cast locals as a destructive force was inaccurate. 12 In addition to the remaking of the tomb, there is an unsubstantiated claim that the adjacent village – the Mother of Solomon – was displaced to make way for the 1971 Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship. However, field interviews suggest that the village was moved mainly after the Islamic Revolution and as a result of centrally determined housing and development policies by the state, which may have encouraged construction for economic gain. The remnants of the older settlement, a mud brick fortress dating back 170 years or so, were demolished almost two decades ago (in the 1980s) and it is unclear as yet what exactly caused its demolition. The location is now a fenced football pitch. 12 World Heritage in Iran ideology. By concentrating on the sites of the Achaemenid capitals, Pasargadae and Persepolis, and the modern capital, Tehran, the Celebrations reinforced a past- present connection that legitimated the Pahlavi monarchy.13 Pasargadae (the place) was an idea that transcended its locality and, in this instance, it was conceived in relation to a network of other places in its vicinity and across the country.

Figure 1.4 The tomb of Cyrus the Great prepared for the Celebrations

Source: courtesy of the National Library of Iran

The Celebrations became contentious when the political opposition used them to reject the legitimacy of the Monarchy and with it, of the ancient tradition

13 For one reading of the Celebrations related to the site of Persepolis refer to Grigor (2005). Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 13 of kingship and of the pre-Islamic culture and monuments as its alibis. The triumph of the Islamic Revolution reinforced that rejection. The Revolutionary establishment asserted that the Pahlavis had glamorised pre-Islamic Iran in order to reject the nation’s Islamic identity – another false ideological statement. Instead, it advocated a reconsideration of collective identity by ascribing due prominence to the religious aspects of daily life and culture. This revisionist attitude was manifested in relation to Iran’s cultural heritage and monuments, which now had to fit the new sanctioned narrative of authenticity, or be committed to oblivion. The elimination of representations and citations of such monuments and their related citations in history and popular culture, the re-writing of history, the official control over language and discourse, and the dwindling attention given to Pasargadae and similar sites (at least until the mid-90s), were practical attempts, short of destruction (another spatial intervention) to re-inscribe these sites as alibis for ‘false’ and ‘usurper’ monarchies of the past millennia. However, cultural memories are hard to obliterate and so is the idea of place, which carries the residues of traditional practices as the layers of a palimpsest. The next major controversy would be over development projects, which would change the imaginings of the place by transforming its landscape.14 In 2003–2004, concurrent with the registration of the site as World Heritage through the efforts of the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO), another controversy erupted, this time over the construction of the Sivand dam less than 20 kilometres southwest of Pasargadae. The details of this controversial development, for which the preliminary studies were undertaken by foreign experts in 1970, fall beyond this chapter (refer to the Chapter by Shamoradi and Abdollahzadeh in this volume); suffice it to note that it caused public uproar, national and international protests and lawsuits. This became an occasion for politically colligating Pasargadae and a ‘bloated … attempt [on the part of the state opposition in exile] to settle a grudge with the current government of Iran’ as one archaeologist remarked angrily (Abdi 2005). The controversy was fuelled by a mixture of misunderstanding, disinformation, sensationalism and fact. Domestically, it was spearheaded by grassroots heritage societies that had recently sprung up. Internationally, however, it was led by a different group of people with other political motivations; overseas heritage enthusiasts-cum-political opponents (who set up the Save Pasargad website and petition). Pasargadae was thus ‘inscribed’, through the many political references, textual citations and historical invocations, as a place in which the Iranian government contended with its opposition forces of different colours.15 Today, some factions within the Iranian establishment have sought to authenticate themselves with reference to Cyrus and Achaemenid sites, including

14 For further readings on the archival documents related to the Celebrations see: (markaz barrasi asnad tarikhi vezarat etela`at 1999). 15 The dam was constructed between 1992 and 2007 and the inundation of its reservoir began in 2010. 14 World Heritage in Iran

Pasargadae, once again politically colligating pre-Islamic heritage and its monuments. President Ahmadinejad and his allies hinted at espousing an ‘Iranian School’, presumably with a nationalist-Shiite state ideology.16 His deputy, Baghai, referred to him as the Cyrus of our times (Khabar Online 18 September 2010). His statements were rebuked by factions within the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) as ‘false proclamations’ and ‘attempts in restoring falsehood’ [Taaghoot], an official derogatory religious term hitherto reserved for the Pahlavis (Rahimpouor 14 September 2010). Ironically, invoking memories of the Celebrations and to mark the Iranian New Year on 21 March 2011, Ahmadinejad planned to invite delegates from a number of countries to another Achaemenid site, Persepolis. Such moves attracted fierce criticism from conservative state factions who considered them to be a threat to the Revolution and to the unity of Muslims. As previously mentioned, it was just a few years ago that celebrations of the Iranian New Year were initially enacted by ordinary visitors to Pasargadae – another instance of the inscribing of the place by different groups of people – and occasionally these and some other instances of visitation turned violent, in 2009, when domestic tourists used the opportunity of being on site to express political slogans against the president of the time (IranAtlanta (pseudonym) 29 October 2009).17 Some have suggested other transpositions of Pasargadae by advocating the restoration of its ‘Islamic additions’ that were removed in 1971 (Iranian Foundation to Restore Pasargadae’s Islamic Additions 2008). Accordingly, there is a desire to re-establish the mosque that surrounded the tomb, a move proposed, apparently, in accordance with the wish to preserve the historic-cultural diversity of a cultural landscape. If realised, this would be another spatial intervention that transforms this place. It could be interpreted as either an attempt at Islamicisation, or an attempt to pacify and depoliticise, and therefore preserve, this contested site. My account of the transpositions of Pasargadae shows the relevance of an idea of place, predicated upon the dynamics of collective imagination, to understanding the site. It also highlights that the transient agencies of those in positions of power can often change the collective dynamics, which in turn influences conceptions of place. While individuals are often identifiable (a king, a president, a minister or a local political figure) the idea of collectives (or collective actors) that construct Pasargadae in their own ways requires further clarification. Whether collective or individual, it has to be emphasised that in the context of Pasargadae definition of actors and their roles remain provisional; subject to change in direction and operating within given durations of time.

16 In a televised interview, Ahmadinejad praised Cyrus as a great ruler and king (Ghormeh Sabzi (psudonym) 2010). For one interpretation of this nationalist turn see Ansari (2007). 17 Tensions are particularly high on the so-called International Day of Cyrus the Great (29 October), which seems to be a new calendar invention on which at times clashes break out. Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 15

Whose Place? Identifying the Collective Actors18

As previously suggested, collective actors (collectives in short) are bounded group formations of human (and/or institutional) actors assembled for a specific purpose for a specific length of time. As such, collectives have their own identity and duration and they can and often do overlap. The identity of collectives, like any other identity, is relational. Therefore, it would be problematic and possibly misleading to designate collectives a priori. Nevertheless, my account of Pasargadae suggests some of the collectives, such as state actors. Beyond that, I can only offer a provisional set of collectives, which have to be confirmed, analysed and understood through documentation and close observation on and off site. As a working device, state and non-state actors are designated as the two broad (but overlapping) collectives.

State Actors

World Heritage, despite the apparent implication of global values, or perhaps because of it, implies acknowledgement and institutionalisation of the nation-state as the prime container of authentic culture and identity. This seems to have been a persistent trait despite the more recent changes of attitude on the part of the registering body, UNESCO, broadening the emphasis from individual monuments and ensembles (architecture) to landscapes and social traditions, as evidenced in the increasing attention given to cultural landscapes within official heritage circles and to intangible heritage(s). In the past century, the two state actors have been the Pahlavi monarchical regime and the Islamic Republic. As suggested above, even within each collective, it is possible to identify a number of shifting attitudes toward the site and the subsequent place that is continually being created. Furthermore, it is clear that there are some institutional actors that operate under the auspices of the state. The first example of this is the Iranian Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation (ICHHTO) and within that, the Parsa-Pasargadae Foundation’s base at Pasargadae – the official representative of the ICHHTO on site. This is not, however, the only state institution with interests in this site. Other state actors include those institutions, foundations and bodies that are involved with rural housing and development. Examples include the Ministry for Roads and Urban Development and the Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution. The latter organisation was,

… founded on Farvardin 21, 1358 (April 10, 1979) by the order of Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the aim of providing housing for the underprivileged and as the administrator of development of the country’s villages and construction of urban residential units within the

18 For the meaning of the term actor see Latour (2005). 16 World Heritage in Iran

framework of policies and programs set by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution)

This body is involved in many aspects of construction from sourcing materials to preparing designs for new developments (Figure 1.5). It also has a few subsidiaries, some with mixed public-private ownership, which illustrates that the collectives and their actors are not necessarily discrete entities. Similarly, state actors with a stake in poverty control, rural industrialisation, water management and agriculture, would all have a stake within this site and its region. The role of these (institutional) actors and their particular interpretations of and conflicts with cultural and heritage policies beyond the stated generalities is far from clear and requires further research. It is not exactly clear how, on the ground, these actors influence each other’s perceptions of the place and thus other group formations. It is also unclear how specifically these other group formations, which may be loosely identified, and non-state actors react to various state actors. Furthermore, understanding to what extent some of the non-state actors may be driven by discourses beyond the geopolitical boundaries of the nation-state, or by global discourses, including that pertaining to UNESCO’s cultural heritage, requires further attention. What could be stated at this stage is that, increasingly, state and non-state actors have ambiguous and at times competing relations over the inscription of heritage sites such as Pasargadae.

Non-State Actors

Non-state actors consist of group formations, with or without an overt political agenda with regard to national, cultural and ethnic identities. Each heritage site will have its own groups of non-state actors that are determined by the specific conditions of that site. In Pasargadae, examples of non-state actors include: industrial conglomerates, researchers such as archaeologists, tourists, residents of nearby villages, nomads, non-governmental heritage societies in Iran and abroad, and contending political groups such as those promoting ethnic nationalism and separatism. With the help of mass and social media, any of these groups can exercise a growing influence upon the construction and dissemination of their own notions of cultural heritage, the place of pre-Islamic heritage, and ultimately contemporary Iranian identity. However, there is little research on the attitudes of such heritage societies toward Pasargadae, except for general, often political, pronouncements for or against pre-Islamic heritage by contending political groups. Two classes of non-state actors are noteworthy because they have been more vocal in contestations of Pasargadae and the Achaemenid heritage in general. They are non-governmental (grassroots) heritage societies and some political groups which nowadays identify themselves as cultural activists and often harbour separatist sentiments. Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 17

Figure 1.5 New developments underway with modern material (above) and the older structures within the village (below)

(NGO) Heritage Societies

Inside Iran, these societies are of relatively recent origin and have been established, since the early to mid-1990s, in accordance with the Islamic Republic’s Constitution (1996, Article 27). They appear to be apolitical – purely concerned with the promotion of Iranian heritage and culture, part of which is concerned with the preservation of monuments. However, their cultural activities can have unintended political consequences, as evidenced in their protests against official decisions in relation to heritage including at Pasargadae. There are a number of cultural heritage organisations outside Iran, such as The International Committee to Save the Archaeological Sites of Pasrgad (ICSASP), which proclaims to reflect ‘only national-humanistic aspirations of its members in an attempt to save the archeological sites of Pasargad [sic.]’ while remaining independent of political parties, organisations, or groups (Mirzadegi 2005). The organisation ran an international campaign against government programs for the construction of the Sivand dam near Pasargadae, a campaign underpinned by nationalist sentiments and reacting to the initiatives of the Islamic Republic. Despite these apparent exchanges, reactions and attempts at co-option, the impact of these groups and organisations upon the growing interest in cultural heritage in general and Achaemenid monuments in particular remains unclear. How do these groups construct heritage and shape the politics surrounding it? What is the role of a place such as Pasargadae in producing an alternative cultural agenda to that of the state? What are the group dynamics between them and other actors? How is an official response furnished in relation to Pasargadae? Answering such questions will provide a clearer idea of the shifting collective imaginations of Pasargadae.

Competing Political Groups: Separatists

Concurrent with those supporting and advocating the significance of pre- Islamic heritage for a collective identity, there are other groups that dismiss the Achaemenids and any symbolic value they may have. Some of these groups may be loosely affiliated with factions from within the political establishment. However, of particular interest for analysis would be the unsanctioned political groups, namely the separatist groups. Pasargadae and the Achaemenids are dismissed by separatist groups in particular. In the narrative of these groups, the Achaemenids were invading oppressors who attempted to annihilate and oppress the indigenous populations of the Iranian plateau. To these groups, pre-Islamic history is but an invention by contemporary oppressors, who, depending on the political persuasion of the contending group, may range from ‘Jews’ or ‘Zionists’, to a mixture of the two with imperialist/ Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 19 colonialist intentions.19 These groups also fight present-day ideological battles by reference to ancient relics. To them, Iran, which for centuries has been a multi- ethnic and multi-cultural place, is constructed through the oppressive force of a single ethnicity, which they fabricate: the Fars [Pars], or Persian. They consider the Achaemenids as the fountainhead of the ‘Fars’ [Persian] atrocities which were, in modern times, expressed through the establishment of the nation-state and particularly, the designation of modern Persian as the national language. Their ultimate goal is to establish separate nations for different ethnicities to emancipate those ‘nations’ from ‘Fars chauvinism’ and ‘Persian fascism’. They ultimately seek the disintegration of the geo-political entity of Iran. In their ideological contexts, they also rely on western travellers’ interpretations of Iran’s ethnic relations. Iran which, until 1937, was officially known as Persia, consists of a number of peoples with common cultural traits who, on closer inspection, reveal a divergent set of linguistic and cultural practices and traditions that come together in a number of common cultural traits. The inherent diversity or ‘composite character’ of the Iranian people, as S.G.W. Benjamin, the American Ambassador to the Qajar court, observed in 1886, is reminiscent of the population of the Ancient Empires (Benjamin 1886, pp. 41–2). The practical repercussions of the attitudes of these groups toward Pasargadae are unknown. More importantly, the interaction of these or any other group nominated here with the local residents of Pasargadae, as far as published evidence is concerned, remains a mystery. Understanding the formation of these different groups of actors and their grand narratives, clarifies different conceptions of Pasargadae and the possibilities for their assemblage upon the site.

World Heritage Site as a Metonym

Pasargadae is a microcosm, indeed a metonym, for the current situation of collective identity in Iran. The socio-political tensions that surround the site cannot be resolved easily and quickly. However, as a national (albeit contested) collective symbol and as a place, it is necessary at least to attempt to understand its various figurations and to assemble otherwise disparate collective imaginations andto include them within the umbrella of a multiple place. Here, I have identified a number of possible actors that inscribe upon the site of Pasargadae, their multiple, contending places. To clarify and confirm the collectives and their roles, however, closer observation of these groups and exchanges with the individuals concerned is essential. It is only after such investigation that the changing nature of this place and the possibilities it may offer in assembling different social groups will

19 For a representative example of this group of ideologues refer to the works by Nasser Poor-Pirrar, a former Stalinist and historical revisionist. See Poor-Pirrar (2000) and his website (2007). 20 World Heritage in Iran be understood. Here, place is the network that brings different actors and their representations together (Figure 1.6).

Figure 1.6 Place as the network

The Present Volume

The underlying assumption of this volume is that Pasargadae should be conceptualised through the category of place, the understanding of which transcends disciplinary limitations. As such, a reading of Pasargadae must reflect the range of perspectives and issues that are involved in the site; issues that are invariably at the core of its problems. It is as a result of this assumption that this book attempts to alter the paradigm through which sites such as Pasargadae are understood. Each chapter in this collection addresses Pasargadae through a specific disciplinary lens. While the authors do not necessarily agree with each other, as a collection, they encapsulate the multiplicity of concerns and problems as well as the areas of common ground to be found among the various approaches to this fascinating site. They also acknowledge, explicitly or implicitly, the various Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 21 stakeholders, the other disciplines and ultimately those actors that construct this place. In other words, they provide a marker for further work on Pasargadae and on similar sites in Iran and beyond. Boucharlat (Chapter 2) presents a concise but thorough exposition of the history of the site’s archaeological explorations. He reveals how scientific and methodological developments over more than 150 years, which represent a paradigm shift in archaeology, have resulted in new material evidence as well as further ambiguities that have created new imaginations of the place. In this light, Pasargadae is now seen as inextricably related to a much wider natural and settled context in the past (as, indeed, it should be in the present), which is why, for example, landscape water management devices are significant in understanding and shaping the place. Moreover, Boucharlat rejects the old interpretation of Pasargadae as a royal campsite and instead argues that it must have been a specific kind of a city, perhaps outside Western norms. Boucharlat’s recommendations for possible future projects on site are a reflection of the on-going developments in the discipline of archaeology. This chapter also confirms the role of archaeologists as a significant group of actors upon this site. Their interpretations and speculations transform our perceptions of the site and lead to new place conceptions being inscribed upon it. The nature of Pasargadae is such that this group of professionals occupies a significant mediating position in regard to the making of the site. Their actions too can result in the transformation of place, a clear case in point being the transformation of the site by the clearing of its Islamic period layers as mentioned above. Their position is conspicuous because of this influence and because they are simultaneously operating within state mandates and as individual, non-state actors who can operate within other mandates and ultimately disseminate their knowledge regardless of the state. They also engage with locals during their stays which makes them part of yet another collective to be investigated. Talebian (Chapter 3) represents Pasargadae as an institutionalised site, and an administrative and legal entity governed by decrees of UNESCO but also by local heritage laws. He discusses various administrative and bureaucratic processes and financial structures that have been placed upon this site in order for it to retain its World Heritage status. Talebian shows the extent to which universal demands on the part of an international body (UNESCO) may be adapted to local conditions in Iran. In describing various organisational structures and proposing public participation and ownership, an inevitable power relationship is revealed between the institutional and the non-institutional sectors. The focus of the chapter is on communities of experts thus implying the various classes of actors and collectives that engage with site. He points out some areas of conflict between Pasargadae as heritage and the same site as a living place enmeshed within the histories and traditions of its surrounding villages. It is perhaps partly due to the desire to reconcile these two at times abrasively conflicting entities that Pasargadae is couched in terms of a ‘cultural landscape’ – an idea that was introduced and advocated in Iran by Talebian himself. While this approach has been useful in 22 World Heritage in Iran acknowledging the various layers of history and of living traditions and practices, one could assume that the notion of a cultural landscape remains open to official interpretation and can thereby become a double-edged sword: it can potentially result in museification of the living cultures in the areas concerned as opposed to facilitating the assemblage of cultural groups and their inevitably changing practices. It can also be hampered by an essentialised view of tradition that may exclude other practices and productions that are deemed inauthentic. The institutional power behind heritage has the capacity to influence, determine and control the public experience of the site, the local participation in events related to the site, even issues of daily life, and ultimately, the places that are inscribed upon Pasargadae. In this dynamic relationship between the site and the locals, the collective and, one could speculate, the individual identities of the locals are transformed. They are displaced metaphorically and at times, physically. Smith (2009, p. 41) observes ‘Heritage does social, political and cultural ‘work’ in society, but definitions of heritage at large in public policy, legal instruments and management practices fail to acknowledge this’. However, from my personal fieldwork and interviews, it is apparent that there is increasing participation on the part of locals as they appropriate the core heritage zone for different individual and collective activities, suggesting that the line between official demands and local desires is becoming rather fuzzy. Taylor (Chapter 4) questions the objectivity of (or even the possibility of objectivity in) archaeology. Drawing on Foucault’s articulation of power- knowledge relationships in discourses and Said’s notion of Orientalism, he points out the importance and ‘usefulness’ of archaeology for the construction of identity in and of the West and the counter-imagining of the rest as their Other. Digging, which as Taylor points out, constitutes the ‘signature practice of archaeology’, at once reveals and conceals, suggesting that archaeology is key to understanding but also to managing our perceptions of the past. In other words, digging is both a technology of power and a political act. Taylor also points out the importance of the cultural outlook and the origins of the archaeologist in the process of creating archaeological knowledge. Importantly, archaeologists produce representations of their objects of interpretation which at once bear their cultural projections and yet, taking a life of their own, inform other projections, imaginations, and constructions that are validated by the assumed scientific objectivity of archaeological knowledge. Archaeology, Taylor asserts, constitutes a ‘form of appropriation and projection’ and its fieldwork ‘plays a key role in the politics of ancient places and the appropriation of the ancient past’. Through examples, Taylor argues that the political function of archaeology in validating various forms of state power is evident. This suggests that the praxis of archaeological digging is a ‘morally-charged’ act that wrests a site from its past and juxtaposes it within a network of other sites. It is at once globalised, and quite often disconnected from its past life – as has been the case with Pasargadae. Often in the past, archaeological missions to other places, such as Iran (or Persia), were carried out through one-sided agreements that were the result of a Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 23 colonialist mentality. However, one should not forget the unpleasant truth that any colonial enterprise including, in this case, acts of digging and extracting objects have taken place with local help: from ordinary people, as much as from the elite. Implicitly, Taylor is pointing out other actors that need investigation: those from among the locals who assisted and participated in archaeological missions as well as those in the higher strata of state power who determined which versions of the past were allowed to be disseminated. Baldissone (Chapter 5) explores the philosophical meanings of the historical narratives and layers at Pasargadae. By problematising the notion of time, Baldissone points out that, upon any given object, multiple narratives of time coalesce. Therefore choosing the ‘authentic’ and the ‘original’ are selections that take place through temporalising devices; they cannot be exclusive. In other words, any act of reconstruction and restoration is inevitably a matter of perspective. Baldissone emphasises the contingency of place. In Baldissone’s interpretation, the construction of Pasargadae was itself an act of time-creation by Cyrus, one that transformed and redefined the meaning of this place for the Persians. This was most obviously present in the formation of the paradise garden as a walled entity which at once demarcated both natural cycles and timelessness – the tomb of Cyrus as a sign of eternity. The central point that Baldissone brings to our attention is that any ‘decision over the recovery and the restoration of architectural artifacts always imposes a particular temporalising perspective, which reorganises chronology according to privileged hypothetical times’. In other words, there are multiple, equally valid, origins and historical trajectories for any given object and each is validated through the perspective of the narrator. This demands a rethinking of historical change as well as a new approach to the politics of place: a genuine dialogue will ensue only through the understanding and the acceptance of the validity of these divergent trajectories. To reduce the human costs of divergent perspectives, and thereby to find a common ground between the various actors and collectives and individual actors that engage with place, we must accept the need for temporary and contingent arrangements between the various perspectives. Shahshahani (Chapter 6) provides an ethnographic study of the daily life of locals in the village of Mother of Solomon, which has recently been reclassified as a town – much to its inhabitants’ delight. The local inhabitants are often ignored in Pasargadae and yet the road to the site passes through their village. Shahshahani affirms that the local residents have a longstanding connection with this place and that this plays a significant role in their self-identity. The tomb and the site were historically a centre for their most important rituals. More importantly though, the village is a microcosm of the Iranian society at large: it is characterised by cosmopolitanism, women’s empowerment and other political issues as well as by traditional connections to place. Nevertheless, the village benefited from modernisation programs in the 1970s due to cooperation between various actors at various levels. As a result, in their homes and in their daily lives old traditions are juxtaposed with modern technology such as satellite TV and mobile phones. At the same time, one cannot help but see that the locals have a different view of the 24 World Heritage in Iran history of their relationship with the site and while they were seldom consulted by heritage and archaeology professionals they see themselves as the true custodians and guardians of the place. Jones and Talebian (Chapter 7) analyse the potential of Pasargadae for cultural tourism. Tourism is a complex phenomenon with many faces and variables. It is embedded in difficult sets or relationships that range from international politics to local infrastructure and facilities on the ground. Their chapter demonstrates a keen interest on the part of the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation in the promotion of tourism in line with the desires of UNESCO and the ICHHTO in Iran. In a volatile tourism market, the majority of visitors to Pasargadae are domestic. The authors note that sustainable tourism principles hold the key to successful heritage and cultural tourism in Pasargadae. This is defined in terms of issues such as inter- and intra-generational equity, education, conservation, financial sustainability, but also, most importantly perhaps, participation on the part of the stakeholders. Drawing on other experiences and literature in the field, they explore and propose various ways that this objective could be attained in Pasargadae. It is clear that through the development of tourism various other groups of actors are defined and that the place, Pasargadae, is recreated through the experience of tourism both for the visitors and for the locals. Experience in other sites elsewhere and within Iran suggests that tourism changes the nature of the site to the extent that, the place enters what is, in Alsayyad’s words (2007, p. 155), a ‘global economy of image consumption’ through which built environments are packaged and sold and this realisation can result in the problematisation of both tradition and heritage (in the sense of their authenticity). In these respects and more, there is further research to be done on the ground. Harris (Chapter 8) focuses on representation, the experience of a site from the visitor’s point of view. How do we, as observers, preserve, represent and interpret a site as contested and historically layered as Pasargadae? Harris proposes a direct and immediate engagement with the fabric of place. In a critique of UNESCO’s universalising processes, Harris points out that the preservation and heritage management practices enforced by UNESCO have a Western origin and are thus issued from an historical context that is hardly universal. However, these culturally and historically specific practices are applied universally through a standard set of bureaucratic measures. This results in similar experiences being offered by places that are supposed to be different thus undermining their claims to authenticity. Furthermore, precisely because of the characteristically exceptional origins of these heritage practices, World Heritage sites are alienated from everyday life; they are objectified and dehistoricised. With this in mind and by examining the two ‘normal’ curatorial approaches, namely chronological and dialogical, Harris proposes a third approach which focusses on the poetics of place. Poetics draws upon the potentials embedded in the idea of landscape and allows the experience of the site, including its contested politics, to be gained unmediated, by simply being there. As such, the site’s presentation should reinforce its natural cycles – which is a reminder of why the gardens were established there by Cyrus in the first place – Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 25 and by respecting, as opposed to artificially freezing, the feeling of everyday life surrounding the site. Harris’s phenomenological and ultimately aesthetic approach is inextricably bound up with the notion of place. Here aesthetics is used as it was originally deployed by Baumgarten connoting ‘sensitive knowledge’ concerned with the particular. It concerns a level of cognition below categorical rational analysis; where the qualitative and quantitative aspects coexist.20 To include the daily life of the immediate surroundings is to give living space to actors that have thus far been neglected: namely the locals with or without political power. It sets up an encounter between them and another important group of actors, the tourists. In a chapter about the unfinished site museum (Chapter 9) Westbrook and I discuss another aspect of the site: its entanglement in the development of a local aesthetics of modernity in architecture in the 1970s. That a museum would have a profound effect in the interpretation of the site, the economy of the village and the identity of the place is a given. Here, the design process is itself worthy of examination. Just as the site was being colligated into the Pahlavi discourse, a site museum was commissioned. This small and little known project would remain unfinished because of the onset of the Islamic revolution in 1979. The design process for the museum reflected the conditions of the country at the time, which we have described in terms of a peripheral modernity. However, in our examination of the spatial devices and design strategies employed by the architect, a certain nostalgia, an inevitability of loss came to the fore. The traditional life of the place is now beyond retrieval and the architecture of this museum also suggested that the country and its life experience had become irretrievably modern and this, in our assessment, set up an analogy between the experience of the site and the design of the museum. Shamoradi and Abdollahzadeh (Chapter 10) examine the complex relationship between development, heritage and the media through the specific case of the Sivand dam. This chapter demonstrates that a site such as Pasargadae is implicated in much wider political and social issues than those of heritage at national and international levels. The authors convincingly demonstrate the role of media in constructing and disseminating an image of Pasargadae. Through the heritage site, various political factions within and outside the state engage in political conflict. However, concurrently, there are real issues of sustainable development, water management and the local economy to consider. Their chapter identifies yet more actors who disseminate yet more versions of Pasargadae: firstly, the grassroots heritage societies, which are known as NGOs in Iran; secondly and more importantly, it also identifies stakeholders that are not immediately apparent: farmers and villagers living not in the adjacent villages, but upstream and downstream on the rivers that flow through the site; thirdly, the media who pursue their political allegiances with various political factions within the country; finally,

20 The aesthetic quality is discussed in different terms. For an old example see Tuan (1974). 26 World Heritage in Iran technocrats, such as the dam building companies who are in turn connected to provincial and national level water management and agricultural authorities as well as to local politicians who have to be mindful of the next election. In addition to gathering new knowledge of Pasargadae, these chapters reveal potential areas of controversy as well as a provisional indication of actors that need to be examined in a more thorough study of this place. They reveal the complexities – emotional, administrative, political at every level, technical and material – that dynamically define the meaning of the place for those who experience it. Following the details of these ambiguities, controversies and complexities, and examining the role of the material fabric of the village, the site, and monuments in the constitution of the place will be the task of another volume.

References

Abdi, Kamyar. 2005. ‘The Sivand Dam: Political Sensationalism Vs. Archaeological Rationalism’. http://www.cais-soas.com/News/Sivand/sivand_sensationalism. htm. Adams, Paul C., Steven Hoelscher and Karen E. Till, eds. 2001. Textures of Place: Exploring Humanist Geographies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Alsayyad, Nezar. 2007. ‘Consuming Heritage or the End of Tradition’. In New Heritage: New Media and Cultural Heritage, eds Yehuda Kalay, Thomas Kvan and Janice Affleck, pp. 155–69. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Ansari, A.M. 2007. ‘Iran under Ahmadinejad: The Politics of Confrontation’. Vol. 393, Adelphi Papers. Oxford: Routledge. Benjamin, S.G.W. 1886. ‘Persia and the Persians’. Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 18 (ArticleType: research-article/Full publication date: 1886/Copyright © 1886 American Geographical Society): pp. 27–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/196787. Castello, Lineu. 2010. Perception of Place: Rethinking the Concept of Place in Architecture-Urbanism. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. ‘Complete Film of Attack with Hand-Made Grenade to the Tomb of Cyrus [Persian Title]’. 2013. prodemocracyvideo, 23 March 2013, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=KHQl1zPjNnc. Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place a Short Introduction. Malden, Oxford, Carlton: Blackwell Publishing. Gharavi, Mehdi. 1997. Mausoleum Throughout Iranian Culture [Farsi: Aramgah Dar Gostareye Farhang Irani]. Tehran: The Publication Organization of the Islamic Guidance and Culture Ministry of Iran. Ghormeh Sabzi (psudonym). 2010. ‘Ahmadinejad on Cyrus Cylinder: Talks on Tv About Its Significance’. News Broadcast: youtube. Grigor, Talin. 2005. ‘Preserving the Antique Modern: Persepolis ’71’. Future Anterior 2 (1 Summer): pp. 22–9. Conceptualising a World Heritage Site 27

Harrison, Rodney, ed. 2010. ‘Understanding the Politics of Heritage’. Understanding Global Heritage. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution. 2013. Introduction. Accessed 10 April, http://www.bonyadmaskan.ir/EN/SitePages/Home.aspx. IranAtlanta (pseudonym). 29 October 2009. ‘Jonbesh Melli Mahastim in Iran in Pasargadae’. Youtube. Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO). 2004. ‘Pasargadae-Nomination File’. UNESCO World Heritage Centre 1992–2011. Iranian Foundation to Restore Pasargadae’s Islamic Additions. 2008. The Tehran Times Daily 11040, http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp? code=176143. ‘Islamic Republic of Iran Constitution’. 1996. Islamic Republic of Iran Constitution. Iran Online. Accessed 18 May, http://www.iranonline.com/iran/ iran-info/government/constitution-3.html. Jarzombek, Mark. 2011. ‘Themetaphysics of Permanence – Curating Critical Impossibilities’. Log (21): pp. 125–35. Khabar Online. 18 September 2010. Vice President: Ahamdinejad Is the Cyrus of Our Time. Khabar online. Accessed 1 March, http://www.khabaronline.ir/ news-93429.aspx. Kinnaman, Ted. 2008. Aesthetics before Kant, A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network- Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lincoln, Bruce 2001. ‘Ã La Recherche Du Paradis Perdu’. History of Religions 43 (2): pp. 139–54. markaz barrasi asnad tarikhi vezarat etela`at. 1999. Bazm-E Ahriman: Jashnhaye 2500 Sale Shahanshahi Be Ravayat-E Asnad Savak (the Devil’s Shindy). 5 vols. Vol. 4, Bazm-E Ahriman. Tehran: The Ministry of Information. Massey, Doreen B. 1999. Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Meskell, L. 2002. Archaeology under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. Mirzadegi, Shokooh. 2005. ‘A Note of Declaration and Clarification’. ICSASP. Accessed 10 March, http://www.savepasargad.com/European%20 Section/nopoliticsdeclartaion.htm. Mitchel, Timothy. 2001. ‘Making the Nation: The Politics of Heritage in Egypt’. In Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage: Global Norms and Urban Forms in the Age of Tourism, ed. N. AlSayyad, pp. 212–39. London and New York: Routledge Chapman & Hall. Mozaffari, Ali. 2010. ‘Inscribing a Homeland: Iranian Identity and the Pre-Islamic and Islamic Imaginations of Place’. Dissertation, Architecture/Anthropology, University of Western Australia, Perth. 28 World Heritage in Iran

Mozaffari, Ali. 2012. ‘The Problem of a Site Museum for Pasargadae World Heritage Site (Iran)’. International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 4 (1): pp. 41–56. Mozaffari, Ali. 2014. Forming National Identity in Iran: The Idea of Homeland Derived from Ancient Persian and Islamic Imaginations of Place. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Nylander, Carl. 1970. Ionians in Pasargadae: Studies in Old Persian Architecture. Uppsala: Stockholm: Universitetet; Almqvist & Wiksell (distr.). Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation (PPRF). 2002. ‘Pasargadae Management Plan’. 28, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1106. Plutarch. 75 CE. Life of Artaxerxes. Accessed 2 December 2010, http://classics. mit.edu/Plutarch/artaxerx.html. Poor-Pirrar, Naser. 2000. Twelve Centuries of Silence (a Reflection Upon the Basis of Iranian History) [Farsi: Davazdah Gharn Sokoot (Ta`Ammoli Bar Bonyan Tarikh Iran)]. 4 vols. Vol. 1. Tehran: Karang Publishers. Poor-Pirrar, Nasser. 2007. Haq Va Sabr. Accessed 10 March, http://wwww.naria. ir. Rahimpouor, Rana. 14 September 2010. ‘Criticism of Ahamadinejad’s Remarks in the Official Unveiling of Cyrus’ Cylinder’. News Broadcast: BBC Persian. Sami, Àli. 1971. Pasargadae: The Oldest Imperial Capital of Iran. Translated by R. N. Sharp. 2nd ed. Shiraz: Musavi Print Office. Smith, L. 2004. Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. Stein, Aurel. 1936. ‘An Archaeological Tour in the Ancient Persis’. Iraq 3 (2): pp. 111–225. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4241592. Stronach, David. 1978. Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press. Stronach, David. 1990. ‘The Garden as a Political Statement: Some Case Studies from the near East in the First Millennium B.C’. Bulletin of the Asia Institute 4: pp. 171–80. Stronach, David. 2011. ‘Pasargadae after Cyrus the Great’. In The Gift of Persian Culture: Its Continuity and Influence in History, ed. P.J. Chelkowski, pp. 71–94. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Timothy, D.J.and G.P. Nyaupane. 2009. ‘The Politics of Heritage’. In Cultural Heritage and Tourism in the Developing World: A Regional Perspective, eds D.J. Timothy and G.P. Nyaupane, 42–55. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Tuan, Y. 1974. Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Columbia: Columbia University Press. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. 2012. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage. Paris: UNESCO. http://whc.unesco. org/archive/opguide12-en.pdf. Wiesehofer, Josef. 2004. Ancient Persia. London: I.B. Tauris. Chapter 2 Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae Rémy Boucharlat

Introduction

Located on the main road between Isfahan and Shiraz, Pasargadae could not have been missed by the Eastern and later Western travellers. However, the entirely new city founded by Cyrus, the first king of the Achaemenid dynasty (559–330 BCE) was long forgotten until it was definitively recognised at the very end of the nineteenth century after decades of disputes. Since then, the site of Pasargadae was studied; its visible monuments were recorded and finally excavated in the middle of the twentieth century. In the past decade, new programs were launched to enhance its understanding, preservation and visitor experience. Concurrently, the dossier for its registration on the World Heritage list was prepared, which was accepted by UNESCO in 2004. This was an impetus for managers and scholars, who were aware that much further collaborative work remained, to give Pasargadae the prominent place it deserves within Iran and beyond. This chapter focuses on the evolution of our understanding of Pasargadae through archaeological approaches since its association with Cyrus the Great was established at the end of the nineteenth century. It demonstrates that our understanding of the original function of this place, although still speculative, has been subjected to radical change. In conclusion, the chapter suggests further archaeological endeavours, some utilising digital technologies, that could further current hypotheses about this enigmatic place.

Identifying the City of Cyrus and His Tomb: From the Nineteenth Century to Mid-twentieth Century

After Cyrus, the king’s residence was soon abandoned when Darius decided to build his own palace at Persepolis some 40 kilometres away. However Pasargadae remained a significant royal place for the Achaemenid dynasty, probably because the tomb of the founder of the empire was there. After Alexander extinguished the Achaemenids, Pasargadae lost its significance and became an unimportant town for two or three centuries, and then it was abandoned. The place was partly reoccupied for a short while in the early medieval period. It had fallen into oblivion 30 World Heritage in Iran when the tomb was transformed into a mosque before the fourteenth century CE, and then was known as ‘Mashhad-i Madar-i Solaiman’ (Farsnamah, Le Strange and Nicholson 1921, p. 70):1

The tomb of the Mother of King Solomon is of stone, in the form of a cube. No one can look into the chamber within the tomb for, as it is said, a talisman has been laid on it, whereby anyone who shall give a look into it forthwith becomes blind.

That was the name of the monument as reported by Western travellers from the earliest ones such as Josafat Barbaro (1973, pp. 149–50) in 1474–78 until the twentieth century. Many authors disputed the location of Pasargadae, preferring the town of Fasa some 150 kilometres to the southeast of Shiraz, because the modern name Fasa sounded close to Pasa, the first part of the name of Cyrus’ capital (as this occurs in classical sources). However, as early as 1808–9, James Morier (1812, pp. 144–7), struck by the resemblance of the tomb to descriptions of the Classical authors Strabo and Arrian, mentioned a tomb fashioned in the form of a house. Morier put forward strong arguments favouring Madar-i Solaiman to be Pasargadae although he himself finally rejected this hypothesis. However the following travellers, from Sir Robert Ker Porter (1821, p. 507) ten years later, were convinced it was Cyrus’s tomb and made drawings of the visible monuments. After visiting Pasargadae in 1890 George Nathaniel Curzon, the British Statesman, traveller and author convincingly demonstrated that the scattered ruins in the plain of Morghab (Dasht-i Morghab), the closest village, were those of Cyrus’ capital (Curzon 1892 II, pp. 71–90). The visible monuments, and above all Cyrus’ tomb have been drawn by several travellers, all of whom considered the monument to be the tomb of Cyrus (Figure 2.1). Among them are the Beaux-Arts trained architect, archaeologist, and historian Félix Marie Charles Texier in 1840, followed a year later by painter Jean- Baptiste Eugène Napoléon Flandin and architect Xavier Pascal Coste (1843–54 IV, Pl. 194–6), albeit with occasional mistakes. Amongst the other surviving buildings, the isolated column of what is now called Palace S, the inscription of the antae of that Palace and Palace P and the bas-relief of Gate R, the masonry of the huge

1 It is likely that the original meaning of the site had fallen into oblivion long before the tomb’s transformation into a mosque. It is difficult to determine with any certitude when the memory of Pasargadae did fade as, to my knowledge, we don’t have written testimonies between the Classical Greek historians and the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE when the tomb is called Madar-i Solaiman a name also given to an unknown monument in Istakhr (approximately 70 kilometres southwest of Pasargadae by road), another one near Shiraz and sometimes to Persepolis itself! Now, the ‘Farsnamah’, which describes the historical geography of the Fars region, south of Iran, is ascribed to Ibn al-Balkhi (1110 CE) and used by Mustawfi in compiling ‘Nuzhat al-Qulub’ in the early fourteenth century. But we do not know if Mustawfi accurately and thoroughly copied all the information within ‘Farsnameh’. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 31

Figure 2.1 Depictions of the tomb of Cyrus by Flandin and Coste in 1843

Source: Flandin Coste 1843–54: Pl. 195 cf. Stronach 1978: Pl. 19a stone platform, called Tall-i Takht-i Solaiman (‘the Throne Hill of Solomon’) were carefully illustrated by Flandin and Coste. These nineteenth-century drawings are of primary importance for observing the preservation of the monuments and sometimes the damage they suffered. As an example Ker Porter, then Flandin and Coste reproduced the whole doorjamb of the Gate R with Cyrus’ inscription preserved above the bas-relief and 30 years later, when Friedrich Stolze took the first photographs in 1874, the inscription had disappeared (Stolze and Andreas 32 World Heritage in Iran

1882, Pl. 126–37). Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy provided a less-accurate illustration of monuments in 1881, followed by Curzon in 1890. Contrasting with Persepolis and its densely built palaces and columned halls, Pasargadae was seen as a rather romantic site, where probably many buildings were still buried. There was little speculation that there may have been a city at Pasargadae. For these travellers, however, there was no doubt about the identity of Pasargadae. For the first time Flandin and Coste carefully surveyed the site and the ancient road linking the two capitals, Persepolis and Pasargadae, which at the time went through the narrow valley immediately south of Pasargadae, called Tang-i Bolaghi and remained almost unexplored until 150 years later.

Archaeology and the Discovery of Settlement Periods in Pasargadae and its Surroundings

The Achaemenid period is certainly the main, but not the first, period of human settlement in Pasargadae. The prehistoric period – between fifth and fourth millennium BCE – has been revealed by Aurel Stein’s test-pits (discussed later) in 1933 to the South of the site, then, a short-term British operation at Tall-i Nokhodi near the tomb of Cyrus in 1961–62 revealed another small settlement of the late fourth-early third millennium BCE. In 2005–6, the joint Iran-German team working in Tang-i Bolaghi within the frame of a salvage excavation project unearthed settlements and several kilns dating back to the fifth millennium BCE (Helwing and Seyedin 2010).2 After this prehistoric period there was no human occupation until the Achaemenid period. It is now established that Cyrus created Pasargadae ex nihilo in a deserted region. This seems to corroborate Strabo’s (XV.3.8) assertion, that Pasargadae was the place where Cyrus’ army defeated the Median army of his grandfather Astyages in 553 BCE, and was established as a tribute to that victory. The only textual information about the city and its occupation is from the Greek companions of Alexander when the conqueror came to the Cyrus’ tomb to honour the revered founder of the Persian dynasty in 330 BCE. Those texts mention a Treasury, which indicates that Pasargadae was a real city and not merely a ceremonial site. In the Persepolis Archives (Fortification Tablets of Darius’ period), a series of clay labels mention the delivery of goods for the cult of Cyrus in Pasargadae and for other religious ceremonies.3

2 The salvage excavation project was initiated by the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation’s Pasargadae Base in response to the construction of the Sivand Dam (discussed in the present volume by Abdollahzadeh and Shamoradi). The Iran-Japan team found older material in two rock caves; these flint tools date from the pre-Neolithic period (Tsuneki, Zeidi 2008, pp. 96–8) 9th–8th millennium BC. 3 In 1933, the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute archaeologists found an ‘archive’ of clay tablets in the fortification walls of the Persepolis Terrace. Those tablets, numbering in the tens of thousands, were transferred to the Oriental Institute in 1936 and Figure 2.2 Herzfeld’s 1928 plan of Pasargadae

Source: Herzfeld 1929–30. Plan foldout 34 World Heritage in Iran

Excavations in the early-1960s by the British archaeologist David Stronach, showed that Pasargadae remained a small city for a while (between the late-fourth and second century BCE). Then Tall-i Takht only was reoccupied in the early Islamic period as evidenced by new mudbrick constructions (Stronach 1978, pp. 157–9). The site was later unoccupied as confirmed by the Western travellers until the late-nineteenth century. There was only a small village, the present day Mobarakabad to the northwest, and the nearest city, Morghab, was to the north. When Ernst Herzfeld, (discussed below), drew his plan in 1928 (Figure 2.2), settlements within Pasargadae (Madar-i Solaiman) and its surroundings comprised fortified villages (qal’eh): a dozen adobe houses arranged in a square plan and protected by high walls.

First In-depth Study of Pasargadae: Herzfeld (1905–28)

In 1908, Herzfeld, a gifted German architect, archaeologist and epigraphist,4 definitively proved through archaeological evidence what Curzon (1892 II, pp. 68–94) had convincingly argued through textual references: that Pasargadae was Cyrus’ capital. He published his observations and hypotheses as his PhD (Herzfeld 1908) and was eager to excavate the visible remains standing in an apparently uncultivated land except around the small fortified village, Madar-i Solaiman. However, until 1928 the French ‘Délégation’ had a monopoly on excavations on the whole territory of Persia (granted in 1897), which precluded him from excavations. His excellent relationship with Iranian elite and authorities allowed him to become the first foreigner to dig in Iran after the abolition of the French monopoly in 1928 (followed by the immediate establishment of the Iranian Archaeological Service directed by the French architect A. Godard). In the same year, Herzfeld began his work. He excavated the two palaces and the Gate by a series of trenches, from which he later attempted to reconstruct the complete original plans. Unfortunately, his report of his 28 days of fieldwork is rather short: 12 poorly illustrated pages (Herzfeld 1929–30). It was only 40 years later that his rich archives kept in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. began to be carefully studied with great benefit by various scholars. Herzfeld paid attention to the architectural remains and made numerous sketches of sculptures and painted fragments, which remained unpublished until the 1970s. With the help of the gifted architect Friedrich Krefter, he reconstructed the plan of the site and the monuments with some interpretations of his own, and surveyed the surroundings, have since been studied and catalogued as an on-going project. Further information may be found on a dedicated websites: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/pfa/ and http:// ochre.lib.uchicago.edu/PFA_Online/. 4 See a bibliography of Herzfeld in Encyclopaedia Iranica online, available at http:// www.iranica.com/articles/herzfeld. For more details on his life, thoughts and achievements, see Gunter, Hauser 2005. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 35 extending the plan to the neighbouring hills to the north and west, locating any ancient remains he was able to see. This plan, it should be stressed, remained unsurpassed until the end of the twentieth century despite the later valuable fieldworks. It is a valuable historical document that records the state of the natural environment before the extension of the village Madar-i Solaiman which was at the time a small fortified village (qal’eh), and the transformation of the landscape by modern agriculture.

His excavations as a whole were conducted with passion, flair, uncommon knowledge, and, in the main, a profound respect for the testimony of the spade. Sometimes evidence was misunderstood and sometimes claims were made which should not have been made. At the last, however, we should be hugely grateful that the site was first investigated by a deeply engaged scholar of prodigal talents, who also had the foresight to enlist the services of the talented Friedrich Krefter. (Stronach 2005, pp. 121–2)

Situating the Site within a Broader Context

A few years after Herzfeld, in 1933 Sir Aurel Stein came to Pasargadae during his pioneering archaeological survey of Fars. First interested in the Prehistoric periods, he focussed his fieldwork on one of the two small mounds southeast of the Achaemenid remains, named Do-Tulan. He discovered a fourth-third millennium BCE settlement, but nothing later until the Achaemenid period (Stein 1936, pp. 217–21) suggesting a considerable gap in the occupation of Pasargadae between the third millennium BCE and the emergence of the Achaemenids; an important point that was later confirmed by the British test-pits on another Prehistoric mound west of Cyrus’ tomb. Therefore, one can assume Cyrus created Pasargadae upon a plain, which was uninhabited for two millennia. Stein’s map (Figure 2.3) complemented Herzfeld’s, which showed the small valleys, gullies and the contour lines of the hills and mountains (the next accurate map was done by the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation (PPRF) in 1997, long after Stronach’s excavations). Another picture of the site came from the aerial photographs taken in 1935 and 1936 by E.F. Schmidt, the excavator of Persepolis (Schmidt 1940. Pl. 15; 1953, Pls. 3, 4 and 8). These views clearly illustrate the choice of Cyrus for his residence in a flat and fertile area, near the permanentPolvar River from which a derivation canal upstream brought water at the surface level. These photos show the state of the site after Herzfeld’s limited excavations. At the eve of the Second World War, Pasargadae was considered as Cyrus’ temporary residence. Beyond half a dozen stone monuments, the site was not considered a town: ‘Such a plan cannot be called exactly a town. It looks more like the first settlement of nomads, and such in fact was the case’ (Herzfeld 1935, pp. 27–8). However another of Herzfeld’s premonitory observations also contradicts this latter statement: 36 World Heritage in Iran

It [the Solomon’s Throne] dominates the palace area below, which was enclosed by a park-wall. The uniform orientation of the palaces therein, some lines indicating walls and roads, some traces of canals, show that there was really a park around the buildings, a garden like the ‘hanging gardens’ which Nebuchadnezzar made in Babylon for his Median consort. (Herzfeld 1935, p. 27)

The Royal garden was recognised by Stronach much later, and a part of the park organisation by our team only at the beginning of the twenty first century.

Figure 2.3 Map of Pasargadae region produced by Aurel Stein (1936)

Source: Stein 1936: Plan 19 Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 37

Field Research from the Mid-twentieth Century

Ali Sami’s Iranian Expedition, Excavations and Restorations (1949–55)

After the Second World War, the Iranian government committed the Iranian Archaeological Service to resume field research on the famous Achaemenid site of Persepolis which had been excavated by a Chicago expedition led by Schmidt, Herzfeld’s successor, in 1934. Meanwhile, the Government urged Iranian archaeologists to undertake excavations at Pasargadae. Ali Sami, the expedition’s leader, worked on both sites. In Pasargadae, between 1949 and 1955, he completed Herzfeld’s excavations of 1928, clearing out the complete plans of the palaces and Gate R. He found a series of stone watercourses, part of an irrigation system as Herzfeld already suspected. Sami also excavated on the Tall-i Takht. His work in the unexplored area to the south of Palace S towards Cyrus’ tomb did not reveal any more stone construction. Sami took this opportunity to launch a program of preservation of Pasargadae, which has been registered on the list of Historical monuments of Iran on 18 September 1931. To protect the monuments, he enclosed each within a baked brick wall and levelled the surroundings to prevent the water runoff in this damp area. Sami a summarised his researches in a booklet (Sami 1956) and continued the preservation work.

David Stronach’s British Excavations (1961–63) and Subsequent Studies

In a fruitful expedition under the auspices of the British Institute of Persian Studies, David Stronach thoroughly revealed and published the monuments of Pasargadae. The three field seasons carried out between 1961 and 1963 resulted in Stronach’ seminal publication in 1978. With this magnificent book lavishly illustrated with plans, drawings, reconstructions and numerous photographs, Pasargadae entered into the history of Iranian and world architecture. Maps and plans of this book have been extensively used and published in further studies and publications. Sparing the reader a detailed account of the expedition,5 Stronach’s researches took into account each major building as well as the extant remains on the Tall- Takht and he demonstrated that the monumental architecture at Pasargadae greatly benefitted from the use of Lydian and Ionian stonemasons while also offering reflections of Assyrian, Elamite and, to some extent, Egyptian arts. The functions of these buildings are still a subject of speculation and require further studies in relation to both the history of architecture and the landscape in which the buildings stand. For example, the two so-called Palaces, S and R, consisting of a single hall

5 Stronach published a dozen papers in the following years mainly about the garden, but also on the Winged Figure carved on a doorjamb of Gate R and on the short cuneiform inscriptions. See references at the end of this chapter and for a recent comprehensive description, see Stronach and Gopnik 2009, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/ articles/pasargadae. 38 World Heritage in Iran with four and two porticoes respectively, and corner towers, are hardly suitable for a palace. A palace is supposed to be a multi-roomed building for housing the king, his family and his retinue, not to mention administrative offices. Instead, the two columned halls appear to be prestigious buildings for audiences and receptions. It is highly likely that Cyrus had planned to build his residence on the Tall-i Takht, but did not realise this project. To the south, the Gate R area lacks any obvious defence. This impressive building is the official entrance to the Royal residence, quite a new concept in Near Eastern architecture and urbanism, and a prototype for the later Persepolis and Susa palaces. As regards the 12.38 metre- high tower locally called Zendan-i Solaiman (Solomon’s Prison); long viewed as an isolated construction (7.25 × 7.33 metres), there is no consensus on its function; propositions include tomb, temple or dynastic building sheltering the Royal emblem. There is, nevertheless, consensus regarding the function of Cyrus’ tomb as his last resting place and the ascription of a ceremonial dynastic or religious function to the two huge cubic stone plinths (2.10 metres high), located near each other beyond the northwest hill. The most common speculative interpretation is to compare them to the scene carved above the rock-cut Royal tombs at Naqsh-i Rustam and Persepolis showing the king standing on a three-stepped platform facing a burning fire on a pillar resting on another stepped platform. The two cubes of Pasargadae are simpler and only one is accessible by a staircase.

The Aftermath of the Excavations: Results and Problems

Stronach with the help of Carl Nylander, a Swedish archaeologist trained in Classical art and architecture, demonstrated that Cyrus carefully planned his prestigious buildings by consciously integrating elements from various parts of the newly founded empire, including a prominent use of Lydian stoneworking techniques.6 The king wanted to make Pasargadae a mirror of the diversity and wealth of his already World Empire, just as Darius would some decades later at Persepolis. Another major result was the full discovery of the Royal Garden which would become the prototype of the Persian and Islamic garden in its regular orthogonal plan, rectangles of 145 × 112.50 metres, with a twofold internal division delineated by stone watercourses as discussed below. Stronach revealed another outer, less regular circuit partly surrounding the rectangle and also running on the short sides of Palace P (Figure 2.4). The complete layout of the watercourses was finally cleared out in 1971 to prepare the site for the Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship. The featured garden covers some four hectares.

6 The most obvious non-Persian components Nylander (1970) evidenced are from Greek and Lydian origin, therefore postdating the conquest of the Lydian kingdom of Croesus, around 545 BCE, and the Ionian cities of the Asia Minor coast. Their work is obvious from the quarry to the stone cutting techniques and decoration of the palace columns. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 39

Figure 2.4 Reconstruction drawing of Pasargadae gardens by Stronach

Source: Courtesy of D. Stronach 1989, Figure 2

After he published his seminal book, Stronach suggested that another channel might have been running Northwest-Southeast in the middle of the garden. Finally he replaced it by a path that lead perspectivally to a probable stone throne- seat in the middle of the portico of Palace P where the King sat. Therefore the Royal garden would have been divided into four parts, foreshadowing a chahar- bagh (‘four-gardens’) the characteristic feature of Persian landscapes until the nineteenth century. The Pasargadae garden has been the most famous feature of 40 World Heritage in Iran the site for the past 50 years. It is reproduced in all handbooks on Iranian and Near Eastern archaeology, as well as in articles, books and magazines on garden history. Stronach’s suggestion of a path instead of a north-south channel is the most plausible reconstruction one can offer according to the recent geomagnetic survey in 2001–3, conducted by our team (Figure 2.8). The perfect, orthogonal layout also appears for the first time in Pasargadae. Xenophon (Oikonomikos IV.20) celebrated the regularity of the Persian ‘paradise’ where he described the Sardis garden as ‘finely and evenly planted’ and ‘exact and arranged in right angles’. The vegetation of the garden is one of the unsolved questions: the trees, plants, flowers and parterres the garden supported.7 The featuring of the landscape around this garden has recently received some answers, confirming Stronach’s assumption of ‘a concept of a “garden capital”, in which open-sided palaces and other major structures were intended to stand within an area of extensive, complementary gardens … ’ (Stronach 1989, p. 483). Another major question still debated is the fate of Pasargadae after Cyrus (post- 530 BCE). Some works have been done in Pasargadae under Darius, for example the completion of the sculptures in Palace P.8 Darius found Tall-i Takht unfinished and instead of a palace he built a defensive mudbrick wall protecting a series of rooms. The degree of Darius’ intervention in Pasargadae as he was concurrently building his own residence at Persepolis is also indicated by the short inscriptions engraved in several copies on some pillars in Gate R (disappeared), in Palaces S and P, and on the pleat of some sculptures in the three cuneiform languages of the empire, Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. Though they declare ‘I, Cyrus the king, an Achaemenian’ or ‘Cyrus, the great king, an Achaemenian’, many scholars think Darius is the author of the inscriptions.9 While the definitive answer is still

7 Archaeobotanical studies on Pasargadae garden are most desirable albeit rather hard for two reasons. Firstly, due to the geomorphological dynamic of the Morghab plain there is only a thin layer of soil which would have covered and protected the archaeological remains of the Achaemenid period and most parts of the site were not actually reoccupied after Alexander. Secondly, in the mid-1940s and again during the first year after the 1979 Revolution the then fenced site was opened for cultivation, despite its registration on the list of the National Heritage. Therefore, modern and ancient layers containing botanical remains were mixed up, as well as the stone water courses which were partly dismantled by mechanical means. 8 This is revealed by the use of the toothed chisel in stone sculpture, an iron tool of Greek origin which was introduced in Fars at the very end of the sixth century BCE, therefore much later than when Cyrus died in 530 BCE. 9 Darius’ inscription at Bisutun (Behistun) is usually considered the first written expression of the Old Persian language, engraved on the rock after his victory over the usurpation of Gaumata (Greek Smerdis) and his revolt with several petty kings who claimed to be the brother of Cambyses, son of Cyrus, who died in 522 BCE. Therefore the question is to decide whether Pasargadae inscriptions antedate this major text or they were engraved in Pasargadae by Darius, from another branch of the family, after 522 BCE as a political attempt to legitimise his own usurpation. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 41 pending, it is clear that nothing important took place in Pasargadae within the first two decades of Darius’ reign. Pasargadae was then a small but active town and certainly famous for containing Cyrus’s tomb. Following the British excavations and the publication of its results, a renewed interest in Pasargadae appeared which contributed to its preservation. The Italian restoration team (directed by Giuseppe and Ann Britt Tilia) which had been at work at Persepolis since 1964 for the Iranian Ministry for Culture, was requested to undertake preservation, consolidation and some restoration at Pasargadae. Their intervention concerned the tower ‘Zendan’ and Palace S. Around the Zendan a huge iron scaffolding was erected against the only remaining façade in order to prevent its possible collapse (Figure 2.5).

Figure 2.5 Left: Zendan-i Solaiman as recorded by Dieulafoy in 1881; Right: the structure in 2002

Sources: (left) Dieulafoy 1884: Pl. V; and (right) © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae, photograph by B.N. Chagny, 2003

In relation to Palace P, some less-positive actions included the return of some of the columns of this building from other locations to their original position in this palace in preparation for the 1970 grandiose Celebrations of Persian Kingship, a project that was designed to restore Pasargadae to its ‘original’, pre- Islamic condition.10 The Italian team were directed ‘by order of the Archaeological Department’ (Tilia 1972, p. 67) to remove the column drums set around Cyrus’s

10 The main ceremonies took place in Persepolis with a worldwide invitation to the political leaders of dozens of countries. But Pasargadae was the place of a more Iranian- restricted ceremony where the Shah paid homage to Cyrus at his tomb and swore to maintain his Heritage. 42 World Heritage in Iran tomb when it was transformed into a mosque in the Middle Ages and to bring them back to Palace P, their original location a decision from the authorities of the day. In practice, most of them were only left lying beside the palace because their original location could not be precisely determined. As a result, part of the history of the site has disappeared. Furthermore, to facilitate a more comfortable traffic movement on the site, some paths were covered with asphalt thus obfuscating the vision of the ‘Royal garden’ (Figure 2.6).

Figure 2.6 Aerial view of the Royal Gardens with Palace P in the background

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae, photograph by B.N. Chagny, 2003

Pasargadae at the Turn of the Twenty First Century: The Site in Its Environment

Non Destructive Fieldwork on the Site: Exploring the Morghab Plain and the Bolaghi Valley

Funding and time restrictions constricted the breadth of the fieldwork carried out by the British archaeological team, limiting the study to the visible stone buildings and to excavation of the mudbrick constructions on the Tall-i Takht platform. As a result, Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 43

Pasargadae continued to be perceived as a sparsely occupied site.11 The idea of a Royal campsite, which was sometimes suggested in several previous descriptions of the site (Herzfeld 1935, p. 28), was clearly expressed by the great art historian and archaeologist, Henri Frankfort (1954, p. 36), and even several years after the British excavations (Hansman 1972, p. 110). This view is still widespread: Cyrus spent most of his life away from Fars, while expanding his empire, and was seldom in Pasargadae; therefore he would have been content with a sort of camp-capital during his stays. Consequently he would have only erected some prestige stone monuments that readily employed foreign techniques and artistic features to symbolise his power and the expanse of his empire. For some authors, the hypothesis of a camp instead of a town would be reinforced by the absence of fortifications, though Herzfeld had suggested a rampart on the southern side near Gate R. Stronach has often asserted that the campsite hypothesis is wrong, but at the same time one must note that his widely-spread map of the site (Figure 2.7) is so ‘empty’ with only a few scattered stone buildings, that one can hardly imagine a real city. Stronach (1989, pp. 481–2) has also suggested that besides the ‘Royal Garden’ other surfaces might have been landscaped gardens, a hypothesis which is now confirmed. In 1999, in a fortunate coincidence, the Iranian Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO)12 was given the project to present Pasargadae to the World Heritage list of UNESCO, while some archaeologists were eager to explore the site with new available methods and techniques. Therefore the aim of the new fieldwork was in two complementary fields, heritage and archaeology: to better explore the huge ‘empty’ areas between the stone constructions, to look for the limits of the archaeological site proper, and to extend the survey to the neighbourhood. The heritage goal was to better define the site and to protect it, the archaeological and historical aim was to offer some answers about the ‘city’ of Pasargadae. To establish the form and extent of the city, various archaeological survey methods were employed: topographical survey, geophysical survey, mainly by the magnetic and sometimes the electrical method, and aerial photographs taken by plane or taken at low altitude from a kite and balloon offering vertical or oblique views at different periods of the year and times of the day. To better understand the functioning of Pasargadae, the survey of the plain and neighbouring valleys aimed to situate the site within its territory and ascertain the land use of the whole plain. During six short field seasons (1999–2008) the Franco-Iranian team of archaeologists and geophysicists, efficiently supported by the PPRF, implemented

11 The interest for the natural environment of a site and the landscape managed by human occupation is a rather recent trend amongst archaeologists. In Stronach’s time (the 1960s), it should be remembered, the various remote sensing methods, and even the now-commonplace aerial photography, were still in their infancy. Topographical devices for levelling a site were not so fast as the modern computer-aided equipment at every archaeologist’s disposal. 12 At the time, the organisation was known as the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organisation (ICHTO). 44 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 2.7 Plan of Pasargadae monuments by Stronach in 1961–63

Source: courtesy of D. Stronach 1978, Figure 4 these surface survey methods.13 Topographically, a very gentle SE-NW slope, not visible on the map of the site provided by the PPRF’s Pasargadae Base (contour lines at 5 metres only) was confirmed. It definitively demonstrated that the origin of water for irrigating the Royal garden and providing water for the whole site

13 The team also included a surveyor in charge of the topography and a photographer in charge of the photos from balloon and kite. The French team was supported by an annual/ yearly grant from the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It is noteworthy that with the reactivation of PPRF in 2002, under the directorship of Dr. M.H. Talebian and the staff at both the Persepolis and Pasargadae offices, the work was much more efficient. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 45

Figure 2.8 The plan of the buildings in Pasargadae, as known from the British excavations in the 1960s and from the geomagnetic survey in the 2000s

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae 2012 should be the canal, a derivation of the Polvar River two kilometres upstream and flowing to the site along the southern slope of theTall-i Takht then to the southwest to the bridge. The ancient riverbed is visible in the southern part of the site marked 46 World Heritage in Iran by a shallow depression. Minor canals brought water to the Royal garden and probably to other parts of the site. The geomagnetic survey covered several areas, totalling 45 out of the 300 hectares of the protected archaeological site (Figure 2.8). The main results were (see Boucharlat and Benech 2002a and b; Benech, et al. 2012):

Figure 2.9 Detail of electromagnetic survey of the site in 2002 showing stone building with buttresses behind the Zendan as revealed by the geomagnetic and electrical maps. This building is linked to a rectangular enclosure to the south

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae, map by C. Benech 2012 Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 47

• The discovery of a new building on the flat part of the site, such asa rectangular stone construction ca. 40 × 30 metres only a few meters behind the tower Zendan-i Solaiman (Figure 2.9). We now know that the latter was not an isolated tower, but was associated with another structure and set within a rectangular enclosure. • The identification of the supposed riverbed as a trapezoid pool witha stone-built embankment (Figure 2.10). Upstream, to the northeast of the bridge, the pool is 200 metres long and 60 metres wide at a maximum to its northeast limit. Its depth was 1.5 metres, according to an electrical survey test. This pool is reduced to a 26 metre-wide canal after the bridge along Palace S and then it turns to the northwest as a narrow canal. Looking at the geomagnetic image one can guess a dotted line at the end of the pool; one suggestion is that they may be a series of sluice gates for maintaining a constant water level in the pool. The section of canal following the southern corner of Palace S remains undetermined.

Figure 2.10 The trapezoid pool with sluices gates at the two ends for regulating the water flow. A large canal continues to the west along Palace S, then turns right as a narrow channel. Top of the map shows a part of the channels of the fourfold garden

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae, map by C. Benech and S. Gondet, 2012 48 World Heritage in Iran

• The drawing of a network of parallel and perpendicular alignments east, south and west of the Royal garden at several dozens of metres one to the other. Though it is difficult to determine whether these lines correspond to paths, ditches or fences (or all of these features), this network is the best evidence of the landscaping of that major part of the site. One of the clearest alignments of interest is a new North-South axis, starting from Gate R, passing through the bridge (which width should be probably twice wider than the excavated part according to the geomagnetic image), then continuing along Palace S to the northwest as a dotted line (Figure 2.10). Interestingly this axis may well be the main one in the ‘park’ while the North-South axis reconstructed in the Royal garden would be that of the garden itself. Without excavation, this remains a speculation. • The absence of a rampart, certainly to the south of the canal, where a series of magnetic anomalies bespeaks of several constructions or more modest features has been confirmed. • As a direct consequence of the latter observation, the canal is repositioned, in all likelihood, within the park, probably in its middle, rather than the southern limit of the site. This broadens the landscaped area to some 100 hectares, up to 500 metres southwest-northeast and running from Cyrus’ tomb to the foot of the Takht, two kilometres in a direct line to the northeast. • The revelation of a densely built area inside the amphitheatre defined by the ‘outer fortification’ beyond the Tall-i Takht which was left unexplored by the previous excavations.14 These constructions are present on the slopes and in the lower flat area. Interestingly, the buildings on the eastern slope are large rectangles, 30–40 metres long, with a series of small rooms around a large central open space. The plan of the constructions in the flat area of this amphitheatre is less clear but some of them seem to be large. Without excavations, it is impossible to determine the function of these structures. Given their size and their regular organisation, they are hardly common houses sheltering a family. They were the results of a decision from the authority. Whether they were planned for garrison quarters or storehouses or some other function remains undetermined. Because of the poor state of preservation, sometimes only tiny stone alignments just resting on the natural rocky surface, it is not certain any excavation would be rewarding in this respect.

Concerning the environment of the site which was very likely managed for supporting the new city of Pasargadae, the joint team aimed at surveying the Morghab plain and the Bolaghi gorge and valley through which the Polvar River flows; the narrow gorge opens two kilometres south of Cyrus’ tomb, then after six

14 Stronach conducted a small test-pit at the junction of two sections of the 3.40 metres-thick wall, revealing the mud-brick foundations of a rectangular tower measuring 6.5×7.5 metres (Stronach 1978, p. 159). Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 49 kilometres broadens into a small 9×3 kilometres valley. Downstream, at the end, a narrow passage links this valley to the Shahidabad plain and downstream to the Persepolis plain, 40 kilometres away from Pasargadae in a direct line. The survey results concerning the Achaemenid period in the Bolaghi valley are summarized below with the important achievements of the international project of salvage excavations conducted in 2004–7 in that area. In the Morghab plain, the joint team surveyed the hills and the slopes of the small mountains nearby looking at the possible settlements and other anthropic installations. The archaeological survey shows little trace of ancient settlements. If some have ever existed in the plain and on the foothills, they have probably been destroyed or hidden by the land use of the plain which started in the second half of the twentieth century. However several sections of canals have been observed running through the foothills North of Pasargadae following the contour lines; these sections were later surveyed by a joint Iran-Japan team (Tsuneki and Zeidi 2008). On the top of hills, only badly preserved cairn burials have been recorded. They are shaped into small heaps of stones collected around and piled up to preserve an inner space just large enough for the decomposition of a dead person left on the natural ground. Such practice does not require digging the rocky ground while it prevents the intrusion of beasts and prey birds. In absence of any artefacts, these cairns are undated. One can only guess that some were used in the Achaemenid period since there is no other evidence of cemeteries around Pasargadae. The absence of a necropolis linked with the city is still a puzzling issue.15

Sivand Dam Salvage Project (2004–7)

The study of the Pasargadae surroundings received a strong impetus from 2004 to 2007 thanks to the Archaeological Sivand Dam Project. As Abdollahzadeh and Shamoradi discuss in this volume, this new dam has been under construction since 1992 at the very end of the Bolaghi valley for storing water for the irrigation of the plains downstream. The ICHHTO decided to launch an international Archaeological project on the whole valley and the Bolaghi plain in order to record all archaeological remains and excavate the most important ones. Several joint teams were assembled at short notice (from France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Poland) and worked for two or three seasons. The results concern four major periods of human occupation, fifth–fourth millennium BCE, Achaemenid period which is of interest for the focus of this chapter, Sasanian-Early Islamic period and finally Modern period including nomadic campsites, mainly Qashqai tribes, which used the valley during their seasonal transhumance routes between sardsir (‘cold territory’ in altitude for Summer sojourn) and garmsir (‘warm territory’ in the plains for Winter sojourn).

15 Two cairns-burials excavated in the Bolaghi Valley by the British expedition provide chronological clues. In one of them a ceramic pilgrim flask could be dated of the Parthian period, in the second century BCE (Stronach 1978, p. 167). 50 World Heritage in Iran

For the Achaemenid period, the results were most important in relation to Pasargadae. For the first time, it became possible to illustrate the functioning of an Achaemenid centre supported by its environment. On the Royal level, a small multi-roomed pavilion with two opposite porticoes with carefully carved square stone bases was cleared out in the gorge, representing a rest or a hunting pavilion. Downstream, in the broader valley, one village or hamlet and two farms of that period have been excavated.16 One can speculate they represent the built parts of one or several ‘paradises’, a very distinctive institution and landscape of the Achaemenid period which is reported with admiration by the Greek authors. A ‘paradise’ (Old Persian paridaiza, Elamite probably partetash or irmatam, Greek paradeisos, Hebrew pardes, later pardis in Persian, ferdaws in Arabic) defines a selected piece of land, generally speaking an estate established by the king, a satrap near his capital, or a noble, serving not only as a pleasant garden, and/or orchard, crops and fields, but also other things such as animal reserve and zoo. Apart from the testimonies of the Classical Western authors, there is mention of such estates in the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, written in Elamite language. They are receipts or journals, recording goods (mainly cereals, beer, wine) distributed from Persepolis administration for providing food for the local workers, or to prepare the Royal visits or to be stored in the road stations for travellers sent to other cities of Fars or distant provinces (members of the Royal family, nobles, soldiers, groups of workers). Often, the goods arriving at Persepolis come from various estates of the province, or are exchanged between such estates for regulating crops and husbandry production in Fars. The Bolaghi valley may well have been such an area of agricultural products under control of the local governor under the Royal organisation (Boucharlat 2011).

Understanding Water Management Devices and the Nature of Ancient Settlement in Pasargadae

Latest archaeological excavations and surveys have furthered our understanding of the Achaemenid water management devices and strengthened the case for the interpretation of Pasargadae as a permanent city in that period. The Pasargadae region has good climatic conditions. The average annual rainfall is over 350 millimetres, making dry farming possible, despite significant annual variations, the temperature is cold in winter and reasonably hot in summer. Given the mountain ranges encircling the region, water is abundant in Spring due to snowmelt, sometimes provoking flash floods. In summary, water is not lacking but needs management. Recent studies in Pasargadae area have demonstrated how Cyrus undertook important hydraulic works when creating his residence. The derivation canal from the Polvar River has been mentioned. It provided water for the park and

16 For a summary of the results gained by the various teams who took part in the Sivand Dam Salvage project, see Boucharlat and Fazeli 2009. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 51 the city at the ground level, while the river flowing two kilometres to the south is deeply incised. Herzfeld, Stein and Stronach have recorded sections of rock- cut passageways on both sides of the gorge in Tang-i Bolaghi. However, despite certain recent suggestions (e.g. Tsuneki 2008), the hypothesis of a Royal road for the rock-cut passage on the right bank should be abandoned (Stronach 1978, pp. 166–7). Even the widest part of the passage (1.5–2 metres) is too narrow to be used by people and their horses. The most probable function of these passages on both sides of the gorge is a water canal. The narrow width (less than 1 metre in several parts of the left side canal), their very gentle slope (1 to 3 per thousand), and the links which were observed between the rock-cut sections and sections of stone and earth built embankment show a continuous line. Moreover, this embankment, which once supported the canal itself, equally shows an intentional height and layout to keep it almost horizontal, generally following the contour lines in the broadened parts of the valley. These two canals, surveyed as 10 kilometres and 17 kilometres long respectively, evidence an important investment for providing a permanent water resource in the Bolaghi valley. North of Pasargadae, the survey has also demonstrated the hydraulic investment of the Achaemenid period. The Polvar River and some of its tributaries are crossed by several dams and weirs. They obviously aimed at regulating the water flow, particularly in spring. Two examples highlight the technical degree of these features. About 20 kilometres in a straight line from Pasargadae, two dams are built on the Polvar River (De Schacht et al. 2012). Upstream, a 500 metre-long and 12 metre- high embankment is made of earth reinforced by rough stones. Near the top, a 12 metre-long device is made of ashlar masonry with huge blocks over 1.50 metres long, carefully dressed and perfectly joined together and attached by iron clamps set into lead (Figure 2.11). These technical characteristics are exactly the same as in the Palaces of Pasargadae. The device is not yet completely understood despite the limited rescue excavations carried out in 2008 and 2009; excavations that were launched due to the damages inflicted by treasure-hunters in recent years.17 The 20 metre-long structure is composed of a main conduit 5 metres long, 1.4 metres high, and 1 metre wide, a perpendicular small chamber distributed the water flow into six narrow channels 6 metres long (Figures 2.12 and 2.13). Downstream, these channels can be closed by a vertical sluice gate before reaching the outlet in a basin. The basin is also made of ashlar masonry and its rear side is left open. Then the water flowed freely on a gentle slope. The second dam is located two kilometres downstream, in that case, and the stone device at the bottom of a very high embankment. It shows the same organisation: a large conduit, then six small channels equipped with sluice gates and a rectangular basin.

17 The first damages were first observed in 2004 by the joint Franco-Iranian team. The following year traces of mechanical shovel were visible around the structure. Finally, during the excavations, wires for dynamite were brought to light. This ‘discovery’ demanded the quick intervention of the army’s specialised unit from Shiraz! 52 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 2.11 The ashlar masonry water device 20km north of Pasargadae set on the top of a dam/dike (visible on the right photo top). This sophisticated dam and another one nearby aimed at regulating the water flow of the Polvar River

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae 2008

Figure 2.12 Side view and exploded axonometric of water control device in Shahidabad

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae, photo and axonometric view by T. De Schacht and Y. Ubelmann, 2009 Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 53

Figure 2.13 Detail of the water canals in ashlar masonry, as perfectly cut and joined as its contemporary Royal architecture in Pasargadae

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargadae 2008

This kind of water investment does not aim at providing water for irrigation, but rather to control the water flow. The reservoir of the lower dam has been estimated between 250,000 and 8,000,000 cubic metres (when the reservoir was full). Therefore these dams could have regulated the snowmelt in spring and stored water for the summer and autumn when the water levels in rivers fall. Stone mason techniques, confirmed by radiocarbon dating prove that these dams belong to the early Achaemenid period. They are astonishing evidence of the land(scape) management and infrastructure Cyrus undertook for his new residence which therefore cannot be a transient nomadic campsite.

Tomorrow: The Site and Its Associated Hinterland in the Heartland of the Achaemenid Empire

The registration of Pasargadae on the World Heritage list includes the site, its immediate surroundings and a buffer zone. After the identification of the site as the 54 World Heritage in Iran resting place of Cyrus, a century of archaeological work has transformed the picture of this famous grave. Then, the excavations and in-depth study of the monuments during the second half of the twentieth century illustrated the high quality of the art and architecture of the early Achaemenid period. Recent fieldwork has thrown further light on the landscape totally transformed by Cyrus when he decided to create his residence as a ‘paradise’. It also stressed the importance of water for the Achaemenids evidencing channels and a large pool in the middle of the park. Significantly, recent research has revealed the huge investment Cyrus made in the surroundings up to 20 kilometres around in a previously depopulated plain for supporting the town and supplying water to it and to his residence. This broadened vision of Pasargadae as sustained by its environment demands the whole region to be taken into consideration by researchers and site managers alike. Though the Achaemenid period is the most important one on that site, the whole chronological array of the human occupation (from prehistory to present) should also be taken into consideration to produce a coherent picture of this place. The study of the present day population’s daily life is important since the reputation of this historical site and the tourism activity it instigates, have a strong impact on the expansion of the Pasargadae (Madar-i Solaiman) village itself and other adjacent villages. Many villagers took part in the British excavations and some others work as guards and workers or took part in the recent research. Today, Madar-i Solaiman, which is usually called Pasargadae on the maps and locally on the road signs, is closely dependant on the site’s activity which welcomes thousands of Iranian and foreign visitors every year. What can archaeologists and historians contribute to the future of Pasargadae? A program has already commenced by the PPRF that will encompass the whole region characterising it as a cultural landscape beyond the archaeological site. For the present day protected area, fieldwork requires a continuous program for better preserving and presenting the already visible monuments. This is in the hands of specialists of the PPRF and ICHHTO with the desirable help of UNESCO experts. In my opinion, large-scale excavations are neither an urgent need nor a useful operation. Certainly the site deserves more archaeological research. Excavating a whole monument is possible and desirable when it aims to present it to visitors. However the complete archaeological investigation of a whole site would be an endless and useless project if not conducted with precise aims. In the case of the Pasargadae area (several square kilometres) there are a series of goals:

1. To complete the archaeological and architectural information. ICOMOS encourages dynamic of research on the UNESCO listed sites and strongly recommends non-intrusive (destructive) methods in order to maintain the site’s state as close as possible to the time when it was registered. In this respect, excavations should be limited and restricted to testpits/soundings, constituting a few other methods including remote sensing methods, Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 55

geophysical surveys, levelling microtopography. Such investigations would concern several spots: • a re-examination of the Tall-i Takht architectural layers and stratigraphy, to give a better understanding of the Achaemenid and post- Achaemenid occupation which the 1960s British excavations could not have provided,18 • restricted test pits on the recently discovered building behind the tower Zendan-i Solaiman to establish the type of construction (very likely stone masonry, probably ashlar masonry according to the geomagnetic survey) and its elevation. Beyond such results, this operation reveals some clues for understanding the function of this enigmatic tower, • similar test pits on the embankment of the pool would reveal pieces of information for reconstructing Cyrus’ landscape project. 2. To underline the primary importance of the garden and park in Pasargadae. This huge landscaped area (some 100 hectares) surrounding the very regular central garden represents the best known and very likely the earliest example of Persian ‘paradise’. For stressing its double importance let’s mention the title of two articles written by Stronach apropos Pasargadae: The Garden as a Political Statement (1990) and Parterres and Stone Watercourses at Pasargadae: Notes on the Achaemenid Contributions to the Evolution of Garden Designs (1994). The former emphasises the role of the large and well-organised garden as a symbol of the Royal power, definitely as important as the stone architecture. The latter puts Pasargadae garden and park as an ancestor of the Oriental and then Islamic garden throughout the Middle East and around the Mediterranean Sea. Another article (Stronach 1989) had previously shown how Pasargadae garden is both the heir of a Near Eastern tradition while it completely transformed the previous Assyrian models. Definitely Pasargadae is a benchmark for the garden in the world cultural history. As such, it deserves more investigation. Again, as for the garden, another important piece of information concerns the ancient vegetation, plants and trees, contained in Cyrus’ paradise. In such parks, the king or a satrap used to have local vegetation, including fruits and edible products, as well as exotic plants and trees imported from various parts of the empire. This symbol of luxury is often mentioned in the Classical sources for other Achaemenid paradises, such as Cyrus the Younger’s paradise in Sardis, as Socrates reported (Xenophon Œconomicus IV.18) or Dascylium paradise (Xenophon Hellenica IV.1.15–17). Plants can be identified by archaeobotanical, palynological, perhaps anthracological research. In Pasargadae, defining suitable places for sampling is not an easy task because the topsoil covering the ancient ground is thin (some

18 Two testpit excavations conducted by a joint Iran-Italy team in 2007 and 2008 short seasons have resulted in a better knowledge of the artefacts of the main period of occupation and the later ones. See Askari Chaverdi and Callieri 2010. 56 World Heritage in Iran

tens of centimetres) and has been deeply disturbed, particularly due to the ploughing within the core region of the site which began some 15 years before the British excavations started and which was re-authorised for a short period in 1979.19 Until now our attempts for finding pristine areas have been unsuccessful. However there is still hope in finding such areas with intact layers for instance in the canal bed where the deposits are thicker and probably not disturbed.20 Besides vegetation remains, animal bone could be retrieved too. The presence of domestic and wild animals is also mentioned in such parks. 3. Implementing new geophysical surveys for the whole site would certainly be rewarding. Some parts were left explored by the geomagnetic method, especially between the Palaces area and the tomb of Cyrus. Given the surface, it could be covered with traction engine. As a complement a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) would allow the reconstruction of the complete 3D micro topography of the site: the very feeble variations of the topography, not visible to the naked eye, would be informative of the location of non-built dugout ditches conducting water or any kind of limits made of perishable material (for example wood, reed, small mud- brick walls). 4. To contribute to the protection of the site in a broader sense. Such investigations will have some consequences for the areas under cultivation beyond the fenced area: a project for surveying these fields by remote sensing methods and geophysical surveys should be built soon for locating then protecting the possible remains still buried. For such a study the electromagnetic survey method (‘wide mesh net’ measured point for 10 square metres) could be implemented revealing at least the areas where some human activities took place. 5. To extend the survey to the Morghab plain and beyond. The area to be taken into consideration extends over 20 kilometres north of Pasargadae (to the Shahidabad and Didegan dams area) and to the same distance to the South to the very end of Bolaghi valley. Eastern and Western parts of the Morghab plain remain poorly explored and this may be of some importance for understanding the function of the Achaemenid settlement beyond the limits of the inhabited area (for its quarries, other canals, and the like) but also for its subsequent history.

The registration of Pasargadae in the World Heritage list constitutes both a constraint for the archaeological activities, presentation and development of

19 The sad consequences of these agricultural activities are visible on the stone watercourses: many blocks have been displaced or show ploughshare traces. Moreover the cleaning of the watercourses tends to remove the earth matrix alongside them. 20 Several kilos of soil for each sample should be analysed for giving a chance to retrieve grains or pollens. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 57 the site and its region and an opportunity to organise them within a series of clearly defined projects. For building and conducting these projects specialists of various fields should be called for collaboration. This includes archaeologists, historians, art historians, museologists, anthropologists, economists, engineers and agriculture experts. Pasargadae offers a nice opportunity to consider not a single major monument, as it was often the case in the previously UNESCO listed places, but a whole site considered within in its environment including several present day villages or towns around Pasargadae. This present, local population should not suffer from this situation but should of course benefit from the dynamism created by the worldwide cultural importance of Pasargadae.

References

Askari Chaverdi, A. and Callieri, P. 2010. Preliminary Report on the Irano-Italian Stratigraphic Study on the Toll-e Takht (Tall-i Takht), Pasargad. Investigations on the Material Culture of the Achaemenid and Post-Achaemenid Peroiods in Fars, in Ancient and Middle Iranian Studies. Proceedings of the 6th European Conference of Iranian Studies, held in Vienna, 18–22 September 2007, edited by M. Macuch, D. Weber and D. Durkin-Meisterernst. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 11–28. Barbaro, J. 1973. I viaggi in Persia degli ambasciatori veneti Barbaro e Contarini a cura di L. Lockhart, R. Morozzo Della Rocca e M.F. Tiepolo. Roma: Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Libreria. Benech, C., Boucharlat, R. and Gondet, S. 2012. Organisation et aménagement de l’espace à Pasargades: Reconnaissances archéologiques de surface, 2003–2008, Arta 2012.003 http://www.achemenet.com/document/2012.003- Benech_Boucharlat_Gondet.pdf. Boucharlat, R. 2011. Gardens and parks at Pasargadae: Two ‘Paradises’?, in Herodot und das Persische Reich – Herodotus and the Persian Empire, edited by R. Rollinger, B. Truschnegg and R. Bichler (CLeO: Classica et Orientalia). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp. 457–74. Boucharlat, R. and Benech, C. 2002a. Organisation et aménagement de l’espace à Pasargades. Reconnaissance archéologique de surface, 1999–2002, Arta 2002.001 www.achemenet.com/ressources/enligne/arta/pdf/2002.001-loc.pdf. Boucharlat, R. and Benech, C. 2002b. Archaeological reports. Pasargadae. Iran, 41, pp. 279–82. Boucharlat, R. and Fazeli Nashli, H. (eds) 2009 Tang-i Bolaghi Reports. Arta 2009.002 to 2009.006 www.achemenet.com/document/2009.001-Fazeli.pdf. Curzon, G.N. 1892. Persia and the Persian Question, 2 vol. London, F. Cass and Co. Dieulafoy, M. 1884, L’art antique de la Perse, 5 vol. Paris: Hachette. Flandin, E. and Coste, P. 1843–54. Voyage en Perse … pendant les années 1840 et 1841, 5 vol. Paris, Imprimerie nationale. 58 World Heritage in Iran

Frankfort, H. 1954. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, New Haven, Penguin Books. Gunter, A.C. Hauser, S.R. (eds) 2005. Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies 1900–1950, Leiden, Brill. Hansman, J. 1972. Elamites, Achaemenians and Anshan. Iran, 10, pp. 101–25. Herzfeld, E. 1908. Pasargadae, Untersuchungen zur persischen Archäologie. Klio, 8, pp. 1–68. Herzfeld, E. 1929–30. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen von Pasargadae 1928, Archäologische Mitteillungen aus Iran, I, pp. 4–16. Herzfeld, E. 1935. Archaeological History of Iran (The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1934). London: Oxford University Press. Herzfeld, E. 1941. Iran in the Ancient East. London-New York: Oxford University Press. Ker Porter, R. 1821. Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylon … during the Years 1817, 1818, 1819 and 1820, 2 vol. London: Rees, Orme and Brown. Le Strange, G. and Nicholson, R.A. 1921. The Fársnáma of Ibnu’l Balkhí. London: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial. Morier, J.J. 1812. A Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809, London: Longmans, Green and Co. Nylander, C. 1970. Ionians in Pasargadae. Studies in Old Persian Architecture (Boreas, Uppsala Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Civilizations 1). Uppsala. Schmidt, E.F. 1940. Flights over Ancient Cities of Iran. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of Chicago Press. Schmidt, E.F. 1953. Persepolis I. Structures, reliefs, Inscriptions (Oriental Institute Publications, 68), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stein, A. 1936. An Archaeological Tour in Ancient Persis. Iraq III, pp. 111–225. Stolze, F. and Andreas, F.C. 1882. Die Achämenidischen und Sasanidischen Denkmäler und Inschriften von Persepolis, Istakhr, Pasargadae, Shapur, 2 vol. Berlin. Stronach, D. 1978. Pasargadae. A Report on the Excavations conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stronach, D. 1989. The Royal Garden at Pasargadae: Evolution and Legacy, in, Archaeologica Iranica et Orientalia, Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe, edited by L. De Meyer and E. Haerinck. Gent: Peeters, pp. 475–502. Stronach, D. 1990. The Garden as a Political Statement: Some Case Studies from the Near East in the First Millennium B.C. Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 4, pp. 171–80. Stronach, D. 1994. Parterres and Stone Watercourses at Pasargadae: Notes on the Achaemenid Contributions to the Evolution of Garden Designs. Journal of Garden History, 14, pp. 3–12. Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions in Pasargadae 59

Stronach, D. 2005. Herzfeld at Pasargadae, in Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies, 1900–1950, edited by A.C. Gunter and S. Hauser. Leiden: Brill, pp. 103–35. Talebian, M.H. 2008. Persia and Greece. The Role of Cultural Interactions in the Architecture of Persepolis-Pasargadae, in Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran. Cross-Cultural encounters, Athens, 11–13 November 2006, edited by S.M.R. Darbandi and A. Zournatzi. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, pp. 178–93. Talebian, M.H. 2010. A Review of Research and Restoration Activities at Parsa- Pasargadae: Analysis, Evaluation and Future Perspectives, in The World of Achaemenid Persia. History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, edited by J. Curtis and ST John Simpson. London-New York: Tauris, pp. 299–307. Tsuneki, A. and Zeidi, M. (eds) 2008. Tang-e Bolaghi. The Iran-Japan Archaeological Project for the Sivand Dam Salvage Area. Tehran: Iranian Center for Archaeological Research – Tsukuba, Department of Archaeology, University of Tsukuba. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 3 The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae: Problems and Prospects Mohammad-Hassan Talebian

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure … Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two- leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by the name, am the God of Israel. The Holy Bible, Isaiah 44–5

Introduction

Inscription of a property on the World Heritage List as a treasury belonging to the whole of humanity results in generating a deeper understanding about values and significance of the property. It also leads to more attention being paidby stakeholders to protection of its values. Inscription of Pasargadae as a World Heritage site was a significant event at national and international levels and has led to better identification of this valuable property. As a result, not only the number of visitors to the site has increased relative to previous years but also the economic boom and developmental activities in the region have increased. Notwithstanding the economic, social and cultural merits of the process, in practice challenges have emerged due to limitations imposed within the buffer zone of the property. Approving and implementing World Heritage regulations has played a key role in various ways including the management and protection of natural and cultural landscapes of the region. Although these regulations lead to a regional sustainable development in the long run, their restrictive measures appear to be in conflict with short-time interests of locals resulting in some problems and tensions. This chapter begins by situating the site and introducing the UNESCO values and criteria for the site’s registration leading to an explanation of operations conducted within the core zone and buffer zone of Pasargadae before and after the inscription. The future management plan, given the site’s current challenges must take into account the condition of Pasargadae as a unique cultural landscape. In conclusion, the vision for the site’s future is canvassed. 62 World Heritage in Iran

The Site

As Boucharlat explains at length in the previous chapter, Pasargadae was the first dynastic capital of the Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus II (the Great), in Parsa, homeland of the Persians, in the sixth century BCE. The construction of Pasargadae as the capital of the Achaemenid Empire is the most important testimony of the rapid growth of a new empire. Pasargadae is the place where Achaemenid art emerged as a successful symbiosis of various elements taken from ancient civilizations of the South West Asia, and remoulded with the aim of the creation of a new art. Pasargadae was mentioned in classical sources, especially in Herodotus’ Histories where the ‘Father of History’ spoke of the Pasargadae as the noblest of the Persian tribes, while Strabo wrote that Pasargadae was both the name of the tribe and that of the country. According to one interpretation, Cyrus may have been identified as Zolqarneyn or the Sovereign of Two Worlds, the enigmatic personality mentioned in the Koran; and, in fact, the winged figure at Pasargadae attributed to the figure of Cyrus bears a crown surmounted with a twin horn, itself a symbol of Zolqarneyn. Legends have memorized the name of Pasargadae as the Martyrium of Solomon’s Mother (Mashahd-e Madar-e Solaiman), associating the monumental constructions with the deeds of the Biblical prophet. This was undoubtedly the main reason for which the tomb of Cyrus was called the Tomb of Salomon’s Mother, and consequently became a symbolic mosque in the Islamic period. As Boucharlat explains in detail in this volume, Pasargadae contains the first Persian innovations regarding the reorganization of the plain and the creation of a garden-city. Among things that make the site outstanding at a world level are its unique architectural elements such as the Tall-i Takht Complex, the monumental tower (mausoleum of Cambyses), private and audience palaces, the sacred site as well as the primary prototype of Persian garden. The site was inscribed in the World Heritage List of UNESCO as no. 1106 in July 2004. Serving as the double poles of World Heritage in Fars Province located in southern Iran, Persepolis and Pasargadae have been linked together via the natural domain of Sivand at the extreme ends of a region with a length of more than 90 kilometres. The cultural landscape not only boasts exceptional natural potentials but also constitutes the heart of the Persian civilization and identity in different historical episodes particularly during the Achaemenid era. For this reason, since pre-historical times, it has always been venerated and glorified. The site of Pasargadae or the Morghab plain lies in the northern half of the present-day province of Fars; the plain is 5 kilometres in length and not more than 12 kilometres in width. Here, the parallel folds of the Zagros Mountains are cut by three major rivers, the Mand, the Kur, and the Polvar. The latter crossed Dasht-e Morghab and was possibly an important factor for the choice of the site. The river also traced the natural road between Pasargadae and Persepolis. The site is situated at a distance of 4 kilometres to the west of the modern Isfahan-Shiraz road. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 63

Figure 3.1‎ Location of Pasargadae relative to nearby villages and the main road of Shiraz-Esfahan

Source: Iranian cartographic centre

For a long time, Pasargadae Plain has served as a passageway for transit and settlement of many tribes and groups. It was linked to Susa and Persepolis via the Shahi (Royal) Road, traces of which have been found by Herzfeld and others in Morghab Plain. The road arrived into the plain from north and extended directly as far as Tang-i Bolaghi after passing by west of Tall-i Takht and nearing Cyrus’ mausoleum. Later the Shahi Road was extended eastwards so that coming from the northern direction; it turned south and south-west keeping a distance of 2–3 kilometres along the east bank of Polvar River and reaching Tang-i Bolaghi in the south-west (Figure 3.1). From the middle of Shahi Road, a public way was extended to Morghab or Madar-e Solaiman (Solomon’s Mother) Village. Today, the new road between Isfahan and Shiraz also passes through the valley without harming its historical properties. 64 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 3.2‎ Structures in Pasargadae site; Top: tomb of Cyrus the Great, Centre: audience palace, Bottom: private palace

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 65

At present, Pasargadae Plain is formally divided into northern and southern parts of which the northern part called Mashhad-e Morghab is located within the limits of Khorram-beed County and includes Morghab and Qader-abad town. The southern part which constitutes the main body of Pasargadae Plain is located within the limits of Pasargadae County and consists of Madar-e Solaiman, Kordshul, Abolvardi, Mobarak-abad and Dehno villages. Pasargadae or Madar-e Solaiman village has now been designated a town according to national administrative divisions.

The UNESCO Registration: The Significance and Values

As regard to the significance of the site of Pasargadae, some historical considerations must be taken into account. The rise of the Persians as conquerors of the Ancient World, and founders of the first Iranian empire is narrowly linked to the site of Pasargadae. It was from here that for the first time Cyrus the Great rose against the Medes; the plain of Pasargadae was the battlefield of Cyrus’ army and the Medes in 550 BCE; the Medes were defeated and the Persians annexed Median territories. After this date, Cyrus continued to conquer most of the Ancient Near East. The Persians took Sardis, the capital of the Lydian kingdom in Asia Minor, in 546 BCE Later, in 539 BCE, Cyrus opened the gates of Babylon, the heart of the oldest kingdom of that time. In 538 or 537 BCE, Cyrus carried out his last campaign, against the Massagetae, a nomadic people possibly living north of the Laxartes, somewhere east of the Aral Sea. It was his last battle; the nomads in one decisive encounter defeated the Persians; Cyrus was killed in the battle, and his body was recovered and brought back to his homeland, at Pasargadae. The construction of Pasargadae as the capital of the Achaemenid Empire is the most important testimony of either the rapid growth of a new empire and the birth of Achaemenid art and architecture (Stronach 1978). Pasargadae represents a successful synthesis of local planning and the Ancient Near Eastern art brought here as a new creative art, the Achaemenid art. Pasargadae is also the first manifestation of this new art, an expression of an extraordinary position attained by the Persians within the span of two decades, from 558 to 538 BCE Pasargadae, as David Stronach states, is ‘the unique mirror of this endeavour’ (quoted in Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO) 2004, p. 6). In spite of later architectural activities at Pasargadae, it is the monuments of Cyrus’ reign which dominate the site recalling a ‘moment of rare achievement’ in the history of ancient Iran. It becomes clear that the site of Pasargadae is a unique ancient site that played a major role in the history of ancient Near East. On this basis Pasargadae was deemed to satisfy the necessary criteria (i, ii, iii, iv) for its inclusion on the World Heritage List of UNESCO: 66 World Heritage in Iran

Criterion (i): Pasargadae is the first outstanding expression of the royal Achaemenid architecture. Criterion (ii): The dynastic capital of Pasargadae was built by Cyrus the Great with a contribution by different peoples of the empire created by him. It became a fundamental phase in the evolution of the classic Persian art and architecture. Criterion (iii): The archaeological site of Pasargadae with its palaces, gardens, and the tomb of the founder of the dynasty, Cyrus the Great, represents an exceptional testimony to the Achaemenid civilization in Persia. Criterion (iv): The ‘Four Gardens’ type of royal ensemble, which was created in Pasargadae became a prototype for Western Asian architecture and design (Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO) 2004).

It is important that through the management plan above-mentioned values are protected while the quality of the Pasargadae site and its general surroundings are improved. Therefore, reorganizing landscape and access corridors to Pasargadae, maintaining landscape, functional and structural integrity and authenticity within the core zone and buffer zone would be of utmost significance.

State of Site Management and Condition of Neighbouring Villages Situated within the Buffer Zone before the 2004 Inscription

Before its inclusion in the World Heritage List in 2004, management of the Pasargadae site had never been independent because it operated under the supervision of the central office of Pasargadae region with a maximum of two experts who were usually addressing local development notices and emergency conservations. Prior to this date, the management system was totally dependent on the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organisation (which is now called the Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation – ICHHTO) and provincial authorities regarding financial, administrative and policy matters. Thus all research and restoration activities were performed periodically by teams sent at national and international levels. Although numerous researches and excavations had already been made by various archaeologists from 1928 until 2001 and despite the fact that restoration of the complex had been performed by The Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East (IsMEO) expedition as well as Parse-Pasargadae restorers in various seasons, these activities were discontinued due to a lack of adequate reorganization. Additionally, operations originated from various personal tastes. Furthermore, although limited activities for cultural development of the region had begun – such as the beginning of constructing the Pasargadae museum – they were inevitably stopped because of a lack of public participation. Issues such as stylistic restorations including the elimination of Atabaki Mosque (tenth century CE) which was a testimony to the sacredness of Pasargadae over various periods of time, all resulted in lessening the public regard for site values. In fact because local communities felt they had The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 67 no tangible interest in the site, futile and unplanned developments in villages, landscape corridors and the entrance route to Pasargadae occurred. Additionally, before preparation of the World Heritage nomination dossier, an absence of regulatory measures for controlling the buffer zone culminated in attention being paid exclusively to the core zone of the property as well as in unplanned rural development. Due to a lack of regional strategic and detailed plans and issues such as population changes, dam-building and road construction development, the values of Pasargadae region and its ancient structures such as the nomadic tribe routes, flora and fauna as well as the unique natural and historical landscape of the region were not given due consideration. The absence of well-defined boundaries at the general scale of Pasargadae Plain was another management planning problem. After the inscription and reorganization of the plain, local resistance was encountered due to regulation of agricultural, service, and developmental activities which inhabitants found restricting. An example was the limitations imposed on density and height of residential buildings as well as on rural expansion. Among management problems encountered, the following cases can be mentioned:

• ambiguity in the administrative state of Madar-e Solaiman Village and pertinent policy-makings because of problems in regional administrative divisions, • discordance of macro national plans (such as regional plans) with those of ICHHTO, • absence of an appropriate and detailed census data about the general condition of the site and its surrounding villages (regarding their climate, population, amenities) due to the remoteness of Madar-e Solaiman Village and the site nominated for inclusion in the World Heritage List, that is, Pasargadae, • lack of appropriate level of support by relevant authorities for ICHHTO against illegal diggers and looters, • neglecting tourism management in governmental programs, • lack of a healthy relation between ICHHTO and ordinary people, • absence of a proper plan for site reorganization as well as conservation and restoration of its properties, • shortage of research funding compared to the funding allocated for construction projects.

The political, social and management structures of the region had imagined historic zones in a state of freeze with no activity. This had a detrimental effect on the relationships between the official site custodians and local residents: the cooperation and engagement over social, economic and cultural matters between the two sides was reduced to a minimum. The locals’ suspicion of heritage grew to the extent that occasionally it was regarded as a threat for development. In such 68 World Heritage in Iran circumstances, transforming public perception of heritage as well as the attitude of authorities so that the cultural heritage could be seen as an opportunity rather than restriction has not been an easy task. However, in relation to scientific heritage activities, there has been a consistent contribution to the advancement of knowledge by various international and Iranian researchers, archaeologists in particular. Table 3.1 presents a summary of restoration and archaeological operations which paved the way for a better understanding of Pasargadae and for preparing the nomination dossier of inscription in the World Heritage list.

Table ‎3.1 A summary of restoration and archaeological operations at Pasargadae

Researcher’s name Type of activity Date Notes Ernest Herzfeld The first 1928 Conducted detailed Archaeologist and excavations in various parts excavator of the site including: Tall-i Takht, the sacred site, Dargah and the Private Palace. Also introduced the Cyrus mausoleum and ruins of Pasargadae palaces Sir Valestien The second 1934 Prepared a map of Pasargadae Archaeologist and Plain and dug trenches in excavator pre-historical mounds of Dotelun and Tall-i se-Asiab Schmidt Archaeologist 1935 Discovered the walls of a and excavator and polygonal towered-citadel by photographer aerial photography Ali Sami Excavator and 1949–53 Unlike previous researchers, Archaeologist (head Sami not only addressed of the scientific Achaemenid era developments institute of but also properties belonging Persepolis) to pre-historical and Islamic times David Stronach Excavator and 1961–63 Conducted excavations in Archaeologist most buildings particularly in (representative of Tall-i Takht, Abru and Pol the British institute of Iranian studies) The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 69

Joseppe and Researcher 1964–72 Conducted scientific studies, Ann-Britt Tilia and Restorer activities and surveys aimed (representatives of at restoration of Pasargadae the Italian institute properties of far and middle east or IsMEO) Alireza Shapur Archaeologist Conducted studies about Shahbazi and Researcher Pasargadae (supervisor of Pasargadae and Persepolis properties)

The Management Plan and Administrative Organization after the World Heritage Inscription in 2004

The main approach of the management plan consists of the following goals:

• establishing a permanent research-executive base, • conducting up-to-date studies within the core zone and buffer zone of Pasargadae, • planning, directing and controlling the expansion of villages located in the vicinity of the site, • providing a master plan for the region as well as preparing conservation, restoration and reorganization programs.

In order to achieve these goals, the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation has developed and pursued the following nine-point strategy which reflects a multifaceted and holistic perspective. The strategies cover various levels and intend to engage different groups of people:

• emphasis on the importance of multi-disciplinary work, • having contact with universities and scientific institutes home and abroad (student theses in different phases of education), • maximum deployment of local people especially for maintaining and guarding purposes). At the beginning of the Pasargadae project 50 per cent of the staff was local people but at present almost 100 per cent of them are locals who work in different sections of expertise, field works, management as well as guarding posts, • continued training, • constant contact with indigenous community, employment-generating and capacity-building, • constant monitoring, reporting and controlling, • continual presence of experts and trainees at specific periods of time, 70 World Heritage in Iran

• focusing on the identification, planning and designing before any interventions (minimum intervention-maximum monitoring), • establishing local NGOs which are cultural heritage-loving.

Moreover the management plan attempts to introduce the historical, cultural and natural values of Pasargadae Plain and aims at protecting it at various scales. Based on these values, a special administrative chart within the national and local organizational framework has been devised and approved for better conservation and management (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3‎ Administrative position of the Pasargadae Base within the official structure of ICHHTO

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

Similarly, the desire to implement a multi-perspectival and comprehensive management of the site is embedded within the administrative structure of the Pasargadae Research base itself. Here, given the significance of the Board of Trustees, it is of the utmost importance to ensure that particular care is taken to maintain a multi-faceted composition. Attempts have been made to engage authorities at various provincial positions as well as relevant experts in site management. The outcome has been a specific organizational structure to ensure this diversity. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 71

Figure 3.4‎ Organizational chart of Pasargadae Base (WHS)

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

As Figure 3.4 shows, this structure allows the concurrent and complementary function of various sections in relation to the site while the Steering and Technical Committee assist the Director. The Director then reports directly to the Board of trustees, which, in turn, reports directly to the ICHHTO. Table 3.2 summarizes the composition of the Board of Trustees, the Technical Committee and the Base Management Team. 72 World Heritage in Iran

Table ‎3.2 Composition of the Board of Trustees, the Technical Committee and the Base Management Team

Archives and Information System

One of the major tasks of the Pasargadae Base is the provision of information and archival material gathered through various research, conservation and other heritage- related activities. To facilitate an easier access to data for experts and research students, a cataloguing and archiving system has been set up to the aforementioned management goals. As Figure 3.5 indicates, this is a multidisciplinary database that is regularly updated and contains image, text and multimedia that can be used for various research and heritage management activities. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 73

Figure 3.5 Model of archive of Pasargadae site

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

Managing Conservation

Another major task of the Pasargadae Base consists of the management and execution of historic conservation. At Pasargadae, managing conservation of the site and monuments involves three interrelated aspects: the establishment of and administrative structure for conservation activities, the prioritization of funding allocation and precise documentation and the monitoring of the monuments within the designated core and buffer zones of the World Heritage site. In an historic site such as Pasargadae, conservation is an ongoing concern and imposes a major demand on human and financial resources. Stages of conservation-related activities are streamlined to ensure administrative procedure and responsibility as well as efficiency in the outcomes. As illustrated in Figure 3.6, conservation activities are initiated in response to the conditions on the ground. At an initial stage, inter-disciplinary investigations within a certain timetable are necessary to ascertain the state of monuments and the required conservation activities. From here, depending on various factors and state of the monuments, emergency restorations are prioritized and on the basis of available facilities, working schedules for various groups as well as management expectations are considered. 74 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 3.6 shows the full cycle of activities for conservation procedures at the Pasargadae Base: from initiation of restoration activities to the final implementation and the preparation of the report of restoration and conservation activities. It also illustrates the position of the base Manager and his team – the Steering and Technical Committees – in the scheme administrative hierarchies and general lines of responsibility that structure the process. As indicated, once an activity is approved by the Technical Committee at Pasargadae and before any funds can be allocated, it requires the final approval of the office of the Deputy

Figure 3.6‎ Conservation action

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 75 of Conservation at ICHHTO. Upon completion of activities, the Pasargadae Base reports back to the ICHHTO. Priorities in allocating conservation funds are determined through monitoring the situation on the ground. These priorities are classified in five different categories as identified in Figure 3.7. The first priority is given to emergency conservation and documentation as it addresses urgent cases where a monument is threatened by an immediate and irretrievable damage and the last in the priority list is the less urgent, regular restoration funds where the potential damage can be managed and thus issues of authenticity and integrity in restoration become the focus of attention (Figure 3.7).

Figure 3.7‎ Conservation funds priorities

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base 76 World Heritage in Iran

Finally, the kind of scientific conservation required for an archaeological site such as Pasargadae, is dependent upon precise documentation of the site through its core and buffer zones along with their monitoring and safeguarding. The site is documented following international standards using state of the art instruments. Furthermore, the multifaceted nature of Pasargadae as an archaeological site adjacent to living villages, demands an integrated, holistic approach to documentation; one that facilitates the contribution from multiple disciplines focussing on the details of their fields. The management of monitoring and the relevant specialist personnel are determined by the specific characteristics of different parts of the site. As Figure 3.8 illustrates, the buffer zone and the core zone of Pasargadae have different, but at times overlapping, monitoring demands. In the buffer zone, monitoring involves a range of issues from the natural conditions of the site to various development plans and therefore involves a number of disciplines. Similarly, within the core zone, each area and every aspect of the site require their own set of specialized documentation and monitoring, which range from the historic monuments to the facilities and amenities on site.

Figure 3.8‎ Monitoring in core and buffer zones

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 77

Funding Resources

Under the current model of funding in Iran, the government (at both local and central levels) is the major source of funding for the budget of World Heritage archaeological sites, while for archaeological sites registered on the national heritage list, these resources are only secured from local administrations. The majority of the allocated funds (75 per cent) is spent on the administration and conservation of the site and the remainder (25 per cent) is spent on research and educational activities. Only a small portion of the site’s revenues are raised through other activities such as selling tickets, cultural productions and touristic services, much of which is utilized for covering the running costs of the site and only a small portion (25 per cent) goes toward research and publications. In addition to this, some sites receive public donations, religious endowments and (to a very small extent) international financial aid. At times cultural services and publication activities of sites depend on private sector partnership. Additionally, maintenance services are facilitated largely by the voluntary help of people, local institutions and private companies active in the area. Figure 3.9 shows the financial priorities of conservation and restoration.

Multidisciplinary Activities on Site

As stated, the management of Pasargadae demands an holistic, interdisciplinary approach to issues of conservation, which constitutes the ultimate goal of all restoration and research activities on site. As an example of such an interdisciplinary approach, we may consider the following brief: the concurrent conservation of historical paths and organization of touristic routes in relation to them. In response to this brief, a multidisciplinary team consisting of an archaeologist, an architect, a restoration expert, a geologist and various technicians. Together they had to consider various factors including archaeological and geological conditions on the ground and visitor studies to determine their particular requirements. The outcome of their studies was a proposal for a program of works which was carried out on site. The nature of the team and stages of their proposal from conception to realization are illustrated in Figure 3.10. 78 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 3.9‎ Funding resources

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

Education and Introduction (Interpretation)

Education is an integral part of Pasargadae’s conservation and restoration plan. To this end, the Pasargadae Base has adopted a framework covering two aspects of training and education and the site’s introduction (Figure 3.11). In relation to education and training activities, the Base engages students at various levels, conducts public education sessions for locals, provides training for its own staff and it organises expert seminars and sessions. The introduction and promotion of the site to the broader public is the other aspect of educational activities of the Base. Activities in this area include, on the one hand, contributions to museums and exhibitions, the pursuit of a site museum for Pasargadae, cultural activities such as festivals and tourism-related events and media relations. On the other hand, the site and its staff actively support and contribute to the production of relevant promotional and educational material such as books and multimedia which raise the profile of Pasargadae and contribute, however modestly, to the site’s revenues. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 79

Figure 3.10‎ A sample of multidisciplinary activity

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

Figure 3.11‎ Education training and introduction

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base 80 World Heritage in Iran

Limits of Boundaries and Regulatory Measures: Restrictions and Potentials

A World Heritage site is a legal entity protected by laws and regulations that cover its buffer and core zones. Particularly within the buffer zone, which includes adjacent villages, the legal restrictions have created conflicts and challenges between heritage authorities and the local population, to which we shall return. Following is a brief account of the applicable regulations and laws within the buffer and core zones of Pasargadae:

Regulations of the Core Zone

The following is a list of the regulations of the core zone:

• conducting archaeological, reorganizational, restoration and conservation activities are feasible only after devising a plan and its approval by ICHHTO, • planting trees and expanding cultivated lands is strictly forbidden, • in farmlands with private ownership, surface cultivation without levelling is allowed with a maximum depth of 30 cm, • erecting electricity poles and pylons or establishing industrial facilities is prohibited and in accordance with the plan approved by ICHHTO, removal of existing pylons is compulsory, • digging water wells or constructing pumping-stations without the permission of ICHHTO is forbidden.

Regulations of the Buffer Zone

The following is a list of the regulations of the buffer zone:

• establishing workshops and factories polluting the environment is prohibited, • construction of single-floor buildings with a maximum height of 4.5 metres and a flat cover is allowed, • the architectural plan and façade of residential houses in villages located inside the buffer zone must be in harmony with the historical prestige of Pasargadae Historical-Natural Complex as well as with indigenous building materials and regional climate, • devising national and local development plans must be done after consulting with ICHHTO and after obtaining the final permit from it (such as the pilot plan for villages located inside the buffer zone i.e. Madar-e Solaiman, Kordshul, Mobarak-abad, Abolvardi and Dehno villages), • extraction of building materials or minerals like: gravel, sand, stone, for example within the buffer zone is forbidden.

Figure 3.12 shows the core and buffer zones which are governed by these laws. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 81

Figure 3.12‎ The location of Pasargadae’s core and buffer zones

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

Problems and Challenges Created in Villages Neighbouring the Site as a Result of Restrictive Regulations of the Buffer Zone

As mentioned there are five villages within the Pasargadae Plain. Until afew decades ago (before 1977), these were fortified villages essentially made of mud-brick. However, due to socio-economic transformations in the latter part of the twentieth century and population increase, they expanded beyond the walls of the original fortresses. In fact, the absence of a master plan and appropriate regulatory frameworks and supervisions led to haphazard developments and growth. During this process, vast parts of the old fabric were destroyed. In recent years, following the inclusion of Pasargadae site in the World Heritage List and the delineation of its core zone and buffer zone accompanied by relevant restrictive regulations many difficulties have arisen for villagers. However, as far as the site is concerned, the new regulations have led to a better conservation of the site and protection of the natural landscape of the plain and are regarded as an achievement in managing and maintaining the World Heritage site of Pasargadae. The introduction of these laws have also led to better conservation and maintenance of other historical and cultural properties located in the region of Pasargadae Plain leading to their better protection against damages. At the same time, to preserve 82 World Heritage in Iran

Pasargadae’s unique visual aspects, restrictions have been imposed on expanding constructions and on the height of new developments. Moreover construction activities in parts of villages overlooking the Pasargadae site have been banned. Together, these restrictions have limited prospects for development resulting in depreciation of property values. This has contributed to the immigration of the young population of the village to other places. In other parts of the plain, restrictions imposed regarding the construction of industrial and animal husbandry facilities has caused more public discontent. Despite these issues, no substantial mechanism has been devised to adequately compensate villagers. Another issue at hand is the dissonant state of some rural facades which have not used traditional and indigenous architectural patterns. This is seen in villages adjacent to the site, especially Madar-e Solaiman and Kordshul (Figure 3.13). The problem has been aggravated in recent years because of the public loan paid by the Islamic Revolution’s Housing Foundation (Bonyad Maskan) – the body in charge of housing development in rural areas1– as well as the heightened rate of construction thanks to modern technology. This has led to an increasing amount of complaints and lawsuits being filed by locals against various institutions, because due to the adverse economical condition of villages there is no motivation for changing and reorganizing present facades (Figure 3.14). Fortunately, a master plan for rural reorganization has been devised which is underway using credits from the local government.

Figure 3.13‎ Aerial photo of Pasargadae landscape

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

1 For further details see the institution’s web portal: http://bit.ly/1ifmAQi. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 83

Figure 3.14‎ The disorganized state of residential and commercial buildings which have not observed traditional and indigenous patterns on the access route to Pasargadae site

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base

Cultural, Social and Economic Growth of Local Residents and Nomadic Tribes due to Developments Following the Inscription

Cultural, social and economic development of local inhabitants after the inclusion of Pasargadae site in the World Heritage List can be addressed from various points of view. As is discussed in another chapter by Jones and Talebian, the improved status of Pasargadae at the world level has attracted the attention of people both at home and abroad leading to an increase in both tourism to the site and visits by scholars. Paying special attention to the surroundings of the site, archaeological excavations in the region especially in Tang-i Bolaghi and media dissemination of relevant reports and news have had a positive effect on raising public awareness about the status of Pasargadae. The effect of the development on the social and economic conditions of the inhabitants of Pasargadae region is significant but in direct proportion to the distance of villages from the site. For example, more economical and social developments and changes have taken place in Madar-e Solaiman which is adjacent to the site. Inhabitants of this village have tried to 84 World Heritage in Iran make good use of the location of their village on the entrance route of the site and have started small shops in order to increase their revenues. Despite positive developments such as job creation and increased interaction between people and site, cultural and tourist infrastructures are far from optimal. Altogether, comparison with previous years shows a higher public awareness about the universal heritage values of the region as well as more tourist reception. But due to the absence of educational and cultural centres in the region such as libraries, assembly halls, showrooms and lack of relevant training in schools, there is a need for further educational and cultural improvement. Nevertheless, despite insufficient growth in these matters, because of the exposure and contact between locals and domestic and foreign visitors, the level of public awareness in Pasargadae region relative to other regions and counties is higher with regard to issues such as the significance of historical sites, especially Pasargadae, the state of their conservation and maintenance as well as attitudes towards tourists.

New Researches and the Broad View on Pasargadae as a Cultural Landscape

As mentioned previously, during the Achaemenid era Pasargadae Plain was considered as an important political-social centre and consisted of the central plain of Pasargadae and the Morghab plain. In post-Achaemenid times the plain was also named Morghab or Kolan. Most of the studies conducted in Pasargadae Plain until now have been aimed at identifying buildings in which governmental activities were performed. Therefore the state of settlements for ordinary people as well as other Achaemenid properties in Pasargadae region was not studied in detail. But recent archaeological researches done within the expanse of the plain and its surroundings led to the identification of several properties which showed that during the rule of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae was not confined to the present 158-hectares area. Rather, Cyrus’ capital embraced the whole of Pasargadae Plain and its adjacent areas with each part having its own major activity. The existence of buildings, Cyrus’ gardens (Pardis or paradise), the huge system of dams and dikes, water-supplying canals, bridges, public residential zones and the remainder of ancient roads all indicate the significance of the plain and its reorganization for production as well as the transformation of natural threats into various opportunities. One of the most important infrastructural activities conducted in Pasargadae Plain and its adjacent areas has been the construction of a road between Pasargadae and other major regions. Traces of this route have been found recently in some parts of the plain. Access from Pasargadae to southern regions is possible only via two natural passageways: the first is Tang-i Bolaghi in the south-west of the plain and the second is the mountain strait of Sa`adat-shahr on the southern tip of the plain. In the distant past, these two routes have been used specially by nomadic tribes migrating to northern parts of Fars province. The Tang-i Bolaghi The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 85 passageway dates back to the Achaemenids and possibly before but in recent years due to the construction of Sivand dam in the southern part of the strait, the route has been blocked (Figure 3.15).

Figure 3.15‎ General view of the Bolaghi plain (above) and seasonal migration of nomadic tribes through Tang-i Bolaghi passageway before the inundation of the Sivand Dam (below)

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base 86 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 3.16‎ Ancient remains of grape juice workshop in Tang-i Bolaghi and its modern instance in graveyards of Dasht-i Kamin

Source: PPRF, Pasargadae Base The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 87

Because of the role of Pasargadae as a major social-political centre of the Achaemenid era, the need for its all-out development was felt and one of the relevant factors was managing and supplying water resources. As Boucharlat explains in this book, Royal buildings were located in the central part of the plain surrounded by royal gardens. But most of the plain was occupied by residential zones, farmlands and public gardens. Recent studies have led to the identification of several residential areas pertaining to the Achaemenid era as well as huge structures with water-supplying functions. The existence of a system of dams, dikes and canals for water transfer shows the advanced water engineering of the time. The hydraulic structures built played a key role in the large-scale expansion of the capital city because they not only controlled and stored floodwaters but also they transferred them to designated places via canals and gutters. Adequate management of water resources resulted in a thriving gardening and farming region, and consequently in supplying nutritional needs of various groups residing in the capital city. Moreover, villages and residential zones developed and many people became engaged in farm activities. On the other hand, the economic boom and higher revenues increase led to more artisan activities. In summary, investments in water resources management caused the growth and expansion of Pasargadae and its neighbouring regions and built up the social and economic strength of the Achaemenid government. Launching the system had many problems and complications which were resolved by experienced and resourceful experts and engineers who finalized the plan. Investigations conducted around Pasargadae indicate the existence of a huge system of structures related to water management (Figure 3.16). They provide a wealth of data in relation to water resources management. Similar investigations, albeit more extensive, are underway about identifying various dimensions of the cultural landscape in collaboration with different universities and scientific institutes.

Conclusion: a Vision for the Future

Today, almost a decade after the inscription of Pasargadae in the World Heritage List and relevant programs presented in the management plan, the core zone of ancient Pasargadae seems to be preserved in a good condition and state of conservation. Despite all the efforts made by the ICHHTO, the protection of the monuments inside the buffer zone is a difficult task and it needs more attention. Reorganization of the village according to the program foreseen in the management plan has not been finalized due to the economic conditions of the region. Despite the conduct of several researches in various fields and the preparation of the master plan of the region as well as the reorganization plan of villages, no integrated and comprehensive activity has yet been done. Among programs presented in the management plan those which have been finalized are: the establishment of a permanent base, expanding publications, better introduction 88 World Heritage in Iran of the site, educating the personnel and training local experts, holding various educational workshops, improved conservation, more interaction with indigenous inhabitants and acquiring their cooperation. But at the same time the following programs have remained incomplete due to limited funding: the detailed plan for households of villages adjacent to the site, appropriate development of tourist infrastructures, completing the planned cultural and social spaces such as museums and sporting facilities, as well as compensating the discontented people who have suffered loss because of restrictive measures. Future plans for Pasargadae involve the expansion of scientific partnerships at national and international levels, increasing interdisciplinary research, more interaction with locals and improving the quality of the historical and natural environment. Additionally, by enlarging the core zone in accordance with archaeological evidence and by annexing Bolaghi valley which is the natural reservoir of Pasargadae to the existing buffer zone so that it can be included in the conservation cycle, a better introduction of regional values is obtained.

References

Curzon, G.N. 1892. Persian and the Persian Question, London, vol. 2, pp. 71–90. Goff, C. 1962. Excavations at Tall-i Nokhodi, Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, London, vol. 2, pp. 41–52. Goff, C. 1963. Excavations at Tall-i Nokhodi, Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, London, vol. 1, pp. 43–70. Herzfeld, E. 1908. Pasargadae. Unterschungen zur persischen Archaologie, Klio, Leipzig, vol. III, 1–68. Herzfeld, E. 1935. Archaeological History of Iran, London, pp. 27–9. Herzfeld, E. 1941. Iran in the Ancient East, London, 210 sq. Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization (ICHO). 2004. Pasargadae Capital of Cyrus the Great (UNESCO World Heritage nomination file). UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1106/documents/. Kleiss, W. 1979. Madar-e Suleiman, das Grab des Kyros als Islamisches HeiligtumArchäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, Berlin, Band 12, 281–7, Taf. 44. Nylander, C. 1970. Ionians in Pasargadae. Studies in Old Persian Architecture, Upssala Islamic Remains. Parsa – Pasargadae Research Foundation. 2003. Pasargadae Management Plan National Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization. Available at: http://whc. unesco.org/en/documents/103275, Tehran. Sami, A. 1950. Gozaresh-e khabardarihay-e Pasargad, Tehran, vol. 1, pp. 1–17. Sami, A. 1956. Pasargadae. The Oldest Imperial Capital of Iran, Shiraz. Sami, A. 1960. Pasargadae & qadimtarin payetakht-e shahahnshahiy-e Iran: Gozareshhay-e Bastanshenasi (Persian), Tehran, vol. 4, pp. 1–172. Sami, A. 1971. Pars-gadeh (Persian), Shiraz. The Current State of Heritage Management at Pasargadae 89

Stein, A. 1936. An Archaeological Tour in Ancient Persis, Iraq. Journal of the British Institute in Baghdad, London, vol. III, part 2. Stronach, D. 1963. Excavations at Pasargadae. First preliminary report, Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, London, vol. 1, pp. 19–42. Stronach, D. 1964. Excavations at Pasargadae. Second preliminary report, Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, London, vol. 2, pp. 21–39. Stronach, D. 1965. Excavations at Pasargadae. Third preliminary report, Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, London, vol. 3, pp. 9–40. Stronach, D. 1978. Pasargadae. A report on the excavations undertaken by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963, Oxford. Stronach, D. 1997. Darius at Pasargadae: A neglected Source for the History of Early Persia, Topoi. Orient-Occident, Supplément 1, Recherches récentes sur l’Empire achéménide, Lyon, pp. 351–63. Tilia, A.B. 1972. Studies & Restorations at Persepolis and other Sites of Fars. IsMEO Reports & Memoires, Rome, pp. 66–8. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 4 Archaeology and Useful Knowledge: Pasargadae and the Rationalities of Digging ‘Real’ Places William M. Taylor1

The ancient people of this land enjoyed a prosperous culture and art. Although historical events and the passage of time have destroyed a great deal of their remains, those bits and pieces left, nonetheless, testify to that glorious culture. It would be unfair that we neglect the struggles of our ancestors and fail to respect their efforts by not preserving their remains … Thus the author, like other pioneers of the discipline, have dedicated several years of his life to accomplish this task … This effort was not a result of anything but a love of motherland and praise of the valuable remains of the ancestors.

Ali Sami, The Achaemenid Civilization (Vol. I, 1962, pp. 3–4)2

Archeological evidence is material and physical and, at the same time, problematic in many ways, most obviously because it is fragmentary and individual objects often reveal little or nothing about how people in the ancient past thought about their social and political identity. Nonetheless, both archeologists and popularizers often have little hesitation in drawing inferences from objects to identities. Especially relevant is that mass public readily find these narratives emotionally and politically plausible and powerful. Marc Howard Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict (2007, p.160)

In his book Orientalism Edward Said described patterns of representation, style and content internal to western discourses, and their contribution to ideas about the Near-, Middle-, and Far-East as geographical and cultural entities ‘despite or beyond any correspondence, or lack thereof with “real” places’ (1978, p. 5). The imprecision of these connections between ideas and sites, their mixed inscription according to competing scholarly traditions and nationalistic narratives, and their co-option by rival imperial powers, underscores the critical provocation of Said’s work. Imprecision leads the relativist to wonder whether and on what terms Near-,

1 In preparing this chapter the author gratefully acknowledges the assistance and advice of Joely-Kym Sobott and Ali Mozaffari. Research was made possible, in part, by a grant from the Australian Research Council. 2 Cited in Abdi 2001: 67 (fn 90). 92 World Heritage in Iran

Middle-, and Far-Eastern places can be said to exist at all, as settings of historical distinction that can also be meaningfully experienced today. One thinks of urban sites of longstanding habitation and their representation and reinvention through a history of writing and physical reconstructions. Cities on the ‘border’ between East and West like Athens and Jerusalem, or those more clearly setting out ‘other’ territory like Babylon and Pasargadae come to mind; all settings which appear in historical narratives as partly fact and myth in some measure. Each of these sites and cities are framed by texts and narratives, but also by long histories of archaeological practices that have worked to unearth and stage ancient remains in particular ways. This chapter explores the central proposition that archaeology, particularly the discipline’s signature practices of fieldwork and digging – regardless of what is unearthed or the manner whereby archaeological artefacts are conserved and interpreted – not only highlights, but also helps to establish relations between understanding (and conceivably ‘othering’) and managing the past. These relations are not only formative of national (including imperial, colonial and post-colonial) identities, but also of the self – as a member of a particular culture or as a citizen, for instance, or as a particular kind of professional (or combination of these and other possible subject-positions). Ernst Herzfeld, regarded by many to be the ‘father’ of Iranian archaeology of the Achaemenid period and responsible for leading digs at Pasargadae and Persepolis, was also, first and foremost, a European, with professional interests and habits shaped by his German education and training and by academic skirmishes over the origins of European culture and civilisation. Herzfeld’s approach to the ‘facts’ on (and below) the ground was shaped by an impulse to reappropriate the Achaemenid dynasty and its history, art and architecture. This was achieved partly by controlling access to archaeological sites, including photographic records, but also by resisting – if only to a degree – the ‘orientalising’ of much Persian ancient history by nineteenth-century scholars (McCaskie 2012, pp. 149–54). The archaeologist’s loyalties to his sponsors and to ‘true’ Achaemenid history do not fully account for a complex character, whose excavations, according to one authority (Root 2005, p.40; see also Mousavi 2012, p.166), were not particularly rigorous and who was once accused of illegal dealings in Persian antiquities (Marchand 2010, pp. 131–2). Herzfeld was trained in architecture as well as archaeology. Making for an analogous case involving the appropriation of the past and its remains, the diary of architect Charles-Edouard Jeanerette’s (Le Corbusier’s) 1911 travels occupies ambiguous ground between fact and fiction and between intellectual rigour and liberal interpretation of remains, detailing a circular, geographical and imaginative journey from West to East and back again (Figure 4.1). It provides a convenient opening to this chapter in which archaeology and the remains, aspirations and political agenda supported by archaeological practices are featured. The book was published shortly after the architect’s death and, coincidentally, just after the first volume of Ali Sami’s Achaemenid Civilization appeared in Persian. The diary, titled Le Voyage d’Orient (1966), demonstrates the influence of orientalist perceptions Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 93 on a European’s mixed experience of a place while the Iranian archaeologist’s work is arguably a reaction to Europe’s monopoly on writing his country’s past. Both cases provide lessons on relations between power, knowledge and digging.

Figure 4.1 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, ‘L’Acropole, Athènes’

Source: Carnet du Voyage d’Orient n°3 p.103, 1911 © Flc/Copyright Agency/ VISCOPIE, 2013

As for the diary, on the one hand, Le Corbusier’s impressions of the East, culminating with his visit to Istanbul (Constantinople or ‘Stamboul’ as he refers to it), reflect Europe’s long fascination with exotic locations. The book provides readers with a French variant on a familiar theme whereby the magnificence of architecture such as the Hagia Sofia and the chaotic ‘horror’ of life on the streets are extremes which inspire the creative spirit. On the other hand, the Frenchman’s itinerary is a self-justifying search for origins. The markets of Istanbul, the city’s jumble of alleyways and teetering houses and the ‘revolting’ painted ornamentation of its Ottoman mosques (1966 [1987], p. 103) are caricatured in order to counterpoise the timeless principles of utility, simplicity and order Le Corbusier discerns in vernacular architecture elsewhere in Eastern Europe. No mere recorder of scenes, the architect had a distinctively ‘Western’ eye so that seeing facilitates other kinds of intellectual and aesthetic appropriation. This facility allows the tourist to detect beauty in rusticity and in squalor though, he warns, ‘to love them despite all of this requires hard work and commitment’ (1966 [1987], p. 103). Sami, one-time director of Pasargadae, as well as an author who extolled its virtues, worked equally hard to see beyond the later Islamic structures 94 World Heritage in Iran on the site to discern the ‘pure’ Persian architecture and art buried there, describing the former as ‘the “ugly and unsightly” work of “graceless and inexpert builders”’ (cited by Mozaffari 2012, p. 47). Among the disciplines associated with orientalist enterprise (including history, anthropology, literature and others) Said failed to mention archaeology, though clearly archaeological practice entails a manner of imagining and working on the past that has been engaged by these and other modes of inquiry. Archaeology was partly responsible for Le Corbusier’s views of East and West, though the architect failed to acknowledge the influence. Consider how centuries of digging on the Acropolis facilitated the architect’s fanciful meditations on the archaeological remains there when he arrived in Athens after Istanbul in 1911 (1966 [1987], p. 223). Nearly a century previously (1823), French-German architect Jacques Hittorff scratched away at soil obscuring the ruins at Selinunte, Sicily, and came across his then revolutionary theory about the polychromy of ancient Greek architecture (1830). Clearly, archaeological research and fieldwork, along with the visionary and physical reconstruction of architectural remains, has supported the generalising and oftentimes dominating tendencies of orientalism. Called in to identify and administer sites and buildings of cultural heritage these practices foster more broadly imaginative geographies directed towards other territories and different kinds of places and the cultural and national identities made to adhere to them. Arguably, archaeological digging is also directed towards the future, not simply the past, the discipline’s methods and practices working to create a site – an assemblage of artefacts, a place of significance and novel experiences – that never existed before. In this sense, archaeology may merely have succeeded other forms of appropriation and projection. The extensive use of texts at Achaemenid sites in the form of inscriptions, for instance, including the adding of new inscriptions to older ones, suggests that the dynasty’s kings were conscious of their legacies and took pains to control them (Mousavi 2012, p. 5). Archaeology and archaeological fieldwork at sites like Pasargadae were important to the development of Near-Eastern Studies, helping long ago to position such sites as ‘real places’ in historical narratives (Gunter and Hauser 2005, pp. 101–260) and serving successive cultural imperatives, including the initiative resulting in Pasargadae’s UNESCO World Heritage listing (Figure 4.2). Unlike investigations in socio-cultural anthropology, however, archaeologists have only recently turned to examine not only the empirical, but also the political – particularly nationalistic – contexts shaping the development and practice of their discipline (Abdi 2001; see also Trigger 1998, 1984; Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Díaz- Andreu and Champion 1996). Broadly speaking, in everyday parlance one ‘digs’ to get at the truth, but one also can ‘bury’ the truth by the same means. Obfuscation can come with layers of misrepresentation and rhetoric such as Sami’s ‘love of motherland and praise of the valuable remains of the ancestors’ (Sami, 1962; cited in Abdi 2001, p. 67 (fn 90)). This twofold action of revealing and concealing is played out on archaeological sites where excavations are invariably both formative of new knowledge, but also potentially destructive of possibilities for Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 95

Figure 4.2 Excavation of Pasargadae (Iran): Mashhad-i-Madar-i-Suleiman at mausoleum of Cyrus the Great: ground plan [drawing]

Source: The Ernst Herzfeld papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian lnstitution, Washington, D.C. 96 World Heritage in Iran past understanding. This can occur just as archaeological strata necessary for connecting objects to historical formations risk obliteration – hence, the need for careful towelling and brushing of remains. This chapter initiates a cautious excavation. It begins where the trails of Le Corbusier and Sami leave off, uncovering some part of the contribution that archaeological fieldwork and digging make to nationalistic and popular narratives that connect archaeological artefacts to identities and places. These practices are commonly perceived to be routine, exercised prior to and mostly independent of more overtly ideological activities resulting in the construction of the past along certain lines. To the contrary, this chapter argues that archaeological excavation plays a more determining role in the politics of place surrounding heritage sites than one might assume. The guarded approach to Iran’s heritage sites by the Islamic Republic (Abdi 2001, pp. 72–3), given their appropriation by the former Pahlavi dynasty, bears comparison to the investigation, interpretation and active reworking of ancient settings and monuments in other settings and their aestheticisation as symbols serving different regimes. In such instances the initiation (or suspension, in the case of post-revolutionary Iran) of archaeological excavations are political acts in themselves. In Israel archaeology has been described as ‘a veritable form of prayer … for the Jewish people’ (Feldman, in Ben-Yehuda 2007, p. 249) highlighting the distinction between state-sponsored and popular readings of places that arise in that country and elsewhere, in other ancient lands.

Archaeologies of Reason

In view of decades of post-structuralist soul searching across its sister disciplines in the humanities, archaeology, by comparison, retains a greater measure of its paradigmatic status as a rational mode of inquiry. Archaeological fieldwork in particular remains at least partly removed from criticism of the Eurocentrism of the discipline’s Enlightenment sources and available for useful application in a wide range of contexts. While the material artefacts of archaeological excavations may be co-opted by nation-states and political regimes and bolster the ideological character of curatorial and heritage practices, the conduct of archaeology is commonly perceived to be of a different order, bearing the imprimatur of scientific certainty. This is perhaps largely owing to popular belief that the activities associated with fieldwork like topographical surveying and the classification of remains and no less so, archaeological digs, comprise a practical enterprise – simply means to an end, an instrumental medium rather than the message – and consequently, fairly straightforward and value free. There are, of course, grounds to question these assumptions. With a background in Near- and Far-Eastern studies, Martin Bernal, author of The Black Athena (1987), courted controversy by unravelling the ‘Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization’ (the book’s subtitle). He challenged longstanding historical narratives that saw the cultural impetus behind such artefacts as the Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 97

Parthenon and the ancient Greek agora as having emerged organically, or from the ‘Aryan’ north or elsewhere in the proto-European world. In the introduction to his book, Bernal comments on the role that archaeology played in creating and perpetuating these competing narratives. He also questions archaeology’s seeming rationality by observing how the veracity of much historical scholarship depends upon the requirement for a certain kind of ‘proof’, a standard of evidence that is socially-derived and ultimately contestable, like all epistemologies invariably are:

20th-century prehistory has been bedevilled by a particular form of this search for proof, which I shall call ‘archaeological positivism’. It is the fallacy that dealing with ‘objects’ makes one ‘objective’; the belief that interpretations of archaeological evidence are as solid as the archaeological finds themselves. … The favourite tool of the archaeological positivists is the ‘argument from silence’: the belief that if something has not been found, it cannot have existed. … [However, in] nearly all archaeology – as in the natural sciences – it is virtually impossible to prove absence. (1987, p. 9)

As a foundational activity, with physical and epistemological aspects, the model of the archaeological dig is perhaps the manual counterpart and complement to what Feyerabend studied as the elusive ‘observation language’ that underscores the practical rationality of scientific inquiry. This entails a conception of knowledge that derives empirical facts by imposing a correspondence between words and things, deriving sense by connecting what can be seen to what can be thought and questioned. Similarly, the archaeological dig works (though can never fully succeed in its task) to establish as fact a fundamental opposition between an artefact and context (terrain, strata or other geophysical datum in the first instance) that renders it meaningful. Feyerabend built on Hanson’s critique of empiricism (1958) which more or less argued that seeing is not believing as commonly presupposed. Rather, what we perceive – what we uncover by digging to continue the comparison between science and archaeology – is based on filtered sensory information, where the link between seeing and understanding something is mediated by preconceptions, theories or interpretive frameworks (1958, pp. 4–30). Equally concerned with such epiphenomenal aspects of knowledge, Michel Foucault (1972 [1969]) adopted the term ‘archaeology’ to name his particular approach to analysing its social formation. In doing so, he drew on the common association of the term with a structured view of the past and its human remains, specifically humanity’s discursive (written and ideational) record. There followed one of Foucault’s most inspiring, but demanding books, The Order of Things (1989 [1970]) which, as its subtitle establishes, sought to realise ‘an archaeology of the human sciences’. However, the methodological inventiveness characterising this phase of Foucault’s work was overshadowed by his writing on power and knowledge and writing of ‘genealogies’ for such subjects as the birth of the prison, madness and human sexuality. These entailed an approach which emphasised the dominance of neither one critical category nor the other (neither ‘power’ 98 World Heritage in Iran nor ‘knowledge’) in the organisation of social relations and spaces. Rather, what comes to the fore is the historical development, relevance and mutual engagement of the two categories for understanding how reason and forms of disciplined inquiry work on the world. Adopting a genealogical perspective on archaeology (the discipline), as a subject and mode of inquiry, its outcomes in the form of field surveys, collections of objects or architectural reconstructions should not be seen merely as representations or symbols of power. Nor are practices of archaeological excavation simply an instrument of the powerful, that is, means to normalising, exclusory or oppressive ends. Rather, as Turkel (1990, p. 178) observes:

To be sure these relations between knowledge and power have some validity: discursive knowledge requires forms of power that enable classification, record keeping, accumulation, and systematic communication. Yet power and the exercise of power require the formation of useful knowledge. Power and knowledge are mutually dependent, intersect with one another and, often, are so inter-penetrated as to form a unity.

Though acknowledging his indebtedness to Foucault, Said was aware of the problematic nature of Foucault’s variety of archaeology (as a research method), describing it, more or less, as an empty metaphor, denoting the promise, but also the improbability of deriving one comprehensive and empirically-grounded model of social inquiry. As Chuaqui (2005, p. 97) describes the situation:

By the time ‘theory’ advanced intellectually into departments of English, French, and German in the United States, the notion of ‘text’ had been transformed into something almost metaphysically isolated from experience. The sway of semiology, deconstruction, and even the archaeological descriptions of Foucault, as they have commonly been received, reduced and in many cases eliminated the messier precincts of ‘life’ and historical experience.

A lesson to be derived from this observation is that by privileging archaeology as a rational mode of inquiry, one ignores the ‘messier’ aspects of the discipline’s investigative practices and so further removes archaeological finds and reconstructions from other domains of historical and everyday experience. One can observe that digging can be a provocative activity in its own right, orienting the archaeologist and their multiple and overlapping audiences among scholars, government agencies and publics in a particular relationship to material culture, regardless of what is uncovered or how it is recomposed. Questions concerning who can dig, where and when, and what can be done with artefacts are informed by (and help shape) ideologies and political interests. Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 99

Sites of ‘Crude and Reckless Digging’

Over the course of several decades since the publication of Orientalism, scholars have taken a closer look at archaeology. The discipline has come to be seen as clearly prescribed by relations of power and knowledge, a feature of imperial and post-colonial discourses and nation-building enterprises (Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Kohl, Kozelsky and Ben-Yehuda 2007). As recent literature on archaeology and Iranian nationalism has shown (Abdi 2001; Grigor 2009), the discipline has clearly played a role in shaping the historical significance of places like Pasargadae (Figure 4.3). At the same time there is evidence suggesting that the history of archaeological fieldwork at such heritage sites complicates a simple reading of the discipline’s instrumentality and political function. The model activity of the archaeological excavation is more than simply ‘means to an end’ particularly where the ‘end’ may now be more commonly, but somewhat narrowly, construed as the unearthing, reconfiguring and re-presenting of national symbols. Identifying the kinds of subjects who have carried out excavations and when and where, what ‘digging’ entailed and what ‘lessons’ were fabricated from ancient remains contributes to a fuller picture of the practical and political dimensions of archaeological fieldwork.

Figure 4.3 Excavation of Pasargadae (Iran): Gate R (gate house, palace with the relief), north-west doorway

Source: The Ernst Herzfeld papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 100 World Heritage in Iran

The first Westerners to take an active interest in Near- and Middle-Eastern antiquities and ancient places were guided by a particular worldview; scholars and connoisseurs were typically well-versed in Holy Scripture and bible history and schooled in classical Greek literature. Travelling to sites mentioned in the old and new testaments or by Herodotus and other ancient authorities and collecting relics there was means of embellishing familiar stories about the cradle of Judeo- Christian civilisation. Writing of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century excavations in present day Iraq, Bernhardsson (2007, p. 193) observes:

This search for history was conducted within the context of European imperialism and was thus invigorated by the competitive spirit of colonialism. The world, and all that was in it, was up for grabs – a view reflecting European power and progress. The scramble for colonies was also played out in the arena of Middle Eastern antiquities. The urge to discover as many magnificent antiquities as possible often resulted in crude and reckless digging in Mesopotamia, as well as rash methods in the export of the antiquities. It is clear that many sites and relics were irreparably damaged or lost in this process.

During this early-modern period of archaeology, the ‘search for history’ more often resembled treasure-hunting than scholarly and scientific practice, though not-so-subtle discriminations based on orientalist and racialist assumptions could serve to justify one grounds for digging versus the other. The scant regard for local communities in the diaries, archaeological reports and drawings of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century European travellers – except, as was often the case, their portrayal as either picturesque additions to ruined landscapes or pillaging barbarians and tomb-robbers – contributed to partial, incomplete and biased descriptions of ancient places (Bernhardsson 2007, pp. 193–4). There is evidence from non-Western accounts, such as al-Kazwini’s thirteenth-century travel narratives ((Lewick 1960–2002, Vol 4, pp. 865–7), that locals living near ancient sites of what is now Iraq routinely dug at ruins to obtain building material, so that:

Before the twentieth century, then, archaeological relics were used to build houses, not a national identity. Archaeology up until World War I was therefore ‘international’ in that it was mainly foreign institutions or organizations that conducted archaeological work in the region and expressed interest in the unearthed objects as historical and artistic artifacts. (Bernhardsson 2007, p. 194)

The institutions and activities of empires and colonial authorities were engaged in promulgating orientalist discourse, but also with extracting profit and political capital from subject peoples and territories across ‘the West’ and ‘the East’. In a number of cases, cultural appropriation occurred simultaneously with economic exploitation so that archaeological digs acquired a strategic and industrial character, involving the organisation of numbers of workers, Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 101 infrastructure and natural resources. In these instances, archaeology proceeded alongside, and could be supported by, geological, hydrological, agricultural and other projects. Together, these enterprises provided cultural and material capital for the subsequent formation of post-colonial states and identities around the globe (Taylor 2005). The economic exploitation of Middle-Eastern landscapes in the nineteenth century, including the development of transport and communication systems by foreign and national domestic agents, facilitated the extraction of antiquities, along with their physical and symbolic circulation. For example, as Vernoit (1997, p. 4) observes ‘Political and archaeological considerations became linked when archaeological privileges were extended to cover lands acquired for the Istanbul- Baghdad railway project, especially as Ashur [in modern day Iraq] lay on the route of this line’. At ‘Ain Ghazal, in present day Jordan, excavations at one Neolithic site in 1996 revealed damage possibly caused by construction of a modern sewer main or, earlier, by the construction beginning in 1900 of the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia) railway between Damascus and Medina (Egan and Bikai 1999, p. 492). During the reign of Naser ad-Din Shah (1846–96), Iranian interests in archaeology still mostly resembled treasure hunting (Niknami 2000, pp. 6–9), though visible evidence of the opportunistic and destructive practices of mound digging and large-scale tala-shuyi, the unearthing of precious artefacts by force of sluicing, fostered awareness of threats to the land’s ancient remains (Abdi 2001, p. 53). The German-born British engineer A.H. Schindler, employed to work on the Tehran-Mashhad telegraph line gave this matter-of-fact advice in 1875 about the practice:

A distance south of Damghan there is a mound known as Tappeh Hesar. A few months ago some antiques were discovered there. Since then [people] have been working there and finding marvellous objects. The first time I visited the mound in Damghan and realized that they were not working systematically. I told them what to do, and to bring water to the head of the mound to finish the job faster and more efficiently. The second time I was there they were working better … They have dug a stream through the mound that washed antiques unbroken. (Negahban 1997, p. 34)

Developments in photography and its use at Achaemenid ancient sites during the final decades of the nineteenth century helped document the progress of deterioration wrought by careless excavation and pillaging (Mousavi 2012, p. 145) (Figure 4.3). Travels to European countries and museums by Iran’s educated Qajar elite provided additional impetus to condemn such practices as negligent and contrary to the cultural ambitions of any civilised nation. Following his return to Iran in 1877 after an extended trip abroad, political activist Haj Sayyah, observed: 102 World Heritage in Iran

I have not seen a country more unfortunate nor a nation more despicable than Iran and the Iranian nation. In other countries they preserve insignificant remains of some obscure individual with utmost care, moreover, they uncover from under meters of dirt and ruin antiquities of other countries with much effort and cost and carry them back to their countries and discover and record the histories of those artifacts and their makers with stunning accuracy and are proud of this. Amazingly, a city like Isfahan with … all its antiquities and grandeur, which was for a while … among the renown centres of the world, its antiquities and the pride of a nation is ruined and disappears day by day, even worse, much of this is done on purpose … they steal [various significant antiques] and sell them to foreigners for pittance … (Golkar [Sayyah] 1968, pp. 41–2)3

Just as World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire impacted on Near- and Middle-eastern countries in profound, but different ways, realignments of the geopolitical scene at times during the twentieth century had a bearing on the status and practice of archaeology in reforming and newly independent nations in the region. The initiation, manner of conduct and finds of excavations – as well as their interpretation and symbolism – were features of this dynamic and also demonstrate, to a certain extent, the changefulness of archaeological practices and their contribution to understanding places. Today, archaeological excavations occur under a global spotlight, particularly where places are nominated for or have acquired World Heritage status. The intertwined paths of archaeology and industrial and economic development can make for controversial trajectories at times as worldwide reaction to the construction of the Sivand dam near Pasargadae demonstrates. Planned decades ago, the threat of rising waters accompanying the structure’s completion drew teams of international archaeologists hurriedly to the site to identify finds before they were lost, to dig and retrieve artefacts, as Boucharlat explains in this volume (see also Mozaffari 2012, pp. 48–9; Fathi 2005). Fragmentary evidence from archaeological digs by Ernest Herzfeld linking the term ‘Iranian’ to an ancient Achaemenid inscription Aryanam Khshathram, coincided with the move by Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1934 to change his country’s official name from Persia to Iran, the land of the Aryans. This philological turn augmented Pahlavi’s nationalism, but also added an additional twist to the four decades old controversy over the derivation of Western culture, particularly European art and architecture, from ‘Oriental’ or Roman sources. The debate exerted a strong influence on the development of Iranian architecture during the intense period of political change from 1896 to 1926, inspiring efforts to devise a national building style based on pre-Islamic precedents (Grigor 2007; 2009, pp. 25–6, 134–5). Reflecting a broader and longstanding pattern of excavation, interpretation and aesthetic appropriation, antiquarianism and archaeological fieldwork prompted reasoning about the past that was varied and oftentimes inconclusive, but which nonetheless facilitated multi-lateral traffic in images and

3 The author is grateful to Ali Mozaffari for providing this translation of the passage. Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 103 ideas about people and geographical settings. Instances include appropriations occurring in the early Ottoman Empire, in newly-independent Greece in the 1820s and British Mandate Palestine in the 1920s and 30s (Ousterhout 2004; Biros and Kardamitsi-Adami, 2005, pp. 17–28; Fuchs et al. 2000, p. 285). In the case of Iran in the early twentieth century and debates over the origins and primacy of ‘Aryan’ civilisation, as Grigor (2007, p 562) argues:

As European art historians clashed over the ostensibly pure origin of European architecture, Iran’s intelligentsia appropriated one side of this argument in asserting that antique Iran housed the prototype of all subsequent Western forms and at the same time embarked on a complex project of remaking its built environment by producing what [Josef] Strzygowski called an Aryan architecture. In European quarrels, early-twentieth-century Iranian secularists found a basis to strengthen their country’s claims to political equality, national sovereignty, and above all, racial and cultural superiority over the (Western) world.

Figure 4.4 Aerial view of Gate R (gate house, palace) showing the site after excavations and the application of preservation measures

Source: © French-Iranian Archaeological Mission to Pasargada, photography by B.N. Chagny 2003 104 World Heritage in Iran

Allowing for the dynamism of Iran’s political scene and intricacies of changing leadership from the 1930s until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and also for differences between individual archaeologists and schools of practitioners from Iran and abroad, Iranian archaeology on the whole continued to develop in the shadow of widespread nationalist and patriotic sentiments (Abdi 2001, pp. 65–9) (Figure 4.4). Though fieldwork was disrupted during Allied occupation of the country during World War II, the course of renewed and expanded excavations in the decades afterwards was shaped by expeditions sponsored by the Europeans, Americans, Canadians and Japanese and by the Archaeological Service of Iran as well as the Department of Archaeology of Tehran University. Abdi (2001, p. 67) sees the disciplined conduct of research by academically trained practitioners as contrast to the continued appropriation of artefacts and sites by the self-aggrandising Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (arguably, there were additional differences between the political and cultural agenda of the two leaders):

This [latter] current was heir to the patriotism of the Reza Shah era, and following the same agenda, was trying to foster an ideology of nationalism by evoking the glories of pre-Islamic Iran, especially the Achaemenid and Sasanian periods. Partially as a result of this, excavations were resumed at Persepolis and Pasargadae, two major Achaemenid capitals, and Bishapur, the capital of Sasanian emperor Shapur I, while extensive conservation and reconstruction were undertaken at Persepolis. Not surprisingly, the impact of this current was more effectively felt in Iranian politics.

The variety and depth of sentimental reactions to Mohammad Reza’s tribute visit to the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae in October, 1971 and self- aggrandising spectacle at Persepolis in 1976 can only be imagined. Reactions can be gauged, in part, given criticism from both the clergy and liberal Islamic thinkers and the world leaders who begged to be excused from attending the party (Ministry of Information 1999,Vol 4, p. 25). However, the links the Shah and his followers attempted to establish between the Pahlavi regime, these places and Iranian identity (of a kind some claim, rightly or wrongly, was excised of Islam) were sufficiently clear, before and in the years immediately following the 1979 revolution. Archaeological excavations in the country practically stopped; the Institute of Archaeology at Tehran University barely survived, resuming its activities in 1990, while foreign archaeologists were only allowed back into the country to continue digging in 2003 (Lawler 2003). During the intervening years the pattern of archaeological fieldwork and research across the region shifted. Partly it moved West to other nations and places along the Persian Gulf – or, as such activities and transient interests required (much to the displeasure of some Western scholars, Iranian archaeologists and rulers in Tehran as well as sections of the Iranian populace) – the Arabian Gulf (Abdi 2007). Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 105

Digging up Trouble

The political provocation and routine (im)practicalities of archaeological digs, irrespective of the ‘truthfulness’ of what they uncover in scholarly terms, are evident at Pasargardae and other ancient places. As Boucharlat and Baldissone write in this volume, orders were given by the Iranian Cultural Ministry to the Italian restoration team working at Pasargadae from 1965 requiring removal of column drums added to Cyrus’ tomb when it was transformed into a mosque in the Middle Ages. The stonework was to be returned to a palace building on the site, thus restoring both structures to their ‘‘original’, thus pre-Islamic landscape. However, it was unclear just where the drums had come from or where they should go – traces of past diggings and removals were gone – resulting in a fragmented landscape emblematic of heritage sites generally. Marc Howard Ross observes (2007, p. 154) the sacred sites in Jerusalem’s old city have proven to be ‘ground zero’ in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, comprising a field upon which historical narratives, cultural identities, national ambitions and individual rights are written, fragmented and contested. Friedland and Hect (1998, p. 147) write that these sites ‘are not just reflections or traces of political power: they are often instruments and sources of political power.’ Topography, archaeological strata and digging on, around or underground what Jews call the Temple Mount (Har Habayit) and Muslims the Noble Sanctuary (Haram al-Sharif) are both practical and symbolic so that excavations of any kind can be highly provocative for one or more conflicting parties. Digs may be constructive of useful knowledge in the eyes of one group, but appear destructive and threatening to others. In the 1980s Israeli archaeologists were involved in tunnelling beneath and parallel to the long western side of the Haram on which the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque stand in search of remains of the Second Temple, including the sanctuary of the Holiest of Holies, of the ancient Jews. In 1996, shortly after right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, the Israeli government authorised the opening of an exit to the tunnel at its northern end, onto the Via Dolorosa, an important route through the city’s Muslim quarter. Protests over the excavation in the 1980s fuelled inter-religious suspicions and fears the tunnel would undermine the stability of the Haram and Muslim houses. The opening ceremony organised by Jerusalem’s new major and Likud Party member, Ehud Olmert, sparked rioting in Arab quarters of the city and West Bank, resulting in many dead and wounded (Dumper 2002; Dumper and Larkin 2012; Benvenisti 2007). In 1999 hostilities were further aggravated by Palestinian excavations on the Temple Mount associated with the construction of a new exit to the underground prayer hall of the Marwani Mosque. Though the exit had been approved by Israeli authorities, the estimated 6,000 tons of earth removed for the building and scattered unceremoniously at municipal dumpsites by bulldozers attracted wide-spread attention. Israelis were shocked by the scale of digging and by work 106 World Heritage in Iran undertaken without archaeological oversight. Archaeologists and opponents from across Israel’s political spectrum hastened to form The Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. (The mixed preservationist aims and political character of the agency can be compared to the Save Pasargadae committee (Mozaffari 2012, p. 49)). The Committee claimed that ‘this type of systematic destruction would be unthinkable at any similarly important site in the world, such as the Acropolis in Athens or the Forum in Rome’ (Ross 2007, p. 158; see also Shragai 2000; Arnold 1999). The Religious Trust rejected the charge as doubly illegitimate, as historically unfounded and the false assertion of an occupying power. Trust authorities foreshadowed Yasser Arafat’s position at Camp David the following year when the Palestinian leader argued that archaeological evidence had failed to prove the Jewish temples had actually occupied the site. If artefacts appeared from the rubble, they were from the Islamic period and landfill from an earlier excavation. Comparable conceptual divides and the uncertain evidence for them, like this one between sources of Palestinian versus Jewish heritage, have aggravated tensions between ‘Hellenistic’ and ‘Oriental’ and between ‘Persian’ and ‘Islamic’ historical trajectories governing the course of archaeological digs at Pasargadae and Persepolis. The latter two terms of each pair appear to be winning out; in a more recent turn of events at the tomb of Cyrus the Great, an Iranian foundation announced in 2008 plans to restore the stone added to the site during different Islamic eras (Fars News Agency 2008). Justifying comparisons between the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Athenian Acropolis, Roman Forum and Pasargadae is the particularly modern belief that sites of cultural significance, whether sacred or profane in provenance, should be protected from political interference. However, as the history of archaeological excavation demonstrates, and particular digs such as Mussolini’s notorious exploits along Rome’s Via dei Fori Imperiali dramatise, digging has, more often than not, exposed the politics behind heritage practices rather than buried or obscured them. As reactions to excavations conducted below and on top of the Temple Mount show, under certain circumstances, acts of digging can be highly problematic, representing for some an aggressive stake on territory and for others wantonly destructive vandalism. Given the prominence of ancient monuments in the nation- building armouries of postcolonial states and their contribution in the politics of identity, destructive impulses are recognisable behind such digs, though global media coverage of events reflects geo-political realities by dramatising some more than others. Perhaps conceivable, though hardly justifiable as an act of hardline ‘Islamic’ archaeology, the dynamiting of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2002 was universally condemned as an aggressive play by the theocratic regime to assert control over Afghanistan’s cultural identity by gouging out its material remains. By contrast, damage to the site of ancient Babylon by the US and its allies following the invasion of Iraq during the second Gulf War was less widely televised. Construction of a military depot there was partly, though inadequately defended by the assertion Coalition forces wished to protect the World Heritage site from looting. This self-serving claim was made despite evidence that along Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 107 with considerable quantities of sand and earth, archaeological fragments were visibly shovelled from the site to fill thousands of sandbags (Pyburn 2008, p. 172; Deblauwe 2005).

Conclusion: Tensions at the Surface

As means of acquiring useful knowledge, archaeological fieldwork plays a key role in the politics of ancient places and the appropriation of the ancient past. Arguably, this occurs prior to, but in concert with, more overtly representational, didactic or symbolic moves aimed at selecting and ordering unearthed material artefacts, their arrangement and display in museums and the reconstruction of architectural remains at heritage sites. When Le Corbusier wrote inspiringly about the Acropolis as ‘ … the heroic vision of a creative mind’ (1966 [1987], p. 223) on his visit to Athens in 1911, for example, orientalism, romanticism and other western discourses had already helped frame his view. These furthered the aestheticisation of the site along with the Parthenon and nearby monuments. Le Corbusier’s view was fundamentally idealist. His account also contributes to what is arguably a phenomenology of place. In this regard, the polemical aspect of Le Voyage d’Orient was reinforced by a longstanding ethic that equates travel and immediate experience of sites, particularly settings of longstanding habitation, with the gaining of wisdom – in this case, nurturing aesthetic appreciation for what were seen as elemental building forms that speak to humankind’s existential condition. Equally formative of his view was a history of periodic excavations carried out on the Acropolis for a variety of purposes, including archaeological digs undertaken to expose a fuller, more authentic past (McNeal 1991; Hurwitt 1999, pp. 298–302) by removing the ‘burden’ of teetering houses and ‘revolting’ ornamentation (Le Corbusier 1966 [1987], p. 103) that complicated his perspective. Then again, consider the obeisance of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi at the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae or the reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace at Babylon (from 1982) by Sadaam Hussein. Each of these fabrications served to connect, contestably, objects to identities by dramatising a partial view of the past. Moreover, they added architectural and symbolic elements to a series of archaeological interventions on the sites which sought to make them ‘real’ places in multiple geographic, historical, and cultural imaginaries. Bringing forth what was formerly hidden into the light of day, archaeological digs and reconstructions promise enlightenment, scientific certainties and truthful knowledge. Following his visit to Persepolis in 1928, Reza Shah Pahlavi remarked ‘History tells us about the splendour of ancient Iran. In the magnificent ruins of Persepolis one can witness this splendour without historians’ bias, the ruins speak for themselves and tell you the glory of ancient Iranian monarchs’ (Eskandari- Khoyini 1956; cited in Abdi 2001, p. 60). However, despite its promise as an instrument of reason, digging can also bury the truth or rather, destroy evidence 108 World Heritage in Iran for future investigations. Excavations are invariably invasive despite (or perhaps owing to, in some cases) their ‘scientific’ status. Herbert Weld-Blundell’s excavations at Persepolis in 1893 are a case in point. Wishing to learn more of the composition and construction of the floor of the ‘Hall of Xerxes’ (the Apadana) at Persepolis, Weld deliberately removed and thus damaged with his archaeologist’s pickaxe portions of original pavement while proceeding to tunnel through nearby mud-brick walls to see how they were likewise made (Mousavi 2012, p. 150). The routine practice of archaeological trenching, often uncovering traces of prior excavations in the form of ancient foundations, burial hollows, agricultural canals and sewers confirms the stature of digging as perennial adjunct to human settlement. However, digging requires care lest the distinction between one excavation and another becomes blurred. Trenching can unearth more questions than answers. Moreover, while digging may seem a relatively simple task when abstracted from any immediate goal or strategic purpose – allowing ruins to ‘speak for themselves’ for some – the archaeological excavation is a far more complicated undertaking, practically, as well as epistemologically. Fieldwork encompasses drawn and photographic studies, single-site excavations and regional surveys. Historically, its practice has involved shifts from the exposure of architectural remains and retrieval of art objects to collection of a broader range of artefacts for anthropological, ethnographic and forensic examination. It follows commissions from university departments, private institutes and national agencies, with outcomes circulated by means of scholarly publications, symposia and world congresses. In modern times digging has become increasingly regulated. Herzfeld’s excavations at Pasargadae came about only following the abolition of the Monopoly granting rights to dig exclusively to French archaeologists and subsequent legislation governing the division of ‘spoils’ between the Iranian government and foreign authorities responsible for commissioning fieldwork (Mousavi 2012, pp. 160–63; Grigor 2009, p. 23). Legislation partly explains the dispersal of artefacts and the provenance of archaeological collections in museums and institutes worldwide. In short, the model of the archaeological excavation has historical and philosophical (including ethical, ontological and epistemological) aspects as well as practical outcomes. Digging and ways of digging are connected to distinctions between archaeology as a professional, scientific discipline and other activities. The latter include historical practices like antiquarianism, treasure hunting and grave-robbing and contemporary ones like heritage and museological enterprise serving political purposes. Differences between both sets of practices contribute to the definition of archaeology’s knowledge base, the refinement of its methods and the training of practitioners. Sometimes the differences between the two (between grave-robbing and archaeological ‘science’ for instance) are hard to define as when, in Iran, owing to what seems to be a revival of philological interests of the 1930s (most evident in Germany at the time) ‘the act of digging skulls nourished the notion that all Iranians were, indeed, Aryan’ (Grigor 2009, p. 134). The hardships of the field season and archaeological dig frame a disciplined orientation to work Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 109 that mirrors common perceptions of the demands of intellectual inquiry on the whole. Digging is thus an ingredient in the cultivation of a systematic approach to sites and to the past, resulting in the creation or elaboration of historic periods and chronologies from which multiple lessons can be drawn. These are a subset of the range of experiences initiated or inspired by an archaeological excavation. Along with place and experience, reflection on archaeological practices are also means for thinking about opportunities for experiencing objects and for questioning what material culture can tell us about the past. Smith (2008, p. 161) writes that ‘archaeologists hold a special position in the disposition of heritage items’ and these include, one must add, places of ancient heritage. This positioning is due ‘to the way governments and bureaucracies use archaeological knowledge to help make sense of, and regulate, those social problems that intersect with or are based on particular interpretations of the past and its material culture’. Given the development of archaeology as a discipline – particularly, a science, many would claim – and the vagaries of archaeological practice these problems are at least partly defined by the conduct of fieldwork at a given time and so, by particular practices of topographical survey, systematic excavation and the retrieval, conservation and display of artefacts. Thus, corresponding to sites of archaeological intervention such as Pasargadae and Persepolis is an intellectual field of disciplined inquiry bound up with ‘the mechanics or technologies of government.’ Smith further argues (pp. 161–2) that it is largely archaeology’s claims to scientific neutrality and objectivity that establishes this connection. These claims, however illusory, were strengthened in the 1960s and 70s by theoretical moves and rhetoric that furthered the seemingly professional status of the discipline so that it came to be represented as a ‘“processual” and ‘“rational” model of decision making’ (162; Fischer 2003, pp. 4–5). Moreover, the conjunction of archaeological practice and policy-making in the identification and management of social problems or conflicts ‘ensures an overall primacy to place in knowledge claims over the past’ (Smith 2008, p. 163), a manner of control over the past that is neither necessarily successful nor guaranteed to insure certain entitlements to places and political outcomes. Archaeological interventions and the territories on which they have occurred foreground controversies regarding the return of excavated artefacts to supposedly ‘native’ lands. Perceptions of the meaningfulness of the Acropolis as a place, for example, and the organic link these expectations establish between the site, ruins and artefacts excavated there, on the one hand, and the modern state of Greece, on the other, make ownership of artefacts a contestable issue. The current government of Greece claims ownership of the Parthenon (formerly Elgin) marbles though the land from which they were acquired (or pilfered) in the early nineteenth century, was under jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire. Objects excavated from Pasargadae forming part of the Herzfeld Collections at the Field Museum in Illinois and other collections in US museums have become caught up in a bizarre courtroom drama involving the confiscation and auction of the artefacts as property of the Islamic 110 World Heritage in Iran

Republic of Iran. The objects have become collateral in the War on Terror and anti-terrorism legislation enacted by the regime of US president George W. Bush (Kreder and Degraaf 2011). Though, technically, like the extraction of the Parthenon marbles, the latter artefacts were removed decades ago from territory of an alien regime, their cultural status and ownership (in abstract terms) is understood by plaintiffs in the case as tied to the current rulers of Iranian territory. In other words, in both cases, it is the connection between artefact and the ground from which they were dug that underscores arguments concerning their legal, cultural and political status. Finally, while being both practical and conceptual as argued in this paper, the archaeological excavation is also a phenomenally redolent and morally-charged act, calling upon chronological and inferential reasoning about places whose value is already presupposed. As Ross observes (2007, p. 163) ‘Relics, ruins, and potsherds located in sacred spaces allow people to make the inferential leap from what they know through their senses to what they believe in their heart – although it is certainly the case that sometimes people make the connection in the other direction as well’. Arguably, more often than not, it is sentimentality rather than reason that prevails. Sentimental attachment to either homeland or the remnants of empire fuels debate over the return of the Parthenon marbles. Likewise, perhaps it is persistent belief in myths of ‘blood and soil’ on which are founded the fortunes of home counties and empires that renders the treasures removed from the earth of our enemies (though owned and displayed by neighbourhood museums) spoils of war.

References

Abdi, K. 2001. Nationalism, Politics, and the Development of Archaeology in Iran. American Journal of Archaeology, 105(1), pp. 51–76. Abdi, K. 2007. The Name Game: The Persian Gulf, Archaeologists, and the Politics of Arab-Iranian Relations, in Selective remembrances: archaeology in the construction, commemoration, and consecration of National Pasts, edited by P.L. Kozelsky and N. Ben-Yehuda. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 206–46. Arnold, M. 1999. Temple Mount: Layers, of Dirt, History and Conflict.Jerusalem Post, 26 December. Benvenisti, M. 2007. Son of the Cypresses: Memories, Reflections, and Regrets from a Political Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Ben-Yehuda, N. 2007. Excavating Masada: The Politics-Archaeology Connection at Work, in Selective remembrances: archaeology in the construction, commemoration, and consecration of National Pasts, edited by P.L. Kozelsky and N. Ben-Yehuda. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, pp. 247–76. Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 111

Bernal, M. 1987. The Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece, 1785–1985. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Bernhardsson, M.T. 2007. The sense of belonging: the politics of archaeology in modern Iraq, in Selective remembrances: archaeology in the construction, commemoration, and consecration of National Pasts, edited by P.L. Kozelsky and N. Ben-Yehuda. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Biros, M and Kardamitsi-Adami, M. 2005. Neoclassical Architecture in Greece. Los Angeles: Getty Trust Publications. Chuaqui, R. 2005. Edward Said and Critical Decolonization. Journal of Comparative Poetics 25, pp. 89–119. Deblauwe, F. 2005. Babylon Wrecked by War. The Guardian (UK), 15 January. Díaz-Andreu, M. and Champion, T. 1996. Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, and London: UCL Press. Dumper, M. 2002. The Politics of Sacred Space: The Old City of Jerusalem in the Middle East Conflict. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Dumper, M. and Larkin, C. 2012. The politics of heritage and the limitations of international agency in contested cities: a study of the role of UNESCO in Jerusalem’s Old City. Review of International Studies, 38(1), pp. 25–52. Egan, V. and Bikai, P. 1999. Archaeology in Jordan. American Journal of Archaeology, 103(3), pp. 485–520. Fars News Agency. 2008. Iranian Foundation to Restore Pasargadae’s Islamic Additions. 24 August. URL http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=870 6031069. Fathi, N. 2005. A Rush to Excavate Ancient Iranian Sites. New York Times, 27 November, 13. Fischer, F. 2003. Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foucault, M. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Tavistock. First published in French (1969) as L’archéologie du savoir. Foucault, M. 1989. The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. London: Routledge. First published in French (1970) as Les mos et les choses: L’archéologie des sciences humaine. Friedland, R. and Hecht, R. 1998. The Bodies of Nations: A Comparative Study of Religious Violence in Jerusalem and Ayodhya. History of Religions, 38(2), pp. 101–49. Fuchs, R. and Herbert, G. 2000. Representing Mandatory Palestine: Austen St. Barbe Harrison and the Representational Buildings of the British Mandate in Palestine, 1922–37. Architectural History, 43, pp. 281–333. Golkar, S., ed. 1968. The Memoires of Haj Sayyah or the Period of Horror and Terror [collected by: Hamid Sayyah], Tehran: Ibn Sina Publishers (in Persian). Grigor, T. 2007. ‘Orient oder Rom?’ Qajar ‘Aryan’ Architecture and Strzygowski’s Art History. The Art Bulletin, 89(3), pp. 562–90. 112 World Heritage in Iran

Grigor, T. 2009. Building Iran: Modernism, Architecture, and National Heritage Under the Pahlavi Monarch. New York: Periscope/Prestel. Gunter, A. and Hauser, S., eds. 2005. Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies, 1900–1950. Boston: Brill. Hanson, N.R. 1958. Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hittorff, J.I. 1830. De l’architecture polychrôme chez les Grecs, ou restitution complète du temple d’Empedocle dans l’Acropolis de Sélinunte. Annales de la Société libre des beaux-arts, 1830–1831, I, pp. 118–55. Hurwitt, J. 1999. The Athenian Acropolis: history, mythology, and archaeology from the Neolithic era to the present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jeanneret, C.-E. (Le Corbusier). 1966. Le Voyage d’Orient. English language edition, Journey to the East, edited and translated (1987) by I. Žaknić. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kohl, P.L. and Fawcett, C., eds. 1995. Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kohl, P.L., Kozelsky, M. and Ben-Yehuda, N., eds. 2007. Selective remembrances: archaeology in the construction, commemoration, and consecration of national pasts. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Kreder, J.A. and Degraaf, K. 2011. Museums in the Crosshairs: Unintended Consequences of the War on Terror. Washington University Global Studies Law Review, 10(239), pp. 239–95. Lawler, A. 2003. Iran Reopens Its Past. Science, 302(5647), pp. 970–73. Lewick, T. 1960–2002. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, edited by H.A.R. Gibbs, B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat, C. Bosworth et al., 11 vols. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Marchand, S. 2010. ‘What did the Greeks owe the Orient?’ The question we can’t stop asking (even though we can’t answer it). Archaeological Dialoques, 17(1), pp. 117–40. McCaskie, T.C. 2012. ‘As on a Darkling Plain’: Practitioners, Publics, Propagandists, and Ancient Historiography. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 54(1), pp. 145–73. McNeal, R. 1991. Archaeology and the Destruction of the Later Athenian Acropolis. Antiquity, LXV, pp. 49–63. Ministry of Information (Iran). 1999. The Devil’s Shindy: The 2500th Anniversary Celebrations Through Archives of SAVAK and the Court. Tehran: Ministry of Information Centre for Research on Historic Documents. Mousavi, A. 2012. Persepolis: Discovery and Afterlife of a World Wonder. Berlin: De Gruyter. Mozaffari, A. 2012. The Problem of a Site Museum for Pasargadae World Heritage Site (Iran). The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 4(1), pp. 41–55. Negahban, E. 1997. A Survey of Fifty Years of Iranian Archaeology. Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization. Archaeology and Useful Knowledge 113

Niknami, K.A. 2000. Methodological Aspects of Iranian Archaeology: Past and Present (British Archaeological Reports). Oxford: Hadrian Books. Ousterhout, R. 2004. The East, the West, and the Appropriation of the Past in Early Ottoman Architecture. Gesta, 43(2), pp. 165–76. Root, M.C. 2005. Prismatic prehistory. Ernst Herzfeld on early Iran, in Ernst Herzfeld and the development of Near Eastern studies, 1900–1950, edited by A.C. Gunter and S.R. Hauser. Leiden: Brill, pp. 215–62. Ross, M.H. 2007. Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon. Sami, A. 1962. The Achaemenid Civilization. 3 Vols. Shiraz: The Pahlavi University (in Persian). San Juan Jr., E. 1999. Truth and Inconsequence: Who Speaks Now? For Whom? And for What Purpose?’, Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 11 (2). Shragai, N. 2000. Solving the Puzzle in the Old City. Ha’aretz, 18 June. Smith, L. 2008. Empty Gestures? Heritage and the Politics of Recognition, in Cultural Heritage and Human Rights, edited by H. Silverman and D.F. Ruggles. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 159–83. Taylor, W. 2005. Building on the Stones of Ireland, Wilkinson’s Practical Geology and Ancient Architecture, Etudes Irlandaises, 30(1), pp. 151–75. Trigger, B.G. 1984. Alternative Archaeologies: Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist. Man, New Series, 19(3), pp. 355–70. Trigger, B.G. 1998. Archaeology and Epistemology: Dialoguing across the Darwinian Chasm. American Journal of Archaeology, 102(1), pp. 1–34. Turkel, G. 1990. Michael Foucault: Law, Power, and Knowledge. Journal of Law and Society, 17(2), pp. 170–93. Vernoit, S. 1997. The Rise of Islamic Archaeology. Muqarnas, 14, pp. 1–10. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 5 The Costs of Paradise: Temporalisations of Place in Pasargadae Riccardo Baldissone

Paradise Recovered: the Place

A famous Jewish story represented the original happy human condition with the image of a garden, which hosted the two supposed ancestors of the human race. In the fourth century BCE, Xenophon (Œconomicus 4.13; Anabasis 1.2.7, 1.4.12; Cyropædia 1.3.14, 1.4.5) rendered in Greek language as παράδεισος (parádeisos) the Old Persian word paradidam, from para ‘beyond’ and dida ‘wall’, as ‘that which is beyond or behind the wall’, in Avestan pairi daeza (Kent 1953, p. 195). As the Persian word defined an enclosed leisure garden, in the third century BCE the numerous (70, according to the tradition) translators of the Jewish bible into Greek agreed to name the original Adamic garden with the word parádeisos, which was later to be translated in English as paradise.1 Classical sources relate this definition and the garden it represents to the site of Pasargadae (Aristobulus fr. 37; Arrian 6.29.4).2 At the beginning of the twentieth century the archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld followed the early suggestion by James Morier (1812) and the later argument by George Curzon (1892), and located this site in the area of the Iranian village Madar-i Solaiman, which means mother of Solomon.3 The toponym came from the most imposing architectural feature of the place, a monumental pre-Islamic tomb that was attributed to the mother of

pardes, is used with the meaning of fruit garden or orchard ,פרדס The Hebrew word 1 in the Song of Solomon 4:13, in Ecclesiastes 2:5 and in Nehemiah 2:8. The Seventy translated with the Greek word παράδεισος (parádeisos) both the Hebrew words pardes gan, which is used to define the garden of delights in Genesis 2:8 and in Ezekiel ,גָן and ,فردوس among others. The Garden of Eden as paradise also appears in the Quran as 28:13 firdaws. 2 Per contra, Stronach questions the association of the term parádeisos with the garden in Pasargadae: ‘From most extant classical accounts it does in fact appear that the term ‘paradise’ was used to refer to a park-like estate in which the regular features included trees, other produce, running water, and animals for hunting’ (1990, p. 179n). 3 ‘James Morier was the first to draw attention to the fact that the so-called Tomb of Mother of Salomon should be corresponded to the monument described by the classical authors such as Arrian in his Anabasis vi, 29, Strabo in his Geography, xv, 3, 7, and Plutarch in his Alexander’s Life, 69, 4’ (UNESCO 2004, p. 8). Though Morier, British Minister at 116 World Heritage in Iran

Solomon after the Islamic invasion of the Sassanid Empire in the seventh century. In the eleventh century, the tomb was enclosed within a mosque, which underlined its role of pilgrimage site (Figure 5.1).4

Figure 5.1 Reconstruction of the tomb of Cyrus the Great by Giosafat Barbaro (1414–94)

Source: Travels to Tana and Persia

Though the mosque and its madrasseh, or school, were probably abandoned after the fourteenth century, the tomb continued to be a revered site (Figure 5.2). Therefore, the presence of the monument always required the inhabitants of Madar-i Solaiman to negotiate with ancient times. Nevertheless, Herzfeld’s attribution of the tomb to Cyrus the Great made the temporal balance definitively shift towards the iconic past, so that the small village had to unequally share its place and identity with the first Persian imperial capital. Moreover, the 1971 Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship and, 33 years on, the the Persian court, first proposed the identification of the tomb of Cyrus (1812, p. 145), he later recanted the suggestion (1818, p. 118). 4 According to Sami (1956: 101) the mosque was built at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Costs of Paradise 117

Figure 5.2 The Madrasa in its reconstructed form

Figure 5.3 The Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship (October 1971) the Shah is laying a wreath at Cyrus the Great’s tomb

Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Iran 118 World Heritage in Iran

2004 UNESCO listing of Pasargadae’s archaeological area as a World Heritage Site made the place re-enact the imperial past in the face of the whole world (Figure 5.3). The World Heritage listing represented the culmination of the long process that began with Morier’s hypothetical identification of the tomb, and which sped up with Herzfeld’s archaeological campaigns. This process also involved the active will of the Iranian leadership to reconfigure the place of Madar-i Solaiman/Pasargadae according to the hypothetical model of its most glorious historical stage. The reconfiguration also entailed a physical transformation: in 1970 the remnants of the nine-centuries-old mosque were relocated in order to let unencumbered its enclosed core (Tilia 1972), which was acknowledged by both Iranian and archaeological authorities as the tomb of Cyrus (Figure 5.4).5

Before and After Paradise: the Stories

The probable etymology of the Persian word paradidam underscores the essential role of enclosures, which was confirmed by the excavation campaigns in Pasargadae. In particular, David Stronach directed the British archaeological missions from 1961 to 1963, and he claimed (1978) the fourfold walled garden in Pasargadae as a seminal instance of the Persian pattern of chahar bagh, which was also adopted by later Islamic landscape architecture in general (Figure 5.5). Stronach read in the geometrical design of the garden a geographical content: the fourfold repartition of the local enclosed space was an analogical representation of the four quarters of the global space of the world. According to Stronach, the structure of the garden was part of a political message that was also expressed by the integration of foreign motifs and materials, as a way to underline the acquired political power over foreign lands. For example, we may recall the extensive presence of Ionic/Lydian style6 and supposedly masons (Nylander 1970) as an objective statement – one is tempted to call it an objective correlative – of the expansion of Cyrus’s power well into Asia Minor. Stronach also sketched (1990a) a genealogy of the use of garden as a political statement, which he traced back to Assurnasipal II, the founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the ninth century BCE. Assurnasipal II had trees, cutting and seeds retrieved on his campaigns, planted in his gardens and recorded in his inscriptions. In the late eighth century BCE, his example was followed by Sargon II, who went as far as having a whole park constructed by the side of his new capital Khorsabad. In the early sixth century BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II had Babylon endowed with the

5 ‘The restaurateurs had to bring back the architectural elements to theirs (sic) original position in the Achaemenid monuments’ (UNESCO 2004, p. 24). 6 Though Nylander finds ’little or nothing in the Cyrus tomb that could not be Ionic’ (1970, p. 102), he also suggests a retroactive stylistic influence of the tomb itself, which he deems as the formal ancestor of one of the seven marvels of the ancient world, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (1970, p. 93). The Costs of Paradise 119

Figure 5.4 Tomb of Cyrus in 2011

Source: Ali Mozaffari © 2011 renowned Hanging Gardens, which ‘stand as an ultimate witness to the prestige that was attached to the concept of a “landscaped” royal garden during the first half of the first millennium B.C.’ (1990a, p. 174). Being the heir of a long-standing tradition, Cyrus’s gardens in Pasargadae could exploit the comparative advantage of latecomers, as underlined by Gerschenkron for economic systems. In other words, we may conjecture that the extensive hydraulic techniques applied to the huge area of Pasargadae’s paradise7 relied on the previous three-century experience of garden landscaping in Mesopotamia. And yet, Cyrus put at work these landscaping methods within a new geometrical framework, which he borrowed from Greek Ionia. The architectural gist of Cyrus is precisely the ordered disposition of his palaces and gardens within an orthogonal structure, whose invention in the context of urban planning was traditionally attributed to Hippodamus of Miletus,8 but which go back at least to the seventh century BCE (Ward-Perkins, 1974; Stronach, 2008). Moreover, Cyrus invented paradise not only by hybridising techniques of urban planning and landscaping,

7 See Boucharlat’s contribution in this book. 8 ‘Hyppodamus … invented the division of cities into blocks’ (Aristotle, Politica 1267b). 120 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 5.5 Diagram of the Golshan Garden in Tabas, Iran

Source: Adapted by Ali Mozaffari from the archives of the ICHHTO but also by recasting these techniques in the realisation of an imperial garden capital that appears not to be a city stricto sensu.9 Hence, the gardens not only witness Cyrus’s military conquests, but also the peculiar relation of the Persians with place. Frankfort suggested that the shape of the garden followed the structure of nomadic encampments (1954, p. 216). This suggestion resonates with a possible etymology of the name Pasargadae,

9 We may even doubt if Ecbatana, the capital of Astyages’s Medes, was itself a city. In the Babylonian tablet known as the Nabonidus Chronicle (which is in the British Museum) the writer definesa-gam-ta-nu , Ecbatana, as kur, ‘country’, and not as uru, ‘city’. It is possible that the Babylonian author did not recognise Ecbatana as a city by Babylonian standards, that is, as a walled urban enclosure. Actually, there is no archaeological evidence of Ecbatana’s walls as mentioned by Herodotus ( Historiae 1.98–9). Moreover, Polybius (Historiae 1.27.6) clearly stated that Ecbatana had no walls. Hence, we may hypothesise that Ecbatana was the Medes’ political and religious centre without being an urban one (at least according to Babylonian standards). This hypothesis obviously neither implies the absence of buildings, nor of a specific architectural style (see Boucharlat and Razmjou 2005). The Costs of Paradise 121 namely ‘camp of the Persians’ (Ghirshman 1964, p. 135).10 Nevertheless, such etymological link would undermine the absolute opposition between nomadic and sedentary organisations, by confirming the mixed use of the place, which, as Ghirshman reminds us, was still common for the early twentieth-century Persian elite (1964, p. 134). If we follow Herodotus (1.125), Pasargadae was an ethnonym before a toponym, as it allegedly named the most distinguished Persian tribe, to which belonged the clan of the Achaemenids. However, as we will see, the very link between Cyrus and the Achaemenids seems to owe more to a later intervention by Darius than to genealogy. Hence, we may well accept the nomadic toponym of the first Persian imperial capital as a quasi-oxymoron, which would require us to understand the place of Pasargadae not simply as a state of fact, however historically determined. On the contrary, if we construct the place of Pasargadae as an always temporary result of a multiplicity of temporalisation strategies, we could understand the oxymoron of a nomadic urban toponym as the witness of a transformation. In particular, we may read the project of the imperial garden as a step in the transformation of the Persians’ relation with place. More precisely, we may say that by rearranging the place according to the perspective of its seamlessly uninterrupted use, the garden meant to inaugurate a new time. On the one hand, this new time should be understood as a specific chronological occurrence or, more precisely, a new starting point. This meaning of ‘new time’ both harks back to the Near East repeated practice of rebuilding a new capital city for a new sovereign during the first half of the first millennium BCE, as well as it anticipates the series of Persian imperial capitals that were to be built for the Achaemenids to come. On the other hand, the new time that Pasargadae and its garden opened for the Persians was also a new mode of temporalisation, because the garden shifted the relation to the cycles of vegetation, which were gathered and enclosed, so to speak, in one place. We may also suppose that such a shift produced the possibility for the Persians to associate their sovereign with the fertility of the land, as Stronach remarks in regard to the Assyrian sovereign Assurnasipal II (1990, p. 172). In the European medieval Arthurian cycle, the association between land fertility and sovereign power was represented quite obliquely by the character of the fisher king (Weston 1920). Assurnasipal II instead openly insisted on the fecundity of his garden. However, only the character of Cyrus the young as evoked by Socrates in Xenophon’s dialogue Œconomicus proudly claimed his role of gardener king: ‘Know then, Lysander, it is I who measured and arranged it [the garden] all. Some of the trees’, he added, ‘I planted with my own hands’ (4.18). A similar claim is made about Xerxes in the biblical Book of Esther,11 and Strabo, probably relying

10 Several etymologies were proposed for the toponym Pasargadae: for the sake of my argument, I will only consider those ones suggested by Herodotus and Ghirshman. 11 See the description of the royal garden of Ashueros (Xerxes) in the Book of Esther: here is a quote from the Vulgata: ‘ … horti et nemoris quod regio cultu et manu consitum erat’, of the garden and the wood that were planted with royal care by the royal hand. 122 World Heritage in Iran on fourth-century BCE sources, reports that in the course of their education Persian boys ‘late in the afternoon are trained in the planting of trees’ (15.3.18). More in general, I would underline the role of garden enclosures as temporalising devices. We may consider the act of enclosing as the constitutive gesture of sedentary architecture, which affirms the indefinite durability of the occupation of space in opposition to the ephemerality of the nomadic camp.12 I would provisionally suggest that the definitions of nomadic and sedentary should be used as hypothetical limits of a dimensional continuum, along which we can arrange the various human attitudes towards places and times. With this caveat, we may consider as evidence of the peculiar Persian path towards sedentarisation not only the garden but also the very icon of Pasargadae’s archaeological site, namely the tomb of Cyrus. The erection of Cyrus’s tomb in the then inhabited area of Pasargadae appears to be a cultural innovation, which also violates the traditional nomadic distribution of spaces between the living and the dead. In nomadic cultures the burial area, that is the space of the dead, is generally severed from the space of the living by a topographic feature such as a river or a hill. However, Cyrus’ funeral monument marks a caesura in time by imposing a new spatial order, which at once subverts the previous tradition and attempts to ground a new one. By choosing to have his tomb built within the space of the living, Cyrus imposes his own future dead body as a witness of the new imperial course. We may use a quasi-geological metaphor and describe this operation as the laying of a further stratum of time upon the previous one, which already subdued the place to the double rhythm of the vegetation cycle of the garden and the routine of imperial ceremonies. Nevertheless, the daring gesture of Cyrus had no following. Cyrus had the only tomb built above ground of his dynasty, as we are not certain about his son Cambyses’ remains, and, from Darius on, the burials of the sovereigns were dug into the cliff of Naqsh-i Rustam. Moreover, also the new imperial routines were far from supplanting Persians’ itinerant habits: several authors, from Xenophon (Cyropædia 8.6.22) to Strabo (15.1.6), and from Athenaeus (12.513f) to Aelian (De Natura Animalium 3.13; 10.16), recall the seasonal relocation of the Persian court. Periodical mass migrations characterised that which Briant calls an itinerant State (2002, p. 187). These massive displacements of people and goods may be compared with other seasonal routines, such as the periodical shifts of European medieval courts, or the worldwide phenomenon of pastoral transhumance. Moreover, Diodorus (18.35.3) described how during a Persian military campaign ‘not only the ladies of the royal house but also those of the King’s Relatives and Friends, borne on gilded chariots, had accompanied the army according to an ancestral custom of the Persians’. In the following century, Tacitus (Germania 7) described a similar custom among the Germans.

12 ‘Sedentary space is striated, by walls, enclosures, and roads between enclosures, while nomad space is smooth, marked only by “traits” that are effaced and displaced with the trajectory’ (Deleuze and Guattari 2005, p. 381). The Costs of Paradise 123

The new time was not only heralded by Pasargadae’s garden, but also by the new Persian representative art and the new Persian script. In both cases the novelty appears to us under the paradoxical shape of an attempt to freeze time. As Briant notes:

Achaemenid court art did not have a narrative purpose: Power and the King were represented in timeless attitudes, not a particular king in a historical situation; this holds true for royal images found on stone, coins, and seals as well. Written in the immovable and infinite time of the King, the history of the Persians was never situated in the measured time of History by the Persians themselves. (2002, pp. 6–7)

And yet, although the Persians were not interested in the recording of history, time re-emerges for us also from the monumental out-of-human-scale inscriptions at Behistun, or Bīsīstun. The carvings with which Darius wanted to indelibly mark the landscape of Bīsīstun bear for us the hypothetical reconstruction of an even more remote past. As Schmitt (2008, p. 81) underlines:

though the oldest attested inscriptions in Old Persian language are the Bīsīstun text (first the minor captions, then the major inscriptions), the creation of a new type of writing for recording the king’s mother tongue seems to have begun already under Cyrus II. This assumption is based not least on the observation that the characters K and r needed for writing the royal name Kuruš belong to some initial set of characters, for their shapes have quite a simple pattern, even though the phonemic sequences expressed by them are not very common.

If we are to trace back to Cyrus’s time (despite Darius’s claim) the introduction of the script in which Old Persian is recorded, we would need to add writing to the series of practices that announced the new time in Pasargadae. As previously recalled, these practices also included landscaping, erecting buildings, carving and painting. Because these practices can now only be inferred from their few extant products, we may only imagine how they negotiated or substituted other practices, both relative to the place and to its new inhabitants. For example, we may legitimately suppose that the area on which the new city was built was already populated. Nonetheless, apart from prehistoric mouldings (Sami 1956, p. 25), we have almost no evidence of the previous human presence in the surroundings, also because, as Nylander remarks in regard of the three palatial buildings, ‘they have never been properly excavated’ (1970, p. 102). We may hope that in the future, eventual excavations of the site of Pasargadae would focus not only on the remnants of the Persian imperial past. However, so far, the archaeological interventions aimed at the recovery of the surviving structures of Achaemenid buildings and landscape. As previously noted, this recovery involved the reversal of the changes supposedly occurred to these original structures. In her 124 World Heritage in Iran

1972 report on the restoration activities, Tilia (pp. 66–7) briefly summarises both the most historically and architecturally relevant of these changes and its reversal:

The tomb of Cyrus was converted into a mosque by the Atābeg rulers of Fārs in the 11th century. Architectural elements, such as column-drums, door-jambs, wall blocks as well as blocks from the pavement of the ancient monuments of Pasargadae had been brought near the tomb and reused for the Islamic construction around it … By order of the Iranian Archaeological Department all these reused blocks were removed and transported to the monuments they belonged to.

One may be tempted to chronologically quantify the belongings of these architectural elements, and in case, the resulting comparison would undoubtedly favour the Achaemenid belonging over the Islamic one in the proportion of sixteen to nine (centuries). One could also go as far as imagining the potential effects of the application of a similar approach to the recovery and the restoration of the Roman amphitheatre in the medieval centre of Lucca, or of the Roman circus that physically and etymologically underlies the piazza Navona in Rome. Still in Rome, an analogous restoration of Agrippa’s Pantheon would require the dismantling of the seventeenth-century baldachin of Saint Peter’s Basilica, for which pope Urban VIII made reuse the Pantheon’s bronze beams.13 Of course, these are hyperbolic comparisons, especially considering that the eleventh-century Pasargadae mosque was long in ruins.14 And yet, they are meant to show that the decision over the recovery and the restoration of architectural artifacts always imposes a particular temporalising perspective, which reorganises chronology according to privileged hypothetical times. Luckily, contemporary archaeological temporalising strategies went a long way from the fixings of Renaissance amateur antiquaries, or from more recent professional imaginative reconstructions such as that one of the Minoan palace at Knossos. Nevertheless, inasmuch as conservation choices impinge on various stakeholders, the respective decisional processes not only can and must rely on a more informed and sensitive professional expertise, but they would also better involve the participation of all stakeholders, including the nonprofessional ones. A more participative decisional process could maybe have spared us results such as the aseptic clearing that destroyed any trace of history around the tomb of Cyrus. However, we may consider that the restorers made scorched earth of these traces

13 An anonymous contemporary critic commented: ‘quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini’, what the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did, playing on the family name (Barberini) of the pope. 14 Sami (1956, p. 102) also infers from the irregular distribution of the remaining pillars the inferior architectural quality of the Islamic building, as compared to the Achaemenid ones. If applied to my previous examples, a similar claim would be clearly perceived as highly contentious. The Costs of Paradise 125 with the good intention of highlighting the original artifact. Actually, they did more than that, because they carefully replaced a previous inappropriate intervention, which endowed the monument with functionally effective but unsuitable concrete patches.15 And yet, we may suspect that the very notion of original artifact cannot be defined simply in terms of technical expertise. Hence, it would be worth taking a detour in order to explore what an original artifact is.

Out of Paradise: An Exploration of Postlapsarian Objects

Drawing on the duplication of the painting The Wedding at Cana by Veronese, Latour and Lowe (2011) argue that it is the reproduction of a work of art that guarantees the existence of the original. I should better specify that they consider as reproduction not only the fabrication of copies but also the ongoing reproductive process that the original has to undergo in order to remain the same. Latour and Lowe contend that the latter meaning of reproduction is well known by curators, who have to be familiar with the practices of reframing, dusting, restoring and relocating art objects. This is why Latour and Lowe claim that ‘a painting has always to be reproduced’ (2011, p. 284). I would suggest that we may understand such reproductions as attempts to repeat the original work of art. These repetitions take place both as the production

15 ‘The earliest restoration in cement was first removed. … Especially the six tiers of the plinth, which form the base for the tomb chamber, were found to be very damaged, and also the gable roof, where a big hole let in the rain-water, contributing to the decay of the structure. The missing parts, earlier restored in cement, were replaced with integration of new stone. … As many as twelve big blocks were prepared for these integrations. The hollows cut out by iron-pilferers to remove the clamps with which the blocks were originally joined together and fixed in position, presented a special problem. They had earlier been filled in with cement, but this was not considered to be aesthetically satisfactory. To leave them open meant letting in the rain-water, which could damage the foundations. In some cases these hollows were repaired with stone patches, and in others some of the cement was removed and the remains of this material treated on the surface, so that the cement should show as little as possible. The stone used for this monument and for the greater part of the other monuments at Pasargadae is a white arenaceous limestone, which in some cases can be called a calcareous sandstone owing to the amount of arenaceous material it contains. It comes from quarries in the mountains to the north-west of the village of Sivand, some 50 kilometres from Pasargadae. Since these quarries are difficult to reach, and since time was short because of the Celebrations of Cyrus in October 1971, for which the restorations should have been completed, it was necessary to accept the material that was available from the merchants in Shiraz. This stone was unfortunately not of the same quality as the old one, and the great amount of sand it contained made it extremely difficult to work. Its chalk-white colour had to be given a patina, but the stone did not take on the colour evenly, and dark spots remained on the surface’ (Tilia 1972, p. 66). 126 World Heritage in Iran of a plurality of object that resemble as much as possible the original work, as well as the reproduction of the supposed original features of the object in the object itself. The former kind of repetition, that is the fabrication of copies, is made apparent by the plurality of the copies themselves, which bear witness of the iteration. The latter kind of repetition, namely the maintenance and the restoring of the original, is not equally evident. Maintenance and restoring operations are performed on the same object, whose multiplicity over time thus only appears in the shape of different conditions of conservation. In other words, we use to conceive of the multiplicity of conditions over time of the same object as the deteriorating effects of time on the object’s original condition. We cannot deny that in general, ageing does not improve the works of art. Colours fade or darken, paint cracks, wood and plaster dry up and fissure, not to speak of the physical exertion of objects of art in use, such as architectural artifacts or furniture. And yet, besides these obvious and tangible undesired transformations, we should not forget that the Western attitude towards the recovery and the conservation of the works of art has a long and complex history. Here I am not even to sketch a genealogy of this particular angle of the Western relation to art, which by itself would require much more than an essay. However, I would at least put forth some general considerations. Since the physical and stylistic retrieval of Roman classical art by Romanesque architecture, and through the several subsequent Classicisms, which were later alternating with the interest in medieval art, and which, from the nineteenth century on, were integrated in a generalised historicist recovery of the past, the waves of the various Western appreciations of the artistic heritage do not form a continuous and transhistorical trend. Cultural movements as diverse as, for example, fifteenth- century humanism and German Romanticism, apparently could be brought together under the umbrella of a common interest in art. Nevertheless, these cultural phenomena rather contributed to the construction of the concept of art as different fibres joint in a historical thread, whose strength, following the metaphor that Wittgenstein borrowed from Peirce, ‘does not reside in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres’ (1953, p. 32e). In other words, all along Western history, the various definitions of art and art objects singled out different lots of artifacts over time. Hence, both mainstream characterisations of art and the Western-inspired principle of integral conservation of artistic products embraced by transnational institutions such as UNESCO not only cannot allege a universal breadth but they cannot even claim a trans-historical continuity within the West. In particular, the principle of conservation of artistic and cultural heritage is just another historically (if no longer geographically) determined way of constructing art and culture, which transfers in the open and in vivo the encyclopaedic interest in dioramas of traditional Western museums.16

16 The 1992 UNESCO recognition of significant interactions between people and the natural environment as cultural landscapes could be understood at once as a gesture of assimilation and an attempt to transcend the Western principle of the subjugation of place. The Costs of Paradise 127

Moreover, since at least Plato, the various Western constructions of art were immersed, as it were, in a broader cultural context, which following Nietzsche we may call Platonism, or, following Heidegger, metaphysics. I will attempt here to sketch the path of Western metaphysics and its various definitions of the concept of object, which in turn influenced the various Western understandings of the object of art. Derrida (1978, p. 279) described the transformations of Western metaphysics, which relies on the presence of an intangible theoretical centre, as a series of substitutions of centre for centre. This linked chain began with ontological centres such as Plato’s archetypal forms, which were supposed to be the ideal reference for the whole reality, and Aristotle’s conception of being, which linked all existing things through a universal network of similarities. These ontological centres were then substituted by theological centres, namely the various versions of the Christian god. In more recent times, theological centres were sidelined by the modern scientifico-naturalistic framework, which is centred on nature as defined by Western sciences. The various Western concepts of object took shape within this metaphysical genealogy. In particular, at the risk of oversimplifying, for Plato objects repeat (more or less indirectly and imperfectly) their unchanging archetypal models. According to Aristotle, in our sublunar world all objects are imperfect, because they are subject to change. However, each object changes because it strives to realise its own potentiality (Metaphysica 8), which explains the multiplicity of the object over time. Christian theologians then recast Platonism, and they related the vicariousness of the object to god as the ultimate model maker, whose perfection objects measure the lack. In a similar way, the medieval Christian recasting of Aristotle by Aquinas subordinated the being of objects to the divine Being. Early modern natural philosophers still construed natural objects as created entities, but also as generally subjected to the divine jurisdiction only as expressed by objective natural laws. Later on, when Kant relocated objectivity within the subject as the universal structuring capability of human mind (1998), objects were to result from this constituting inner frame, so that built-in categories took the reference role of Platonic models. Moreover, though so-called secular modern thought severed the sciences from the Christian god, it retained a good deal of the fundamental principles that the sciences inherited from previous metaphysics. For example, the whole edifice of modern physics relies on principles of conservation and, in particular, on the Galilean-Newtonian principle of inertia (Galileo and Scheiner 1990; Newton 1972). This principle expresses the metaphysical absolute priority of continuity over change as a conceptual priority.17 If we trace in the reverse the previous philosophical genealogy, we can find the expression of this priority in the Thomist principle that ‘every substance

17 This is the English translation of Newton’s First Law of Motion, which expresses the principle of inertia: ‘Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it’. 128 World Heritage in Iran seeks [appetit] the preservation of its own being’ (1917, p. 44),18 which Aquinas enunciated as an evident universal law. This statement of an absolute trend towards conservation was inspired by the eternal character of the Christian god, who was the recipient of all perfections and thus the unattainable model for all beings. Of course, classical Greek ontology already considered unchanging realities as the only object of true knowledge. Nevertheless, it was for medieval Christian theologians (who also drew on Islamic ones) to twist and generalise the Greek approach to change. As these theologians conflated their god with the unchanging entities of Greek ontology, they turned the Greek epistemological priority of unchanging objects into a universal principle of reality. The Western concept of conservation should be considered from within this metaphysical framework, which set unchanging objects as the ideal model for changing ones. The theological principle of a universal natural appetite for self-preservation was to pervade Western modern thought, with the possible exception of Nietzsche (2007). In the seventeenth century, this principle made its triumphal entrance in both modern science and politics via the same theoretical trick, that is by conceptually isolating an atomised entity, namely the Galilean/Newtonian physical object and the Hobbesian individual (1991) respectively. The method of decomposition of a field into elementary components allowed Western modern thought first to acquire instrumental abilities by operating at the small scale of the laboratory and the library, then to combine these abilities through an expanding division of labour, and finally to transfer this unprecedented instrumental power at the macrolevel of the ecosystem. In the meantime, the increasing availability of financial and instrumental means promoted a renewed attention to artistic products, which the early modern divide between science and art had expelled from the field of knowledge (Baldissone 2009). Since the states assumed the control of their ‘national’ artistic heritage,19 they delegated the recovery and the conservation of the objects of art to a variety of professional experts, from archaeologists to restorers and curators, who, as veritable Vestals of Western metaphysics, were entrusted with the unlikely task of the perennial conservation of the things as they were.20 It should not be surprising that, from within the metaphysically inflected paradigm of conservation, change appears only as a threat to the preservation of the artistic object. And yet, as previously recalled, even considering only the already collected objects, we should better take into account two kinds of change. The first kind involves the accumulation of ordinary wears and tears, plusthe possible extraordinary damages to the object of art. The second kind includes activities such as cleaning and repairing, which are meant to mend and reverse

18 ‘quaelibet substantia appetit conservationem sui esse’. 19 See Jarzombek (2001). 20 τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι (to ti en einai), the being what it was (Metaphysica 7.3.3 1028b34), is the Aristotelian definition of ousia, being or, in the medieval theological translation, substance. The Costs of Paradise 129 the effects of changes of the first kind. Apparently, there are also attempts to resist the first kind of change by keeping the object as much as possible as it is. These attempts comprise, for example, the control of the temperature and the humidity of exhibition and storage spaces. And yet, as these controls can but reduce macrovariations to cycles of microvariations,21 they also participate in the efforts to remake the object as it was. In general, the restitution of a work of art to its original conditions would require the knowledge of these conditions. Nevertheless, quite often such conditions have to be inferred by conjecture. As a consequence, the object is often acted upon according to hypothetical reconstructions of its original features. Because these reconstructions are subject to contextual criteria, maintenance and restoration activities produce over time a plurality of objects that are only supposed to share the same identity. I already suggested considering maintenance and restoration activities as practices of repetition. I would argue that these practices of repetition of the original actually produce the original identity of the artistic object. More precisely, though such original identity is held as a (hypothetical) singular condition, the very practices of repetition inevitably produce a series of original objects, which correspond to each interpretative projection as its hypothetical original condition. Of course, it could be objected that if we could assess with reasonable certainty the original features of the object, the knowledge of these features would stop the hermeneutic drift. Nevertheless, this would imply the choice of a privileged moment in the life, so to speak, of the object, in which these original features would then be (hypothetically) assessed. In other words, we would need to choose the moment in which the object was in its supposed original conditions. In the case of a marble statue, the right moment to detect its original condition could seem to be right after the last intervention of the author. But what about Michelangelo’s Moses, which was slightly damaged by its very creator in a bout of rage? Should we restore Moses’ knee? Or what about the turtle that Brancusi transformed into a flying object by turning it upside down after he finished it? Moreover, the drying time of paints and the composition of plaster make even more complex the choice of the reference moment for paintings and frescoes. Furthermore, later interventions turn paintings into veritable palimpsests, whose lower layers could not be accessed without destroying the upper ones. This stratification is more evident in architectural objects, whose often notable transformation over time makes the decision about their restitution to a specific temporal configuration a matter of taste. Even if we choose a specific moment in the time past to assess the original object, we will necessarily rely on the mediation of sources. For instance, Latour

21 The systems that control room temperature and humidity generally rely on a simple cybernetic loop: when the thermometer or the hygrometer registers the predetermined threshold value for temperature or humidity, the system intervenes to re-establish the desired condition. 130 World Heritage in Iran and Lowe (2011) report on the recent case of the unhappy restoration of Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors, which is one of the highlights of the National Gallery in London. They recall that a video documentary witnesses the restorers’ use of photographs as models, with the result of producing a supposed original with the likeness of a photographic poster. In this case, the unacknowledged repetition process goes full circle, up to turning the original ‘into a copy of itself that looks like a cheap copy’ (2011, p. 276). This is why Latour and Lowe propose to broaden the genetic approach to the objects of art, whose transformations over time they suggest instead to imagine as a hydrological system. Following this metaphor, they claim that ‘a given work of art should be compared not to any isolated spring, but to a catchment area, a river along with its estuaries, its tributaries, its rapids, its meanders, and, of course, its hidden sources’ (2011, p. 278). They propose to use the word trajectory to describe this watershed, which includes both the object of art and its specific history or, borrowing a word popularised by anthropologists, its career.

Back to Paradise: Pasargadae’s Objects as Trajectories

We may reconsider the architectural objects in Pasargadae in the light of the concept of trajectory proposed by Latour and Lowe. Following their hydraulic metaphor, the stories of the garden that I retold already attempted to retrace the watershed of Pasargadae’s paradise even before the spring, and they followed some of the tributaries that made it grow until its current state. We may also notice that the garden, as an ensemble of living entities, exceeds the metaphysics inflected paradigm of conservation, which aims to produce unchanging objects. In this regard, Aristotle himself would remind Aquinas that living entities do partake of the everlasting by reproducing themselves (De Anima 415a26-b1), rather than striving for an unattainable permanence. It is noteworthy that in his major ethical work, Aristotle refers to human self-preservation only to subordinate it to the care due to one’s parents, as an acknowledgement of their role in one’s upbringing (Ethica Nichomachea 9.2.8 1165a). Whilst the metaphysical tradition forced the object to pursue the features of unchanging models, ironically the real practices of conservation of objects, as Latour and Lowe underline, necessitate the museum to perform as an ecosystem: ‘for a work of art to survive, it requires an ecology just as complex as that needed to maintain the natural character of a park’ (2011, p. 284). However, as the complex ecology that was needed to maintain Pasargadae’s garden is long gone, we can only combine the traces of the enclosing walls and the remnants of the irrigation scheme with the descriptions from Greek and Roman sources, in order to construct in turn the garden itself as a trace of the Persian process of sedentarisation. And yet, even this scarce objective evidence, inasmuch as it implies the permanence of objects, betrays the partiality of our own sedentary perspective. The Costs of Paradise 131

Our sedentary expectation for some permanent object in place does not help detecting more transient presences, inasmuch as they do not leave objectual traces. More in general, from within the metaphysical framework that prioritises continuity over change, it is the sedentary paradigm that construed all the variously transient human settlements as its nomadic other. Hence, my previous provisional continuum model, inasmuch as it appears to grant a symmetrical treatment to both sedentary and nomadic behaviours, actually erases the historical trajectory of the concept of nomadism, which was conceived of from a sedentarised perspective. A substantially symmetrical approach would require the negotiation between perspectives, which could let emerge more transient, or nomadic viewpoints on their own terms, though determined in the interaction with the less transient, or sedentary world. This negotiation would contribute to our constructions of both past and present dynamics and interactions between humans and places. For example, in the area of Pasargadae it could be taken into account the nomadic viewpoint of the relative newcomers Qashqai (Behbahani et al. 2012), who are attested in the region since the early eighteenth century. A more balanced approach to the variety of human settlements could also produce a more qualified interest in past monumental artifacts. In particular, it could enhance the perception of the role of monumental traces in representing and magnifying politico-military powers. Of course, we cannot deny that the accumulation of human and material resources by centralised political entities often allowed the production of objects that are extraordinary both in scale and mastery. We may even consider most extant Eurasian ancient architectural art as a by-product of highly centralised political entities controlling vast territories (with the urban civilisation of classical Greece as a notable exception). Nevertheless, we may recall that historians at last recognised that documents always also monumentalise, so to speak, their objects, both at the moment of their production and in their later use by the historians themselves.22 In other words, historical documents never cease to magnify the powers that they represent. As monumental artifacts bear with stronger reason this magnifying ability, whilst facing their disproportionate weight in representing past humanity and its cultures, we should keep asking the question of Brecht’s worker: ‘Who built Thebes of the seven gates?’ (2000, p. 252).23 I already recalled that the masons who built the tomb of Cyrus most probably came from the Ionian/Lidian geographical area, and their exotic architectural style witnessed for the Imperial subjects the acquired power of Cyrus over foreign lands. The perception of the exoticism of the monumental tomb was later to be revived, perhaps with a hint of uncanniness, in the gaze of the Arab invaders,

22 ‘In our time, history is that which transforms documents into monuments’ (Foucault 2002, p. 8). 23 ‘Who built Thebes of the seven gates? / In the books you will find the names of kings. / Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?’ from the poem Questions from a worker who reads. 132 World Heritage in Iran who were perhaps not as familiar with memories in stone. In turn, the very features of the tomb aroused the curiosity of Western travellers, and triggered its hypothetical reattribution. In the course of the trajectory of the tomb of Cyrus, two changes in identification took place, and in both cases the previous identity did not immediately disappear, at least for some of the local population. In the first case, given the Sassanid resistance to the Islamic invasion24 – the cultural resistance went on well beyond the military one, as the Islamisation of the majority of the Persian population took centuries – we cannot even exclude an intentional relocation of the tomb within the narrative of the invaders in order to spare it a possible devastation.25 As a matter of fact, the renewed identity of the monument kept it, as it were, alive. However, in its Islamic stage, the tomb not only became a prayer site but it underwent a number of material transformations, some of which still remain. The most notable extant addition is a mihrab, or prayer niche. We can still read the first four verses of the victory surah from the Quran on the mihrab’s border (Sami 1956). I already recalled the architectural interventions that occurred after the second change of identity of the tomb. And yet, the more important transformation, namely the new attribution of the tomb to Cyrus, is hidden behind the narrative of the restitution of the artifact to its original identity. If we are to apply to the tomb Latour and Lowe’s considerations about the objects of art in general, we should at least recognise that it spent the majority of its career as the (virtual) receptacle of the remnants of a Jewish queen.26 Of course, in Western historicist terms,27 a most probable attribution of the tomb to Cyrus rightly replaced a hardly acceptable previous one. However, though the attribution to the mother of Solomon is not acceptable according to current archaeological standards, we cannot deny that it has been acceptable, according to different standards, for thirteen centuries. The historicist rhetoric that erased (in theory, and almost completely also in practice) the traces of the longest stage of the tomb’s career operated precisely by transforming this difference of standards into a hierarchy. In other terms, this rhetoric acted as if it replaced inferior standards with superior ones. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with comparing standards. What is dangerous is to suppose the existence of standards that are objectively better than

24 If we might play with the psychoanalytical language on this resistance, we may read the defeat of the Sassanid cataphracts, or heavy-armoured knights, by the light Arab cavalry, as the return of the (nomadic) repressed. 25 See also Sami (1956, p. 108). 26 Sami (1956, p. 19) rejects the interpretation put forth by Fursat ud-Dowleh in his book Ásár ulAjam. Fursat wrote that Pasargadae was the fief of Solomon, the son of Ja’afar, the brother of the Abbásid Caliph Hárún urRashíd. According to Fursat, the tomb in the Morghab plain was first attributed to the mother of Solomon the governor, who only much later was mistakenly identified with the Biblical prophet. 27 We may notice that this is not an exclusively Western and secular ideology: see, for example, the religious use of the narrative of Palestine as the original Jewish place. The Costs of Paradise 133 the other ones. Unfortunately, this supposition was not only at work behind the recovery of Cyrus’s tomb, but it also underlies the foundational narrative of the West, namely the transition from mythos to logos. According to this narrative, in Greek classical times a more or less coherent corpus of narrations was replaced by representations of reality that were structured by logical reasoning and subjected to truth conditions. We may understand in a similar way the replacement of the narration that attributed the tomb to the Mother of Solomon with the reasonable archaeological reading of all the available historical documents. However, before Greek classical times, in the texts of Homer and Hesiod mythoi were authoritative statements because they were necessarily backed by the authority of relevant male figures, whilst inasmuch as logoi were the expression of women and other socially weak actors in general, they could also be used to deceive (Fowler 2011). Only a long process of decontextualisation and textualisation of both mythoi and logoi produced the reversal of the priority of mythoi over logoi through the emancipation of the word, that is the argument, from its utterer. Inasmuch as archaeologists are modern scholars, they stand at the contemporary end of a long path in which logos became first impersonal and then was translated as objectivity in the language of scientific naturalism. In the case of the tomb of Cyrus, the new identification relied on a double objectivity: the supposed objective superiority of historico-archaeological criteria over traditional narrations, and the objective evidence of inscriptions. It is somewhat ironic that the authenticity of the very engraved inscription that assigns the tomb to Cyrus was later disputed on archaeological grounds (Stronach 1990b). The inscription was probably part of the political strategy of Darius, who seized imperial power in circumstances that are still not completely clear. In particular, Darius probably built retrospectively an Achaemenid family tree that included himself and Cyrus, whose common ancestry he could thus claim. The identification of the Cyrus inscription in Pasargadae as a later addition by Darius is an example of the perfectibility of historico-archaeological interpretations, and of the improvability of Western modernised logos in general. And yet, inasmuch as this logos presupposes an objective state of the affairs, any of its current accepted interpretations (albeit provisional) is invested with all the excluding power of objectivity, which at once proscribes previous discarded interpretations and contemporary alternative viewpoints. In other words, though modern objectivity is always provisional and improvable, the temporary realities it constructs are presented as being objective, that is abstracted from the practices of their construction and negotiation. Hence, modern realities are as totalising and absolute as the realities constructed by classical ontology and medieval theology, and they bear the same apodictic power. At least in the course of the last millennium, both religious and secular authorities often appealed to this apodictic and ultimate power. As this power requires the exclusion of alternatives, it is not surprising that the tomb must either belong to the mother of Solomon or to Cyrus. From within our modern objectivist framework, whenever we apply the foundational question of Western metaphysics ‘what is?’ to an object like our 134 World Heritage in Iran polysemic tomb, or a place like Madar-e Solaiman/Pasargadae, clear-cut answers such as ‘the tomb of Cyrus’ and ‘an UNESCO heritage site’ respectively are likely to obscure other questions, such as, for example, ‘when?’ or ‘how long?’ and, more important, ‘for whom?’ On the contrary, the broader perspective of the trajectory of an object does not erase the transformations of this object over time. Of course, any trajectory would necessarily give us the path of the object according to the perspective of its narrator, just like any reconstruction of the original object. Nevertheless, the plurality of trajectories, which reflects the plurality of perspectives, would not need to be always reduced to a single interpretation (even provisional), as it is instead the case in the quest for the object’s identity. For example, we could reasonably suppose that after the Islamic invasion, the tomb in the Morghab plain was at the same time a different object for different people. I would push further the expression of this difference, and I would argue that for an amount of time that I am not able to quantify, two tombs, as it were, shared the same place.28 The first one was the tomb of Cyrus, according to those former subjects of the Sassanid Empire who kept this attribution alive; the other one was the tomb of the Mother of Solomon, according to the Islamic invaders, and then to an ever-increasing number of Islamised Persians. The second tomb was to completely replace the first one, but the process was reversed in the course of the twentieth century, when the archaeological attribution of the tomb to Cyrus reproduced a duplicity of objects that probably has not yet completely disappeared. I already argued that a more participative decision on the restoration criteria could have spared us the erasure of most traces of the history of the tomb. More precisely, I would like to invite my readers to imagine an alternative scenario, in which the trajectory of the tomb of Cyrus and the trajectory of the tomb of the Mother of Salomon had the opportunity to meet in the persons of their upholders. In this case, we could image a hypothetical meeting of archaeologists as the representatives of the tomb of Cyrus, and Islamic devotees as the representatives

28 Apparently, this contention violates the biunivocal relation between object and τόπος, tópos or place as canonically defined by Aristotle in Physica Δ 1–5 and restated by modern sciences. And yet, if we construct objects as trajectories, we should admit that the tomb of Cyrus and the tomb of the mother of Solomon did not necessarily share the same place. The removal of the remnants of the mosque showed that the tomb of Cyrus, at that stage of its trajectory, took also the place of the tomb of the mother of Solomon. On the contrary, a hypothetical negotiated common tract for both trajectories could have granted them a (temporarily) common place too. More in general, the Aristotelian cosmos, which modern sciences recast as universe, puts the cart before the horse, because a common world can only be the result – and not the precondition – of the negotiations between its various stakeholders. In particular, these stakeholders not only have different worldviews, but they literally inhabit different worlds. During the last four centuries, such ontological differences were generally hidden behind the process of global Westernisation, which imposed on all humans the natural world as construed by the sciences. We could instead let emerge this ontological plurality, which we may well call multiverse, if we would at last let these worlds speak to each other (Latour 2004; Baldissone 2010). The Costs of Paradise 135 of the tomb of the Mother of Solomon. Moreover, we could at least imagine the possibility that such a meeting would not have taken place as a debate for convincing each other, but as a dialogue to show each other their motivations. In the course of this dialogue, the participants could have negotiated a common tract for the two trajectories, without the need of conversions or autos-da-fé. For example, they could have agreed that this common tract would have included both the restored tomb and the remnants of the mosque around it. If we define this hypothetical negotiated common tract as an object too, we could compare this latter object to the object of the metaphysical tradition, and we could easily describe the two objects in terms of an invented precarity versus a discovered stability. More precisely, we may say that whilst the object as a temporarily common tract would be a delicate and instable result of a negotiation between stakeholders, the metaphysics inflected object is the effect of a surreptitious imposition of an inevitably partial viewpoint. Narrations inevitably produce a multiplicity of objects: in order for any decision to be made, such multiplicity has to be temporarily reduced. Though the costs of this reduction, which is the construction of a temporary standard, have been generally hidden, they have nonetheless been paid in currencies that include human products, work, subjection and lives. If we would take our start from an irrepressible multiplicity of perspectives, and from the consequential need for negotiating temporary arrangements, we might work out not only a fairer distribution of the costs of production of common realities, but also their substantial decrease. These considerations go well beyond the re-arrangement of an archaeological site, because the categories at play in this specific place partake of general and even grand narratives. In turn, these narratives can be detected and tested only in the course of the narration of particular trajectories. One can hope in the propagation by analogy and contiguity of these detecting and testing practices. For example, we might start again by shifting our focus of a few hundred meters from the tomb to the village, which, as I already recalled, was named after the tomb’s second last holder, the mother of Solomon. The success of the last change of attribution not only modified the identity of the tomb, but also deeply affected the village, which had to share its place with the retrieved Imperial city. However, I will now leave to someone else the task of rethinking the relation between Madar-i Solaiman and Pasargadae. I would just add that if we construct this relation via the fascinating hydraulic metaphor of Latour and Lowe, Madar-i Solaiman would stand as an oxbow lake that was cut off from the main stem of the river, but which is also a living memory of one of its longest tracts. 136 World Heritage in Iran

References

Baldissone, R. 2009. Beyond modern æsthetics: from the migrations of the aura to its costs of reproduction. The International Journal of the Arts in Society, 4(4), 159–66. Baldissone, R. 2010. Human rights: A lingua franca for the multiverse. The International Journal of Human Rights, 14(7), 1117–37. Behbahani, H.I., Bahrami, B. and Samani, F.A.E. 2010. Multidisciplinary analysis of nature, culture and history in the archaeological landscape of Iran. Environmental Sciences, 7(3), Spring, 103–16. Boucharlat, R. and Benech, C. 2002. Organisation et aménagement de l’espace à Pasargades: reconnaissances archéologiques de surface, 1999–2002. [Online] Available at: http://www.achemenet.com/ressources/enligne/arta/pdf /2002.001-loc.pdf [accessed: 2 October 2012]. Boucharlat, R. and Razmjou, S. 2005. In search of the lost Median art. Iranica Antiqua, 28, 271–314. Brecht, B. 2000. Poems: 1913–1956, edited by J. Willett and R. Manheim. London: Methuen. Briant, P. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander. A History of the Persian Empire, translated by P.T. Daniels. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. Curzon, G.N. 1892. Persia and the Persian Question. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. 2005. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated by B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, J. 1978. Writing and Difference, translated by A. Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Foucault, M. 2002. The Archaeology of Knowledge, translated by A. Sheridan. London: Routledge. Fowler, R. 2011. Mythos and logos. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 131, 45–66. Frankfort, H. 1954. The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient. London: Harmondsworth. Galileo, G. and Scheiner, C. 2010. On Sunspots, translated and edited by E. Reeves and A. Van Helden. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gerschenkron, A. 1962. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, a Book of Essays. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Ghirshman, R. 1964. Persia. From the Origins to Alexander the Great, translated by S. Gilbert and J. Emmons. London: Thames and Hudson. Hobbes, T. 1991. Leviathan, edited by R. Tuck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jarzombek, M. 2011. The metaphysics of permanence – curating critical impossibilities. Log, 21, Winter, 125–35. The Costs of Paradise 137

Kant, I. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by P. Guyer and A.W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kent, R. 1953. Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon. New Haven: American Oriental Society. Latour, B. 2004. Whose cosmos, which cosmopolitics? Common Knowledge, 10, 450–62. Lowe, A. and Latour, B. 2011. The migration of the aura, or how to explore the original through its facsimiles, in Switching Codes, edited by T. Bartscherer and R. Coover. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 275–97. Morier, J. 1812. A Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809. London. Morier, J. 1818. A Second Journey through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constantinople, in the Years 1810 and 1816. London. Newton, I. 1972. Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, edited by A. Koyré and I.B. Cohen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nietzsche, F. 2007. On the Genealogy of Morality, translated by C. Diethe, edited by K. Ansell-Pearson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nylander, C. 1970. Ionians in Pasargadae: Studies in Old Persian Architecture. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Sami, A. 1956. Pasargadae. The Oldest Imperial Capital of Iran, translated by R.N. Sharp. Shiraz: Publications of the Learned Society of Pars. Schmitt, R. 2008. Old Persian, in The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas, edited by R.D. Woodard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 76–100. Stronach, D. 1978. Pasargadae: A Report on the Excavations Conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stronach, D. 1990a. The garden as a political statement: some case studies from the Near East in the first millennium B.C.Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 4, 170–80. Stronach, D. 1990b. On the genesis of the Old Persian cuneiform script, in Contribution à l’histoire de l’Iran. Mélanges offerts à Jean Perrot, edited by F. Vallat. Paris: Recherche sur les Civilisations, 195–203. Stronach, D. 2008. The building program of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae and the date of the fall of Sardis, in Ancient Greece and Ancient Iran: Cross-Cultural Encounters, edited by S.M.R. Darbandi and A. Zournatzi. Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 149–73. Thomas. 1917. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. London: Burns Oates and Washbourne, vol. 8. Tilia, A.B. 1972. Studies and Restorations at Persepolis and Other Sites of Fars. Rome: IsMEO. UNESCO. 2004. Pasargadae. Capital of Cyrus the Great. [Online: World Heritage convention – Nomination of Properties for Inclusion in the World Heritage List]. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/1106.pdf. 138 World Heritage in Iran

Ward-Perkins, J.B. 1974. Cities of Ancient Greece and Italy: Planning in Classical Antiquity. New York: George Braziller. Weston, J.L. 1920. From Ritual to Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wittgenstein, L. 1968. Philosophical Investigations, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Chapter 6 Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ: Placing Pasargadae within its Present Rural Context Soheila Shahshahani

Introduction

Pictures and drawings of archaeological sites show ordinary people near such sites, at times on foot, at times on horseback, and at times with their herds. It is assumed that such people have been one of the causes of the destruction of archaeological sites. My claim is that people of Mâdar Soleimân have been the unnamed guardians of the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, preserving it well for posterity. When it was first suggested that I write a paper on the villageMâdar Soleimân, I thought it would be a good place for a study on ethnic relations in view of how many different ethnic groups live there. But when I went to Mâdar Soleimân, I realized this was not an issue for the people. Here I present the outcome of a brief research I carried out in the days I stayed there. Within the first hour of my visit an informant said, ‘This is a small Paris, a compressed Tehran’, (Parise kuchak, Tehrane feshordeh), and also, ‘I shall never leave this place’, and ‘all the tourists who flood this area year after year make us think it is a unique place in the world’. The spell of the place carried me away.

Mâdar Soleimân

The name of this village is strange; I had expected it to be called Pasargadae. I soon learned that the name Pasargadae refers to a large area, while the village is called Mâdar Soleimân. Why? What is the relationship with the tomb of Cyrus? I was soon informed that when the wise people of the village saw the Arab conquerors attacking and destroying what they found on their way some 1300 years ago, they decided to call this cubic construction the Tomb of Solomon’s Mother in order to protect it. We cannot know whether they knew that it held the body of the ancient Emperor of Persia; what is sure is that they knew that the invading Arabs would respect the Tomb of Solomon’s Mother, so this is how they protected the tomb from destruction. 140 World Heritage in Iran

For years people respected the tomb and held ceremonies around it. When pastoral nomads came to the area on their way to their summer or winter areas, they camped around it to make offerings. I am told that they believed it contained a Zoroastrian prophet and that the prophet who lay calmly within it was as important as the 8th Imam, Imam Reza, in Mashhad or his brother buried at Shâh Cherâq in Shiraz, two very prominent shrines in Iran. I was also told that the Âshurâ procession on the death anniversary of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad was also held around it, and that people came to it to get blessings, as this tomb cured diseases such as rabies prevalent among animals. The fact that they respected the place means that they protected it. They made huge pots of rice, hunted wild goat for meat, and held a solemn feast around it. They hung a blue cloth all over and around the tomb, made ablutions before entering the area marking it as a shrine, and used the ashes from the fire made around the tomb to make protection marks on their children’s faces, from the forehead till the point between their nostrils. Witnesses recalled that some 300 people were present in such gatherings. Before it was listed as an archaeological site of unique value and fenced off by UNESCO, it was the people’s sanctuary. Some 130 years ago archaeological finds confirmed that it was the tomb of Cyrus the Great (Shahbazi 1990, p. 82). This finding became a source of great pride for the people who had protected it for such a long time. The fact that the son of a landowner, while tilling his land around the tomb area, found the emblematic earrings (Shahbazi 1990, pp. 82–6) of the Achaemenid period in a pot and took them to be appraised, shows the local people’s sensitivity to history and archaeology. Another event recalled with a sense of pride relates to the head of the village, Hâj Hossein Khân Sai’idi, who will be discussed below in more detail. He noticed a British citizen approaching the tomb with the intention of taking away a piece of stone. As a punishment, the Khân had him flagellated for attempted theft, and was subsequently appointed the official guardian of the site as an honorary rather than a paid position. Today this village has a population of 1700, it has a village council, and the people classify themselves into previous landlords and peasants, who were Tâjik.1 The landlords claim to have come here from the Bakhtiari region, which covers a vast area in the Zagros Mountains from north-west Isfahan to the plains of Khuzestan. There are also pastoral nomads who have settled in the area and belong mostly to the Bâsseri Tribe. There are also Arabs who claim their pedigree from the king of Arabia and who have intermarried with the Tâjik and the Bâsseri. This is how they believe their pedigree to be today: when Sheikh Ansâr was exiled from Arabia, he came to this area. He spoke only Arabic and asked to be introduced to someone who could understand him. He was introduced to Emâd as the only person who knew Arabic. While he stayed with him, he fell in love with his daughter and wanted to marry her. But Emâd said that he did not know him and that he had to have his pedigree clarified. So Sheikh Ansâr asked Emâd to give him

1 In early 2013, the village was reclassified in administrative divisions as a town. Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ 141 six months to bring the document to him, and asked him to promise not to marry off his daughter until he returned. When Sheikh Ansâr presented his documents, Emâd realized that he was Sheikh Ansâr who had been exiled to Fars. Sheikh Ansâr then married Emâd’s daughter and never returned to Arabia. Sheybân and Jabbâr were his sons from Emâd’s daughter. When she died, he married a Turkish woman and she had two sons and they later formed Inânlu and Bahârlu tribes. The Khamseh Tribal Confederacy consisted of Bâsseri, Arab Sheybâni and Jabbâr, Nafar, Inânlu and Bahârlu, comprising 16,000 to 17,000 tents around 1910 (Barth 1961, p. 88). Another group is called Kordshul. Before the end of the Qâjâr period, Shulestân was what is today the Mamassani area. Kord is a term generally used for pastoral nomads, and the word Kordshul indicates the Shul who were pushed out of the area when the Mamassani came. They went eastward to settle or continued their transhumance in that region for some time. Mâdar Soleimân also features a significant Afghan population of about 200. These usually come and go as needed for manpower, while only a few families reside there permanently. Itinerant workers also come to southern Fars province for agricultural labour during the summer. The village, I am told, boasts of some 600,000–700,000 tourists per year who visit the tomb of Cyrus and the environs. Towards the end of Qâjâr period this village (Mâdar Soleimân) belonged to Ezatollâh Khân Hedâyat ol-Saltaneh, from whom the Bâsseri pastoral nomads of the area and the Tâjik purchased land. They bought what was called the upper area which had better land, and when the land reform2 took place, the lower area was distributed among the Tâjik, who were farmers. Between 1953 and 1966 the Bâsseri settled in the area, and Hassan Ali Khân Zarqâmi was appointed by the government as the head (kalântar). He was instrumental in the purchase of 1.5 of six parts (one dong) of the whole village land for the Bâsseri in 1953, while Mr. Sa’idi, who was Tâjik, bought 2 dong. The rest of the land was bought in small parcels by the pastoral nomads and the Bâsseri who were planning to settle. It is interesting to note that the smallest unit of measurement for sale was 1/96th of a dong. Today the son of Hassan Ali Khân, Hormoz Zarghâmi, has some 350 hectares of mechanized land, irrigated by a drop irrigation system in the area. It is noteworthy that Hassan Ali Khân did not give any of this land to his daughters on purpose, because he wanted to keep the property large and profitable, so he gave them property he had elsewhere. This shows how far-sighted this man was. The family’s dedication to the well-being of the area is such that whenever the Rural Council needs financial assistance for certain common expenses, they can turn to him, and he has always been generous in cooperating by supplying substantial sums of money. His present mansion reflects the wealth of an old landowner, with a caretaker’s house, storage spaces, an open space for receiving villagers, and the

2 Land reform was a controversial program of redistribution of land ownership that began as part of a larger program of modernization by the Pahlavis (the last Iranian dynasty before the Islamic Revolution of 1979) that began in 1962 and continued to 1971. 142 World Heritage in Iran modern luxury of a swimming pool and beautiful gardens around it. This land is located in Kordshul village, one of the villages located in the Pasargadae. The Bâsseri who settled here between 1953 and 1966 were the most important pastoral nomadic people in the Fars province after the Qashqâ’yi who were much more numerous and politically active. The Bâsseri did not enter the coalition called Qâ’eleye Fârs, formed against the land reform in the 1960’s which led to many prison and death sentences and exiles. This is despite their personal friendship with members of Khân Family of other tribes such as the Mamassani. The head of the Pasargadae (Mâdar Soleimân) village was Hâj Hossein Khân Sa’idi who lived in a fort with 400 village inhabitants. This fort was built about 130 years ago. Gunmen located at each of the four corners, each with its protective column, protected the fort from their long time enemy the Qashqâ’yi, who attacked them to steal their herds. The latter would even make holes in the fort walls in order to take away animals. It is recounted today that Hâj Hossein Khân had gone to meet Khosrow Khân Qashqâ’yi to complain about the behaviour of his subjects, and that the latter had returned his animals which were different because they were black and their tails were not split, while those of the Qashqâ’yi were coloured with henna and had fat tails which were split in the middle. When the Shah came to visit the tomb of Cyrus the Great during the 1971 Celebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship, he asked Hâj Hossein Khân Sai’di what he needed for his village. It is recounted today with some sense of pride that he had responded, ‘not a clinic, but a school which will finally produce doctors and we shall take care of all the rest ourselves’. This is exactly what happened eventually, as the land was given by Hâj Hossein Khân Sai’di, who also founded the school himself. Teachers were sent over and the first students were registered in the following year. The same year the village got electricity and water supplies. At first electricity was available only from sunset until midnight, but hours of supply gradually increased. During this time the people of the village continued living in the fort mentioned above. After a while, the students who attended this school started teaching in neighbouring villages. Today this school alumni boasts of some 40 agricultural engineers. Perhaps the most eminent alumni of this school are Professor Kurosh (Cyrus) Kazemi who is at Namazi Hospital in Shiraz, General Hatami, an army doctor, previously vice-President of a military university and presently the head of Azad University of Sarvestan, in southern Fars Province. There is also Mr. Hossein Khâni, Mayor of Zarqan. Many of the Tâjik became prosperous after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, holding positions in banks, municipalities and the military. Hâj Hossein Khân, mentioned above, also established the local House of Justice with the help of Hâj Samad Khâni, the village postman, as a council in order to resolve problems which were previously referred to him for resolution. They were keen on resolving problems among themselves and not letting them to be referred to the local police office. It is still a matter of honour to resolve problems within families rather than resorting to public authorities. Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ 143

Apart from the above developments that show the village’s entering a new era through education and justice, the establishment of the Yek-o-Yek factory producing canned products has also had a significant economic impact on the area (Figure 6.5, below). It was originally established by Hedâyat ol-Saltâneh and made use of local products to produce canned food. It started with 30 workers and produced tomato sauce and cucumber pickles, and today it produces a large number of products including animal feed, it contains a trout farm and an educational centre, and employs 2000 workers. Everyday two busloads of factory workers commute from Mâdar Soleimân to this factory, which is quite significant. After the Islamic Revolution the factory was taken over by the government for some time, but now its shares are privately owned. Today the area has a handful of other processing factories. This foresightedness of Hedâyat ol-Saltâneh is well appreciated today.

The Pastoral Nomads of the Area

Although our focus is on a rural area, we cannot ignore the pastoral nomads as part of the population. We have already mentioned the Tâjik as the sedentary peasants of upper and lower classes; this section looks at the pastoral nomads who also belonged to different classes. The chief of the Bâsseri tribe, which consists of a total of 18,000 families, with about 150 families belonging to each of its 12 clans, was very important in Fars Province. He settled in the area because he had bought some excellent land here. In his book on the Bâsseri, Fredrick Barth shows that two types of nomads usually settle down: the very rich nomads who have bought land or the very poor who do not have enough herds (Barth 1961, p. 110). Here we can see the very rich settle in an area with excellent land. Another important way of mixing with rural people has been through marriage: The most important marriage connections have been those between the Sai’di and the Arab Sheybani (Figure 6.1).

Figure 6.1 Marriage connections between the Saidis and the Sheibanis

Source: Author 144 World Heritage in Iran

Marriages were occasionally contracted with the Qashqâ’yi, although not at Khân level, but rather at clan chief or even lower level, for example with the Bâsseri, the Kolalu and the Labumusa (see diagram below). Since tension existed between the Qashqâ’yi and this tribe, marriages must have been ways of stopping or subduing tensions. The Labumusa of Bâsseri have intermarried with the Tâjik many times, although not without some reserve. They have taken ten young women as brides from the Tâjik and given 30 young women to them in marriage. Taking a Tâjik bride seems to be undertaken with more reservation than giving a daughter as a bride to another tribe. This is quite different from the Mamassani with whom I have worked, as they marry off young women with much more reserve and prefer to be inclusive. As we discuss the various clans, I note which clan is settled in which rural area, although it lies beyond the scope of this paper. Their routes of their transhumance also lie beyond the scope of this paper; suffice it to say that it is a general movement in winter from the heights of northern mountains to the low lands, all within the Fars province. What is important is that their pedigree is not lost, but those who know these relationships are decreasing in number. I had the opportunity to ask an old man, Navâz Farajollâh Zâdeh, who was still transhuming, some questions relating to genealogy. He has two wives, seven children from one and eleven from the other, and already has between 30 and 40 grandchildren (he could not remember the exact number.) The permits of access to pastures came from the Qâjâr family who ruled the area. The permits bear the names Allâh Qoli Khân, Hâj Mohammad Tâqi Khâne Qâjâr or Hedâyat Khân. Later chiefs of Bâsseri were Hasan Khân Zarqâmi and Mohammad Khân Zarqâmi who upheld the same right of pastures. Today the important family names of the Bâsseri are Zarqâmi and Shiravâni (Figure 6.2). We also visit a pastoral nomadic unit where the cousins of the Shiravâni from the chief’s household still engage in nomadism. The relationship between these two groups continues. Economic support of securing fresh food on the one hand, and finding urban jobs for the educated children and providing health information on the other, are occasions for keeping relationships alive. Other occasions that strengthen relationships are ceremonies of individual’s rites of passage (birth, marriage, death), New Year and religious feasts. In order to have a comfortable life, a pastoral nomadic family should have between 200–300 sheep and goats (there are no cows), while some have a few camels. Every year they sell 100 male sheep and goats and keep the females for reproduction. This year the pastures are quite rich, but water is not abundant. They partially depend upon receiving water from local government units which fill their big metallic water containers. The pastoral nomads have a council called ashâyer benshin, and when they come to the vicinity of Mâdar Soleimân they hold meetings to discuss their issues and problems. Figure 6.2 Pedigree of various clans * They were originally from the city of Isfahan, they were known for being devoutly religious ** Dorobar consisted of gunmen, secretaries, hunters, tailors and tent makers. They performed tasks other than farming and herding for the chief. Musicians were still another group who were called rameshgar or changi and they played the setar or kamâncheh, drum or darieh

Source: Author 146 World Heritage in Iran

I expected to witness fights in the area because there were many different ethnicities present, but surprisingly there were very few. As mentioned above, the Bâsseri did not enter the coalition of tribes against the land reform, even though their chiefs had personal relationships with the heads of various other tribes. For example, I was told that one of the Zarqâmi was close friends with Karim and Nâser Kiâni, both of whom were sentenced to death after 1963, but they kept their political distance and did not criticize the land reform; rather they cooperated with it quite successfully. On the lower level and up until today, disputes over land, pasture and water still break out, but they are resolved without bodily fights, injuries and deaths. The division of land after the death of a person between the descendants, particularly the last child who sees that he is left with less than others, at times creates problems. But the spirit of problem resolution through negotiation is more prevalent than ongoing dispute. I spoke to the head of the township who was himself from Beyzâ, a small town in Fars province, who said that ever since he had taken on his responsibility, he had not witnessed any serious disputes in the area. I also met a civil servant from the Council of Dispute Resolution, who confirmed that disputes over the size of land or payment of rent, water etc. are seen as problems between individuals and they do not take an ethnic dimension. Since this township is densely populated, candidates are not even put forward at times of parliamentary elections. A source of animated discussion and even fights in other areas, the period of parliamentary elections here passes peacefully, since it is known that candidates from larger cities will win.

Mâdar Soleimân Today

Let us begin with the village cemetery and see what names we find there: Shiravâni, Shahvandi, Hâtami, Sa’idi, Âle Sa’di and others as well as two Afghan men. The cemetery of the martyrs of the war with Iraq is separated and located a bit higher than the others. The composition of family names shows the chiefs of settled population, pastoral nomads, Arabs and newly acquired last names (Figure 6.3). The drinking water storage which keeps water pumped up from a recently dug well is located high up in the hills. The mouth of a qanât (the traditional underground water supply system) sends water to the fields, going from the upper area downhill to the land below. Lack of rain marks the lands that were usually supplied with water from the river, which has now run dry, so the lands were not cultivated over the past two years. The water from the qanât does not belong to them. So some families are left without produce and have to depend on other sources for their livelihood. Mâdar Soleimân and four other villages called Kordshul, Abolvardi and Mobârak Âbâd constitute the County of Pasargadae. Abolvardi and Mâdar Soleimân each have five representatives in the village council, and the three others have three members each in their councils. Three of the council members Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ 147

Figure 6.3 General view of the village cemetery with the Martyr’s section raised on a platform in the background

Source: Courtesy of Ali Mozaffari © 2011 of this village cluster are female. At Mâdar Soleimân there is only Leilâ Sa’idi. Although Mâdar Soleimân does not have the minimum of 5000 residents in order to qualify as a city, it is eligible to city status because it is the center of the county.3 Furthermore, its population rises to 7000-8000 persons during the day. It is important for Mâdar Soleimân to assume the designation of a city in order to access more funds for development. The population of pastoral nomads in this county ranges between 6000–7000 in winter, while this goes up to 13000 in spring and summer. These do not enter rural areas with their animals. In the spring and summer they stay in the northern part of the county, while in the winter they move much further to the south. The village council receives funds for the village. We mentioned earlier that ever since the 1970’s the village has had elementary schools, and now it also has girls’ and boys’ high schools. Minibuses transport students free of charge to school. The village also has a bank, post and communication office and a number of public telephones, while every household boasts a number of mobile phones. A clinic, or rather a preventative care centre, staffed by two medical doctors offers vaccination and other medical care, but it does not have any hospital beds. The

3 This was recognized and endorsed after my visit. 148 World Heritage in Iran main diseases that people suffer from is Aleppo boils (a skin disease: sâlak) and hay fever. Although it is very rare for a rural area to have a fire station, Mâdar Soleimân has one, located in front of the entrance of the tomb of Cyrus the Great. Every household has a television and the possibility of internet connection. The presence of an ADSL mast has caused certain problems as we shall discuss below. All of the few houses I visited contained furniture with armchairs in one corner, and carpets and cushions in another. The kitchens were open design, i.e. not in a separate room, while electrical utensils such as microwaves were often seen (Figure 6.4). As mentioned earlier according to locals, tourism brings 600,000–700,000 people a year to the area, providing thus approximately 40 jobs for the village inhabitants. Buses with guides come and go. A restaurant is located at the entrance of the village, along with a few stands selling various refreshments and tourist guides, souvenirs etc. However, the village has neither any prominent hotels, nor an exit from the main highway toward Mâdar Soleimân and Pasargadae, while the train which passes close by does not stop here. It has no athletic infrastructure. All these have been obstacles on the way to the development of this village, so these amenities have been provided to what is now Sa’âdat Shahr. People are very resentful of this because Sa’âdat Shahr has a hospital with 96 bed and a few universities, and is developing very fast.

Figure 6.4 The living room of Leilâ Saidi (Shirvâni) residence with Leilâ sitting on the couch

Now I would like to focus on the accomplishments of the rural council and on a person who has been extremely active in it. This ties our topic with a significant development in Iran: the presence of women in the public arena. The village council is headed by Leilâ, a strong woman whose pedigree we gave above. Her grandmother, Bibi Makhmal, was a remarkable personality, from whom it is said Leilâ has inherited her capabilities. She is a Sai’idi on her father’s side and Arab (Arab grandmother, non-Arab grandfather) on her mother’s side, she is married into the Tâjik (Bâsseri) chief family, Shiravâni and has two children. Her door bell and her mobile ring often: she is asked to provide identification papers or other personal documents because she holds the stamp of the rural council. She has a Masters Degree in literature, she is Head of the Sa’âdat Shahr Girls’ High School, which has 300 students and employs 40 staff and also teaches at the Yek- o-Yek Factory college (figure 6.5, above). People come to her to ask for jobs, for recommendation letters for student housing or a loan, or her advice on how to solve family issues or disputes related to land or water. She tries to solve them in order to reduce the number of disputes that might end up in court. As her husband’s land has been short of water over the last two years because of lack of rain and the drying out of the river, her income is necessary for their livelihood. Over the few days I stayed with them, I observed that her husband took care of the housework without any reservations. He says that when they got married, they both had high school diplomas and, referring to her higher education, he adds proudly, ‘I raised her’. This reflects the situation of a number of young couples where men become the economic support of the household early in life, while women continue their education. I ask Leilâ to tell me about her accomplishments. She comes with a box full of honorary letters of congratulations for various distinctions. They come from various offices such as the County of Pasargadae, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the Township Council, the Township Military Base, the Province of Fars, and the Aid Committee for the Poor (Islamic Revolution Mostazafan Foundation). She has had gas supply brought to the county of Pasargadae, of course including Mâdar Soleimân, by branching off the pipeline which went through the area to Russia. She has had a new well dug to provide the village with drinking water, she has had a part of the asphalt of the village roads replaced, and the canalization of water along the main boulevards to agricultural fields renewed. She managed to revive the activities of the village cultural centre and she initiated many new schemes, which will be mentioned below. She bought an ambulance for the clinic, organized the regular garbage collection in the village, had the bridge over the Sivand River widened, secured financial support for laying pedestrian areas with paving and bought alawn mowing machine for the lawn in the middle of the main boulevards leading to the site of Pasargadae. She is disappointed not to have been able to collect the 40 million Tomans (approximately $33,000 at the time) necessary for establishing a Payame Nour University there. Instead, this university was set up in Sa’âdat 150 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 6.5 The perimeter wall of Yek-o-Yek College (above) and shelves of Yek-o-Yek products in a local shop (below)

Shahr, where today it boasts 450 students in accounting, tourism, management, Persian literature and another two fields. Among the popular cultural activities she initiated were the 2007 contest of horseback riding for girls, kite flying, Koran reading, job creation, cooking, family walking contest, a Monday Bazaar for sale of local products and other group activities which have been very much appreciated. However, among her successful projects, she faces tensions with other organizations such as the Iranian Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO). Because of the height of the Cyrus’ tomb, the height of other buildings in the vicinity should be regulated. The council had started the work on a new stadium, when the project was stopped by the ICHHTO, because the new building would stand taller than the tomb (Figure 6.6). The council then had to stop the project, and now they have been able to purchase a piece of land lower than ground level, where they will build a space for various kinds of athletic practice there. The metallic ADSL mast to which we referred earlier is also higher than the permitted height, and although it is only a pole, the ICHHTO does not allow it to stand. Tensions between the local people and the ICHHTO office resulted, at which point the police intervened, and since this site can easily become the focus of media attention, the problem subsided but the mast, albeit non-functioning, remained on site.

Figure 6.6 The unfinished stadium

The approval of the ICHHTO is necessary for quite a number of activities because of the security of the site which also concerns the appearance of built spaces. A house which had used many of the symbols of Achaemenid period on its façade was forced to take them down (Figure 6.7). Houses cannot exceed a 152 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 6.7 The Achaemenid style façade

Source: Author © 2012 certain height depending on their distance from the site. When the previous Head of ICHHTO, Mr. Masha’yee, visited the area and proposed to buy all the houses around the site for 10 billion Tomans (approximately $ 7.7 Million at the time), residents refused saying, ‘we will not sell at any price. We have looked after the site ourselves and will continue to do so’. Mr. Sai’di proudly said, ‘When I open my eyes every morning and see this building, I feel alive’! Other developmental problems relate to factories: a proposal for a steel factory planned to be built some 15 kilometres from the site did not materialize; instead it was built at Kevâr, a densely populated area near Shiraz. People are angry about this and disagree with the reasoning that a factory 15 kilometres away from the site could damage it, arguing that many such factories are already situated closer to the site of Persepolis. The fact that the ICHHTO has to approve the establishment of all development facilities discourages the establishment of new factories. Locals experience this as a limitation on the development of the area, which can provide jobs for the population and prevent them from migration. They realize the significance of the site’s registration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and they know that the ICHHTO have received a certain sum for this. However, their questions are also valid; they argue that the exact regulations in regard to various activities are not clearly spelled out and that the locals usually come up against limitations after a project has progressed considerably, which often causes Pasargadae, Mâdar Soleimân and Leilâ 153 considerable losses to the people involved. This issue is also becoming the main reason for development projects being undertaken and established elsewhere, thus making Mâdar Soleimân stagnate. An interesting event shows the competition between the Iran Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization and the village council. Because of the great numbers of visitors, the parking lot of the site is a good source of income. The ICHHTO office was in charge of the parking lot. In March 2011 the council took over the parking lot and in order to be able to maintain it, they made a contract with the aforementioned office to provide free food for their employees and cleaners for the area, and in return the council would place the fire extinguishing truck in front of their office to be ready in case of emergency. By bargaining in this way, they took over the parking lot, thus securing a good source of income for the Council. However, between the time I undertook the field study and the time of the writing up of this report, I was told that the ICHHTO office refused to honour its contract and took over the parking lot! The council was counting on a nice supplement of 150–200 million Tomans (approximately $115,000-$154,000 at the time) per year to its budget, but alas this did not last long. Two projects by the ICHHTO are in the pipeline: the Museum of Pasargadae and another Cultural Centre. Once these are built, they will provide jobs and be of great interest. The Council has the responsibility of following up these projects with the National Heritage, so that they will be completed at the earliest possible time. Leilâ has learned an essential lesson during the years that she has dedicated her life to working for her village and her people and that is to negotiate: to go neither too fast nor too slow; to be adamant and persistent; never to lose hope; and always plan to accomplish something new. She pursues her goals with single-mindedness, but not to the point of entering a devastating fight; to show with determination that she has the power to fight, enough connections to support her, and command of persuasive language. However, she is also ready to give up when she must and return later to a project worth pursuing. She withdraws her resignations from her position if she is advised to do so, an action that can eventually strengthen her. So she has become an expert politician, and since she does what she does not for personal aims but for Mâdar Soleimân and Cyrus’ glorious tomb, her dedication receives its just recompense and recognition internationally. The presence of tourists in her village reassures her that her village is a special place, important to people all over the world, otherwise they would not be visiting it in such great numbers. Every year on the 28th of October, Cyrus’ birthday, their village is flooded with tourists. She also utilizes the media attention that this location receives in order to push her projects forward. She has therefore become such an accomplished actor on the local and global scene, that she is often invited to speak whenever dignitaries visit the area. Let us conclude this paper with a quote from a speech she delivered when a number of political personalities visited the site. Since the speech is too long to be translated, I have paraphrased important points in the beginning of the speech and I conclude with the translation of the last part. 154 World Heritage in Iran

Leilâ talks of Pasargadae as the identity card of history, where the taste of liberty was first felt. Pasargadae has been the first page of world’s history; if it hadn’t been there, our identity would have been lost, there would have been no place where to express love. Pasargadae holds a special place in God’s vision: it has to be liberated, not possessed … Pasargadae itself was the capital of love, the land of light and liberty, where domination over the weak was cast off. It was the land of combat between light and darkness. This land merits service, not out of obligation but honour, which is its due. Pasargadae does not belong to those who live here, it belongs to all humanity, it belongs to God who gives liberty to all mankind … Since Pasargadae gives the hope of liberty to all, it will never fit on the limited page of belonging to anyone.

Walk upon this land in unity and love, honour it for all that history has sacrificed for its values. Oh, beautiful and sturdy Pasargadae, my good land, beautiful Pasargadae, oldest root of love, despite all your age, you are young, and yet wise and full of resolution, and you work marvels … You are the most beautiful and soothing lullaby that our mother-earth sings for her children, the wild human beings, in the most bitter nights of winter. She invites them to peace, saying that life can be lived without war and aggression. Those who have heard your name in furthest lands, come to see you … Now we who are your children must love you dearly and wisely keep you as you merit it.

References

Barth, Fredrik. 1961. Nomads of South Persia, The Bâsseri Tribe of the Khamseh Confederacy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Herzfeld, Ernst. 1908. Pasargadae. Untersuchungen zur persischen Archäologie. Klio: Beitraege zur alten Geschichte VIII, pp. 1–68. Sami, Ali. Pasargadae: The Oldest Imperial Capital of Iran. tr. from Persian 1956 (original book published in Persian in 1330 [1941]). Shahbazi, Alireza Shapur. 1990 (1379). Total Guide to Pasargadae, Shiraz: Foundation for Fars Studies. Spiegel, Friedrich. 1873, Eranische Altertumskunde, Vol. II, Leipzig: W. Engelmann. Chapter 7 Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region1 Tod Jones and Mohammad-Hassan Talebian

Introduction

The Pasargadae region has the potential to substantially benefit from cultural tourism. As the World Heritage (since 2004) listed location of the royal tombs, palace structures and gardens of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae is already a national icon with an international reputation. The renown and achievements of Persia are attractive to international and domestic visitors, but events since the 1970s, such as the nationalisation of international hotels and the war with Iraq, have hampered tourism, particularly the growth of international visitor numbers. This chapter is a case study in how these obstacles are being addressed through heritage tourism. It asks: how is the iconic status and reputation of Pasargadae being connected to regional tourism development and how is the relationship between conservation and tourism being managed? This chapter addresses these questions through three sections. After an overview of the history of tourism in Iran, it presents tourism data to both the Pasargadae World Heritage Site and the Pasargadae region to identify tourism trends and motivations, including how visitors access the region and site. Second, a review of the international cultural tourism literature presents a framework for management of cultural tourism, identifying key elements and issues. Third, the current management of cultural tourism to Pasargadae is compared to the management framework, with an assessment of which elements are relevant and what further steps are required to facilitate the growth of a regional cultural tourism industry around the presence of the World Heritage Site. This chapter complements Chapter 3’s focus on the management of Pasargadae with a focus on its engagement with tourism, and additionally assesses Pasargadae’s management within the context of global expectations of tourism management. While there are overlaps between the two chapters, these are dealt with through brief summaries and cross referencing in order to avoid repetition.

1 This work was supported by a Grant to Tod Jones from The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS). 156 World Heritage in Iran

Background: Cultural Tourism Development in Iran

Iran, like many nations in the Middle-East (Timothy and Daher 2009), is a cultural tourism destination of great potential that struggles to attract a commensurate number of tourists for the experiences and sites it offers (Aref 2011, Baum and O’Gorman 2010, Butler et al. 2012). While even a passing knowledge of the history of Iran is enough to recognise that its political shifts have implications for tourism, the reality is more nuanced. A brief account of Iran’s recent history and its implications for tourism is a necessary frame for discussion of tourism and its management at Pasargadae. While the elite Western explorers of other lands had been visiting Iran since before the early seventeenth century (Sherley 1613), the beginning of mass tourism coincided with the final decade of rule by the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Throughout the 1970s, Iran developed a profitable and safe airline and a reputation for welcoming international visitors (Baum and O’Gorman 2010).2 A number of international chains had hotels in Iran, including Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental and Sheraton. Following the 1979 Revolution, the hotels were nationalised, renamed, and placed under the control of the Foundation for the Oppressed and Devotees (Bonyad-e Mostazafan va Janbazan), or more precisely its Recreation and Tourism Organisation. Tehran became the only official gateway to Iran, limiting Air Iran’s services, and aircraft parts became more difficult to procure. War with Iraq started soon after the Revolution in 1980 and continued for eight years. Both domestic and international tourism suffered as a result of the socio-political turmoil of the Iran-Iraq war After the election of President Khatami in 1997, international tourists began to return to Iran in larger numbers. Khatami’s promotion of a ‘dialogue among civilisations’ included a plan to increase and enhance hospitality and tourism. This included international collaboration in tourism training (Baum and O’Gorman 2010) and increased international promotion. However, in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 world trade centre attack the country’s tourism industry suffered. International press in this climate did not encourage cultural tourism. The more conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected in 2005, continued the policy of encouraging tourism development. Under President Ahmadinejad’s leadership, the Iran Touring and Tourism Organisation (ITTO) was merged with the Iran Cultural Heritage Organisation (ICHO) to form the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organisation (ICHTO), which later incorporated handicrafts (ICHHTO) (Baum and O’Gorman 2010). This organisation sits under the Vice- President of Iran, indicating both the regime’s commitment and strong central control. Iran’s plans for tourism development are ambitious and include large increases in training in management and hospitality (Baum and O’Gorman 2010).

2 In fact, a 1971 event to celebrate 2500 years of monarchy and including 70 international emissaries was a contributing factor to the Islamic revolution in 1979. Pasargadae was a significant inaugural location for this event (Baum and O’Gorman 2010). Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 157

From a position in 1978 when Iran was an attractive and growing international tourism destination, it has suffered from a number of what Timothy and Nyaupane call barriers for developing countries (Timothy and Nayaupane 2009).3 These include the war with Iraq, representations of Iran as a hard-line Islamic state, and travel warnings. International perceptions may once again shift with the recent election of moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Private investment has been limited by both sanctions on financial transactions and the nationalisation of assets after 1979. Human resources in Iran have also been identified as a major issue and are recognised as such by people who work in the Iranian tourism industry (Butler et al. 2012). Despite these barriers, Iran has continued to actively pursue cultural tourism. It now has 15 world heritage sites (largely pre-Islamic) and a large number of sites tentatively listed (over 50 sites, tending to be more recent). The state has demonstrated a commitment to cultural heritage tourism for an extended period and into the future, and Iran has many resources, including its rich and diverse living cultures, that remain largely untapped. Furthermore, tourist numbers have grown substantially since the early 1990s, and Iran does not rely on Western nations. While international tourism is important, particularly for bringing income into Iran, the importance of domestic tourism cannot be overstated. Domestic tourism dwarfs the international market. According to the Department of Tourism, the number of domestic tourists in 2012 was approximately 52 million and for international tourists it was approximately 3 million.4 A significant proportion of the international visitors are likely to be Iranian expatriates visiting friends and relatives or returning on business trips. Immediately after the revolution the number of international tourists fell from 680,000 in 1978 to a low of 9,300 in 1990 (ITTO 2001). World Bank figures on international visitation indicate that Iran recovered across the 1990s to a high of 2.7 million visitors in 2006 with an expenditure of just over $US5 billion, but then declined .5 Figures from 1999 indicate that 36.5 per cent of Iran’s visitors came from the Middle East and Caucasia, 22.6 per cent from South Asia and 19.1 per cent from Europe (Butler et al. 2012). Taken as a block, the Organisation of Islamic Conference Countries and Turkey (which otherwise is counted as Europe) constituted 82 per cent of all international visitors (Butler et al. 2012). Given the

3 While Iran is not a developing country, it is interestingly included in the Timothy and Nyaupane (2009) book, most likely due to parallels with its neighbours who are developing countries. 4 There has been growth in domestic and international tourism since 1999, when there were 1.3 million international visitors compared with 32.5 million domestic visitors Butler, R., O’Gorman, K.D. and Prentice, R. 2012. Destination Appraisal for European Cultural Tourism to Iran. International Journal of Tourism Research, 14(4), pp. 323–38. 5 Expenditure is in 2012 $US. These figures end in 2008 so they cannot be compared with the official Iranian statistics that indicate that tourism in 2012 was approximately 3 million. 158 World Heritage in Iran orientation of the government and the international political climate, a focus on Islamic markets ensures tourism that is acceptable to the state and turns religious conservatism into an attraction for some potential visitors. Iran’s marketing and visa arrangements have been focussed on these nations (Zamani-Farahani and Henderson 2010). However, the largest cultural tourism market is Europe, and these are the people who are most likely to be attracted to Iran’s wealth of non- Islamic heritage. Currently, western visitors tend to travel in tour groups in Iran (Rabiee 2011), which addresses language barriers and smooths access across international borders.

Pasargadae

Due to the description in other chapters, only a brief overview of Pasargadae’s heritage is provided here with a focus on elements necessary for analysing the accommodations and tensions between tourism and heritage. As the first dynastic capital of the Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, in Pars, homeland of the Persians, in the sixth century BCE, Pasargadae is strongly connected to Persia, although domestic visitors often are attracted to iconic monuments as national symbols (for instance, Borobudur temple in Indonesia is considered national heritage (Anderson 1990, pp. 152–93)). Pasargadae also has Islamic connections. As described in other chapters of this book, the Mausoleum of Cyrus was called the Mausoleum of the Mother of Solomon sometime after the seventh century CE and an Atabaki mosque was built there in the tenth century, then abandoned in the fourteenth century. The surrounding archaeological sites within the Pasargadae buffer zone are Islamic (the Madrasseh or Caravanserai) or considered sacred by locals (a mound called Tape-e Hazarat-e Ya’qub has not been cleared of trees due to its sacred status). As discussed in previous chapters, while the conservation focus has been on the garden and tomb of Cyrus the Great, Pasargadae was a much larger settlement that included settlements and farms and was linked to trade routes and an advanced water distribution network. Hence Pasargadae is a cultural landscape with a heritage site at its centre. Additionally, the Mausoleum of Cyrus the Great is still considered a place of pilgrimage by local people. Often connections to iconic groupings (such as Persia, Islam or the Iranian nation), rather than the specific values that justify world heritage (as an expression of royal Achaemenid architecture and art and a prototype of the four gardens type of royal ensemble) are the elements that attract tourists. Pasargadae is owned by the state and is managed by the Parse-Pasargadae Research Foundation (PPRF) within the ICHHTO, as are the nearby heritage sites. The ICHHTO used to be a branch of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The site is managed as one of a group of sites (including Persepolis), and has a local management team who are based on the site (Parse-Pasargadae Research Foundation 2002). A more detailed discussion of this management structure is provided in Chapter 3. Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 159

Pasargadae is close to five villages, in particular the village of Madar-i Solaiman (Mother of Solomon), which had little tourism infrastructure when Pasargadae was listed as world heritage in 2004. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)6 evaluation for the World Heritage Listing noted that ‘the current level of development of the villages is very low’ and therefore the site was not threatened by development (International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) 2004, p.32). It also indicated that the villages were not immediately ready to take advantage of cultural tourism opportunities. There was little tourist accommodation at all around Pasargadae at this time, creating barriers for the region to benefit economically from the iconic status of the site, in particular its capacity to attract international visitors (Chapter 3 and Parse-Pasargadae Research Foundation 2002). Two issues often affect communities surrounding iconic heritage sites: installing heritage protection often comes at an initial cost to local communities; and iconic sites of national importance can create barriers to surrounding communities as part of the monumentalising process (Graham et al. 2000). As discussed in Chapter 3, industrial and agricultural development was restricted in the core and buffer zones, leading to depreciation of property values, outmigration of young people, and hostility towards Pasargadae management and conservation activities. Furthermore, some conservation decisions impacted on local connections to Pasargadae, such as the removal of Atabaki mosque. Relations with local communities and groups have become an important management issue. Pasargadae has an excellent body of longitudinal statistics to assist with understanding tourism collected by the PPRF. While the number of international visitors to Pasargadae has fluctuated between 10,000 and 20,000 between 1997 and 2011 (Figure 7.1), there has been strong growth in domestic visitor numbers with 2007 and 2008 recording a growth of 85 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.7 Since 2008, domestic visitor numbers have consistently been over 310,000 and appear to have stabilised between 310,000 and 330,000. Domestic visitation peaks around the Iranian New Year (Nowruz), with up to half of all annual domestic visits in the first month of the Iranian year (Farvardin) which coincides with the start of Spring. The large increase in domestic visitors both increases the importance of Persian heritage to the Iranian government and insulates the site from variable international visitor numbers. International visits peaked in the March-April period and in the September-October period, coinciding with the European and American travel season. Europeans make up the majority of international visitors annually, averaging 70 per cent of internationals (7899 visitors) between 2008

6 The ICOMOS assesses sites as part of the process of UNESCO’s world heritage listing, and monitors the state of conservation of existing sites. ICOMOS is a network of experts created in 1965, and plays a key role in the application of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. 7 Please note that there is an imperfect translation between the Iranian calendar and the Gregorian/Western calendar. The Iranian calendar starts in Farvardin, which coincides with 20 March to 19 April in the Gregorian calendar. Hence the double-badging of years. 160 World Heritage in Iran and 2011 with the largest nationality being German. However, Europeans have declined from 80 per cent of all visitors in 2008 to 63 per cent in 2011 while the percentage of Asian visitors has increased annually (from 14 per cent to 29 per cent) with the majority of Asian visitors coming from Japan.

Figure 7.1 International, domestic and total visitation between 1997 and 2011

Source: ICHHT Surveys

While international and domestic visitors are not distinguished in the statistics on the characteristics and motivations of visitors, given that international visits declined from 6 per cent in 2008 to 3 per cent in 2011, it is a safe assumption that the statistics from surveys between 2008 and 2011 will reflect the characteristics of Iranian rather than international visitors. There have consistently been more male than female visitors, with males constituting 63 per cent of all visits between 2008 and 2011. Visits were spread throughout the day and were typically for a morning or afternoon (84 per cent of respondents from 2010 and 2011 stayed for less than 5 hours). The reason for the trip for visitors were overwhelmingly to see cultural and heritage attractions (75 per cent in 2012), indicating the importance of Pasargadae to tourism to the region. Its iconic status is also demonstrated through its capacity to generate repeat visits (38 per cent of visitors in 2012 had visited the site previously) with 10 per cent having visited more than three times. Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 161

Visitors stayed in a variety of accommodation types. Visitors who are not travelling in school groups generally rent houses (25 per cent in a 2012 survey). Other popular forms of accommodation in the 2012 survey were staying with friends (16 per cent), hotels and guesthouses (14 per cent) and using tents (13 per cent). Surveys in 2009, 2010 and 2011 paint a picture of a site that is improving many aspects of its visitor experience, but still has work to do. The majority of the visitors thought Pasargadae was clean (60 per cent very appropriate or appropriate), and had clean and accessible toilets (75 per cent very appropriate, appropriate or medium). While responses to information disseminated by guides was reasonably positive (49 per cent appropriate or very appropriate, 37 per cent medium), almost half the visitors surveyed in 2011 (48 per cent) rated the quality of information and service provision after entering the site as inappropriate or very inappropriate, and responses indicated some concern as to the conservation of the monuments (27 per cent of respondents rated ‘weak’ in 2008). This reflects a lack of understanding of conservation activities in a site that is a historic ruin. The city-gardens have vanished in the course of time and some of the specialised restoration activities are not available to the general public. In comparison with Persepolis, the properties in Pasargadae are not only fewer in number but also are more separated (due to the original planning). These absences could be addressed through interpretation, but are not adequately addressed by the guides and media on the site. The plans for a museum and associated interpretative infrastructure are likely to substantially improve interpretation. While Pasargadae is clearly successfully attracting Iranian visitors, it has been a long and on-going process to generate substantial revenue streams for conservation and site management. From a value of approximately USD 20,768 in 1997,8 income generated by Pasargadae was USD 124,257, an increase of just under 600 per cent. However, if these prices are adjusted for inflation in Iran,9 the income increase between 1997 and 2011 is 278 per cent. Across this period, visitation increased by 893 per cent, indicating that price increases have not kept up with the substantial inflation pressures in Iran (over 776 per cent across this period). Two factors have impacted on prices. First, although there have been increases in prices, these have not been large due to the state’s desire to keep the site accessible for Iranian visitors. In fact, entrance fees doubled in 2013 but they are still well below the current inflation rate so the sites do not yet have sufficient revenue. Second, rather than using different prices for international visitors as can happen at similar sites, they were charged at the same rate as domestic visitors. Recently the price of tickets for international visitors has increased compared to domestic visitors (USD 4 compared to USD 0.60) but entry prices are still much lower than for other world heritage sites. The bottom line here is that Pasargadae is

8 All values are in USD and have been converted using the conversion rate from 1 December for each year (except 1997 where this is not available, so the rate at 1 December 1998 was used). 9 Using the consumer price index for Iran supplied by the World Bank. 162 World Heritage in Iran not run to maximise profits, but instead has to balance competing policy demands when setting prices. Given the institutional setting of the PPRF within the Iranian government, the level of development of the surrounding villages, and the complexities of the affiliations of Pasargadae, management needs to monitor and respond to a variety of priorities and be strategic in its reasoning and affiliations.

Managing Heritage Tourism: an International Perspective

The relationship between heritage and tourism has historically been tense. Research on cultural tourism has noted that managers of heritage sites have often perceived their jobs as caring for a property or protecting a legacy, and issues like public access and the requirements of visitors were secondary considerations (McKercher and du Cros 2002). Dissonance between the desire to conserve and the drive to generate tourism is an element of the first of Graham et al.’s (2000) axes of contestation through the commodification of sacred objects. Sue Millar (1989, p. 14), foreseeing our current paradigm and problems, wrote that when done well, heritage tourism management ‘is the key to conservation and commercial success, done badly, it may mean a significant part of our heritage is lost forever’. The tension between heritage conservation and what Pamela Ho and Bob McKercher (2004) call the tourism product, or attention to the experiences of heritage tourists, has been resolved theoretically through the concept of sustainable tourism (Hall 2000). However, the reality of heritage tourism management often struggles to meet the lofty standards of sustainable tourism theory, and there is scepticism about the outcomes (McKercher 1993). While resolution to these tensions lies in the details of management planning and routines, Graham et al.’s (2000) second axis of contestation requires a different level of management. This is the use of heritage by dominant and subordinate groups to set and communicate group identity and political power structures. In the case of Pasargadae, its managers need to address the tension between pre-Revolution associations with the Pahlavis, the potential opposition of other groups to conservation of Persian heritage, Persia’s attractiveness for International visitors, and expressions of nationalism. The current Iranian state structures for managing heritage and tourism, and the growth of domestic visitors, suggests that the current management are successfully managing this tension. Much like sustainable development in the Brundtland report was able to resolve tensions between conservation and development through articulating an optimistic vision based on their connectedness (Baker 2006), sustainable tourism was able to articulate a version of tourism where conservation and education were understood as integral to heritage tourism, and indeed the basis of its future existence and growth. Richard Butler’s definition of sustainable tourism (itself a variation on the Brundtland definition of sustainable development (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987)) in theory addresses the impact of mass tourism on heritage (Butler 1993, p. 29): Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 163

Tourism which is developed and maintained in an area in such a manner and at such a scale that it remains viable over an indefinite period and does not degrade or alter the environment (human and physical) in which it exists to such a degree that it prohibits the successful development and wellbeing of other activities and processes.

Dallen Timothy and Stephen Boyd (2003) identify that that this requires conservation of the site, both of its heritage and its natural environment. Visitor numbers and behaviours should ‘produce no permanent degradation of the values associated with the heritage site’ (Timothy and Boyd 2003, p. 135). Conservation therefore supports the key sustainable development principles of inter- and intra- generational equity, and is a key component of heritage tourism management. The concept of carrying capacity, although difficult to implement, seeks to limit visitor numbers to a level that a site can sustain, both physically and in terms of visitor experiences. Conservation and equity overlap with the principle of education, generally provided through interpretation at a heritage attraction via formal or informal programs. While decisions about what is included in education/ interpretation are political, communicating the importance of a heritage site in an interesting and appropriate manner assists in shifting behaviours and shared understandings, as well as increasing enjoyment of the site (Moscardo 1996). A site should be financially sustainable, with funding coming from any of a variety of sources.10 A key element of social sustainability is participation of key stakeholders, both in decision making and in sharing the benefits of heritage tourism development. Participation is particularly important in the case of local communities whose lives are interrupted by growing tourist numbers, and who often have strong connections to the heritage that is on display. A related issue is access (Timothy and Boyd 2003), where a tension exists between limiting numbers to prevent degradation, and reducing barriers to access for groups that could be excluded due to economic or ideological reasons. Finally, sustainable tourism requires strategic planning in order to adequately ensure that the heritage will be available in the future (Timothy and Boyd 2003). While sustainable tourism has a strong conservation focus, it also implies visitor experiences that are both enjoyable and engender a relationship to the heritage that builds respect and understanding. While sustainable tourism sets goals for the outcomes of heritage tourism management, it does not specify how these goals are to be obtained or address the nitty-gritty of management frameworks and decisions. Moreover, it does not address many of the elements that contribute to the nebulous but important concept of the visitor experience. John Swarbrooke (2002, p. 132) identified four key factors that influence the success of attractions and therefore provide a way of

10 Revenue sources can include: user fees (including entry fees, rental costs and dual pricing), special events, retailing, lodging and catering, fees for interpretation, grants, sponsorships and donations Timothy (2007). 164 World Heritage in Iran breaking down a discussion of management into key areas: the organisation and its resources; the product; the market; and the management of the attraction. Table 7.1 makes use of Swarbrooke’s framework to map the key elements of heritage tourism management for sites like Pasargadae.

Table 7.1 Factors influencing the success of a heritage tourist attraction for both visitor experiences and sustainable tourism outcomes

Third Order: Sustainable Tourism Conservation of heritage and environment Principles Inter- and intra-generational equity Education Financially sustainable Participation Access Strategic planning Second Order: Key Factors First Order: Management Elements The organisation and its resources Experience of developing and managing attractions Financial resources Institutional setting The product Heritage values and significance Characteristics and state of the heritage Location and relationship to surrounding region Quality of experiences Cost to access-value for money Interpretation (languages, quality of both living and non-living) The market Market analysis (growing, declining markets for visitors) The management of the attraction Conservation planning, monitoring and research (both day to day and strategic Intersectoral cooperation planning) Revenue streams and planning Marketing, promotion and marketing assessment Staff management and training Guide management and training Engagement with surrounding communities and opportunities for participation Land use planning and management Integration of plans

Source: After Swarbrooke 2002, pp. 134–42

It is worth addressing the four factors separately in order to flesh out the elements of management that would be expected internationally at a site with the importance and scale of Pasargadae. First, it is necessary to understand the organisation that is Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 165 managing the site, in this case the PPRF, in particular its experience and expertise in developing and managing heritage tourism sites, its institutional location, and its access to financial resources. While marketing experience and expertise in the Foundation is important, it is addressed as a part of managing the attraction. The second factor is the product, or in this case the different elements of the visitor experience. This includes a number of elements (see Table 7.1), a few of which require more explanation. The significance, characteristics, and state of the heritage and the cultural landscape are key elements of the visitor experience. The quality of the experience requires unpacking, as it refers to cleanliness of the site, visitor facilities such as toilets and parking, and services such as retail outlets, security issues, food outlets and quality of customer service. The quality of the experience can also include whether a site addresses special considerations, such as wheelchair access, and services for the blind, deaf and mentally challenged (Page 2007, Swarbrooke 2002, Timothy and Boyd 2003). The cost of access often balances financial sustainability (including differential pricing) and equity, and can also be used to address visitor management issues through techniques like charging at high-volume times to address crowding (Garrod and Fyall 1998). Interpretation is one of the most important elements of the visitor experience as it addresses education and conservation through explaining appropriate behaviour and it increases enjoyment (Moscardo 1996, Swarbrooke 2002, Timothy and Boyd 2003). The third factor is the market, in particular understanding of shifts and decisions such as whether to try to focus on one segment, or attract a broad spectrum. The fourth factor is the management of the attraction. Conservation planning, monitoring and research should be addressed through a conservation plan or similar that sets the parameters for all management activities. While addressing the broad options of preservation, restoration and renovation, it also needs to assess pressures on the sites (including illegal excavation in the buffer zone) and appropriate responses (such as limiting contact, changing land uses, visitor numbers and movement). In a site like Pasargadae, management needs to address a variety of different issues at different scales. Intersectoral cooperation needs to occur at the national, regional and local levels and includes contributions to regional planning, connections to other plans, cooperation with local authorities and could even encompass developing appropriate structures for site management depending on the ownership of land surrounding the site and division of responsibilities. Management needs to address revenue streams, not just from fees, but also from special purpose projects, grants, sponsorship and donations. Marketing needs to address not just promotional materials, but also assessment as to its effectiveness. Marketing should be integrated with conservation goals and interpretation of the site (Ho and McKercher 2004). Staff management and training is an important element of management that ensures that staff activities support rather than hinder the visitor experience and conservation efforts. Guide management and training is important for the same reasons. 166 World Heritage in Iran

The next two elements (engagement with surrounding communities and opportunities for participation, and land use planning and management) are related. Management of the attraction needs to engage with the communities that surround it and provide opportunities for participation if it is to be considered sustainable tourism. Engagement has three elements. First, local communities need to be made aware of the significance of the site (if they are not already) and provided with opportunities to continue and develop relationships with what for them is local heritage. Second, there needs to be opportunities for decision making, particularly in areas such as land use and interpretation where local views and information at a planning stage would address potentially difficult issues before they occur. Third, local communities should be given the opportunity to benefit economically from the site. Generating local economic benefits can be difficult in locations like Pasargadae, which is primarily an agricultural community and where there is historically a low level of engagement with tourism. Land use planning and management is an important element of addressing both conservation goals, and creating enjoyable visitor experiences. It includes separating activities, the creation of buffer zones and taking natural landscapes into account. Finally, all of these elements need to be integrated into a strategic vision and steps that are prioritised and staged over a number of years.

Managing Tourism at Pasargadae: Successes and Challenges

The first of the four key factors, the organisation that manages the heritage site and its resources, focuses on the PPRF. The PPRF has been managing Pasargadae since 2001 and manages two major sites in Iran (Persepolis and Pasargadae), including the buffer zones that contain 657 sites in Pasargadae alone. It has extensive experience with heritage management and has been successful at expanding the number of World Heritage listings and working with UNESCO. It has played a large role in establishing and shaping government support for heritage in Iran. Chapter 3 indicates the PPRF sits in a strong institutional setting. It now employs approximately 150 people including 37 at Pasargadae. The Director of Pasargadae is well supported by an institutional structure that has checks and balances between the site, the PPRF, and the ICHHTO. The management structure includes regional and local representatives alongside heritage managers and experts in conservation and economics. The technical committee and the base management team provide oversight for both research and conservation activities and management decision making. There is integration of local representatives in the management structure, although this does not extend to representatives from local villages. The focus at Pasargadae (and more generally in the PPRF) historically was on conservation rather than tourism management, although this has shifted since the world heritage listing in 2004 when staff numbers increased dramatically. Consequently, heritage tourism planning and management is not as developed as conservation planning and management. As a world heritage site, the PPRF receives national as well as Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 167 local funding for managing Pasargadae, and this state support constitutes the bulk of its revenue. It does not independently hold financial resources in the form of investments, trusts or properties. A discussion of revenue streams and marketing is returned to in the paragraph below on management. The second element, the heritage product, needs to consider both the Pasargadae site and the cultural landscape within which it is located. The location of Pasargadae (and the region) is 90 minutes from Shiraz, the capital of the Fars province, and eight hours from Tehran. However, it is only one hour from Persepolis, and this proximity makes it a key element of the Persian heritage experience in Iran. The site itself has a long history of archaeological research and is well maintained. The heritage values have been clearly established and form the basis of the world heritage listing. The quality of experiences at the site can be judged by tourists’ survey responses. The site is judged positively for cleanliness and toilet facilities, and information provided by guides was judged to be of a reasonable quality, but could use some improvement. A related concern is the response to the state of conservation of the monument, which was generally judged to be weak. As stated previously, this response reflects interpretation and education issues at a historic ruin as site conservation is monitored and well-managed. The issues of value for money and interpretation require a distinction to be made between international and domestic visitors. While international visitors are charged more than domestic visitors and fees have recently increased, the entry fee is still low and the experience is excellent value for money. With regards to interpretation, international visitors generally are mediated by tour groups, who provide their own guides and are responsible for the quality of information and interpretation provided. The ICHHTO educates guides about Pasargadae as part of their training which is discussed in the management section below. For those tourists who visit sites independently brochures, books, films and CDs are available, and signboards are provided giving them a historical and architectural description of the site and its elements as well as its map both in Farsi and English. For domestic visitors, trained guides are available at the site, and during peak times (like Nowruz), university students in relevant fields of study are trained and employed as guides. Shops and a restaurant operate at Pasargadae providing services to visitors, and their quality has not been assessed. There are plans to add to the visitor experience through two initiatives: rerouting the tourist path to the original historical route so that visitors enter via the Darvazeh (Gate) Palace, and end at the mausoleum of Cyrus the Great; and finalising a museum complex that will include exhibitions and multimedia for tourists. The cultural landscape has posed greater issues. While the site has been under state control for many years and was registered in 1930, land use restrictions (listed in Chapter 3) in the surrounding landscape are more recent, beginning in 1988 and expanded in 2002 in preparation for the world heritage listing. In terms of the visitor experience, these restrictions support the heritage values and have led to improved maintenance of other historical properties. The cultural landscape also presents an opportunity to engage with other outstanding features of the 168 World Heritage in Iran

Achaemenid Empire, in particular the residential, farming and water distribution systems that accompanied and supported the cultural innovations celebrated by the world heritage listing. These opportunities have not yet been developed, although services have improved at these sites including medical emergency centres. There are also issues with the level of tourism infrastructure in the surrounding towns, which are beginning to pursue tourism opportunities, but are limited by the small number of international visitors and the control of their itinerary by tour companies. Efforts to address this issue are discussed further in the final section on management. Market analysis (third element) indicates a reliance on the domestic market. However, the domestic market is highly seasonal (during Nowruz) and does not have a high purchasing power. The international market is preferable due to its higher spending power and also continues through the low season. However, international sanctions and media representations are barriers to growing international numbers. The domestic market has remained strong, and their potential reaction to entry fee increases should be assessed as it is the easiest and most effective way of raising revenue. As stated previously, international visitors tend to be on tours, and local visitors are self-managed. The final element is management. Conservation, monitoring and research, as discussed in Chapter 3, are well structured and connected to funding mechanisms in the ICHHTO. Conservation work follows a documented process that assesses conservation works against clear priorities that ensure that funding flows to where it is most needed. Monitoring is also clearly documented and includes the buffer zone as well as the core zone. Monitoring in each zone is tailored to each element, and makes use of interdisciplinary approaches appropriate to a site the size and complexity of Pasargadae. Research on Pasargadae began in 1928 and continues today. It has its own funding streams, and is supported by an archive of information at Pasargadae. Research includes annual visitor surveys that assess visitors’ responses and attitudes to Pasargadae as well as collecting demographic and trip data. A number of conservation measures are applied at Pasargadae, including use of guides, zoning, and separating visitors from the ruins. Illegal excavation in the buffer zone has been a problem in the past and requires greater local government attention if it is going to be addressed. Intersectoral cooperation occurs through the integration of different levels of government into the institutional structure. Local, state and national level politicians are included in committees at various levels of the PPRF, ensuring that different levels of government are aware of each other’s plans. Restrictions on activities in the buffer and core zones ensure that other plans take the heritage values of the region into account, although a collaborative approach is preferable to try to meet a variety of regional goals. The financial resources of the PPRF are reliant on support from the state with the bulk of funding split between the national government (70 per cent), and the local government (30 per cent). A more diversified set of funding sources would be preferable, but fees are kept low to ensure that the site is accessible and international visitation and investment is limited by sanctions and representations Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 169 of Iran in the international media. Removal of the sanctions is likely to stimulate international visitation and aid sales at the site and the surrounding villages. Some sites receive public donations and religious endowments, but this funding is limited, and little funding is received from international sources. The PPRF is likely to remain financially reliant on the ICHHTO in the near future, and therefore be exposed to state funding cycles. Marketing is carried out in conjunction with education and training activities for the domestic market. This includes some media reports and events such as festivals, and developing multimedia and printed material. However, the PPRF does not undertake tourism marketing or have a marketing plan or budget. Marketing to international visitors occurs through the union for travel guides, travel agencies and hoteliers, and the primary product is package tours. Hence the PPRF has little influence over international marketing. Even if it did choose to market itself internationally, such promotion would be more effective after international sanctions are lifted. Monitoring of international marketing would be a good first step towards international promotion once sanctions are lifted. Staff management and training is carried out by the PPRF and occurs at local, national and international levels. The ICHHTO and private companies train tour guides at the provincial and national levels, guides are licensed, and annual renewal is linked to continued training. Educational activities are run for students at both school and university levels. Museum exhibitions, cultural events, and expert sessions are also part of Pasargadae’s educational activities, with two cultural events and approximately two expert sessions run annually. Engagement with the surrounding communities and opportunities for local participation are ongoing issues for the PPRF that are linked to conservation initiatives and land use planning. While the increased heritage regulations have created tensions with local communities, the presence of the heritage site and the activities of the PPRF are shifting attitudes. Marketing and educational activities are increasing local community awareness of the heritage values of the site and region. Madar-i Solaiman village in particular has been active in taking advantage of their location near the entrance route to the complex. There are greater issues for other villages further away from the complex that are within the buffer zone, but are not as well located to take advantage of tourism opportunities. Almost all of the employees at Pasargadae live locally, and the retail and food businesses in the site are locally owned. Hence Pasargadae is contributing to local employment, and local youth are pursuing study in the fields of tourism and cultural heritage. However, the low level of international visitation and seasonality of domestic visitors is a major barrier to local engagement as the revenue stream needs to grow before tourism presents an attractive alternative to agricultural work. Furthermore, there is no tourism plan or marketing plan for the region, indicating that conservation has been a higher planning priority than tourism development, although there is now increasing attention to tourism. Recognising these issues, the PPRF has placed a high priority on engaging with the local community (such as plans to support local heritage NGOs) and providing them with employment 170 World Heritage in Iran opportunities. The result is a region that, although still disliking the restrictions of heritage conservation, has a higher appreciation for and engagement with heritage and tourism than other regions.

Conclusion

While international tourism to Iran remains low there are hopeful signs. Domestic tourism is booming, there is strong interest in Iran’s Persian heritage, and the election of a moderate President could pre-empt improved international relations and growth in international tourist numbers. With prospects for heritage tourism growth on the horizon, reflecting on the principles of sustainable tourism with respect to Pasargadae provides an indication of its potential as a long term driver of regional development. The conservation of Pasargadae’s cultural heritage has been the highest priority for the PPRF and it has been supported by the national government through the ICHHTO in its conservation initiatives. The world heritage listing in 2004 was a landmark for both conservation initiatives and tourism, although more attention has been given to conservation as would be expected for an organisation like the PPRF. Intra and inter-generational equity is supported by the conservation effort that ensures that the heritage will be available for future generations. Education is emphasised on the site through programs for staff, visitors and local communities, and the Pasargadae Base contributes to publications, museum exhibitions and expert seminars. Entry fees are no barrier to access for Iranians or international visitors seeking to engage with Pasargadae. Handicapped access is quite easy as the site is flat, with only one location (Tall-i Takht) in need of a lift, which is currently being considered. Financial sustainability is an issue for Pasargadae due to the strong reliance on state funding. While this is an excellent source of support, a more varied set of revenue streams would assist in ensuring that conservation activities are sustainable into the future. This could be enhanced through seeking international funding, increasing entry fees (creating potential access issues), and through growing international tourism, although this is unlikely until international sanctions are relaxed. Relations with local communities are also problematic as conservation measures have placed restrictions on development opportunities, and tourism is not yet large or lucrative enough to provide a viable development pathway. This is due to both the capacities of the local communities and infrastructure, the international political environment, and the relatively short period of time that these kinds of opportunities have been pursued. The conservation focus and expertise of the PPRF needs to be accompanied by a tourism focus and expertise. This is reflected in the strategic planning, which has been focussed on conservation, but now requires a tourism planning focus with an emphasis on increasing revenue to the region from the domestic market and spreading the peak season. The conservation emphasis at Pasargadae provides an excellent foundation to pursue sustainable tourism, and local communities are starting to become engaged with heritage Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region 171 and heritage tourism, including education and training. This direction needs to be supported11 if issues of financial sustainability and local engagement are to be adequately addressed, and for the heritage of the region to become the basis for sustainable tourism.

References

Anderson, B.R.O. 1990. Language and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Aref, F. 2011. Barriers to community capacity building for tourism development in communities in Shiraz, Iran. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(3), pp. 347–59. Baker, S. 2006. Sustainable Development, Oxon: Routledge. Baum, T.G. and O’Gorman, K.D. 2010. Iran or Persia: What’s in a name, the decline and fall of a tourism industry, in Tourism and Political Change, edited by R. Butler and W. Sunkitel. Oxford: Goodfellow, pp. 175–86. Butler, R., O’Gorman, K.D. and Prentice, R. 2012. Destination Appraisal for European Cultural Tourism to Iran. International Journal of Tourism Research, 14(4), pp. 323–38. Butler, R.W. 1993. Tourism – An Evolutionary Perspective, in Tourism Alternatives: Potentials and Problems in the Development of Tourism, edited by V.L. Smith and W.R. Eadington. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 31–46. Garrod, B. and Fyall, A. 1998. Beyond the Rhetoric of Sustainable Tourism? Tourism Management, 19(3), pp. 199–212. Graham, B., Ashworth, G.J. and Tunbridge, J.E. 2000. A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture and Economy, London: Arnold. Hall, C.M. 2000. Tourism Planning: Policies, Processes and Relationships, Harlow, UK: Prentice Hall. Ho, P.S.Y. and McKercher, B. 2004. Managing heritage resources as tourism products. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 9, pp. 255–66. International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) 2004. Evaluations of Cultural Properties. World Heritage Convention 28th ordinary session. Suzhou (China): UNESCO. Iran Touring and Tourism Organisation (ITTO) 2001. Master Plan for Tourism in Iran. Tehran: Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. McKercher, B. 1993. The unrecognised threat to tourism: can tourism survive ‘sustainability’? Tourism Management, 22, pp. 131–6.

11 Potentially by further engagement, tourism infrastructure development, and a strong regional communication and marketing plan. 172 World Heritage in Iran

McKercher, B. and du Cros, H. 2002. Cultural Tourism: The Partnership Between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management, New York: Haworth Hospitality Press. Millar, S. 1989. Heritage management for heritage tourism. Tourism Management, 10, pp. 9–14. Moscardo, G. 1996. Mindful visitors – heritage and tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(2), pp. 376–97. Page, S. 2007. Tourism Management: Managing for Change, Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Parse-Pasargadae Research Foundation 2002. Pasargadae Management Plan. Tehran: National Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization. Rabiee, M., 2011. Iran tourism falls short of full potential - part 1. Voice of America [Online], 25 August. URL: http://www.voanews.com/content/iran-tourism-falls -short-of-full-potential-128465708/173165.html [Accessed 7 January 2014]. Sherley, A. 1613. Sir Antony Sherley his Relation of his Travels into Persia: the Dangers, and Distresses, which Befell him in his Passage, Both by Sea and Land, and his Dtrange and Unexpected Deliverances, London: Nicholas Okes for Nathaniell Butter, and Joseph Bagfet. Swarbrooke, J. 2002. The Development and Management of Visitor Attractions, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Timothy, D.J. 2007. Introduction, in Managing heritage and cultural tourism resources, edited by D.J. Timothy. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. xi–xxv. Timothy, D.J. and Boyd, S.W. 2003. Heritage Tourism, Edinburgh: Pearson. Timothy, D.J. and Daher, R.F. 2009. Heritage tourism in Southwest Asia and North Africa, in Cultural Heritage and Tourism in the Developing World: a Regional Perspective, edited by D.J. Timothy and G.P. Nayaupane. New York: Routledge, pp. 146–64. Timothy, D J. and Nayaupane, G.P. 2009. Protecting the past: challenges and opportunities, in Cultural Heritage and Tourism in the Developing World: a Regional Perspective, edited by D.J. Timothy and G.P. Nayaupane. New York: Routledge, pp. 20–41. World Commission on Environment and Development 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zamani-Farahani, H. and Henderson, J.C. 2010. Islamic tourism and managing tourism development in Islamic societies: the cases of Iran and Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Tourism Research, 12(1), pp. 79–89. Chapter 8 The Past in the Present: Using Poetics as an Interpretative Strategy at Pasargadae Jennifer Harris

Introduction

Complex curatorial challenges are posed by Pasargadae. It is a World Heritage site inside a religious state in which a variety of conceptions of heritage are at work; developing sophisticated interpretation at this site is difficult. After considering some problems implicit in the World Heritage framework, this chapter analyses one of the possibilities of a recent turn in Iran towards the cultural landscape idea. Poetics, with its implication of strong visitor engagement, emerges from cultural landscape philosophy as an illuminating interpretative possibility for this perplexing site. Interpretation at Pasargadae could be fruitfully developed around the idea of poetics with a foregrounding of the senses and imagination in an intense awareness of the present. Conservative Iranian heritage perspectives emphasise visitors’ emotions as a way to connect a site to divine contemplation. Cultural landscape philosophy also foregrounds emotion as part of a dynamic process of engagement with a site. This chapter explores the possible role of poetics at Pasargadae.

European Values and the World Heritage System

UNESCO World Heritage values reflect the European origins of the concept of World Heritage. Although World Heritage inscription is intended to have global inspiration and application, European political values and history of thinking about the representation of the past dominate. Despite the best intentions of involving local people and interpreting local meanings, fixed values and certain ways of perceiving a site as a heritage object, are embodied in a World Heritage listing. It is possible, when examined from some non-western cultural points of view, that the function of a World Heritage listing could be understood as providing yet further examples of European cultural and political hegemony, an example of the power of the cultural values of colonisation decades after most imperial acquisitions were formally decolonised. The prodigious dominance of European and other western examples of built heritage on the World Heritage List which disproportionately represents European castles, palaces, battle sites and gardens, 174 World Heritage in Iran reflects the European roots of the convention and its continued administration by Paris-based UNESCO. World Heritage sites are interpreted overwhelmingly as separate monuments, their sharply drawn boundaries demanding that we protect the lofty, isolated status of the treasured site. The boundaries have functioned not only to exclude people, but also to convey a sense of a frozen place in which meanings are fixed. The interactions of both local and non-local visitors with a site have been conceptualised as extrinsic to a site’s curatorial meanings and even a potentially damaging nuisance to be guarded against. World Heritage sites have appeared as if excised from everyday life and time. Good site protection has been theorised as resting on a site’s separate status, but this has had unintended interpretation implications. The separate status has had a flow-on effect in curatorial work resulting in narrow interpretations. Sites appear not only frozen out of everyday life, but as if their histories have stopped at one particular epoch. Such frozen singularity has often served national needs for expressing cohesion, identity and international importance. Problems arise, however, when the cohesion and identity constructed through a site are at odds with wider societal tensions. In addition to the separate monument status implied by World Heritage, the contemporary western value of diversity can pose challenges in developing non- western sites. Throughout the western world, especially in countries which have now adopted policies of multiculturalism or implicitly live by them (such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom), the positive value of diversity is almost unquestioned. Diversity as a positive civic value is taught in schools and celebrated widely. Dissent from this value is often understood to emanate from a disaffected minority with extreme politics. This chapter does not aim to critique the place of diversity in western countries today, but highlights the cultural fact that it is a contemporary western value, neither global nor ahistorical. The central value of diversity in UNESCO’s World Heritage activity, however, is presented as transcendent and virtually devoid of historical context. The dissemination of the positive values of western human rights, expressed implicitly through the celebration of human diversity, seems to be a core implication of World Heritage activity. In an introduction to a book on World Heritage and cultural diversity these values are stated strongly by Albert (2010, p. 17) who holds the UNESCO Chair in Heritage Studies.

The common substance of all contributions, either directly or indirectly, refers back to the fundamental ideas of the United Nations and of UNESCO. For the achievement of these objectives, the UN Millennium Declaration, one of its most important and forward looking documents, has served as a conceptual orientation. The Millennium Declaration explicitly reverts to the founding ideas of the UN and transports these objectives by promoting the diversity of world cultures into the twenty-first century. The Past in the Present 175

Albert (2010, p. 19) emphasises the dynamic quality of cultural diversity, despite the strictures of

closed systems. Even when autocratic systems have tried to isolate cultures from the outside world, these cultures would inwardly develop in different ways, progressing and creating new material and immaterial expressions.

When diversity is promoted as a core value of World Heritage, heritage practitioners need to be very conscious of the fact that it might not be a positive value everywhere. It seems evident that the very concept of World Heritage must encompass the value of diversity. After all, the world is a diverse place and if a nation applies for one of its sites to have World Heritage listing it seems a logical inference that it supports diversity. There is, however, a sharp distinction to be made between celebrating diversity on an international scale, and promoting it as an internal national value. Not all countries and people wish to prioritise celebration of internal cultural diversity. For some people, to do so could undermine the idealised values of harmony and cultural unity which, for many, still underpin national unity. Such countries need to negotiate their own internal national values when interpreting their World Heritage sites. The problematic case of Pasargadae is considered in this chapter. The Iranian state needs to negotiate the care and interpretation of Pasargadae in the context of World Heritage expectations and state parties’ obligations. In addition, Islamic Iranian national and religious values need to be protected, or at least not challenged within the fluid framework of evolving Iranian attitudes to heritage. Pasargadae was listed as a World Heritage site as recently as 2004. Since that time, however, Iranian thinking about approaches to heritage sites has shifted more strongly towards the concept of the cultural landscape. The fixed monument approach to interpretation and management, so often seen at World Heritage sites, clashes with cultural landscape ideals of cultural heritage process rather than cultural heritage product (Taylor and Lennon, 2012, p. 2). Cultural landscape concepts include the embrace of local involvement and the rejection of the separate status of the site. Philosophies underpinning the emergence of cultural landscape emphasise the fundamental role of landscape in the creation of identity (Taylor and Lennon 2012, p. 5; O’Keeffe 2007, p. 3) and ideology (Taylor and Lennon 2012, p. 5; Taylor, 2012, p. 27; Agnew 2011, p. 37 and Arneson 2011, p. 373). The dynamic quality of cultural landscapes is emphasised in stark contrast to the lifeless quality of the monumental concept of heritage. The significance of these developments in Iranian thinking can be grasped when they are compared to the philosophic importance once enjoyed by the Iranian heritage commentator, Hodjat (1995), who enunciated the importance of heritage as residing in its ideal potential to lead visitors to contemplate the Divine. The unexpected cultural landscape connection to Hodjat’s principles is considered later in this chapter. The European ideals of World Heritage are very clear when examining the criteria for the 2004 inscription of the ruins of Pasargadae. The site was judged 176 World Heritage in Iran to have World Heritage status because of its evidence of ‘human creative genius; interchange of values; testimony to cultural tradition and significance in human history’ (UNESCO 2009, p. 714). These criteria are the same ones that are used to describe many other places on the World Heritage List although an implication of World Heritage Listing is that a place is unique. Criteria in a bureaucratic and forensic context need to be repeatable and testable, stalwart labels for site evaluation which facilitate dealing with hundreds of sites in a huge variety of political and social contexts. The UNESCO guide colours in the criteria with its brief history notes describing Pasargadae as the first dynastic capital of the Achaemenid Empire that was founded by Cyrus the Great. It has ‘outstanding examples of the first phase of royal Achaemenid art and architecture’ and ‘spanning the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt to the Indus River, it is considered to be the first empire that respected the cultural diversity of its different peoples’ (UNESCO 2009, p. 714). Cultural diversity is not only respected, but indeed celebrated in many western countries at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It may be alien, however, to the guiding political and spiritual principles of the Iranian government although some significant government factions support broad diversity. This situation highlights some of the problems implicit in both the World Heritage List and, of particular interest for this chapter, interpretation of places on that list. In grappling with the interpretation problems posed by Pasargadae, this chapter builds on the history and description of the site that have been covered by Ali Sami (1971) and many others. I argue that western styles of interpretation, often resulting in subtle provocation at heritage sites, can co-exist respectfully with some apparently contrasting Iranian heritage principles emerging from a teleological approach to history and the privileging of a dominant historical narrative. This chapter now considers some limitations in entrenched western interpretation. It then looks at cultural landscape interpretation and poetics and concludes with consideration of some key problematics implicit in the poetics approach.

Possible Interpretations of the Site

If Pasargadae site curators were guided by the UNESCO World Heritage criteria it is highly likely that their interpretations would give offence to some Iranians, and this could prevent their interpretations being installed. In this book, Mozaffari describes the complicated political and religious contexts and the consequent intractable interpretation problems posed by this site. The two most obvious interpretative approaches that present themselves to a western curator could be unworkable. The first most likely approach, consistent with many western sites, would be the construction of a linear chronology of the ruins describing the various periods in which the site has been used, its historic and mythic associations with great people such as Cyrus and the Mother of Solomon (albeit imaginary) and its political rise and The Past in the Present 177 fall from greatness. This classical chronology would also cover the site’s use as an Islamic site of worship, evident in the remains of the mosque which were removed in the twentieth century by archaeologists aiming to return the excavated site to one dominant, glorious historical period, that of the Achaemenids – a destructive action consistent with the frozen monument approach to heritage (Figure 8.1). Examination of different interpretative approaches that have been foregrounded at Pasargadae reveals changing values that have been ascribed to the site. In the twentieth century, the elevation of the Achaemenid period to the most important period for interpretation undermined the site’s diachronic values and the future idea of diversity for which this period is now praised by UNESCO (2009). In this volume, Baldissone describes the problems associated with the ‘privileged moment’ foregrounded by archaeology and the desire to have a single dominant ‘thread’ determine the interpreted history, as opposed to ‘overlapping fibres’ of rich and contradictory histories. If using chronology as the basis for interpretation, it is crucial to note that many pasts, and not only the Islamic past, would be encompassed. The chronology would certainly not be used teleologically, an implicit demand made by some very conservative religious factions in Iranian Islamic cultural politics. The custodian of the site, the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation, suggests a chronological approach (Mozaffari 2012), but it would be likely to offend some Iranians.

Figure 8.1 Excavation of Pasargadae (Iran): mausoleum of Cyrus the Great, from the south, remains of the old mosque were apparent at the time (1905)

Source: The Ernst Herzfeld papers. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 178 World Heritage in Iran

The second likely approach at Pasargadae would be an insistence on curatorial dialogism which would lead to this site being framed by ideals of pluralism and visitor provocation. This approach would insist on the Islamic pasts and indeed the pre-Islamic pasts being interrogated, perhaps abrasively, with politically unpalatable links possibly made to some authorised heritage directions in contemporary Iran. UNESCO’s (2009) observation that Pasargadae is associated with early respect for cultural diversity, noted above, would be the launch for a dialogic approach. Although both of these approaches are entrenched in western heritage practice, they could be difficult to sustain at this site in Iran today. As discussed by Mozaffari (2010, pp. 35-6) in relation to the doctoral thesis of Hodjat (1995), ‘heritage was seen as a western discourse alien to people’s Islamic identity’. He describes Hodjat’s attacks on western heritage: it ‘conveys materialistic values and messages rather than spiritual values to which the traditional Islamic society subscribe[s]’ (2010, p. 36). By contrast, from this perspective, an Islamic use of heritage concerns ‘a hidden truth about immutable Divine traditions … it has an educational-spiritual function perceived primarily through the emotions’ (2010, pp. 55–7). The possible inadmissibility, in the Iranian Islamic context, of the two approaches outlined above demands a reconsideration of ways to approach the site that would incorporate ideals of various groups of Iranians, including those focussed on the divine and the foregrounding of emotions. Ironically, making sensory perceptions and emotions the foci of interpretation suggests an unexpected and productive link between conservative religious perspectives and the cultural landscape approach to heritage sites.

Cultural Landscape Interpretation

The move away from rigid monumentalism and towards cultural landscapes is of special interest in this chapter because of growing professional heritage emphasis on the dynamic, interactive qualities of a site. Whereas previous protective measures at World Heritage sites started with a tight boundary that excluded on-going everyday life, the more complex cultural landscape approach proposes a looser boundary that permits links between a site and wider life; its boundary is permeable and site curators are open to the implications that emerge. Overwhelmingly, past, and many present, visitor landscape experiences have been framed by the visual – ‘most scholars continue to privilege vision over other senses’ observes O’Keeffe (2007, p. 6). Focus on the visual has assisted in maintaining the fixed monumental focus in heritage production in not just views, but in the accumulation of facts that are guaranteed ‘true’ by vision. O’Keeffe (2007, p. 6) links the visual emphasis to the factual, producing a ‘visual-factual’ orientation that is based on an apparently commonsensical link between what is seen and the facts that privileged vision can comprehend. The Past in the Present 179

The study of landscape and memory often devolves, therefore, into a study of tangible visual aides de mémoire within landscapes. This is certainly the case with respect to western capitalist societies where its origin can be traced back to the Renaissance ‘theatre of memory’ and further back into classical times.

Most visitors bring cameras to site visits, thus highlighting the role of the visual. Bunkše (2011, p. 33) describes the limited perception of many tourists in a heritage site: ‘most go in search of visible, known landscapes that can be recorded and taken home as souvenirs’. There is great irony in the tourist industry – travelling with the stated aim of discovery, but effectively seeing only what one expects to see. Bunkše (2011, p. 33) quotes Spirn (1998): ‘Culture can prevent eyes from seeing and ears from hearing’. The visual sense in western landscape use, therefore, has often functioned in a limited, framing way. Cusack (2010, p. 12), however, drawing on Appadurai (1990), pushes apprehension beyond the visual and crucially elaborates the concept of perspective in understanding a person’s relationship to what is viewed.

Appadurai employs the suffix ‘scape’ to denote a ‘perspectival construct’ which implies a reading of something that is inflected by the viewer’s historical and political situation … [what] is viewed and the meanings attributed to it will depend upon how it is regarded by specific cultural and political groups at certain historical junctures.

Curatorial insistence on perspective, therefore, opens up a site to both diachronic analysis and the views and individual meanings of widely varying groups of people. Using the concept of ‘perspective’ to understand individual people’s relationships to landscape leads analysis away from the rigidity of early World Heritage interpretation. Perspectives, necessarily, come from inside and outside the site. Visitors, therefore, bring world views with them and, in a cultural landscape approach, use their internal lives and the world beyond the boundary in making sense of what is inside. The effect of this curatorial shift leads to interrogation of the ‘product’ nature of the static monument. The interpretative limitations of ‘heritage as product’ are readily apparent, especially in terms of the priority it grants to a fixed aesthetic appreciation of the site often separated from a complex social history and lived experience. In its place, the idea of ‘process’ has emerged as a way to grasp landscape (Taylor and Lennon 2012, p. 2). Almost 30 years ago Cosgrove (1984, p. xiv) insisted on the active nature of landscape: ‘landscape constitutes a discourse through which social groups historically have framed themselves and their relations with the land and other groups’. O’Keeffe (2007, p. 8) describes the radical change in landscape understanding:

An importation into landscape research of culturalism’s insistence that social formations (such as identity) and social institutions (such as ‘the market’) are fluid and contingent, rather than primordial, cross-cultural and transhistoricial. 180 World Heritage in Iran

Landscape is theorised as fundamental in the creation of identity (Taylor and Lennon 2012, p. 5; O’Keeffe 2007, p. 3). Taylor (2012, p. 22), quoting Mitchell (1994), suggests ‘we need to change “landscape” from a noun to a verb … [so] that we think of landscape not as object to be seen or a text to be read, but as a process by which identities are formed’. One approach to the connection between identity and landscape takes identity as formed by self-reflection in the landscape and in necessary, practical life responses and adaptations to that landscape. Taylor notes, however, that such fundamental descriptions, drawn from simple coping with the landscape, have been dismissed as ‘naïve’ by some writers, such as Duncan and Duncan (1988) who push landscape analysis beyond adaptation, to a new semiotic level: ‘text’. ‘They argue cogently that landscapes can be seen as transformations of social and political ideologies. They base their claim on insights from literary theory applied to the analysis of landscapes and reading them as texts’ (2012, p. 27). Similarly, ideologies cluster around landscape (Taylor and Lennon 2012, p. 5, Taylor 2012, p. 27, Agnew 2011, p. 37, Arneson 2011, p. 373), notably in painting (Cusack 2010) and can become powerful signifiers of nation.

[Landscapes are] … general and publicly accessible and shareable aides- mémoire of a culture’s knowledge and understanding of its past and future. In this sense landscape enters politics … [landscapes] … may serve as an important focus for political organization around the issue of territory … and this has been witnessed many times in the course of history. (Arneson, 2011, p. 373)

It is clear when considering the arbitrary link between landscape and ideology that landscape is not the sum of visually verifiable ‘objective’ data, but emerges from perception. Castiglioni, Rossetto and de Nardi (2011, p. 67) argue that ‘values, meetings and the whole realm of the immaterial are therefore the central parts of the relationship which binds the population itself to the territory’. A heritage site, therefore, cannot be pinned down and fixed. The fixed, monumentalised past can be seductive with its comfortingly repetitious images sought out by tourists, and ‘facts’ which are supported by the act of looking, but the era of ‘landscape as monument’ appears to be over in professional heritage interpretation. For this chapter, the role of the person in the landscape is very important. ‘The conjunction of the word “cultural” with landscape also infers an inhabited, active being’ says Taylor (2012, p. 23). This active person is an entire feeling human with ‘proprioception’ (Bunkše 2011, p. 28), that is, having the ability of the whole body to be, in a sense, a reaction to the world. This necessarily means that there is vision, hearing, touch, smell, memory and so on involved in a visit to a site and that the visit is insistently affective (Taylor 2012, p. 27). The wonders of sensory perception are usually sublimated to the cerebral in heritage interpretation. Affective responses make little sense in a monumentalised, rigid, heritage production because they are active, responding to the surrounding world and interacting with the site. Nevertheless, the visitor necessarily has affective responses, which The Past in the Present 181 together constitute what Bunkše calls ‘little narratives’ of landscapes places. ‘The experiences are personal, subjective, deep, they are private micro-narratives’ (2011, p. 28). Likewise, Castiglioni, Rossetto and de Nardi (2011, p. 77) describe the power of landscape in ‘eliciting and comparing different feelings, emotions’. As Iran turns towards the cultural landscape approach in understanding and interpreting its heritage sites, a rich opportunity exists to encourage visitors’ personal emotional responses, particularly in terms of poetics. Western interpretation has usually ignored personal responses. Social science analysis, with its habitual segmentations of a population into various groups, has been very powerful in determining the curatorial reception of visitors at heritage sites. Visitor studies have followed the social science pattern. It is time to move beyond the segmentation of visitors into broad groups and to consider the wealth of individual experiences that a site might elicit. This chapter argues, therefore, that focussing on the poetics of the Pasargadae ruins would enable a form of interpretation that would be rich for any visitor, including those from the west imbued with western ideas of interpretation, while insisting also on respect for official Iranian Islamic ideals of different factions. Although a variety of approaches to heritage exist in Iran, the interest of this chapter is in responding to the reality of the difficulties of implementing interpretation within an official framework while maintaining sufficient openness to enable a valuable visitor experience. Local villagers who live only 400 metres from the tomb of Cyrus, and the few remaining nomads who move around the site boundary (Figures 8.2), might be interested in being involved in site protection and interpretation based on poetics, in contrast to their almost certain alienation if the interpretation were drawn from knowledge foreign to them, that is, an exclusive scholarly historian’s approach. The poetics of the site embrace the same natural phenomena that surround these local stakeholders: wind, light, shadows, the seasons; these are aspects of a site that are experienced as intense sensory qualities of place and might be rich elements with which to encourage local engagement (Figure 8.3). Pradhananga and Landorf (2008, p. 1) outline the immense difficulties of involving local stakeholders in effective engagement at World Heritage sites:

Research shows that even if local community involvement does take place, various issues such as the level of participation of the community in the decision making process, the capacity of local stakeholders to actively engage and make contributions, power imbalance of stakeholders plus the problems faced in developing countries related to the specific environment such as the political and socio-economic context has caused attempts of local community involvement at heritage sites to be ineffective.

Through interpretation based on poetics, traditional local stakeholders at Pasargadae could possibly be more fully included in the site as potentially powerful stakeholders. Poetics would enable the site to be embraced in the utmost present and encourage perception through emotion and the body. 182 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 8.2 A nomadic tent in the Pasargadae region

Source: Courtesy of the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Organisation

Poetics are not offered as a way to pacify the site, that is, to avoid the political problems raised by a direct historic approach. To the contrary, becoming alive to poetics should energise a site; poetics of place encompasses all of the ways that a site is inhabited, moved through, experienced. It embraces all the elements of a site, both historic and imaginative, and magnifies the spatiality of the past in a place. It can be linked to site aesthetics, but goes beyond aesthetics to embrace the lived quality of the everyday. In contrast to the qualities of immediacy and visitor-centredness that can be achieved by foregrounding site poetics, the poetics of many historic sites are often reduced to a theatrical backdrop on which curator- centred interpretation rests. Such curation refers to a lost past, usually disconnected from the present in all but lessons to be learnt, for example, the laudable respect for cultural diversity shown by the UNESCO inscription for the Achaemenids. This style of curation also implies that the spectator is disconnected from the site. Despite the widespread curatorial appreciation of Tilden’s (1957) interpretation principles that demand the centring of the visitor at a heritage site, it is still rare to find a site interpreted around the idea of an active, inquiring visitor who brings knowledge and world experience. The Past in the Present 183

Figure 8.3 Ruins of Palace P

An interpretation based on poetics enables a very different perception of the site. It brings the past and the present together insisting that visitors participate by actually inhabiting the site during their visit. Such interpretation depends on the visitor experience of the site and necessary day-by-day changes. Poetics brings together nature and culture, these being the two concepts that are crucially linked by the cultural landscape approach (Plachter and Rőssler 1995). Poetics makes powerful links between past and present; as visitors move around the site they inscribe and re-inscribe place, highlighting daily the importance that Pasargadae has for Iran and World Heritage. Sensory aspects of a site have been long neglected in western interpretation in favour of chronology, individual narratives, nationalism/localism and teleology. Although such well known approaches can certainly have an emotional element, they do not foreground the bodily awareness of, and emotional participation in, poetics.

Malleable Pasts

The long fascination by the western world with ruins contains a history of changing ways of looking at the past which indicates the potential malleability of historic places in heritage practice and the practical possibilities of instituting poetics at 184 World Heritage in Iran sites as a way to centre the visitor and enhance appreciation of the precise qualities of a particular place. In seventeenth-century Europe, ruins were appreciated for their reassuring aesthetic qualities leading to considerable poetic, imaginative play with specific places in art (Thomas 2008, p. 654). Ruins were regarded as melancholy places that showed how civilisation had improved (Ginsberg 2004, Thomas 2008, p. 67). Hetzler (1982, p. 105) extends this Romantic view in the twentieth century to define a new aesthetics.

We do not have here only natural beauty or only artistic beauty, but we have a third kind of beauty: a ruin beauty, which is a new category of being … In a ruin, so-called natural beauty intersects with human-made beauty in a unique manner … Together they yield a new kind of beauty, a new immateriality that is neither human nor natural but both [emphasis in original].

By contrast, the nineteenth century, reeling from the shock of the French Revolution and its immense destructive force, took an historical stance towards ruins (Thomas 2008, pp. 65–7), seeing in them a witness to destruction wrought by humans. They were, therefore, places that showed the collapse of the continuity of time, a break in human experience. ‘People experienced an at times apocalyptic sense of things overturned, and of the present as utterly cut off from the past’ (Thomas 2008, p. 63). Such a perception of the past is very much at odds with the contemporary curatorial ideal, if not the reality, of showing the relationship between past and present. Further to the violent change wrought through revolutionary events and the Napoleonic Wars, was bureaucratic change. Bann (1989, p. 104) argues that the establishment of the Public Record Office in London in 1837 was a decisive moment in determining ways that were officially acceptable in understanding the past. Until that time, artistic methods had been one of the many possible. After 1837, the steady bureaucratisation of ways of accessing ‘truth’ statements about history severely limited ways of knowing the past. The archivally verifiable mode, especially as embodied in paper documents, has become the preferred official mode. As documentary evidence attained huge testamentary power through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so painting, music, songs, theatre and literature were correspondingly downgraded and disempowered. This is evident today in the rapid expansion of controlling powers of various styles of heritage agencies and their apparent will to produce sameness at sites of great difference. Bunkše says that his highly personalised, poetic, ‘little narratives’ are in

sharp contrast to the meta-narratives that the poet Ginsburg calls mindless, mechanical instructions that come from the industrial Moloch of which the mass media is a part. Indeed tourism and ‘acts of modernization’ may threaten the authenticity of local narratives. The Past in the Present 185

The proliferation of the concept of themes as a bureaucratic management strategy has resulted in some heritage agencies processing sites by listing them according to themes thus limiting understanding of their individual differences. Themes are linked to tourism and branding. The themes-tourism-branding triumvirate operates fatally against the ideal of the singularity of site poetics. Many sites are subsumed into regions which are branded with particular looks and historic emphases producing historic places as little more than part of a wider regional experience. This is one of the reasons why there has been so little work done on the poetics of heritage places; heritage homogenisation is a looming danger. To develop poetics and singularity of site would be to undermine a vast heritage and tourism bureaucracy which is working in the opposite direction and steadily eroding the unique qualities of heritage sites. The grouping of sites according to theme tends to have a flow-on effect in producing repetitious interpretation at a variety of sites, hence complaints about the similarities of sites, notably of heritage houses and ruins. As imaginative play with the past and the visitor’s body have been steadily removed from the experience of western heritage places, it has been easy to take for granted the hegemony of a limited historic focus as an appropriate way to interpret the past. The authority of the interpretation at one site seems to underpin the authority of the same type of interpretation at another site; repetition is taken for granted. A familiar interpretative focus on history usually demands emotional detachment from the visitor. Other than a modicum of empathising with past experiences of people who might have occupied a site, most interpretation assumes that the visitor is aloof, both emotionally and in terms of time. Although many curators have tried to provoke visitors to question interpretations of the past, they have done little to reduce the barrier implied by the ‘pastness’ of the past, that is, the sensory qualities of the place seem to be sealed-off from the present, frozen as a material archive. Approaching the poetics of Pasargadae, however, one has a wide choice of elements that can prompt the visitor to ask questions about the past while insisting that the interpretation does not represent a sealed- off past; the ethos of the cultural landscape approach is about insisting on highly specific experiences.

The Poetics of Pasargadae

Poetics move beyond representation to insistence on the immediacy of lived experience. Interpretation inspired by poetics would enable Pasargadae to be ‘alive’ today rather than a place that is reduced by interpretation to bearing only traces of former events. The present qualities – the ‘nowness’ of the site, plus the auratic quality of the original fabric – would be foregrounded. Experiences perceived through the body could be consistent with various types of Iranian official site appreciation. 186 World Heritage in Iran

Consider the poetics of Pasargadae: the feel and sound of the wind in different seasons and different times of the day; the light falling onto ancient stones (Figure 8.4); reflections; poppies in spring time blooming in the cracks of the sun-warmed blocks; the deep blue-green of the parched, barren hills which frame the ruins (Figure 8.5); the delicacy of the bas-relief of Cyrus the Great carved as a four winged guardian in comparison to the monolithic quality of the heavy construction stones; the angle of the legs of the carved figure and the hoofed animal which follows him; the deep vertical repeated shadows thrown by the pillars of the palace ruins onto the creamy platform and their profile against the deep blue sky (Figure 8.6); the solidity of the Mausoleum of Cyrus and its relatively small size in comparison to the surrounding grandeur; the contrast between the Mausoleum and the broken, barely supported ruins of the Zendan-i Solaiman (Solomon’s Prison, believed to be the tomb of King Cambyses) and the pathways made by the few nomads who still live around the site (Figure 8.7). Of crucial importance in poetics at Pasargadae would be all the dynamic processes of the site: smells, fretting stone, dry and damp, which alert us to the life in the ruin and the active force of a ruin as it contains death and life simultaneously. Ginsberg describes life in a ruin:

Vegetation has entered here and there, the blame falling on the fallen roof, but the floor has been transformed into earth … Though the artefact has been destroyed, the ruin is free to be creative in its own terms. (Ginsburg 2004, p. 56)

Figure 8.4 Detail of the stone fortification of Tall-i Takht

Figure 8.5 The tomb within the mountainous backdrop

Figure 8.6 View of the Tall-i Takht from the main road on site

Poetics move far beyond the visual, acutely so when ruins are the object of sensory experience, but multiple ways of knowing the past have been habitually and dramatically disallowed because of the exclusive power of the archived document and material historical evidence. Hetzler (1982, p. 106) discusses the senses at ruins:

The senses are deeply involved with the experience of ruins. Touch has been called the sense of certitude. In a ruin, touch is a marvelous combination of the human and the natural. In touch one meets the resistant body, an alien. There may be the sensuousness of the smoothness of stone, marble or wood … Man’s perceptions of ruins, like the ruins themselves, are part of the dynamic cosmic process that is somehow united by time [emphasis in original].

The difficulty of aesthetic perception of nature is discussed by Fenner (2006) who argues that it is the quality of flux and dynamic openness that have made aesthetic judgement difficult. ‘These reasons may even incorporate the view that evaluation is impossible when the object in question is constantly moving. The difficulty with such a posture, however, is that it relegates environmental aesthetics to an exclusively academic role’ (Fenner 2006, p. 10). Drawing on Carlson (1993), Fenner (2006, pp. 10–11) describes the way in which a typical art object is ‘distinct from the appreciator’. By contrast, ‘the object of nature appreciation is all around the appreciator, encompassing her, forming a living and dynamic context for her appreciation … a sensory envelope’. This is vital. Grasping that the visitor or appreciator is at the centre of the site, and its meanings and sensory possibilities, is fundamental to understanding why an interpretation based on poetics can push a site to a new level of heritage interpretative sophistication. Earlier in this chapter I noted the way that curator-centred interpretation results in a dominant curator and a detached visitor. Interpretation based on poetics, however, centres the visitor, leading to a dynamic visitor experience and connecting the site to the present. In addition to the natural aspects of Pasargadae, consider also the power of imagination: visitors can be asked to recreate in their minds the idea of the primal Pasargadae symmetrical garden, the world’s first-known walled garden, with its walls that invite you to push away the rest of the world and turn in towards a living space. By contrast, visitors could also be asked to imagine the might of Cyrus’ army in this place. These two historic elements of the site could thus be treated in terms of poetics and contrast rather than in terms of a more problematic chronology or even cultural achievement in the current Iranian context. Further, visitors could be asked to imagine the violent removal of the traces of the mosque that had surrounded Cyrus’ Mausoleum, then known as the Mausoleum of the Mother of Solomon by Italian archaeologists who wished to return the site to a simple synchrony, to the time of the glory of the Achaemenids. The removal of the mosque in order to have the site reduced to one time only is akin to the bureaucratic will to control sites via the strategy of themes. The Past in the Present 189

Figure 8.7 General view of the ruins of the Zendan-i Solaiman, the Palaces and Tall-i Takht in the far background

Hetzler (1982, p. 108) defined ruins as a ‘disjunctive product of the intrusion of nature without loss of the unity that man produced’, thereby highlighting the imperative for heritage interpretation to move beyond limited historical engagement. For Ginsburg (2004, p. 1), ruins contain even more than this unique combination. He describes them as active and creating an intense relationship with a visitor that results in ‘something substantial’ happening to the visitor. Interpretation based on poetics at Pasargadae taps into this strong force. The growing attention paid to affect in curatorial work is necessarily producing a more centred heritage visitor and helps to explain further the curatorial achievement of a poetics based on interpretation. Affect is bodily intensity, the kind of intensity that we experience before we intellectually grasp the meanings of the body’s response to an environment – rippling bodily pressures that we later interpret as joy, fear, shame and so on (Tomkins and Izard 1964). Much of the work on affect is derived from the initial theorising of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) and their work on the concept of the human becoming-animal. They argue that previous thinkers have understood the idea of the animal part of the human as representative of drives, but ‘they do not see the reality of it becoming-animal, that it is affect in itself, the drive in person, and represents nothing’ (1987, p. 259). Bodily responses to an historic environment in a pre-intellectual way can open up dramatic spaces of individual engagement that are outside curatorial control. Such bodily responses foreground the ‘nowness’ of being at a site and the haecceity or 190 World Heritage in Iran

‘thisness’ of the ‘you’ who is there. Deleuze and Guattari turn to poetry to describe haecceity: ‘you are longitude and latitude … a climate, a wind, a fog, a swarm … a cloud of locusts carried in by the wind … a werewolf at full moon’ (1987, p. 262). Affective interpretation makes possible an empowering position for a visitor who becomes a central element of the site (Harris 2012b). Massumi insists on the exhilarating sense of being alive that a rush of affect gives to the body. It is beyond words, one feels ‘one’s own vitality, one’s sense of aliveness, of changeability’ (2002, p. 36). The visitor engages with the site in the here and now and is far removed from what is so often stale, limited, repetitious curatorial interpretation.

Key Issues for Poetics and Heritage Sites

Two fundamental issues arise from the prioritisation of poetics: first, the status of poetics in terms of representation and secondly, the place of history. Are heritage poetics to be considered a form of representation at a site? Intellectually, where might poetics lead the visitor? What happens to history? After all, history is the usual focus at a heritage site. In thinking through answers to these questions one discovers that poetics can assist in dealing with the usual problems posed by history. History is necessarily selective, in choosing what is to be known at a site there is also, of course, a fundamental process of erasure. Related to erasure is the often dominant status of the curator who chooses to erase or not. Related also is the textually subservient position of the visitor who may not detect the erasures and the conceptually slippery gaps. The familiar, powerful curatorial role, fundamentally although unwittingly, relies on the perpetuation of visitor ignorance because interpretation is so often detached from the visitor. This is so despite contemporary heritage ideals of dialogism (Harris 2011). Bate’s work on poetry and biodiversity is useful in thinking through heritage site poetics. He draws on Heidegger who suggests that poetry is not a form of representation or of mapping, but of ‘presencing’, that is, it causes one to be in the present, a clear outcome of affective experience. Bate (1998, p. 55) describes Heidegger’s notion of ‘dwelling’ in the natural environment, and its significance:

that authentic form of Being which he set against what he took to be the false ontologies of Cartesian dualism and subjective idealism. We achieve Being not when we represent the world … but when we stand in a site, open to its Being, when we are thrown or called; the site is then gathered into a whole for which we take on an insistent care.

This deep ecology style of relating, or being in a place, opens up immense possibilities for heritage interpretations for all sites, not just those that are tense in contemporary political terms such as Pasargadae. Derrida identifies the vulnerable quality of the ‘poematic’ (Clark 2005, p. 141). ‘Thus the dream of learning by heart arises in you. Of letting your heart The Past in the Present 191 be traversed by the dictated dictation. In a single trait – and that’s the impossible, that’s the poematic experience’ (Derrida 1991, p. 231, quoted in Clark 2005, p. 141). The visitor’s body, therefore, is heavily engaged necessarily in a primarily affective way at a site that foregrounds poetics. McCorkle describes the force of this engagement: ‘the necessity of a poetics of identity: to examine one’s condition, one’s difference; to name and offer a voice to those names or one’s own name; all this is not only a marking of histories but also a re-examination of history and a re-visioning of the self’ (McCorkle 1992, p. 187). Firuz (2007) offers a moving approach to tackling the relationship between poetry and history. The writer insists on making present the problems of erasure and the need to create an active reader of history by playing with the history of Turkey in World War One. It is necessary to emphasise that Firuz brings the problems into being through a poetic approach by making present the jumble of facts rather than reflecting dispassionately on existing documents. Firuz creates an assemblage of fragments, facts, key dates and received wisdom leading to ‘things that are lost between definitions’ (Firuz 2007, p. 219). The writer tries to express the massive complexity of the birth of modern Turkey in the context of the European war and the rupture of the Armenian genocide.

Because history, I think should move us. The stuff about poetry is a longstanding thing. Historians are plagued by arrogance. Like poets. Maybe it’s only me. But I think there exists a certain legitimacy which surrounds history and historians, and it needs to be questioned. What if a historian’s truth were no more than a poet’s truth? Now wouldn’t that be interesting? (2007, p. 223)

By asking the reader to consider the strange power accrued to contemporary historical writing, Firuz reveals the fragile base of its legitimacy and offers poetic power in its place. McCorkle grapples with the same problems: ‘Had history been different, had it been less certain, had it been reversed … absence would be overturned. History, in a tragic sense, is the making of absences. If that is the violence of history, then the force of poetry would be the making of presence’ (1992, pp. 178–9). Drawing on the work of Jerome Rothenberg, McCorkle concludes, ‘poetry offers, perhaps, the only access for us to hear the voices of the dead. In this autonomous space of dialogues are offered accounts of what has transpired … [It is] the poem’s ability to create the space in which we become haunted by others’ (1992, p. 187). In being haunted by others, we transcend the detached historian’s view of the past. Poetics, therefore, enables us to be present at a site. The apparent binary – history as absence or erasure, poetry as presence – is key to the presentation of Pasargadae as a cultural landscape of poetics. Concurrently, attempts must be made to break a rigid binary. Poetics is not about representation. It is a stand- alone life experience that demands visitor engagement. Imagine how the poppies 192 World Heritage in Iran at Pasargadae quiver in the warm stony cracks of the great site in a different way each spring day; the clouds, hour by hour, making unique patterns as they pass over the dramatic verticals of the pillars on the great terrace of Palace P (Figure 8.3). There is great force in the immediacy of the poetic engagement, Ginsberg’s (2004, p. 1) ‘something substantial’ happens. Clark (2005, p. 9) tries to pin down the poetic experience:

To read a text solely as itself and on its own terms, in its singularity: no idea might seem simpler – not to make the text an example of some social or cultural point, nor a facet of some theory of poetics, but merely to affirm it in itself and as it is. The point is not to interpret the singularity of the text but to move towards a point, never finally attainable, at which the text is being understood only on its own singular terms.

There could be a creative and productive blurring of poetics, history and politics at heritage sites which would transcend binaries. Several writers tackle aspects of another binary: poetics/aesthetics and politics. Eagleton (1988), for example, demonstrates that the political is embedded in aesthetics; Hutcheon (1988, p. 106) describes the porosity of fiction and history; Kumar (1999, pp. 6–7) highlights the ‘barrenness of the binary opposition between poetics and politics’; while McCann argues that the debate about politicising or depoliticising art is a displaced debate that is really about the necessity of ethical character. The arguments he says ‘are concerned less with realizable ends than with the kinds of people we are, and their underlying demand is that we be the kind of people who care about ends that seem both enormously significant and, at bottom, all but unrealizable’ (1999, p. 44). Rethinking Pasargadae in terms of poetics has the power to focus the presence of the site and to push the many significances of the site right onto the visitor’s body.

Conclusion

A possible first perception that a turn to poetics is a way of muffling the problems of history or soothing curatorial tensions is very wrong. Foregrounding heritage site poetics is not concerned with calming down the tensions at a site. By stark contrast, it is concerned with moving the naming of historical and political problems away from the curatorial role. Most interpretation relies on the curator alerting the visitor to the chief problematics of the site. Through poetics, the naming of those problematics is placed back on the visitor. The visitor, therefore, names the tensions of the site for her or himself. Interpretation based on Pasargadae as a cultural landscape and prioritising poetics could demand a visitor’s implicit engagement with the historical and political difficulties of a site while at the same time respecting Iranian official sensibilities. It could pull past and present together. If heritage interpretation could achieve a visitor experience which insisted on the singular poetics of a site, then the problems of hackneyed interpretation of ruins, The Past in the Present 193 the dull repetition of the World Heritage criteria and anachronistic and Euro- centred admiration for respect for cultural diversities could be greatly reduced. Note: This paper was developed from an earlier, shorter paper (Harris 2012a).

References

Agnew, J. 2011. Landscape and national identity in Europe: England versus Italy in the role of landscape in identity formation, in Landscapes, Identities and Development, edited by Z. Roca, P. Claval and J. Agnew. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 37–50. Albert, M.-T. 2010. World Heritage and cultural diversity: what do they have in common? in World Heritage and Cultural Diversity, edited by D. Offenhäusser et al. German Commission for UNESCO, pp. 17–22. Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy, in Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, edited by M. Featherstone. London: Sage, 295–310. Arneson, T. 2011. ‘Landscape’ as a sign: semiotics and methodological issues in Landscape Studies, in Landscapes, Identities and Development, edited by Z. Roca, P. Claval and J. Agnew. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 363–76. Bann, S. 1989. The sense of the past: image, text and object in the formation of historical consciousness in nineteenth century Britain, in The New Historicism, edited by H. Vesser. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 102–15. Bate, J. 1998. Poetry and biodiversity, in Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature, edited by R. Kerridge and N. Sammells. London and New York: Zed Books Ltd, pp. 53–70. Bunkše, E. 2011. The impassable, ethereal, and evanescent as values of local, national, and European identities, in Landscapes, Identities and Development, edited by Z. Roca, P. Claval and J. Agnew. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 25–36. Carlson, A. 1993. Appreciating art and appreciating nature, in Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts, edited by S. Kemal and I. Gaskell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 199–227. Castiglioni, B., Rossetto, T. and de Nardi, A. 2011. Young immigrants and landscape: cultural mediation and territorial creativity, in Landscapes, Identities and Development, edited by Z. Roca, P. Claval and J. Agnew. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 67–80. Clark, T. 2005. The Poetics of Singularity: The Counter-Culturalist Turn in Heidegger, Derrida, Blanchot and the Later Gadamer, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Cosgrove, D. 1984. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 194 World Heritage in Iran

Cusack, T. 2010. Riverscapes and National Identities, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, J. 1991. Che cos’é la poesia?, in A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds, edited by Peggy Kamuf. London and New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Duncan, J. and Duncan, N. 1988. (Re)reading the landscape. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 6, pp. 117–26. Eagleton, T. 1988. The ideology of the aesthetic. Poetics Today, 9(2), pp. 327–8. Fenner, D. 2006. Environmental aesthetics and the dynamic object. Ethics and the Environment, 11(1), pp. 1–19. Firuz, A.P. 2007. The poetics of history: looking at Turkey and World War One. Rethinking History, 11(2), pp. 215–24. Ginsberg, R. 2004. The Aesthetics of Ruins, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi Press. Harris. J. 2011. Dialogism: the ideal and reality for museum visitors. ICOFOM Study Series, 40, pp. 87–96. Harris, J. 2012a. The role of poetics at a tense World Heritage site: Pasargadae. Islamic Republic of Iran. The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 4(4), pp. 69–80. Harris, J. 2012b. Turning to the visitor’s body: affective exhibition and the limits of representation. ICOFOM Study Series, 41, 199–210. Hetzler, F. 1982. The aesthetics of ruins: a new category of being. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 16(2), pp. 105–8. Hodjat, M. 1995. Cultural Heritage in Iran: Policy for an Islamic Country. PhD dissertation, Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York. Hutcheon, L. 1988. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, New York and London: Routledge. Massumi, B. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Durham and London: Duke University Press. Kumar, A. 1999. Editor’s introduction, in Poetics/Politics: Radical Aesthetics for the Classroom, edited by A. Kumar. New York: St Martin’s Press, pp. 1–12. McCann, S. 1999. The ambiguous politics of politicizing, or de-politicizing, the aesthetic, in Poetics/Politics: Radical Aesthetics for the Classroom, edited by A. Kumar. New York: St Martin’s Press, pp. 39–70. McCorkle, J. 1992. Contemporary poetry and history: Pinsky, Klepfisz and, Rothenberg. The Kenyon Review, 14(1), pp. 171–88. Mozaffari, A. 2010. Inscribing a Homeland: Iranian identity and the Pre-Islamic and Islamic Collective Imaginations of Place, Ph.D dissertation, University of Western Australia. Mozaffari, A. 2012. The problem of a site museum for Pasargadae World Heritage Site (Iran). The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, 4(1), pp. 41–55. O’Keeffe, T. 2007. Landscape and memory: historiography, theory, methodology, in Heritage, Memory and the Politics of Identity: New Perspectives on the The Past in the Present 195

Cultural Landscape, edited by N. Moore and Y. Whelan, Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 3–19. Plachter, H. and Rőssler, M. 1995. Cultural landscapes: reconnecting culture and nature, in Cultural Landscapes of Universal Value: Components of a Global Strategy, edited by B. von Droste, H. Plachter and M. Rossler. Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena with UNESCO: Stuttgart and New York, pp. 15–18. Pradhananga, N. and Landorf, C. 2008. Stakeholder participation at World Heritage sites: an analysis of the past and present conservation systems of the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage Site [Online]. Available at: http://www. guthiaustralia.org/files [accessed: 10 March 2011]. Sami, Ali. 1971. Pasargadae: The Oldest Imperial Capital of Iran. Shiraz: Musavi Printing Office. Spirn, A. 1998. The Language of Landscape. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Taylor, K. 2012. Landscape and meaning: context for a global discourse on cultural landscape values, in Managing Cultural Landscapes, edited by K. Taylor and J. Lennon. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 21–44. Taylor, K. and Lennon, J. 2012, Introduction: leaping the fence, in Managing Cultural Landscapes, edited by K. Taylor and J. Lennon. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–18. Thomas, S. 2008. Romanticism and Visuality: Fragments, History, Spectacle. New York and London: Routledge. Tilden, F. 1957. Interpreting Our Heritage. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Tomkins, S. and Izard, C. 1964. Affect, Cognition and Personality: Empirical Studies. New York: Springer Publishing Company. UNESCO 2009, The World’s Heritage: A Complete Guide to the Most Extraordinary Places. Paris: UNESCO. This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 9 The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae Ali Mozaffari and Nigel Westbrook1

Introduction

In this chapter, we examine a little-known and still unfinished museum in the World Heritage Site of Pasargadae in southern Iran. Pasargadae was constructed as the capital of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BCE. Ancient sources have suggested that at this location Cyrus defeated Astyages, the last king of the Median Empire, uniting the Persians and the Medes and launching the multi-ethnic Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE) (Herodotus 1920). As discussed in other chapters in this book, Pasargadae has had multiple lives. While initially conceived as a royal citadel, it was, in the twentieth century, appropriated by the political aspirations of the Pahlavi dynasty, the last monarchy of Iran. In the early 1970s, a site museum was commissioned under that government. Construction commenced, but was unfinished at the time of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the building has remained until recently in that state as a ‘modern ruin’. In 2004, the royal precinct of Pasargadae was listed as a World Heritage site on the basis of criteria that included its status as an origin for Perso-lslamic gardens as well as imperial Achaemenid architecture, and an exemplar of that civilization (Iranian Cultural heritage Organisation 2004). This chapter draws upon the historic context of the museum as well as an interview with its architect, Hossein Amanat (January 2011),2 in order to contextualize and historicize the building as an architectural fragment, and a monument commemorating and

1 The authors wish to thank Architect Mr. Hossein Amanat, for his generosity in discussing this project and sharing thoughts about his work and approach to architecture through our interview (long-distance phone) in January 2011. The Basic arguments of this of this chapter appeared in their short, preliminary form in Mozaffari and Westbrook (2011). This research was made possible in part through a generous Research Development Award granted by the University of Western Australia for the research entitled Revolutionary Built Environment? The Production of Architecture in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2012). Ali Mozaffari wishes to acknowledge the University and its Centre for Muslim States and Societies where he was based for that research. 2 Hossein Amanat is an -Iranian-Canadian architect. His was born in Iran in 1942 and studied architecture at the Faculty of the Fine Arts, Tehran University in the 60s. Amanat is the author the most renowned contemporary monument of Iran, the Shahyad Monument in Tehran (inaugurated 1971). He is an award-winning architect with an international profile of work raging from China to North America. 198 World Heritage in Iran embodying a moment in the architectural history of Iran. Our theoretical analysis here suggests that while the museum in its unfinished state should have been considered as a fragment worthy of inclusion in the World Heritage zone, it could be given a special modern heritage status even if it is finished with sufficient care and in accordance with the original intent of the design. This chapter’s account of the design, and cultural and political context of this Site Museum, draws upon our research into the establishment of this building and its relationship with the adjacent World Heritage site (Mozaffari and Westbrook 2011). The museum’s construction was abandoned in 1979 then recommenced in 2011 and continued until March 2013, when the final draft of this chapter was prepared. In 2011 we conducted an interview with Amanat on the genesis of the museum, which confirmed our speculation that the museum was not just another instance of a ‘nationalist’ design. In the Iranian context of the late 1970s, this term would designate the sanctioned works of state propaganda promoting a monarchic ideology in which the Shah (r. 1942–79) was positioned as the lynchpin of national identity, and both heir to ancient kings, Cyrus in particular, and protector of Shiite Islam – the majority religion of Iran. The museum, however, represents a more nuanced design process, with little direct relationship to state ideology. Instead, a study of Amanat’s design reveals that the project is a sensitive attempt to reconstruct authentic ‘native cultural patterns’ and to reinvent ‘ … the culture of reference [in this instance the Iranian tradition] that … had been sacked and emptied through the local Iranian encounter with modernity’ (Harootunian 2000, p. 49). As other chapters in this book point out, in the second half of the twentieth century and particularly since the 1970s, the site of Pasargadae was embroiled in identity politics. Pahlavi nationalism was the dominant discourse of identity and indeed of modernism in twentieth-century Iran. This would cause reaction after the Islamic Revolution (1979) and the subsequent establishment of the Islamic Republic, which espoused an official discourse of identity antipathetic to Pahlavi nationalism, thus rejecting the site’s previous importance as a symbol of political and cultural authenticity. Pasargadae became, and remains, a contested site of national origin, a place through which competing versions of national identity continue to be constructed, enacted and disseminated. Nevertheless, it appears that in the 1970s, when the museum was being designed, identity politics and ideology were not a major concern in the design process. Rather, the site museum in Pasargadae appears as an attempt to reconcile traditional cultural patterns of the Iranian context with the more global aspects of modernity. Architecturally, given that Iran occupies a peripheral position in the history of modernism, issues of local identity within a global context were dealt with through local interpretation of architectural trends, and through developments of the same characteristics in architecture and architectural education. The site museum exemplifies this local process of adaptation and appropriation, and this merits its consideration as part of Pasargadae’s heritage. This is particularly significant because Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation (ICHHTO) has engaged developers to ‘finish’ Amanat’s design (Figure 9.1). The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 199

The Site of Pasargadae

As discussed at greater length elsewhere in this book by Boucharlat and Talebian, Pasargadae, a World Heritage site approximately 90 kilometres northeast of the city of Shiraz (Figure 9.2),3 is the location of the first royal residence built by Cyrus following his founding of the Achaemenid Empire in circa 550 BC (Wiesehofer 2004, p. 26). It was founded as a sacred district, a temple-palace complex surrounded by gardens and hunting grounds (Sami 1971, p. 12). Across its long history, the site has come to incorporate a multitude of historico-cultural layers, corresponding to both the pre-lslamic and Islamic periods. Cyrus’ palace complex consisted of a series of pavilions within a geometrical garden setting which, it is argued, constituted the first Persian garden (Stronach 1978, p. 107, Sami 1971, pp. 13–14). These ‘paradise gardens’ followed a regular geometrical plan and were delineated by decorative water courses (Stronach 1978, pp. 107, 110),4 and would become the archetype for all later Achaemenid and Islamic gardens on the Iranian plateau.5

Figure 9.1 The tomb of Cyrus from the main entry to the site

3 Pasargadae is a cultural landscape of 20 × 15 kilometres (approx.), located in the Morghab Plain and comprising diverse geographical features such as mountain passes, riverbeds, agricultural and dry land, permanent village settlements (the Mother of Solomon, Abolvardi, and Mobarakabad), archaeological sites and annual nomadic (Arab and Baseri tribes), migration routes and an ancient highway that connected Shiraz and Isfahan (south- north direction) and was in use until the 1950s. See: David Stronach (1978, p. 11). 4 The gardens were developed intermittently between 535 and 500 BCE. Cyrus’ gardens followed a trajectory of planned landscapes as political statement – established before 900 BCE – positing garden as a sign of royal accomplishment, as affirmation of the cosmic position of the monarch, or a symbol of foreign conquest. See David Stronach (1990, pp. 171–2, 178–9). Currently, there are only traces of the gardens and fragments of watercourses on the dry earth. For a recent study of the Pasargadae see (Boucharlat 2009). 5 Stronach (1990) refers to them as royal emblem. Figure 9.2 General layout of the World Heritage site (marked by the tomb) and the museum in relation to the village Madar-i Solaiman

Source: Adapted from an aerial photograph from National Cartographic Centre of Iran (1989) The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 201

Figure 9.3 Model of the museum in its unfinished state

The architecture of the complex is syncretic, combining Eastern and Western building techniques and materials (Stronach 1978, p. 51). 6 Two features of Pasargadae in particular, the Royal Gardens and the tomb of Cyrus are important in relation to the design of the site museum, both having informed the concept of the complex. The tomb of Cyrus, the focal point of the site, re-configured in the Pahlavi period (1925–79) as a monumental, isolated object forming a visual focus for both the visitors’ approach to the site, and indeed from most vantage- points within the site, was originally located within a walled garden (Sami 1971, p. 12, Stronach 1978, p. 24). The tomb, made of locally quarried white stone, resembles an archetypal house, with pitched roof and rectangular stereometry located atop a stepped plinth.7 In the Islamic period the tomb, later ascribed under

6 According to Stronach, this is the natural outcome of the expansion of the Persian Empire, which absorbed Ionian and Lydian construction techniques and Western Anatolian funerary practices. Politically, the eclectic style of structures was a deliberate decision on the part of Cyrus to designate the extent and uniqueness of the empire to visiting subjects. See Stronach (1990). 7 The origins of its typology are disputed with some attributing it to Mesopotamia, others, to Urartu, and still others to a combination of Mesopotamian and ‘traditional Iranian 202 World Heritage in Iran

Islamic narrative to the Mother of Solomon ‘the prophet’, was transformed into a mosque, and was surrounded by a portico constructed out of spoliated architectural material derived from the Achaemenid palaces. It remained in this state, as a site for religious pilgrimage (Curzon 1892, p. 78), into the modern period. In the twentieth century, Pasargadae became one of the significant sites of putative origin in the state nationalist ideology of the Pahlavis (1925–79), who sought to establish links with an Iranian past that preceded the humiliation of the Arabian conquests, and the more recent Western humiliations. In 1971, the lavishly-staged Celebrations of the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship were inaugurated in Pasargadae; these focused upon the site of Cyrus’ tomb, which as mentioned had been cleared, in anticipation of the ceremonies, of its Islamic period additions, thus both contravening modern heritage ‘best practice’, and annulling the traditional Islamic inscription of the site. This action contributed to an ideological hostility toward the site’s monuments – Islamist ideologues came to characterize them and similar edifices as symbols of an illegitimate dynasty. That the glorification of pre-Islamic kings and culture caused negative reactions is apparent in the pronouncements made by Sadeq Khalkhali, a ranking cleric, in The Fraudulent and Criminal Cyrus (1981). He dismissed the image painted of Cyrus the Great by various historians and through that attacked the idea of the Celebrations:

Cyrus was a young boy from Media who out of desperation had to behave like women and prostitute himself. In his youth, Cyrus engaged in lowly acts and was therefore frequently lashed … (p. 27)

Colonialism has existed for a long time in the world albeit its networks and webs and traps have been different … and today they occupy people under different guises … with cinema and theatre and cafeterias and cabarets and with mercenary periodicals and newspapers … and with sexy films and photographs and with novels and imaginary history and finally … with the 2500 Years Celebrations and the birthday of rat and dog and cat and or Cyrus the Great! (p. 37)

He finally rejected the authenticity of the tomb, rejecting it as an alibi for illegitimate kings (1981, p. 33):

[T]he fate of oppressors and world-conquering criminals is like so and they have died in nowhere and then monuments and memorials are made in their name so that their descendants through connections with their ancestor justify their domination and horrific reign under the pretence of lineage.

Today, there are signs of fire from burnt formwork within the museum shell, which may or may not be a ‘revolutionary’ reaction against a structure perceived as illegitimate or as symbols of Western cultural colonialism. The partially tomb and house. The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 203 completed museum, constructed out of the quintessentially modern material of massive, reinforced concrete, needless to say, survived (Figure 9.4).

Figure 9.4 One of the unfinished courtyards of the museum

The Genesis of the Site Museum

Hossein Amanat (b. 1942) was a recently-graduated architect when, in 1972, he was directly approached by Mehrdad Pahlbod, then Minister for Culture and the Arts (1964–78), to design both an archaeologists’ residence and research headquarters and, furthermore, a site museum for Pasargadae which would form an interpretational focus in support of the nascent tourist visitation to the site.8 He had already proven his capabilities in the competition-winning design for the iconic Shahyad (now Azadi = Freedom) Square in Tehran, which was commissioned on behalf of the Shah, and inaugurated in 1971.9 The Shahyad

8 This occurred concurrently with another project, the (now) Iranian Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization HQ, which is located in Tehran and shares certain spatial scenarios with other large scale works of Amanat. However, the formalization of the contract was, according to Amanat, a slow bureaucratic process. 9 The monument represented an interpretation of geometrical relations and motifs of different historical periods of Iran in its form and, to the establishment; it symbolized 204 World Heritage in Iran monument had originally been planned as a monumental entrance arch to the city, underneath which there was an interpretational museum, containing among an historical collection, a facsimile of the Cyrus Cylinder, described by the Shah as the first charter of human rights.10 In it, Amanat seems to have been experimenting with his own syncretic design strategy to which we shall return. Nevertheless, in the socio-political context of the time, that Museum and the Shahyad (Azadi) monument served both an historical and an ideological role in reinforcing the idea of national origin in the person, and absolute monarchy, of Cyrus the Great. Like the Pasargadae Museum, it combined ancient and Islamic-era building motifs, such as the Ayvan (Iwan) and pointed arch, while the tower marks the axial crossing point, in the tradition of the Persian garden. The Pasargadae Museum has an added significance inasmuch as, unlike the corresponding building at Persepolis – the other most important Achaemenid site in the region – it represents one of the first site museums designed by a locally-trained Iranian architect. As such, it provides evidence for the influence of contemporary Western architectural discourses within the Iranian educational system, at a time when the prevailing ethos among leading local architects was the quest for a local and national identity.11

The Museum Design

When Amanat designed the Pasargadae Museum, there were no Iranian codes for museum design, and the architect had to invent a program through the study of other local museums, inspecting the laboratories and required spaces, interviewing people, perhaps looking up Western precedents and, probably, making some imaginative guesswork. The only restricting factor was the limited budget set by the ministry, which would have determined the scale, a relatively small gross area of 3600 m2, and the choice of materials of the building.

modern Iran under the Pahlavis. For one possible interpretation of this monument, see Grigor (2003). 10 The Cylinder was discovered in 1879 and is kept in the British museum. As the museum website informs: ‘This cylinder has sometimes been described as the “first charter of human rights”, but it in fact reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC, kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms’. The Shah’s speech is also available in Youtube at http://youtu.be/n2BDjTpl7JM. 11 Although the idea of museums in Iran may be dated to the late nineteenth century, it was not until the first decades of the twentieth century that the country established an Act concerning the museum. The National Museum of Iran was inaugurated in 1937. The National Museum and the Persepolis site museum were designed by foreign experts, as the field of architecture in its modern form was only established in the 1930s afterthe establishment of Tehran University as the first modern higher education institution during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. For Further reading on that museum see Mozaffari (2007). The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 205

Surviving design documents show a half-buried concrete structure organized around three courtyards (Figure 9.5).12 The site is located 500 meters northwest of the tomb of Cyrus, on the side of the road leading to the tomb and across the road from the present-day village of Madar-i Solaiman (Mother of Solomon) (Figure 9.2).13 The axial alignment of the approach road with the tomb is paralleled by the museum’s orientation. In the original design, visitors would enter the museum from the south-west, down a long covered ramp that led below the ground and into an open central courtyard. Beyond the courtyard was a transversely-oriented reception hall that led axially, across its short side, into the main gallery, a volume within which stepped platforms ascended, spiralling around an enclosed courtyard that was intended to house the Achaemenid sculptural Fire Altar (Atashdan in Persian) that was used in investiture ceremonies and had been found on the site. This central, culminating space was capped with a roof in the form of a flattened ziggurat that recalled the steps at the base of Cyrus’ tomb. The final drawings reveal only minor changes from the original design. The primary level of the museum was raised to ground level, presumably to reduce costs, and earth had been bermed up, preserving the chthonic character of the original design. Although fully designed and documented by the mid-1970s, the construction of the Pasargadae Museum was protracted, until coming to a halt during the political turmoil of the 1978–79 Islamic revolution (Figure 9.6). For an understanding of the design we must rely, in the absence of published documentation, upon an interpretation of the historical context and the testimony of the architect, Amanat. The Pasargadae Museum was intended both to respond to the needs of archaeologists, and to leave a lasting experience on tourists, especially those from the native public. This was to be realized through the curatorial narrative – visitors were to proceed through a sequence which gradually introduced them to the museum, its collection, and the site. The design followed two general guiding principles – firstly, to inflict minimal disturbance upon the existing field of vision so as to preserve the site’s ‘magic’, as Amanat puts it, and secondly, to project a sense of belonging to the Iranian context in general and to Pasargadae, in particular. In response to the first principle, the initial design was sunken below ground level, and accessed by a descending ramp. The second principle was to be achieved using architectural elements that would be familiar to a local context. Rather than subscribing to a single typology or model, Amanat’s

12 Surviving drawings include some of the original presentation drawings, and design documentation drawings, which appear to correspond closely to the building as constructed. The presentation drawings are kept at the ICHHTO, Tehran, and the technical drawings are the property of the architect. 13 The archaeologists’ residence was even further removed to avoid disturbing the field of vision. Amanat had to find a balance between his tendency to build close to the tomb (note how the tomb is uniquely central to the conception of this project) and the practical necessities of building on an architectural site. As a reassuring measure for this distance, the Mother of Solomon Village was and remains already closer to the tomb structure. 206 World Heritage in Iran design approach – apparent in others of his works – consists of an intuitive compilation of abstracted motifs originating from different local sources and intended to induce certain experiences, in this case impressing the visitor with the grandeur of the site and the history it symbolized.14 The syncretic basis of the original Achaemenid complex is thus paralleled in the modern work.

Figure 9.5 Longitudinal section through the main gallery of the museum

Source: Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation with the permission of architect Hossein Amanat

Amanat (2011) describes his method thus:

I control people when they come to space. I see a man in a space, moving. … let’s say, I control the music of space around this [person]; the proportions. I bring him from that ramp into a kind of covered area or hashti (the transitional entry space in traditional Iranian architecture) … I want to say … that … you control the [person] to come in, to feel his scale and then be impressed by a higher level, a higher space or an open space. … It is the essence of this language that comes in, versus me deciding to have a courtyard or hashti [entry hall to a traditional Persian house].

14 Other examples of Amanat’s work that demonstrate a same syncretic design tendency to various degrees include the already mentioned Shahyad or Azadi Square (completed 1971), which combines ancient motifs with advanced parabolic concrete design, and the head office of the Iranian Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO, completion 1989) which references traditional Iranian houses in its central courtyard and deep, Iwan-like open recesses, within an overall Kahnian formalist abstraction. Figure 9.6 Plan of the museum at level -4.00

Source: Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation with the permission of architect Hossein Amanat 208 World Heritage in Iran

This approach allows Amanat to negotiate his interpretation of local architectural qualities with an international context of modern architecture (discussed later) by means of three mimetic strategies: the production of a spatial scenario, stylization of traditional typologies and use of local traditional materials. As noted above, the spatial scenario begins with a descent into the earth – evocative of death as well as of mystery – and from there, unfolds around three courtyards, a familiar organizing spatial device in traditional Iranian architecture. Amanat notes that the core of his design was the sunken, square courtyard capped with a stepped lantern that was described above. The roof, inspired by the Cyrus tomb, metaphorically reproduces the effect of dome lights in the structures of the Islamic Period. From the architect’s perspective then, the Iranian identity of the architecture was imparted through a dramatic recreation of the experience of traditional architectural spaces, rather than through the reproduction of traditional decorative and structural motifs. In Amanat’s words (2011):

You know, that is, you look at it, it appears as a kind of Greek or Roman architecture, but if you move in that, the spaces are completely Iranian or Persian because in terms of the control of space and the proportions of what is happening between these spaces, I think it … it intuitively came from there, it is inspired by that principle.

Notwithstanding the use of a courtyard typology, the second mimetic strategy of the Pasargadae Museum derives from Amanat’s interpretation of tradition. Traditional Iranian architecture, Amanat argues, can be associated with the non-figurative surface decorations and domical and arcuated structures ofthe architecture of the Islamic period. That Islamic tradition, he asserts, is, however, rooted in the pre-lslamic ideas and achievements of Iran (Amanat 2011). Thus, in seeking an expression of the archetypal roots of Iranian architecture, Amanat avoided figurative references that invoked the specific architecture ofthe Islamic period. In its spatial development, the building gradually unfolds before the eyes and experience of the viewer. In such a scenario – which resonates with some of the exemplary structures of traditional Iranian architecture and is replicated in other Amanat works of the period – there is a sequence of ‘stations’ from entry to courtyard, and from there to other spaces. In each ‘station’ there is a change in scale and atmospheric qualities (enclosure, light and materiality). The spatial narrative would have culminated in a striking psychological effect produced by the building’s monumental scale, formal sequence and dramatic revelation of light in the central space housing the fire altar exhibit, clad with stones sourced from the tomb’s quarry. This use of a stone that was sourced from the same quarry from which Cyrus’ tomb was constructed almost 2500 years ago, constitutes the final mimetic strategy. For this purpose, Amanat visited the site – one oftwo site visits he made specifically for this project – and located and requested the The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 209 reopening of the original quarry in the nearby mountains used for the Achaemenid palace complex. Returning to the third mimetic strategy, spatial narrative, Amanat describes the significance of this spatial sequence:

I thought this should be the centrepiece of my square hall … and it is right at the very centre of the square … and that is the main hall, and when you enter from that landing of the main, you know, you come from the courtyard, the square courtyard in the centre and think of it to be clad with the same stone, [the] beige stone of Cyrus the Great’s tomb … and then you move on to this vestibule area or the small hall … and then you move into the main hall and then you move into the hall and you see the first space and from there down you can see the square void with the masterpiece in the middle. And then you go step by step, I think every time 80 centimetres when I remember that, step down 80, 80 and 80, until you come down full level and you see this masterpiece and you exit through a very wide staircase that on your left and right you have some exhibits of pottery and other pieces that they had in their inventory. (Amanat 2011)

The four surrounding walls of this culminating space sloped inwards, again extending the reference to ancient pyramidal forms, and conveying the idea of the weight of a dome thrust into the ground, notwithstanding the reinforced concrete structure not requiring such buttressing (Figures 9.7 and 9.8). The motif has a purely psychological purpose, conveying a sense of weight, and exaggerating the vertical perspective. Amanat acknowledges that the battered walls were intended to evoke ‘ … the impression of heavy, old walls’ (Amanat 2011). The interior is a construction of psychological effects, the light and materiality contributing to an empathetic connection between the viewer and the historical artifacts. This was, from the start, the intention of the architect:

You know, for example, this darkness of the space, which gives it a kind of mystery. I knew it will be dark inside this museum and in fact, I knew that for the protection of museum objects you should not have too much light. But not for stone and things that you find, you know, I wanted this kind of darkness and ambiguity in that space. (Amanat 2011)

‘Darkness and ambiguity … ’ here there appears an almost alchemical approach to the revelation of the meaningful essence embodied in ancient objects, and in the surrounding place of Pasargadae. Such a concern for the psychological effects of materiality, form and light, a form of Architecture parlante, recalls the very similar preoccupations in the writings and projects of the American architect Louis Kahn in the 1950s onwards. A possible connection between Amanat’s design and the architectural philosophy of Kahn will be explored below. Figure 9.7 Section across the main gallery showing the inclining walls and ‘domed’ roof structure

Source: Courtesy of architect Hossein Amanat The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 211

Figure 9.8 View through the service passage around the main gallery

The Cultural Context of Amanat’s Design Strategy

Amanat’s design attitude is a local manifestation of international trends in education and practice in the period of post-war reconstruction, when the focus was upon ‘authenticity’ and local identity. Thus, to understand the design of this museum, it is useful to situate it in a broader context comprising both the architectural and cultural milieu of 1960s and 1970s Iran and corresponding international discourses of architecture. In the 1960s, after almost two decades of instability, including foreign (Western) intervention to influence the position of Iran during the Cold War, the domestic political climate became relatively stable, and was accompanied by the increased prosperity resulting from rising oil revenues.15 This new wealth

15 In the 1940s, the allied invasion of Iran had led to the abdication of Reza Shah leading the country under allied occupation. In the 1950s, the Movement for Nationalisation of Oil, which was aimed at terminating the British monopoly led to the young Shah’s flight from the country. The Shah would only return to Iran after an American sponsored coup in 1953. It was only in the 1960s that the Pahlavi state found an opportunity for consolidating its power. Also in 1960, the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. 212 World Heritage in Iran enabled the development of a modernization plan that introduced educational, land, agricultural and industrial reforms,16 and a growing number of infrastructure programs that provided opportunities for national and regional architectural and urban projects.17 Throughout the Pahlavi era, the state promoted an idea of the modern Iranian nation through a cultural policy that juxtaposed traditional and modern aspects. This may be understood from the perspective of the adaptation of ‘peripheral’ cultures to processes of modernity. This adaptation reveals itself as a juxtaposition of the residual aspects of traditional culture and modernity, which produce echoes of ‘rediscovered histories’ (Parry 2006, p. 21). The Pahlavi policy was an attempt to recover or reinvent ‘authentic’ Iranian culture and then to realize it in place. The tangible effect of this cultural agenda in infrastructural and architectural projects came through, firstly, an increasing collaboration between Iranian firms and their international counterparts and secondly, the proliferation of state public monuments and cultural spaces, such as the Shahyad monument and museum, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (est. 1977, designed by Kamran Diba), and the Pasargadae museum. This kind of cross-cultural exchange and transfer of knowledge, which may be seen as an inevitable part of the modernization program, was actively promoted by the state and was personally supported by the Queen.18 Beyond fostering business collaborations, this approach also influenced the education sector through the establishment of courses, academic exchanges, and establishment of new universities. On a larger scale, development programs that were written for the country envisaged its trajectory of growth in five year intervals in many areas, including infrastructure and building. Part of the program envisaged the drafting of master plans and structure plans for capital cities. In order to ensure the quality of the produced work, Iranian firms were required to adopt an international partner with a good profile. Such collaborations played an important part in forming the local culture of architecture and urbanism. Firstly, they became a conduit for the transfer

16 For a reading on the Pahlavi reforms of the 60s, see Ansari (2001). 17 In this period, there was also a flurry of state sponsored artistic theatrical, poetic, cinematic, and painterly productions that attempted to combine the local with the modern international (Saremi 2010, p. 132). Such projects were often underpinned by a social conscience and intellectual (often leftist) awareness and were made possible mainly because of rising oil revenues and relative stability of the state. 18 Between 1970 and 1976, there were a succession of international congresses of architects held in various locations in Iran, including Isfahan and Persepolis which have historical and heritage significance. The congresses, which were patronised by the Queen, had an educational and practical purpose: while locals were exposed to and participated in discussions with leading international figures, in the course of the events ideas about the problems facing a rapidly developing and urbanising Iran were workshopped. The ideas of the celebrated American architect Louis Kahn, a participant at the Isfahan congress, were particularly influential. The authors are currently exploring this topic in greater depth in a forthcoming work. The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 213 of technology and knowledge. Secondly, they led to a growing awareness of the need for local cultural and environmental adaptations, an awareness that also arose in other countries at the fringe of Western Europe. Such an awareness of the local, which was intertwined with the rise of regional nationalisms, focussed on the necessity of considering the specificities of local cultural settings in development, that is, of responding to the national Iranian context. Influential international firms and individuals worked in Iran in this period, notably Alvar Aalto, Kenzo Tange, Hans Hollein and Doxiadis Associates. The latter firm, which had an extensive practice in the Middle East, was invited to collaborate with local firms in the production of a number of master- and structure- plans for different capital cities in Iran.19 Furthermore, local architects became aware of the work of their internationally-connected regional colleagues in Arabic countries and the Indian sub-continent such as Balkrishna Doshi, who had collaborated with Le Corbusier at Ahmadabad. While Amanat’s key works were executed solely by himself, without such international collaborators, it must be presumed that the cultural climate of international collaboration encouraged an openness to international ideas.

Tehran University’s Fine Arts Faculty in the 1960s

As previously noted, Amanat’s generation of architects were trained under a Beaux Arts-influenced curriculum, at Tehran University’s Fine Arts Faculty where architecture was the dominant department. The university had been created as part of the modernization agenda of Reza Shah in 1935 and the Faculty and its architecture department had been set up by the French architect-archaeologist, Andre Godard.20 Godard’s program would become a determining factor in the shaping of the architectural milieu of Iran. It reflected his interest in the study of Iranian and Islamic art and architecture, and his Beaux Arts training. Thus, aside from the drawing of Classical (Greek) orders, the design of building and interior projects with contemporary briefs, and through one or two construction projects, there was a strong tendency in the new architecture programme at Tehran University to use the pre-existing context of traditional architecture in pedagogy. As the curriculum evolved, it involved frequent group or individual trips – travelling studios – to visit exemplars of Islamic and pre-lslamic Iranian architecture. In addition to promoting solidarity and a social structure among students – who often came from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds – these travelling studios provided a first-hand experience of traditional structures. The direct encounter and recording of those exemplars incorporated them within the students’ architectural

19 Other collaborations included Victor Gruen Associates and Abdol Aziz Farmanfarmaian Planners and Architects, The Comprehensive Plan for Tehran, First Stage: Concept Development. Tehran, 1968 and Llewelyn-Davies International. Shahestan Pahlavi, A New City Center for Tehran. Tehran: November 1976. 20 For a brief biography of Godard, see Gran-Aymerich and Marefat (2001). 214 World Heritage in Iran vocabulary and spatial-aesthetic sensibilities.21 This influence would often be revealed in their renderings and even in their modern design projects. The re-publication in the 1960s of Arthur Upham Pope’s 1930s work, Survey of Persian Art, which was met with enthusiasm, which is indexical of this milieu of attention to traditional Iranian architecture. Concurrent with a strong focus on traditional exemplars as the basis for a local Iranian expression, the teaching system, partly in keeping with Beaux Arts pedagogy, demanded an understanding, albeit superficial, of rational and functional aspects of architecture.22 This pedagogical program coincided with international discourses that, after the perceived failure of modernist mass-reconstruction projects in post-World War II Europe, now called for a ‘new monumentality’ and the preferencing of local motifs, building techniques and spatial planning (Mumford 2000, pp. 150–52). Students were exposed to developments in contemporary modern architecture in the West, both through the teaching of their professors and through reading or viewing professional journals. Each studio had a small library containing foreign journals, including l’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui, Architecture Française, and Progressive Architecture, together with Planches – a folio of student drawings published by the École de Beaux Arts in Paris – that were kept as educational resources.23 Amanat joined the faculty of Fine Arts as an undergraduate student in the early 1960s at the height of this system, and under the tutelage of Houshang Seyhoun, another talented Beaux Arts graduate.24 He was, according to his cohorts, an extremely talented and highly regarded member of the design studio. Through this indirect exposure and a syncretic program, students would search for localized versions of prevalent international discourses in their own designs. The result was a heterogeneous design approach that resonated with internationally- prevalent (Western) ideas about design while incorporating local, often Islamic, motifs and patterns of space. A new generation of domestic and international architectural graduates, including Amanat, the older Nader Ardalan, and Kamran Diba, pursued this direction in their ensuing careers. While for some, this quest had a quasi-ideological dimension – some might argue Ardalan, a follower of Nasr the proponent of Islamic Sufism and his Traditionalist ideas is an example for

21 Recording happened often through freehand sketches and watercolour paintings. Students were also required to produce and render as-built drawings of masterpieces of traditional architecture. 22 Ali-Akbar Saremi (2010, pp. 80–81) describes his own experience of the educational system and points out this lack of deep understanding. 23 Around this time, there was also an influential Iranian journal, honar va memari (Art and Architecture) under the editorial guidance of Abdol-Hamid Eshragh, a Beaux Arts educated architect and art enthusiast. This journal became another source for students of architecture. 24 The system would later move away from the French Beaux Arts and toward an American credit system in the mid-60s, until the former was totally relinquished in 1969–70 with the resignation of Seyhoun. This, however, would take place after Amanat’s graduation. For one narrative of the system see Saremi (2010, p. 115). The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 215 this25 – for others like Amanat, this syncretic approach was simply an expression both of their Iranian identity, and of an openness to international ideas. Either case suggests a significant concern for authentic identity and traditional culture.

The Museum’s Contemporary Architectural Culture and its Possible Architectural Precedents

The architectural education provided at this time by the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran University gave a prominent position to the leading modernist architect Le Corbusier – Amanat refers to Le Corbusier as being regarded as an architectural ‘god’ at the school. Although Amanat considers his project to constitute a deviation from the norms of his student period – particularly as it deploys an essentially symmetrical pattern of design – his work resonates in a fascinating way with certain civic projects by Le Corbusier, notably the Mundaneum (1929) and Museum of Contemporary Art for Paris (1931) (Figure 9.9). More directly, the rotational motif of the central gallery spaces may be compared to Le Corbusier’s late projects for the Ahmedabad museum (1951) and more abstractly, with the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (1959). All these projects deploy a centrifugal spiral, perhaps based upon Le Corbusier’s study of naturally-occurring spiral forms but also surely a metaphor for an evolutionary concept of cultural progress, and thus of a form of cultural Darwinism as the product of Enlightenment rationality. The parallels between the design of the Pasargadae Museum and these Corbusian examples sheds new light on the old debate over monumentality within the discourse of Western modernism, notably the well-known exchange between the Czech neues bauen critic Karel Teige, and Le Corbusier, over the apparent monumentalism of Le Corbusier’s design for the Mundaneum, a kind of world museum, to be constructed in Geneva (Baird 1998). The World Museum within the Mundaneum is characterized by Von Moos (1979, p. 243) as a ‘sacred precinct’. The form of the World Museum within the Mundaneum complex was criticized by Teige, who likened its form to ‘ … an archaeological site – Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, ancient American (Mayan and Aztec) or Peruvian’. Teige described the character of the museum as ‘metaphysical’ and monumental (Baird 1998, p. 594). The implication here is that the form is associated with pre-Enlightenment, anti- rational superstition. Baird (1998, p. 594) characterizes Teige’s criticisms as an attack on ‘a reactionary formalism’ which he felt threatened the future course of modern architecture, and which was based on a belief that monuments ‘oppress men’. In his defence of the project, Le Corbusier had emphasized its rationality, and the functionality of the ramping ziggurat, which housed descending exhibition halls, while he argued for the need for spatial and formal composition, for purity and beauty.

25 Ardalan and wife at the time, Laleh Bakhtiar, formulated their beliefs in The Sense of Unity: the Sufi tradition in Persian architecture (1973). 216 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 9.9 Le Corbusier, Mundaneum, Musée mondial, Geneva, Switzerland, 1929 (top) and Musée à croissance illimitée, 1939 (bottom)

The Mundaneum, like the Pasargadae Museum, does have a resemblance in both plan and form to the archaeological reconstructions of certain ancient sites like a Babylonian ziggurat, or an Egyptian Mastaba tomb (Figures 9.10 and 9.11). The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 217

In Corbusier’s later museum for Paris, there is a similar parti: here the pyramid and spiral ramps are flattened into two dimensions, but again, the plan reveals a resemblance to ancient monumental sites. Both the Mundaneum and the Paris Museum projects were widely published at the time, and reproduced in compilations after the architect’s death.

Figure 9.10 Entry to the unfinished museum

Figure 9.11 View toward the corner of the central gallery at the heart of the structure

By the 1960s, and subsequent to the shift in the rhetoric of the Congrès Internationale d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) evident at its congresses of 1948 and 1951, there was a renewed interest in the use of architectural form and monumentality to stimulate among the public a sense of community and identity. As Goldhagen has noted, from the 1950s onwards certain American architects like Louis Kahn and Philip Johnson had come to advocate the necessity for significant form and monumentality, particularly in relation to public buildings (Goldhagen and Kahn 2001, p. 6). The theme had been explored in the CIAM conferences at Bridgewater, England in 1947, and at Hoddesdon, England in 1951, and a modern form of monumentality was advocated by the CIAM member and historian Siegfried Giedion, who published two significant essays on the theme: Nine Points on Monumentality (1943) and The Need for a New Monumentality (1944) (Goldhagen and Kahn 2001, p. 27). Louis Kahn had himself published on the need for a sense of monumentality in contemporary architecture in an essay entitled The Problem of Monumentality (1944) (Goldhagen and Kahn 2001, p. 26). He further pursued his ideas on monumentality in certain key projects in the 1950s and 1960s, notably the Trenton Jewish community centre project of 1954–55 and the Dominican Mother House project, of 1965–69, and at an urban scale in the master plan for down-town Philadelphia by himself and Ann Tyng of 1952–57 (McCarter 2005 pp. 82–3). Certain widely published key projects by Kahn are comparable, in their axiality and simple monumentality, to the Pasargadae Museum. The First Unitarian Church temple and school complex at Rochester (1961) for example, references ancient mud-brick monuments in its architectural expression, and reveals in its planning an emphasis on an axial passage sequence leading to a monumental, centralized core, that parallels the spatial sequence in the Iranian museum (Figure 9.12).26 Significantly, Kahn’s work was published in the journals Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Architecture Franćaise and Progressive Architecture, held in the library of the architecture department at Tehran University. Kahn’s professed return to universally meaningful symbolic form was, in the West, counterposed to the placeless instrumentality of Late Modernism, exemplified in America by the corporate modernism of Skidmore Owings and Merrill, who followed the example of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in their machine-like Lever House in New York, of 1952 (Moholy-Nagy 1964).

Monumentality and the Reinterpretation of Tradition in the Pasargadae Museum

From the Iranian standpoint, where traditional beliefs, structures and practices still exerted a considerable influence on the flavour of its relatively recent modernity, the use of axiality and monumental, archetypal forms was less ambiguous, traditional

26 For a reading on this Church see Goldhagen and Kahn (2001). The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 219

Figure 9.12 Plan diagram of Kahn’s first unitarian church, Rochester 1959–65

Source: Drawn by Nigel Westbrook after McCarter (2005) and more grounded in its meaning. In Amanat’s design methodology, there is an openness to traditional and ancient building forms. However, they cannot, unlike Le Corbusier and Kahn, be explained away as pure forms or universal symbols, but in this local context are, arguably, meaningful and capable of resonating with the current conditions of the Iranian culture. While here the adoption of certain formal motifs and compositional devices from international exemplars appears to have taken place, these have been syncretically combined into a novel work that is directed towards a local audience. Such a trend may be traced back to the 1940s, and is exemplified elsewhere in the Middle East by the works of the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, whose work was seized upon by Western critics as a model of ‘authentic’ regional architecture27 and the Iraqi architect Rif’ at Chadirchi amongst others.28 This trend was articulated by critics, prominent among them, Kenneth Frampton (1985), as

27 The case of Fathy is rather problematic, because of both his personal vacillations in political positions and the different readings and appropriations of his work by others. His work can be associated with romanticism, traditionalism, and essentialist propositions, all of which are presumably contrary to the agenda of regionalist architecture. For a useful examination of his work see I. Panayiota Pyla (2007). 28 The ‘ur-text’ of regionalism according Eggener (2002) is Mumford’s 1941 text, The South in Architecture. 220 World Heritage in Iran

Critical Regionalism.29 This theory of the recent past, which may be formulated as the revival of the local while remaining within and participating in the global, is predicated upon a binary tension between local (regional) and universal. As such, while misinterpreting the local – as we know it – as an entity in itself, rather than as the product of the global (=universal), proponents of Critical Regionalism arguably misidentified acts of juxtaposition as subversive resistance. Perhaps a more useful explanation is provided by Harootunian’s notion of ‘peripheral modernity’, which explains the encounter between a global modernity under the aegis of capitalism, and local cultures with traditional relations, patterns and practices that continue to maintain a residual existence. In Iran, as in similar contexts, the ‘ … intersection between the new and the residual stemming from a different time, histories, and cultural conventions … ’ produced peripheral, rather than alternative and thus resistant, modernities. In this respect, manifestations of modernity reflected differences of temporality and place, while modern procedures and processes remained putatively similar across the board.30 The result is a kind of ‘coexistence’, as Parry (2006, p. 20) has identified in the realm of literature, ‘ … of realities from radically different moments in history … ’ where conventions of modern architecture of the west are joined with familiar local patterns of spatial-architectural arrangement and their associated structures of feeling. In other words, the design makes the modern patterns of architecture legible to a local audience by rendering them in familiar experiences and patterns, and this is the point where traditional patterns of architecture, Amanat’s mimetic strategies, are employed. In the condition of peripheral modernity as theorized by Harootunian, past and present are juxtaposed (Harootunian 2000, p. 49). It is in this context that Amanat’s description of the immediate everyday experience of his space (noted above) is revealing. The conscious use of traditional patterns in the spatial scenario of the museum, in particular the emphasis upon a spatial narrative constructed upon a sequence of courtyards and shaded, peripheral movement patterns, and which amounts to an appeal to native culture – an appeal that also coincides with adapted forms of canonical architectures of Le Corbusier and Kahn – represents Amanat’s search for genuine historical difference. More than a ‘healing praxis for that which it [modernity] had injured’, (Harootunian 2000, pp. 60, 63) from among traditions, practices and values, this represented the complex conditions of being Iranian that had developed from the early decades of the nineteenth century.31

29 For a critique of critical regionalism see Eggener (2002). 30 The ‘peripheral’ is understood here in comparison to the centres of capitalism before World War II. See Harootunian (2000, p. 63). 31 This is arguably the period when Iran for the first time is firmly and irrevocably placed in the periphery of the capitalist world centred in Europe and endures a state of dependency. The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 221

Conclusion

The condition of peripheral modernity in Amanat’s museum project is particularly amplified because of its context, the World heritage site of Pasargadae. Our examination of this design and our interview with its architect Amanat highlights the still current problem of how architecture can communicate with its local audience. Amanat’s response in the Pasargadae Museum is one possible solution – an architecture that establishes its modern subject within the limits of the everyday experience of its local audience. It consciously juxtaposes canonical modern forms with traditional spatial strategies. The outcome may resemble a work of the centre – that of Le Corbusier or Kahn – but it is experienced differently. And, it is this difference of experience, the ‘not quite the same’,32 that makes the project worthy of attention. Amanat’s still-incomplete work registers a moment in the international discourse of architecture, when locality, place and authentic identity were paramount. In its unfinished state, it is also a modernist critique of capitalist modernization’s deterritorialization of local traditional values, registering the trauma of modernity at that specific time and place. In this context, the question of the heritage value of the museum is worthy of consideration in itself and as another evidence of the multiple history that is in operation at the World Heritage site of Pasargadae. In the post World War II period, a global cultural shift occurred during which there was a return and appeal to the apparent certainties of form, and away from what was perceived to be the nihilistic effects of modernist transformation. Through the frame of peripheral modernity, it can be seen that the appeal to Pasargadae as a site of Iranian cultural and political origin has been a local manifestation of that global shift. This putative site of origin has, however, been defined and redefined through time – it is, in other words, an historical construct. The ‘modern ruin’ that is the Pasargadae Museum is an allegory of that historical moment and, in its context, possesses a unique historical value. It would remain to be seen whether that value is best maintained by its completion, or its preservation as fragment.33 It would in this respect seem to be essential that any subsequent completion of Amanat’s museum should respond to the new local and global

32 Harootunian (2000, pp. 60, 63) paraphrasing Homi Bhaba. 33 There are different sets of problems faced by this unfinished structure, which has deteriorated over time. Precedents from around the world suggest, however, that the unfinished and fragmented nature of the museum is not in itself an impediment to finishing the structure either for its original function or as something else. For example, the church at Firminy was only recently completed, as a cultural monument, even though it cannot be used as a church. Similarly, Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion was entirely reconstructed as a national monument which for 60 years had a virtual existence. The question that needs to be addressed is whether the response to this fragment of the past should be through contrast, analogy, or simulation. Technically, the Pasargadae museum is designed for its time, the 60s and 70s. As Amanat himself acknowledges, to suit the current demographic composition and tourist conditions of the country as well as contemporary functional and 222 World Heritage in Iran contexts, a point that seems thus far lost on those ‘completing’ the structure. Amanat, himself, has argued against a faithful completion of the original design, given the time-lapse since its design, and subsequent changing expectations of contemporary museums. That museum was the product of a particular cultural moment, and of a developing understanding of both museological theory, cultural landscape and archaeological methodology. It is therefore arguably ironic, if pragmatically expedient, that the ICHHTO has indeed decided to complete the building approximately in accordance with the original design. Its forms, with their use of a universalizing language of archetypes, and appeal to an Iranian self- recognition, through both formal motifs, such as the stepped pyramid and familiar courtyard spaces, and haptic experience – spatial progression, closed and open spaces, light and darkness – will arguably have been rendered more uncertain and precarious by the succeeding narratives of national and religious identity in the decades following their gestation. Thus the finished edifice may risk representing an abstract modernist approach cloaked in traditional gestures, leading to the lack of a critical dialectical property. This possibility further strengthens the argument for keeping the museum as an unfinished fragment; an argument that is already lost, given the developments on the ground. From another perspective, the design of the museum draws upon a certain reconstructed everyday experience. Even at the time of its conception, the museum was creating snapshots of the experience of spatial patterns that existed in exemplary works of traditional architecture. In this respect, it was not addressing a specific site. That had little to do with the local, if understood as close geographical proximity; its dialogue with the tomb by formal analogy notwithstanding. Even so, such patterns, their spatial relations and the social structure that bestowed them with meaning were already withering with the comprehensive modernization of the country. This could render the mimetic strategies of the design problematic as they tend to produce a unified image, a simulation that in being universal could undermine historical specificity. The nature of that architecture was, therefore, inevitably nostalgic, a nostalgia that resonated (and perhaps still resonates) with the Pasargadae site itself. Both the site and the museum were and still are extra- territorial, perhaps even, extra-national. The site-museum analogy is thus at once present in the architecture and in the impact upon the visitor. The architecture of the museum reflects and influences the experience of the site – a relationship present, albeit inadequately articulated in, all site museums. Both the museum and the site vacillate between past and present, old and new, modern and ancient, paralleling the condition of modernity in Iran. regulatory requirements, a museum for this site needs to be substantially larger than the existing design. Furthermore, there are difficulties associated with expanding older structures. For example, the Whitney and Kimball Museums have encountered significant heritage problems in their plans to expand their building capacity. Such issues suggest that the case of this museum is much more complex than the completion of an unfinished structure. The (Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae 223

References

Ansari, Ali M. 2001. ‘The Myth of the White Revolution: Mohammad Reza Shah, “Modernization” and the Consolidation of Power’. Middle Eastern Studies no. 37 (3): pp. 1–24. Ardalan, Nader and Laleh Bakhtiar. 1973. The sense of unity: the Sufi tradition in Persian architecture with a foreword by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Baird, George. 1998. ‘Architecture and Politics: A Polemical Dispute. An Introduction to Karel Teige’s “Mundaneum”, 1929 and Le Corbusier’s “In Defence of Architecture 1933”’. In Oppositions Reader: Selected Readings from a Journal for Ideas and Criticism in Architecture 1973–1984, edited by K.M. Hays, 585–614. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Boucharlat, Remy. 2009. ‘The “Paradise” of Cyrus at Pasargadae, the core of the Royal ostentation’. In Bau- und Gartenkultur zwischen ‘Orient’ und ‘Okzident’: Fragen zu Herkunft, ldentitaat und Legitimation, edited by Joachim Ganzert and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn. Martin Meidenbauer Verlag. Brownlee, D.B. and D.G. De Long. 1997. Louis I. Kahn: in the realm of architecture: Universe Pub. Curzon, George Nathaniel. 1892. Persia and the Persian Question. 2 vols. Vol. II. London: Longman Green and Co. Eggener, Keith L. 2002. ‘Placing Resistance: A Critique of Critical Regionalism’. Journal of Architectural Education no. 55 (4): 228–37. doi: 10.1162/104648802753657932. Farhad, Liela and Laleh Bakhtiar. 1970. Investigating the Possibility of Linking Traditional Architecture with Modern Building Methods: report of the proceedings of the First International Congress of Architects. Isfahan. Frampton, Kenneth. 1985. ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance’. In Postmodern culture, edited by H. Foster, pp. 16–30. London: Pluto Press. Goldhagen, S.W. and L.I. Kahn. 2001. Louis Kahn’s Situated Modernism.Yale University Press. Gran-Aymerich, Ève and Mina Marefat. 2001. ‘Godard, Andre’. In Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition. Grigor, Talin. 2003. ‘Of Metamorphosis’. Third Text no. 17(3) pp. 207–25. Harootunian, H.D. 2000. History’s disquiet: modernity, cultural practice, and the question of everyday life. Columbia University Press. Herodotus. 1920. The Histories. Cambridge: Harvard University Press [online: Tufts University, Perseus Digital Library]. Iranian Cultural Heritage Organisation. Pasargadae: UNESCO World Heritage Convention Nomination of Properties for Inclusion in the World Heritage List 2004 [cited 1/11/2012. Available from http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/ nominations/1106.pdf. McCarter, Robert. 2005. Louis I. Kahn. London: Phaidon. 224 World Heritage in Iran

Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl. 1964. ‘L’architecture Americaine Prend Une Nouvelle Orientation’. Architecture d’Aujourd’hui no. April-May (35), pp. 113–14. Moos, Stanislaus von. 1979. ‘Le Corbusier’, Elemente einer Synthese. English. Le Corbusier, elements of a synthesis / Stanislaus von Moos. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press. Mozaffari, Ali. 2007. ‘Modernity and Identity: The National museum of Iran’. In Museum Revolutions: How museums change and are changed, edited by Simon J. Knell, Suzanne MacLeod and Sheila Watson, pp. 87–104. London and New York: Routledge. Mozaffari, Ali and Nigel Westbrook. 2011. The Unfinished Museum: The Case of Pasargadae World Heritage Site Museum. Paper read at SAHANZ XXVIII, 7–10 July, at Brisbane. Mumford, Eric Paul. 2000. The CIAM discourse on urbanism, 1928–1960. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Parry, Benita. 2006. ‘The Presence of the Past in Peripheral Modernities’. In Beyond the Black Atlantic, Relocating modernization and technology, edited by Walter Goebel and Saskia Schabio, pp. 13–28. London and New York: Routledge. Pope, A.U., P. Ackerman and T. Besterman. 1964. A survey of Persian art, from prehistoric times to the present: Oxford University Press. Pyla, Panayiota I. 2007. ‘Hassan Fathy Revisited’. Journal of Architectural Education no. 60(3), pp. 28–39. doi: 10.1111/j.1531-314X.2007.00093.x. Sadeqi Guivi (Khalkhali), Mohammad Sadeq. 1981. The Fraudulent and Criminal Cyrus. Tehran: Unknown. Sami, Àli. 1971. Pasargadae: the oldest imperial capital of Iran. Translated by R.N. Sharp. 2nd ed. Shiraz: Musavi Print Office. Saremi, Ali-AKbar. 2010. Weaving in and out and Still, Architecture and My Life’s Journey (Persian). Tehran: Honar-e Memari Qarn Publications. Stronach, David. 1978. Pasargadae: a report on the excavations conducted by the British Institute of Persian Studies from 1961 to 1963. Oxford [Eng.]; New York: Clarendon Press. Stronach, David. 1990. ‘The Garden as a Political Statement: Some Case Studies from the Near East in the First Millennium B.C’. Bulletin of the Asia Institute no. 4, pp. 171–80. Wiesehofer, Josef. 2004. Ancient Persia. London: I.B. Tauris. Chapter 10 Antinomies of Development: Heritage, Media and the Sivand Dam Controversy Elham Shamoradi, Ebrahim Abdollahzadeh1

Translated by Ali Mozaffari

Introduction

Iran is an arid country. Efforts for water management and collection of surface waters in Iran began in 1948 but have increased in the past two decades, such that each year an increasing number of dams of various capacities have been constructed or are under construction by different administrations. Therefore, the media regularly report on the news of dam constructions. The usual sources for such news are firstly, the public relations departments of the construction companies and secondly the economic services of newspapers. Since the beginning of 2005 and the start of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s term in office, an unprecedented wave of criticism of dam construction activities began and spread with an increasing pace in the media. The coverage of dam activities also shifted from purely economic to heritage, environmental and political sections of the media. Critics began to emphasise the insufficient amount of pre-construction studies including consideration of the impact of such massive structures upon cultural historic heritage and their natural and social environment. Sivand Dam epitomised these criticisms as it became the focus of the first and strongest campaign against dam construction in Iranian history. In reality, Sivand Dam became famous (or more accurately, infamous) as it was built only 17 kilometres away from the tomb of Cyrus the Great, a most significant ancient King and the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty (550–330 BCE), and his first established capital, Pasargadae. As others in this book show, Pasargadae is one of the most important historic monuments of Iran and the fifth Iranian complex inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The perception that the

1 The authors wish to thank Ali Mozaffari whose intellectual contribution and suggestions helped consolidate this chapter throughout its various drafts. We also wish to thank Alireza Afshari for generously sharing his archive, information and the manuscript for his unpublished work, which assisted us in writing this work and Javad Amini for helping with helping with reading the English version and Ehsan Houshmand for proposing this collaboration. 226 World Heritage in Iran construction of this dam and its reservoir would endanger the historic monuments of tang-e Bolaghi [the Bolaghi gorge] region and Cyrus’ tomb, transformed the construction of Sivand Dam into one of the most important challenges of the Iranian government at the time. The frequent publications, emphasising this threat in official and citizen media inside and outside Iran, elevated this rumour closer to a truth. In response, the government argued that on the basis of studies carried out, the dam reservoir would not pose a threat against Cyrus’ tomb. It also argued that the dam was necessary to control seasonal floods and to manage water resources for the use of local farmers. The construction of the dam thus continued to the very end despite protests. This chapter begins by highlighting the shortage of water in Iran as a background to dam construction. Then, focusing on the particular case of Sivand Dam, the performance of activists campaigning against the dam, on grounds that it would harm Pasargadae, and responses on the part of government and sectors of public in support of the dam will be outlined and analysed. Here the specific focus would be on the various modes of communication and media that were employed, including citizen media. In conclusion, the analyses are contextualised within the context of development journalism and media and falsification of truth. The Sivand Dam controversy is an example of how Pasargadae has become a cause for social and cultural movements in Iran and is thus implicated in much larger national and international debates that transcend the local at various levels.

Iran within a Global Context of Water Shortage

From the latter part of the twentieth century, the issue of water has been elevated from an important topic in scientific discussions to the highest levels of decision making on national, regional, and international scales. In all countries, the management and preservation of water resources requires significant investment and work and is a core concern in national development (Ataei 2010, p. 17). Therefore, the main custodians of water management are national governments. Modern dam building began in the industrialised world in the latter part of the twentieth century and ‘by 1900, several hundred large dams had been built in different parts of the world, mostly for water supply and irrigation’ (World Commission on Dams 2000, p. 8). After World War II, however, there was a ‘phenomenal rise in the global dam construction rate, lasting well into the 1970s and 1980s’ (World Commission on Dams 2000, p. 9). In 2000, Iran ranked as the fifth largest dam-building country in the world with 48 dams above 60 metres under construction (World Commission on Dams 2000, p. 10 Table 1.1). Large dam constructions inevitably impact heavily on their environment, local climate, jobs and income creation, public health and social and cultural relations. They also have serious repercussions for both natural and cultural heritage. In recent years, particularly in industrial societies, the negative impacts of large dams Antinomies of Development 227 have been managedbut their effect upon cultural heritage is still considerable (World Commission on Dams 2000). Although water management through various forms of dams has a very long history of over 2000 years in Iran, modern dam construction in the country began in the 1960s. The first modern dam was built over River Dez by a consortium that included American, Italian and German engineers and was inaugurated by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1963. According to a report by the Iranian Water News Network, in 2011 Iran was among the top five dam-building countries in the world with 617 dams constructed since the mid-twentieth century (Iran Water Resource Management Co.). To understand the reason for this vast dam-building activity in Iran, one has to once again consider the country’s resources and demands within a more global context. The Asian continent is a hotspot for water crises. Within this continent, Iran has an average annual rainfall of 250 mm, which is less than the average in Asia and less than a third of the international precipitation average. The country is also among the top ‘water stressed’ countries, meaning that the annual withdrawal of water is above 25 per cent of its annual water resources (in the case of Iran this figure in year 2000 was close to 40 per cent) (World Commission on Dams 2000, p. 7 Figure 1.4). The country is thus facing problems with shortage of water, uneven distribution of water resources, reduction in precipitation in recent years, receding water tables, seasonal floods control, population growth and the increasing demand for a more efficient agriculture. These issues push the country toward the accumulation and collection of surface waters as a basis for sustainable growth (Bozorgzadeh 2009, p. 4). Iran’s first Development Plan in 1941 included plans for improving the utilisation of water resources to be realised through an array of projects for exploiting surface and ground water. As part of these plans, attempts were made toward establishing a National Comprehensive Water Plan which started in 1948 and has been through numerous revisions (Samani 2005, p. 21) but was never enshrined into Law. From a legislative perspective, the consideration of water resources within the framework of sustainable development definitively began when enshrined in Item 17 of the Fourth 5-Year Development Plan of Iran (2005) which states:

Considering the central importance of water in the country’s development, the government shall plan and manage Iran’s water resources in respect of comprehensive and concurrent management of supply and demand in the full water cycle [comprehensive water management system] and with a view to attaining sustainable development in natural catchment areas and with due consideration of the economic value of water, public information, and participation such that the goals of the Fourth Development Plan Act in relation to water resources are realised. 228 World Heritage in Iran

Table 10.1 Iranian dams divided by various stages of development (2012)

Phase Feasibility Studies Under Construction Operational Total Number 554 142 617 1313

Source: Water Management Authority (2006 available at: http://daminfo.wrm.ir/fa/dam/ stats)

Table 10.2 Dams constructed in Iran in the past 24 years

Period Administration (President) Dams Constructed 1989–97 Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani 16 1997–2005 Seyed Mohammad Khatami 49 2005–12 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 47

Sources: Energy Ministry’s Under-Secretary for Water (2005, 2012)

In order to provide a context for the discussion on Sivand Dam, it is useful to mention that generally, the construction of a dam occurs through the following stages:

1. Comprehensive studies of the water catchment area and the selection of possible dam sites. 2. Selection of the preferred location for constructing the dam from among the various possibilities. 3. Conducting additional studies such as seismographic and geological studies, environmental studies (natural environment), cultural heritage and social studies of the region. 4. Mapping layout and design of elements and assessment of the cost of project. 5. Detail design of elements and data precision. 6. River diversion, dewatering dam site location and starting the construction of the dam structure. 7. Completing the dam, inundation of the reservoir and finally utilising the dam.

In Iran, since 2005 and particularly after the Sivand Dam affair, social, environmental and cultural heritage studies of dam sites have become compulsory Antinomies of Development 229 in the initial studies (step 3 above) of all major civil projects including dam constructions.2

Public Relations Management in Iranian Dam Building Projects

Managing communications and interaction with the network of stakeholders in a dam project is the task of the public relations department of the construction company. A criticism levelled against public relations departments is that they seem to correspond to what Grunig and Hunt (1984) identified as ‘press agentry’ or publicity which is a ‘one-way approach to public relations’ as they are essentially information dissemination (Toth 2006, p. 70). This is because most dam project managers take control of public relations and media departments, which they see as secondary in importance, and consider their role as progressing the project rather than responding to the public. This is a linear, top-down pattern of communication and can result in much conflict and misunderstanding with the network of local stakeholders and media stakeholders (Shamoradi, Khandejam, and Moghimi Esfandabadi 2011, p. 2).

The Origins of the Problem

Before we discuss the specific problems of the dam with regard to the media, it would be useful to introduce the dam and its context.

The Location of Sivand Dam

Sivand Dam is located 95 kilometres north of Shiraz and 50 kilometres and 17 kilometres from the World Heritage Sites of Persepolis and Pasargadae respectively (Figure 10.1). It is built over the Polvar (Sivand) River in the Bolaghi gorge. It is located in the Hakhamanesh district of the Pasargadae Township of the Fars Province. The Bolaghi gorge is thought to have contained the ancient passageway known as the ‘Royal Road’ which linked the Achaemenid capitals (Imanpour 2007) (Figure 10.2). This was a caravan and pilgrimage route connecting Pasargadae to Persepolis, Susa and other significant destinations of the Persian Empire and has an archaeological significance of its own.

2 Item ‘jim’ of Article 114 of the Fourth Economic, Social and Cultural Development Act of the Islamic Republic of Iran legislated on 26/6/2005. 230 World Heritage in Iran

Figure 10.1 General map of Iran and the province of Fars

Figure 10.2 Location of Sivand Dam relative to the tomb of Cyrus the Great

Source: Adapted from Google Maps, found at: http://goo.gl/maps/yaVWv Antinomies of Development 231

In the Pasargadae region, the Sivand River after passing the tomb of Cyrus, goes through the Bolaghi gorge and reaches the ancient city of Istakhr and Persepolis. The river is important both as part of the cultural landscape of the region and the connecting feature around which significant Achaemenid and Sassanid settlements were established.

The Specifications and Purposes of the Sivand Dam

The Sivand project comprises an earth-filled dam and an irrigation-drainage network called Ghasr ol-Dasht (‘The Sivand Dam Reserve’). The dam body, which spans 600 metres in length and 57 metres high, is rock- filled with a clay core. Its crest is 1826.5 metres above sea level. It is estimated that its reservoir stores 255 million cubic metres of water in ordinary circumstances, covering an area of 11 square kilometres which can increase up to 15 square kilometres during floods.

The Purpose of the Dam

The Fars Regional Water Authority website reports the purpose of the dam as flood control and irrigation of 9,000 hectares of land located downstream. Given that agriculture is the main source of income in the region, it was forecast that every year 100 million cubic metres would be used for agriculture 30 to 40 million of which would be used for irrigation of upstream lands – as it used to be – and the rest would be released for farmers downstream. The service-life of the dam was considered to be 50 years, however this was revised down as it is located along the annual flood passage and accumulates debris and sedimentation at a greater rate. The construction time and cost were initially estimated at 5.6 years and 150 billion Rials, but in practice, it took 15 years (3.2 times longer) and 766 billion Rials (5.1 times more).

The Sivand Dam: Four Administrations and Four Presidents

According to the subpage of Sivand Dam (The Sivand Dam Reserve) available on the website of Fars Regional Water Authority – the government representative and commissioner of the dam – the preliminary studies of the dam were undertaken in 1970 by the American firm Justin & Courtney. At that time, Pasargadae was particularly significant as it was being prepared as the location for theCelebrations for the 2500th Anniversary of Persian Kingship (12–16 October 1971). Many dignitaries from around the world took part in these Celebrations which glorified and sanctified Cyrus as the founder of the Iranian (Persian) Empire. In 1979 the Pahlavi monarchy was deposed by the Islamic Revolution and in September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran leading to an 8-year long war. In this period, most civil projects were suspended. After the war, in 1987 and during Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s administration (currently the Supreme Leader 232 World Heritage in Iran of the Islamic Republic), another more detailed study was carried out by Sakku Consulting Engineers, a firm associated with the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The election of Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to presidency in 1989, inaugurated what his political allies would label as the ‘Constructivity Period’ (1989–97) during which funding was dedicated to economic and industrial projects, including those in water resource management and dam construction, to the extent that Rafsanjani assumed the unofficial title of the ‘commander of dam building’ (sardar-e sad sazi). The diversion tunnel of Sivand Dam (constructed by Sabir Consultants) and the construction of the dam’s embankment (by Pars- Garma Civil and Industrial Company) began in 1992, during his administration. The diversion tunnel was finished in 1995. During the next eight years, under Seyyed Mohammad Khatami’s administration (1997–2005), the broad policies of the previous administration were kept in place. In this period, the most important dams of the country, including Masjid Solaiman, Karkhe and Karoun3 dams became operational with much advertisement and propaganda. It was also in this period that Pasargadae was inscribed on the World Heritage List. The construction of Sivand Dam, which had begun in 1992, continued with a slow but consistent pace. In 2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidential elections. His election to office coincided with the start of a wave of protests against the construction of Sivand Dam. A raft of criticisms were formed in the official media, citizen media and various NGOs of the performance of his Energy Ministry and of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, his political ally, vice President and head of the Iranian Cultural Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) at the time. Despite mounting criticisms, 18 months after his election, in April 2007 and on the sidelines of the cabinet’s travel to the Fars Province, the decree was issued for inundation of the dam. In 2009, almost three years after the inundation, the construction work finished. According to this context, Sivand Dam is the legacy of four administrations. Like many other instances around the world, this dam too proved divisive, however, the breadth and scale of discontent that was expressed and the means for expression, through public, mass and citizen media, were totally new in the Iranian context.3 The government in particular seemed inept in handling the situation.

Media Management and Public Relations for the Sivand Dam

Compared to other dams in the country, the media and communications management and the clarifications and refutation of rumours and disinformation surrounding the dam were less than adequate. The dam was inaugurated unceremoniously,

3 For examples of protests against large dam buildings in Asia see Hirsch and Warren (1998, Part I, pp. 29–92). For other examples see, among others, Sneddon and Fox (2008) and McCormick (2006). Antinomies of Development 233 without prior announcement and in the absence of journalists (who were not invited to the event) without an explanation ever being furnished. Arguably, the politicisation of the dam’s affairs adversely influenced its public relations and information dissemination. While there was official silence surrounding the real news on the dam, the government dismissed criticisms as disinformation, baseless, propaganda and political games on the part of those opposing the ‘ninth Government’ (Ahamdinejad’s administration). It also dismissed claims for the possibility of damage being caused to archaeological remains due to rising humidity in the region – a potential consequence of the dam’s reservoir – as an attempt to politically damage the administration.

Supporters of the Dam

The most important supporters of the dam’s construction were senior managers of the Water Department within the Energy Ministry, senior managers of the ICHHTO, some of the managers of the Agriculture Ministry and a number of parliamentarians from the Fars Province and the state appointed Friday Prayer Leaders of the region. From their perspective, realising the goals of Sivand Dam was crucial and vital for the people of the region as it prevented flooding, destruction of agricultural land in Karbaal plains (dasht-e karbaal) and Marvdasht, preventing drought in the plains of 40 villages, ensuring their economic vitality and ultimately preventing of the emigration of villagers from the region. In supporting the construction of the dam and alongside the publication of news and media interviews by the senior management of the Ministry for Energy and ICHHTO, there were street protests by farmers. Two meetings held by dam supporters are worth mentioning here. The first one was held on 1 February 2007 by farmers from the rural district of Shourab, within the province of Arsanjan, who gathered in protest in front of the Iranian Islamic Consultative Assembly (the Parliament) in Tehran. In the second instance, on 17 February 2007, 300 farmers of the same district gathered in protest in front of the Fars Governor’s Office and the Regional Water Authority.

Campaign Against the Dam

Almost seven years after the inundation of the dam, it is difficult to pinpoint the first ever news item published against its construction. Comprehensive archives and resources on the topic do not exist in Iran and much of the resources are no longer available in the public domain. Nevertheless, as discussed below, the existing evidence seem to suggest that critical news about the dam was published most likely after June 2004, when Pasargadae was inscribed on the World Heritage List. According to a report by the Iranian Water News network (‘Everything About the Sivand Dam (Persian: hame chiz dar bareye sad sivand)’ 2010) the first news item was published on 25 December 2004 in the official daily newspaper, Iran, 234 World Heritage in Iran which related a report on 23 December by the Guardian’s John Vidal (2004), Dam is a Threat to Iran’s Heritage. Vidal recounted the significance of the Bolaghi gorge and the Royal Road:

More than 100 of Iran’s potentially most important but least examined archaeological sites, including fringes of Pasargadae, the city built by King Cyrus the Great, will be flooded in the next two years according to the UN, which appealed yesterday to international scientists to try to record what they can. … But the speed of its construction and the scale of what will be lost have surprised scientists and the UN …

Three days after the publication of that article in Iran daily, on 28 December, the Cultural Heritage News Agency published: ‘UNESCO Cultural Deputy: Transmit the Voice of the Bolaghi gorge to the World’ (Zohoori 2004), reported on the meeting between Cultural Heritage Organisation officials and Mounir Bouchenaki, UNESCO’s Cultural Deputy. This meeting was held at the Parsa Pasargadae Research Foundation and upon the invitation of ICHHTO for the unveiling of the World Heritage Inscription Memorial Plaque. The article reads:

Mounir Bouchenaki, after being reassured that the great tomb of Cyrus, the Achaemenid King, would not be damaged, addressed the ICHHTO officials regarding threats resulting from the construction of Sivand Dam: ‘you must attempt to convey the significance of the Bolaghi gorge in relation to history and identity. On the other hand, you must try to reach out and communicate with the outside world. I too will in my own right make every effort to inform UNESCO officials … ’. (‘The Sivand Dam Reserve [Persian: sad makhzani sivand]’, Zohoori, 2004)

Since then, this news agency has continued to report on the monuments in the historic areas of the Bolaghi gorge and the progress of archaeological missions in that area. In the introduction to the unpublished book, In Defense of History,4 Afshari (2011) notes that cultural heritage NGOs began their activities in the latter part of 2005.5 Initially these activities took the form of informal meeting sessions, information gathering and interviews with experts and officials of the time. The start of these activities coincided with the distribution of the first heritage related warning SMS (Afshari 2011, p. 14).

4 (Editor’s note) Alireza Afshari is a cultural heritage activist in Iran and his book, In Defence of History, which details the history of cultural heritage activities in the recent years is yet to receive a publication permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the official body in control of all cultural productions, including publication, in Iran. 5 (Editor’s Note) Various forms of NGOs have been operating since the end of the 1990s under provisions made by the Law in Iran. Antinomies of Development 235

Activities by campaigners against the construction of Sivand Dam took place through the media (broadly defined) and were publicised using mass media and modern communication technologies available at the time. For the purposes of analysis, it is possible to categorise the protest campaigns on the basis of their origins into two non-discrete, overlapping groups of popular citizen media, and mass media. While mass media in the Iranian context are invariably associated with the state, citizen media are the means for disseminating ‘original news content’ created and published by ‘citizens who are not professional journalists’; what is ‘generically called citizen journalism’ (Tewksbury and Rittenberg 2012, p. 51). These are modern communication media such as blogs and citizen journalism sites and are characterised by interactivity and social networking potentials while popularising and potentially democratising the communication of information. Many social theorists have noted the benefits of modern communication media and the internet for the development of civil society, the use of internet and virtual social networks for instigating social mobility, civic rights, environmental goals and peace activism (Javadi Yeganeh 2001, p. 41).

Popular Campaign and Citizen Media

Activists comprised groups, societies, and individuals including the abovementioned grass-roots bodies (NGO) concerned with heritage, such as Friends of Cultural Heritage of Iran, university students, academics and ordinary citizens. They sought to advance their cause by disseminating their activities through citizen media. Some of the citizen media were established outside Iran.

Establishing Dedicated Websites

Between 2004 and 2007, alongside official news media, citizen media included websites and blogs which gradually attracted the attention and trust of their audiences. Some of the most important sites dedicated to Sivand included:

• Save Pasargadae Website (http://www.savepasargad.com). • This site was established by the International Committee to Save Pasargadae Monuments as one of the first reactions to the construction of Sivand Dam. Its proclaimed intention was to prevent the inundation of the dam and the destruction of ancient monuments. It is based in Denver, Colorado and was founded by Esmail Nooriala and Shokooh Mirzadegi, journalists and political activists opposing the Islamic Republic. They published material about the adverse impact of the dam upon historic monuments and an online petition (Mirzadegi and Nooriala, 2004), Save the Precious Archaeological Sites of Pasargadae in Iran, and thus became one of the forerunners of internet protest campaign in the Iranian context. Part of that petition reads: 236 World Heritage in Iran

We, the undersigned, regretfully have to inform all the inhabitants of our planet earth that one of the greatest parts of the historical heritage of human race is on the verge of permanent extinction. The Islamic Republic of Iran has embarked on the finalizing stages of a dam construction in south of Iran that will ultimately drown the archeological sites of Pasargad and Persepolice (sic.) … We need to see the immediate action of all world organizations, especially the United Nations and its cultural wings such as UNESCO, to step in and stop this inhumane cruelty to such precious heritages of our human race. We need to see immediate action and will follow our petition in any venues that are opened to us … • The Information Portal for Ancient Monuments (Pasargadae Plain) (http:// www.iranboom.ir/didehban/30vand.html). • This web portal began its work in September 2005 with the aim of increasing the degree of information and sensitivity of the society with regard to the monuments under threat in the Pasargadae plain the Bolaghi gorge. This portal was instigated by Afraz Society (Iranian Cultural) an officially registered NGO under the auspices of the National Youth Organization, which began its work in 2002 with the objective of familiarising Iranian youth with the history and culture of Iran (Afshari 2011, p. 13). This website was one of the forerunners of protests and continues to publish information related to Pasargadae to date. The site was initially established with the participation of 30 active NGOs in the sphere of Iranian culture and history and by the time of the dam’s inundation (2007) it grew to 80. • The Sivand Website (http://www.sivand.ir/). • This site was set up by a group of local Sivand youth with the objective of informing and educating other fellow Iranians elsewhere in the country of folklore and culture of the Sivand region. It focuses on disseminating information about the dam and historic areas of the region and continues its activity to date. The publication of images, announcements and republication of poems and songs in the local dialect are among the site’s activities.

Distribution of Short Messages Through Mobile Phone (SMS)

As previously noted, citizens reporting on the danger of the dam’s construction for Pasargadae monuments and the tomb of Cyrus was first done through SMS (Mahdavi 2008/7/14). In a report prepared by the Vice-Presidency for Strategic Planning and Supervision on the performance of the country’s mobile and landline phones during a 30-year period (Alavi-Tousi 2008, p. 25), by 2005 more than 8.5 million subscribers had access to SMS and by 2007 at the height of protests to Sivand, this number rose to 24.5 million subscribers. One of these messages was a poem: Antinomies of Development 237

Cyrus rest in peace in your resting place – Without you our territory is defaced They made a dam over my civilization – My homeland is in bed with Arabs Pasargadae, the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the Father of Iran will be flooded when the Sivand Dam is inundated. Please circulate widely.

The common point in all these messages, particularly those in 2005, was their emphasis upon the flooding and destruction of the tomb of Cyrus.

Blogging and Virtual Mailing Lists

As Sreberny (2010, p. vii) points out, ‘The phenomenon of Iranian blogging has been recognised for some time by Iranian political commentators, by international journalists and within the blogging community’. These were the most effective citizen media in that period. Persian Blogging in particular was at its height during this period both within and outside Iran. Iran is one of the biggest blogging nations per capita. According to New Media and Development Communication, a website setup by students of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (2007), blogging in Iran began around September 2001 and until October 2005, out of 100 million blogs in the World Wide Web, 700,000 belonged to Iranians and between 40,000 and 110,000 of these were active and regularly updated. Most of these blogs were in Persian. According to a report by the Iranian Telecommunications Company (2010) in 2006 and 2007 there were 12 and 18 million web users, respectively. In addition to websites and blogs in this period there were many instances of logos connoting protest that appeared on websites and weblogs (Figure 10.3).

Figure 10.3 An example of a website logo reading ‘we oppose the Sivand Dam’

Source: Courtesy of Alireza Afshari 238 World Heritage in Iran

At the time, Yahoo Mail was the only email service available and was used by campaigners to disseminate information. Although still the most popular service,6 its detailed impact cannot be gauged accurately as there is no available record of the number of email users in Iran during that period.

Public Statements

Drafting and publication of statements and proclamations through the web and the media which were subsequently forwarded to authorities was another method employed by those opposed to the construction of Sivand Dam. Partial archives exist on the web and a search with the terms ‘proclamation Sivand Dam’ [in Persian] at the end of 2012 returned, depending on the method of search, between 349 webpages to 23,300 results. These statements were issued by political groups and parties, social organisations, environmentalists, cultural and heritage as well as academics and university students. The very first of these statements, which is known as the Pasargadae Proclamation, was issued on 4 November 2004 by more than 30 NGOs on the grounds of Cyrus’ tomb. Parts of it read:

We are against the inundation of Sivand Dam because it will flood the Bolaghi gorge … the humidity arising from the dam’s reservoir will destroy the structures on the Pasargadae plain … with the inundation of Sivand Dam, at least 8000 500-years old trees and thousands of hectares of quality pasture and agricultural land will be destroyed … the inundation of Sivand Dam will cause the destruction of nomadic pastures that are one of Iran’s tourist attractions … creating public anxiety and the loss of public trust is the most important damage that Sivand Dam inundation will cause …

Alireza Afshari is in possession of an archive of such proclamations, which are analysed in his unpublished manuscript, In Defence of History. Table 10.3 summarises the date and main subject of a selection of the four most significant of those proclamations.

6 [Editor’s note] According to Alexa (‘Top Sites in Iran’, 2013), a website dedicated to the review and comparison of web applications, today Yahoo Mail is the second most popular site in Iran, after Google, and 3.2 per cent of the Yahoo Mail users come from that country. Antinomies of Development 239

Table 10.3 Date and topic of the most important proclamations with regard to Sivand Dam

Date of Proclamation The topic of the Proclamation 20 January 2007 Demanding the suspension of Sivand Dam’s construction and its inundation and pointing out the negative impact of the increased humidity level (due to the dam reservoir) in the Pasargadae region 23 January 2007 Demanding the suspension of the dam’s construction and its inundation given the negative environmental and natural impacts and that the archaeological digs in the Bolaghi gorge were as yet incomplete 6 February 2007 Invitation to all NGOs to join the national movement against the inundation of the Sivand Dam 25 February 2007 Demanding that ICHHTO publish the details of archaeological digs in the Bolaghi gorge.

In addition to the above, the proclamation media release by an important state institution, the Academy of Art, is noteworthy. The Academy of Art is one of four Academies (the other three being Sciences, Medical Sciences and Persian Literature) and under the direct supervision of (the Office of) the President it is the state custodian for fine arts. On 28 November 2008 the Academy of Art in a statement implored the Ministry of Energy and ICHHTO to consider their positions carefully and take notice of public protests:

According to reliable documents, we know that the reservoir behind Sivand Dam will not even threaten the Pasargadae Heritage UNESCO zone and is kilometres away from Persepolis … in an historic country such as Iran, any development plan may lead to the destruction of known or unknown historic monuments and cause irreparable damage to part of Iranian and world cultural stock … The most appropriate way is that, in accordance with the Law, a reasonable balance be struck between development and the preservation of historic monuments …

Open Letters to the Various Politicians and State Authorities

Sending open letters to the country’s highest authorities and their publication through internet and mass media was another method employed by protesters. These include letters delivered to the office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah 240 World Heritage in Iran

Ali Khamenei. Table 10.4 provides a summary of letters, mostly sent by The Information Portal for Ancient Monuments (Pasargadae Plain). Other letters with full documentation attached were published by natural or legal persons, including NGOs, inviting their audience to interfere and prevent the inundation of the dam.

Table 10.4 A summary of most significant officials who received a campaign letter

Date Letter Addressed to 6/12/2005 Emad Afrough, Chair of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament) Cultural Commission 7/12/2005 Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Head of ICHHTO 12/2/2006 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President 7/1/2006 All representatives in the Islamic Consultative Assembly 10/11/2007 Ali Razini, Chair of Administrative Justice Court 11/2005 Mohammad Reza Faker, Chair of Consultative Assembly’s Act 90 Commission 17/3/2006 Salih, Head of UNESCO Regional Office in Tehran

Public Information Sessions and Street Protests

Alongside utilising the media, activists began direct engagement of the authorities and public opinion through meetings and street protests in Tehran and the Fars province. The locations of these protests in Tehran were in front of the Energy Ministry, the ICHHTO and the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament). In the Fars province, in addition to Pasargadae heritage site and around the tomb of Cyrus within it, meetings were held in front of the Fars Regional Water Corporation and Fars provincial government house. Some of the most important meetings were:

1. 7/2/2007: public meeting of protesters in front of the Energy Ministry and from there to ICHHTO (Figure 10.4). 2. 14/2/2007: a meeting of a group of Bakhtyari nomads and a few NGOs in front of the Consultative Assembly (Tehran). 3. March 2007: picketing and the formation of a human chain around the tomb of Cyrus during the Persian New Year (Nowrooz) holidays (21 March- 4 April) to inform and warn tourists (Figure 10.5). This was reported in the daily Sarmayeh (2007).

In such gatherings a raft of means, including banners, the distribution of printed brochures and announcements were used to inform the passing public. Antinomies of Development 241

Figure 10.4 Protest in front of the ICHHTO headquarters in Terhan, 7 February 2007

Source: The Archive of Iran’s Cultural and Natural Heritage Watch

Figure 10.5 Human chain around the tomb of Cyrus, 25 March 2007

Source: The Archive of Iran’s Cultural and Natural Heritage Watch 242 World Heritage in Iran

Publication of Campaign Pictures

A media technique employed in 2006 for social resistance against the official decision for the construction of the dam was the circulation of fake images depicting a semi-submerged tomb of Cyrus (Figure 10.6). Circulating this image left the inexpert public with the impression that the tomb was truly about to be submerged. This heightened public sensitivity to the topic to the extent that even the official response (Water Management Authority 2006) that the dam’s reservoir was 17 kilometres away from the tomb and the water level even at its peak, which is the crest of the dam, would be 35 meters below the level of Pasargadae plain, failed to fully convince the public.

Figure 10.6 This provocative image of a semi-submerged tomb of Cyrus was circulated through email

Source: Image available in public domain

Other Activities

Having realised that the above activities would not yield the desired stay of construction activities by February 2006, a number of lawsuits and class actions were lodged, spearheaded by prominent politically active lawyers against various government bodies and ministers. In the end, all claims were dismissed by the courts. However, the campaign fever itself resulted in the production of protest clips, poems, political caricatures, of documentary and feature films. Antinomies of Development 243

Official (State-Owned) Mass Media

The Persian service of most major broadcasting corporations, such as the BBC and Voice of America dedicated programs to the Sivand controversy, but here we shall focus on the Iranian state-media. State-owned media includes (for the purposes of this study) public broadcaster (Radio and Television) News Agency (IRNA) and various newspapers that hold official permits from the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance and have been active between years 2006 and 2007. As already mentioned, one of the first groups that investigated the issue of Sivand were journalists, leading to the involvement of mass media (Afshari 2011, p. 14). The participation of state media increased the credibility of the popular campaign. From among this media, the Television followed an official stance in line with the pronouncements of the Energy Ministry.7 Radio broadcasters were slightly more open and broadcast the news regarding the production of a number of radio programs including debates and interviews. However, for this analysis we mainly concentrate on newspaper archives.

Quantitative Analysis of News Items

In order to analyse the performance of newspapers a one-year period – from 7 months leading to the inundation of the dam to 5 months after its inundation (23/9/2006 to 22/9/2007, the dam being inundated on 19/4/2007) – was chosen. During this period, 59 newspapers, 13 news agencies and news websites, 7 television networks and 8 radio stations were active. We used the polling method to examine the news items and then conducted a content analysis on the items. For quantitative analysis, we used SPSS package. We examined newspapers and news agencies and the results are summarised in Tables 10.5 and 10.6.

7 The only exception to this rule was a documentary by Pezhman Mazaherifard about the danger of the construction of the Sivand Dam for Cyrus’ tomb, which was broadcast from Channel 4 of the state television on 27 April 2007. 244 World Heritage in Iran

Table 10.5 Title and frequency of examined media during 2006–2007 period

Type of Media Name Frequency Percentage National Daily Paper Etemad Meli, Eghtesad Puoya, 59 81.9 Arman, Aftab Yazd, Afarinesh, Iran, Aande no, Iran Daily, Iran News, Andishe No, Puol, Tafahom, Tose`eh, Tehran Emroz, Tehran Times, Jam-e Jam, JomhoriEslami, ،Javan, Jahan Eghtesad، Hemayat Hasban, Hayat No, Hizb allah, Khabar, Khorasan, Rah mardom, Resalat, Zaman, Donyaye Eghtesaad, Shargh, Sarmayeh, Syasat Rouz, Sahebghalam, Sobh-e Eghtesad, Sedaye Edalat, Asr-e Eghtesad, Farhang-e Ashti, Ghiam, Qods, Kargozaran, Kar-o-karegar, Karoun, Keyhan, Keyhan English, Keyhan Arabic, Mardomsalari, Hada-va-Eghtesad, Hambastegi, Hamshahri, Ham-mihan, and Asr Resaneh News Agency Fars, IRNA, ISNA, Mehr, ILNA, 13 18.1 Miras-e-Farhangi, Khabar, Moj, Isca News, Eco News, Central News Desk, News Network (SHabakehye Khabar), Bashgah-e Khabarnegaran Javan TOTALS 72 100

Table 10.6 Well-known news agencies and daily papers for and against the construction and inundation of the dam

News Agency Publication Direction with regard to the dam IRNA Iran Agree with construction and inundation of the dam ISNA, Mehr, Etemad, Jam-e Jam, Hashahri, Disagree with the construction Miras News, Shargh, Etemad Melli, and inundation of the dam ILNA, Moj Aftaab Yazd, Farhang Ashti, Mardomsalari, Kargozaran

As shown in Table 10.7, in a one-year period (allowing a 4 per cent margin of error) 888 articles were collected from sources mentioned in Table 10.10 out of Antinomies of Development 245 which 41.6 per cent devoted their content to protesting against the construction and inundation of the dam.

Table 10.7 The Percentile of the total news items on the Sivand Dam to the negative news items published in the period of focus. The shaded row relates to the period when the inundation was announced

Period Frequency Percentage Population of Percentage of Negative News Negative News 23/9/2006 to 15 1.7 6 40 22/10/2006 23/10/2006 to 20 2.3 6 30 22/11 2006 23/11/2006 to 20 2.3 9 45 22/12/2006 23/12/2006 to 51 5.7 14 27.5 22/1/2007 23/1/2007 to 177 19.9 108 61 22/2/2007 23/2/2007 to 124 14 57 46 22/3/2007 23/3/2007 to 245 27.6 77 31.4 22/4/2007 23/4/2007 to 161 18.1 66 41 22/5/2007 23/5/2007 to 39 4.4 4 10.3 22/6/2007 23/6/2007 to 17 1.9 13 76.5 22/7/2007 23/7/2007 to 12 1.4 5 41.7 22/8/2007 23/8/2007 to 7 0.8 4 57.1 22/9/2007 Totals 888 100 369 41.6

Table 10.7 shows that there are three peaks in this period (designated in bold): in January-February 2006, April 2007 (the month of the dam’s inundation) and May 2007, the month after the dam’s inundation began. The news of the inundation week contains revealing points. There were few news articles on the day of inundation. This is because newspapers are closed on 246 World Heritage in Iran

Thursdays and Fridays. Perhaps the choice of a 13:40 inauguration on Thursday was a deliberate strategy on the part of the officialdom. On the other hand, since the exact date for inundation was not announced by the national news network, news crew did not get to the location nor were they invited. On Friday and Saturday however, the news agencies newspapers published 83 articles covering the surprise inundation, 42 per cent of which were against it. As Table 10.8 shows, the frequency of critical news items was at its height within the three days following the inundation and within the week, 67 per cent criticised the action. These statistics make sense if compared to similar statistics on other dams in recent years. For example, in the case of Seimareh dam in the province of Ilam, inundation was also criticised by some advocates of cultural heritage, the total number of news articles published were 385 and only a relatively small percentage, 8.8 per cent of the total, were critical (Shamoradi et al. 2011).

Table 10.8 The total news items and their position with regard to the dam during inundation period. The grey column represents the day of inundation

Date Frequency Percentage of Percentage News Items Positive News of Negative Not Taking Items News Items Sides Monday 16th 45 36 16 49 Tuesday 17th 17 18 41 41 Wednesday 18th 11 27 64 9 Thursday 19th 3 100 0 0 Firday 20th and 83 14 42 43 Saturday 21st Sunday 22nd 12 33 67 0 Total 171

Analysis of the News Content

• The target of criticisms.

The most important target of criticisms in the mass media news was the ICHHTO because it had issued the permit for the dam’s construction. Esfandiar Rahim Mahsai was particularly targeted as the Head of the Organisation at the time. Dam builders in the country, including the minister for Energy and the Regional Water Authority of Fars Province as the commissioners of the Sivand Dam and the Environmental Protection Agency for its failure to conduct comprehensive Antinomies of Development 247 studies before the start of the construction were heavily criticised. All of these state organisations were accused of negligence and not carrying out sufficient technical and expert studies, and thus recklessness toward the cultural heritage of Iran. With the progress of criticisms and the initial silence followed by subterfuge on the part of the above organisations, which accused their critics of spreading rumours and creating a false atmosphere, Ahmadinejad, as the president and head of government gradually became the target of criticisms.

• The headlines (summary) of issues raised by critics of the dam.

In the period from the beginning of the protests until the inundation of the dam, various issues were raised but with the passage of time and as campaigners and media journalists became better informed and began to report more accurately, they focussed on the following topics:

1. The flooding of theBolaghi valley (rather than the rumoured inundation of Cyrus’ tomb) which included 130 archaeological sites such as remains of rock tombs, caves, pottery kilns and metalwork kilns and wineries dating back to Darius’ time. 2. The risk of rising water tables due to the dam and the geological nature of the soil which could ultimately lead to damaging the foundations of remaining ruins in Pasargadae. 3. The long-term effect of the humidity emanating from the dam’s reservoir upon structures and reliefs of Cyrus’ tomb and other Achaemenid structures in the region, particularly given that their main material was lime stone. 4. Lack of expertise on the part of the groups sent by the ICHHTO for archaeological missions who were even accused of destructing monuments. 5. The possibility of the removal of Pasargadae from the World Heritage list. 6. The destruction of historical routes and passages of nomads in the region and their pasture. 7. The possibility of an earthquake after the inundation of the dam and the disaster that it could create. 8. Environmental damages resulting from the dam’s inundation including: • The felling of 8000 five hundred-year-old turpentine trees. • Drying out of the Bakhtgan lake which was located downstream from the dam (this actually took place a few years later). • The possibility of the death of migrating flamingos toBakhtegan due to its dryness or over-salination.

The Sivand Dam controversy also gave rise to a number of other socio-political tendencies – nationalism in particular was a key issue. Some were expressed explicitly in mass media and citizen media outside the country but were also implicitly present in the domestic media: 248 World Heritage in Iran

1. The heightened appeal of the nationalist discourse. 2. Sacralisation and sanctification of pre-Islamic (particularly Irano-Aryan) symbols, rather than their Islamic equivalents. 3. The start of what could be labelled a ‘cult of Cyrus the Great’, glorifying him as a powerful and strong king and leader as a point of contrast to the current leadership of the country. Prior to this, there was a stigma attached to such feeling of pride. 4. Glorification of Cyrus’ cylinder as the ‘first Iranian charter of human rights’ and the (re)publication of its translation. 5. Highlighting the conflict between the current discourse of the Islamic Republic or Iran, which is anti-monarchic, and the country’s history that is monarchic. 6. Rise of implicit sympathies for monarchism and royalism in opposition to the Islamic Republic. 7. Concurrent with the above, as concerns the specialist fields under the auspices of the Energy Ministry, integrated water management and particularly dam construction, criticisms suggested a dwindling public trust of dam projects and their initial studies.

Meanwhile, the media reflected expert recommendations and solutions as well as criticism of water management and dam building practices and processes. Among the most important recommendations was the necessity to review the process involved in the initial data-gathering phase of projects. There was an emphasis on the importance of completing and publishing social studies, environmental studies, and cultural heritage studies in relation to dam sites. Finally, the necessity to learn from traditional water management solutions as an alternative to modern dam construction was highlighted.

Conclusion: the Repercussions of the Construction and Inundation of Sivand Dam

In conclusion, one can consider the Sivand Dam controversy from several aspects, namely, the performance of the dam, the performance of the campaign in terms of its achievements, and finally, the performance of the (state) media.

The Dam’s Performance

By the time this research was written (early 2013), the stated primary goals and objectives for the dam’s construction, which included the construction of a downstream irrigation and surface water collection network, have not been realised. Six years after the dam’s inundation, the volume of water collected in the reservoir is estimated around 500 million cubic meters which is far below full capacity. The usual filling process is two years. Antinomies of Development 249

According to one Water expert in the Fars Province who wished to remain anonymous, this situation is born of the excessive use of water in the upstream and the need to release water from the reservoir to alleviate the demand from downstream. On the other hand, the most important reason for the dam’s construction has been controlling Sivand River’s destructive seasonal floods. However, due to drought in recent years, there has been no flooding and little water has been collected. In addition to the above reasons, technical problems with the dam structure, including the possibility of cracks in the clay core and the seepage of water could be another issue.

The Outcome of the Campaign Against the Dam

If the main goal of campaigners was to prevent the construction of the dam and its inundation, the campaign has indeed failed as the dam was built and all official plans were put into action. Today, however, given that the primary objectives of the dam have not been realised (although never officially admitted), local farmers are among the losers as they never obtained the promised water. Nevertheless, the three-year activity of campaigners had secondary or lateral outcomes which were in line with the bigger goals of some NGO activists in the area of culture and heritage. Among them was raising public awareness and information about the necessity to preserve cultural heritage, including Pasargadae. The impact was such that on January 2013, critical news about the ICHHTO and the impact of moisture and [allegedly] insufficient preservation measures upon the structures of Pasargadae were published (‘Pasargadae Palaces to Get a Roof’ 2012).

The Performance of the Media

In examining the performance of the media and campaigners, the following questions might be asked: did media activists work as an arm of a sustainable development for Iran, which could be described within the concept of development journalism (as below)? For example, did they critique insufficient expert work in the Energy Ministry and were thus preserving the long-term interests of the country and people, or were they rather politically motivated, misleading the public and setting out to damage and destroy the country’s politicians? In other words, was Sivand Dam, as the officials at the time claimed, only an excuse for forming a campaign against the government of the time? To assess the response to such questions, one might refer to two tendencies in the field of development journalism. Development journalism began in the late 1960s in the context of economic journalism in the developing (then known as third world) countries. It was ‘designed to serve ordinary people, not the elite’ and its hallmarks include reporting on the actual as opposed to planned outcome of economic projects, focusing on a long-term development process, independence from government while working constructively through critiques with it in order to achieve nation building projects and empowering ordinary people and communities (Xiaoge 2009, pp. 357–8). This 250 World Heritage in Iran is almost point by point what Narider K. Aggrawala, Indian journalist and former communications manager in UNDP in Asia and Oceania, points out in News With Third World Perspectives (1978, p. 200). Through its independence, development journalism retains a constructive criticism while supporting the idea of a sustainable development. This is not to be mistaken with either negative news, nor what Aggrawala calls ‘development oriented government controlled news’. Here, the media becomes an instrument for sustainable development overseeing the performance of organisations and institutions rather than acting as their propaganda arm (Narinder K. Aggrawala 1978, pp. 200–201). From the standpoint of development journalism it appears that there is a mixed outcome: the performance of official and citizen media that critiqued the construction of the Sivand Dam (if one agrees that the initial studies and the construction of the dam had some technical errors), it is possible to say that by publishing critical (and not bad) news, the media performed their expected independent role without complicity or silence and did, for the most part and as much as possible, attract the participation of social forces towards reaching a democratic ideal. There is, however, another aspect of the media function which should be mentioned. Sometimes the media move away from the framework of critique and supervision (overseeing) the performance of the government and resort to the production of factoids and rumours. This can lead to misplaced excitement and the misleading of public opinion through the creation of false media crises or hype. The reasons for this can and do vary: sometimes, this is done in the pursuit of sinister objectives, other times, it is the result of the influence of politico-economic interests of some groups or sectors and at times it is the result of being trapped by unreliable news sources. From this perspective, some of the actions of the media activists and campaigners (official or otherwise) constituted ‘factoids’. Two examples stand out. The first example is the production and distribution of fake images ofan inundated tomb of Cyrus. The second example is the blaming of newly elected Ahmadinejad administration for all the shortcomings in the dam’s decision making and construction process, implying that this project was instigated by his administration. This latter example was the significant discrediting element of the campaign. Perhaps, in reaction to this, the government began a campaign of subterfuge and dismissed all criticisms out of hand as political propaganda by Ahmadinejad’s opponents. As Habermas has pointed out (Webster 2004, p. 53),8 the circulation of information is the key to democracy and the more there are information production and proliferation processes in place, the more the society is empowered, leading to a more effective democracy. The state of affairs in the Sivand Dam controversy is

8 Authors have used a Persian translation by Esmail Ghadimi. A later English version is available at Webster (2009). Antinomies of Development 251 indexical of a less than satisfactory condition in communication and transparency. Furthermore, the lack of communication between groups for and against the dam caused the proliferation of false news, factoids and disinformation. One could instead imagine ideal models for communication which would be predicated upon a constructive space of debate in which national and historical interests of the country are advanced and in which various stakeholders interact with transparency.9 Of course, as this chapter has suggested, the aggrandising of the campaign’s activities and the circumstances of Sivand Dam caused both the dam builders and water management authorities in Iran to take more seriously the preliminary studies and particularly heritage and environmental studies related to their project. This project set out with massive expenditure to serve important goals including the improvement of the economic conditions of local farmers. However, due to a raft of issues, mainly lack of due diligence and comprehensive studies in all the relevant fields, it exceeded the planned budget and timeframe, instigated public discontent and ultimately failed to deliver its valuable goals, and ultimately exacted a considerable cost upon the country. It is not inconceivable that the Sivand example may be repeated elsewhere in Iran because of insufficient attention to regional planning and the lack of a comprehensive vision in development plans. Nevertheless, the positive outcome of this project has been the creation of public sensitivity toward cultural heritage and this has in turn lead to the implementation of positive changes for future projects.

References

Afshari, A. (2011). In Defence of History. Tehran. (unpublished manuscript). Alavi-Tousi, Mahshid. 2008. Examining the Performance of the Country’s Mobile and Landline Phones During a 30-Year Period. Planning Weekly. Ataei, M. (2010). Multicriteria Decision-Making. Shahrood: Shahrood Technicval University. Bozorgzadeh, I. (2009, October). The Prospect and Strategy for Developing Hydropower Stations of the Country (Iran). Hydraulic Power Energy. The Complete Text of the Fourth 5-Year Program for Development of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2005–10). (2004, 6 September). Retrieved 19 April, 2013. Energy Ministry’s Under-Secretary for Water. (2005). 57 Years of Water Industry in Iran in a glance Energy Ministry of Iran. Unpublished report. Energy Ministry’s Under-Secretary for Water. (2012). The Performance of Iran Water Resource Management Company. Energy Ministry of Iran. Unpublished report.

9 Such a model is discussed in full detail in Shamoradi and Tabatabai (2011). 252 World Heritage in Iran

‘European Experts Warning About Submerging Iranian Historic Heritage: The Sivand Dam Will Drawn Pasargadae within the Next Two Years’. 2004. Iran, 25 December. Everything About the Sivand Dam (Persian: hame chiz dar bareye sad sivand). (2010). Retrieved from Water News Network website: http://www.wrm.ir/ ravabet/wnnsections/sivand.pdf. Grunig, J.E. and Hunt, T. (1984). Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hirsch, Philip and Warren, Carol. eds. 1998. The Politics of Environment in Southeast Asia Resources and Resistance. London and New York: Routledge. Imanpour, M.-T. (2007, 18–22 September). The Communication Roads in Parsa during the Achaemenid Period. Paper presented at the Ancient and Middle Iranian Studies, Vienna. Iran Water Resource Management Co. Retrieved 1/1/2013, 2013, from http:// portal.wrm.ir/En/default.aspx. Javadi Yeganeh, M. 2001. Planned Social Change. Tehran: The Research Bureau of the Radion and Television. McCormick, Sabrina. 2006. ‘The Brazilian Anti-Dam Movement: Knowledge Contestation as Communicative Action’. Organization & Environment 19 (3) pp. 321–46. Mirzadegi, S. and Nooriala, E. (2004). Save the Precious Archeological Sites of Pasargad in Iran. Retrieved 19 April, 2013, from http://www.petitiononline. com/Pasargad/petition.html. Narinder K. Aggrawala. (1978). News With Third World Perspectives: A Practical Suggestion. In Philip C. Horton (ed.), The Third World and Press Freedom (pp. 197–209). New York: Praeger. New Media and Development Communication. (2007). Blogospheres-Iran. Retrieved 19 APril, 2013, from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/sipa/nelson/ newmediadev/Iranian%20Blogosphere.html. ‘Pasargadae Palaces to Get a Roof’. 2012. Hamshahri, 25 December. p. 7. ‘Protests against the Sivand Dam Inundaiton Continued Even in Nowrooz’. 2007. Sarmayeh, 3 April. p. 20. The Public Relations and International Relations Office of the Iranian Communication Company. (2010). The Evolution of Communicaitons in the Country (Most important communicaiton and telecommunicaiton activities, 1857-September 2010). Tehran. Samani, J.M.-V. (2005). Water Resources Management and Sustainable Development. Research Secreteriat: The Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran. Shamoradi, E., Khandejam, A. and Moghimi Esfandabadi, G. (2011). Planning and Crisis Prevention Management of Saymareh Dam with a case study of the Sivand Dam. Paper presented at the The Seventh International Iranian Conference of Public Relations, Tehran, Iran. Antinomies of Development 253

Shamoradi, E. and Tabatabai, S. (2011). An applied Model for the Strategic Public Relatins in Iranian Dam Building Projects. Paper presented at the First International Conference on Dams and Hydroelectic Power Stations, Tehran. Sivand Dam Reserve, The [Persian: sad makhzani sivand]. (2012). Retrieved 10 April, 2013, from: http://www.frrw.ir/Modules/MdlNews/NewsDetail. aspx?ID=1173&Mdl_ID=586. Sneddon, Chris and Coleen Fox. 2008. ‘Struggles over Dams as Struggles for Justice: The World Commission on Dams (Wcd) and Anti-Dam Campaigns in Thailand and Mozambique’. Society & Natural Resources 21 (7) pp. 625–40. doi: 10.1080/08941920701744231. Sreberny, A. 2010. Blogistan : the internet and politics in Iran / A. Sreberny & Gholam Khiabany. London: London: I. B. Tauris. Tewksbury, D. and Rittenberg, J. 2012. News on the Internet : Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century Retrieved from: http://CURTIN.eblib.com.au/ patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=886485. Top Sites in Iran. 2013. Retrieved 16 April, 2013, from http://www.alexa.com/ topsites/countries/IR. Toth, E.L. 2006. The Future of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management: Challenges for the Next Generation Retrieved from http:// CURTIN.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=425600. Vidal, J. 2004. Dam is threat to Iran’s heritage: Unesco appeals for help as ancient sites face being flooded, The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian. co.uk/world/2004/dec/23/iran.artsnews. Water Management Authority. 2006, 26 August. Water Management Authority’s Rejoinder to Two Reports in the Shargh Daily: ‘The dam that went global’ (2006/7/8) and ‘In search of a remedy’ (2006/6/18) Shargh. Webster, Frank. 2009 ‘Information Society’. In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition, pp. 2605–23. Taylor & Francis. World Commission on Dams. (2000). Dams and development a new framework: the report of the world commission on dams for decision-making. London and Sterling, VA: World Commission on Dams. Xiaoge, X. (2009). Development Journalism. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen and T. Hanitzsch (eds), The handbook of journalism studies (pp. 357–70). New York and London: Routledge. Zohoori, H. (2004, 28 December 2004). UNESCO Cultural Secretary: Transmit the Voice of the Bolaghi Gorge to the World (Persian: moaven farhangi unesco: sedaye tange bolaghi ra begoosh jahanian beresanid). Retrieved 11 April, 2013. This page has been left blank intentionally Index

References to photographs and diagrams are in bold

Aalto, Alvar 213 Ardalan, Nader 214 Abolvardi 80, 146, 199 art works Achaemenid Empire 4 conservation 126, 129 conquest by Alexander the Great 29 ecology, need for 130 modern criticism of 19 original, meaning of 125 Aggrawala, Narinder K. 250 reproduction of 125–6 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, President 14, Assurnasipal II 118, 121 156, 232, 247 Albert, M.-T. 174–5 Babylon 65 Alexander the Great, conquest of Hanging Gardens 119 Achaemenid Empire 29 Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace, Amanat, Hossein 197, 198, 204 reconstruction 107 architect, Pasargadae Museum 205–6, site, damage to 106–7 208–9, 221 Bann, S. 184 Azadi (Freedom) Square (Tehran), Barbaro, Giosafat 30, 116 design 203–4 Barth, Fredrick 143 international influences on 213 Bate, J. 190 Shahyad Monument (Tehran) 203–4, Behistun inscriptions 123 212 Benjamin, S.G.W. 19 at Teheran University, Faculty of Fine Bernal, Martin, The Black Athena 96–7 Arts 214 Bernhardsson, M.T. 100 Appadurai, Arjun 179 Bolaghi gorge, Pasargadae 48–9, 50, 56 Aquinas, Thomas, St, conservation danger from flooding 234 principle 127–8 Briant, P. 122, 123 archaeology Buddhas of Bamiyan, destruction of 106 competing narratives 96–7 Bunkše, E. 181, 184 and cultural appropriation 100–101 Butler, Richard 162 damage to artefacts/sites 100, 107–8 discourses 99 Chadirchi, Rif’at 219 and economic exploitation 101 Chuaqui, R. 98 French monopoly 34 Clark, T. 191, 192 Iranian 104 conservation and orientalism 92–3, 94 art works 129 positivist 97 Cyrus the Great’s tomb 167 rational conduct of 96 principle 127–8 and search for history 100 see also Pasargadae, conservation as treasure hunting 101 Coste, Xavier Pascal, drawing, tomb of archetypes, Platonic 127 Cyrus 30, 31, 31 256 World Heritage in Iran

Critical Regionalism 220 New Year celebrations at 8, 14 cultural appropriation, and archaeology in Pahlavi ideology 202 100–101 perspectives on, changing 134–5 cultural landscape pilgrimage place 9–10, 116, 116, 140, affective responses 180–81 158, 202 and identity construction 180 Private Palace 64 interpretation 178–81 re-configuration 201 and nationalism 180 reconstruction 116 persons in 180 as sign of eternity 23 perspectives 179 Sivand Dam as text 180 humidity problem 247 ‘visual-factual’ orientation 178–9 proximity of 225, 230 see also Pasargadae, cultural Tall-i Takht-i Solaiman platform 31, landscape 34, 37, 38, 40, 45, 48, 55, 62, 63, Curzon, George Nathaniel 30, 32, 34, 115 170 Cyrus the Great detail 186 conquests 65 excavations 42 Cylinder 204, 248 views death 65 background 189 defeat of Medians (Medes) 32, 65 from main road 187 as gardener king 121 trajectory 132–3, 134 Pasargadae, foundation of 32 view from site main entry 199 as Zolqarneyn 62 Cyrus the Great’s tomb 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 64, Darius I (the Great) 38, 40 119, 177, 200 palace, Persepolis 29 Alexander the Great’s visit 32 Pasargadae, intervention 40 as anti-nomadic act 122 Deleuze, E., and Guattari, F. 189 as archetypal house 201 on haecceity 190 Audience Palace 64 Derrida, Jacques authenticity, attacks on 202 on the poematic 190–91 conservation 167 on Western metaphysics 127 demonstration at 241 Diba, Kamran 214 drawings of 30, 31, 32 Dieulafoy, Marcel-Auguste 32 fake image 242, 250 documentation, power of 184 identification 30, 140 Doxiadis Associates 213 inscription 133, 202 madrasa 116, 117, 158, 200 Fathy, Hassan 219 as Martyrium of the Mother of Fenner, D. 188 Solomon 9, 139, 158, 202 Feyerabend, Paul 97 mosque (Atabaki) Firuz, A.P. 191 conversion to 6, 30, 42, 62, 105, Flandin, J.-B. Eugène Napoléon, drawing, 116, 116, 124, 158, 202 tomb of Cyrus 30, 31, 31 excavation 94, 95 Foucault, Michel relocation 118 on knowledge and power 97–8 remains 177 The Order of Things 97 removal 66, 134fn28, 159, 177, Frampton, Kenneth 219 188, 202 Frankfort, Henri 43 mountain backdrop 187 Friedland, R., Hecht, R. 105 Index 257 gardens Ho, Pamela, McKercher, Bob 162 enclosures, as temporalising devices 122 Hodjat, M. 175, 178 Golshan Garden, Tabas 120 Holbein, Hans (the Younger), The Persian pattern 118 Ambassadors 130 as political statement 118 Hollein, Hans 213 see also Pasargadae, gardens Gerschenkron, A. 119 identity see national identity Giedion, Siegfried International Council on Monuments and Nine Points on Monumentality 218 Sites (ICOMOS) 54, 159 The Need for a New Monumentality 218 Iran Ginsberg, R. 184, 186, 189, 192 adoption of name 102 Godard, André 213 annual rainfall 227 Goldhagen, S.W. 218 architectural development 102–3 Grigor, Talin 102 and ‘Aryan’ civilisaton 103 capital cities, development plans 213 Habermas, Jürgen 250 dam construction haecceity 190 criticism of 225 Harootunian, H.D., peripheral modernity development stages 228 concept 220 numbers 227, 228 heritage sites, poetics of 190–92 public relations management 229 heritage tourism see also Sivand Dam project access issues 163, 165 Development Plan (1941) 227 carrying capacity 163 Fars province, map 230 community Fourth 5-Year Development Plan decision making 166 (2005) 227 economic benefit 166 Iraq, war (1980–88) 231 engagement 166 National Comprehensive Water Plan participation 166 (1948–) 227 conservation plan 165 oil revenues 211 education 163 and peripheral modernity 220 inter-/intra- generational equity 163 tourism 156–8 management of 162–6 barriers to 157 revenue streams 165 growth 157, 170 staff management/training 165 Islamic markets 158 stakeholders’ participation 163 sources 157 success factors 164–5 see also Pasargadae, tourism thematic approach 185 water shortages 225, 226–9 visitor experience 165 women, in public arena 149 Herzfeld, Ernst 10, 102, 108, 115 world heritage sites 157 Collections 109 Iran Cultural Heritage Organisation excavations 92 (ICHO) 156 Pasargadae Iran Touring and Tourism Organisation plan 33 (ITTO) 156 restorations 68 Iranian Archaeological Service 34, 37 study of 34–5, 35–6 Iranian Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Hetzler, F. 184, 188, 189 Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) Hippodamus of Miletus 119 13, 43, 49, 66, 87, 151, 152–3, 156 Hittorff, Jacques 94 headquarters, protest at 241 258 World Heritage in Iran

Iraq, Iran, war (1980–88) 231 Achaemenid façade 152 Islamic Revolution (1979) 13, 25, 104, 142 Afghanis 141 Housing Foundation 15–16, 82 Bâsseri tribe 142, 143 Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East marriage connections 144, 145 (ISMEO) 11, 66 cemetery 146, 147 Cyrus the Great’s tomb, relationship Johnson, Philip 218 139 journalism, development 249–50 development restrictions 152–3 diseases 148 Kahn, Louis 209 fire station 148 First Unitarian Church, Rochester, plan hospital, lack of 147 diagram 219 houses monumental projects 218 furnishings 148, 148 The Problem of Monumentality 218 restrictions on 151–2 Kant, Immanuel 127 and ICHHTO restrictions 151–3 Kazemi, Kurosh 142 infrastructure 148 Ker Porter, Robert 30, 31 justice system 142 Khalkhali, Sadeq, The Fraudulent and Kordshul group 141 Criminal Cyrus 202 Leila, achievements 149, 151, 153–4 Khân, Hassan Ali 141–2 marriage connections, Saidis/Sheibanis Khatami, Mohammad, President 156, 232 143 knowledge, and power, Foucault on 97–8 pastoral nomads 143–6 Krefter, Friedrich 34 council 144 dispute resolution 146 Latour, B., and Lowe, A. 130 numbers of 147 on reproduction of art works 125 population 140, 147 Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanerette) pedigrees 140–41, 145 94, 96 Qajar family 144 influence schools 142, 147 at Fine Arts Faculty, Teheran stadium, unfinished 151, 151 University 215 Tâjik people 140, 141, 142, 143 on Pasargadae Museum 215, tourism 141, 159 216–17 transhumance 144 Le Voyage d’Orient 92–3, 107 village council 146–7 ‘L’Acropole, Athènes’ 93 Yek-o-Ye factory 143, 149, 150 projects Massumi, B. 190 Ahmedabad Museum 215 Medians (Medes), conquest by Cyrus the Mundaneum 215, 216, 216 Great 32, 65 Museum of Contemporary Art for metaphysics, Western, Derrida on 127 Paris 215, 216 Millar, Sue 162 National Museum of Western Art monumentality (Tokyo) 215 and the Pasargadae Museum 218–20 projects 218 McCann, S. 192 writings on 218 McCorkle, J. 191 Morghab Plain 3, 48, 49, 56, 62, 63, 65, Mâdar Soleimân (Madar-i Solaiman) 67, 84 village 34, 54, 63, 83–4, 115–16, Morier, James 30, 115 169, 205 mythos, to logos, transition 133 Index 259

Naser ad-Din Shah 101 Bolaghi gorge 48–9, 50, 56 national identity, and Pasargadae 2, 198 danger from flooding 234 nationalism, and cultural landscape 180 buffer zone Nebuchadnezzar II 118 building restrictions 81–2 Netanyahu, Benjamin 105 map 81 Nylander, Carl 38, 123 regulations 80 buildings plan 45 object, Western concepts of 127 camp hypothesis 43 O’Keeffe, T. 178 chronology 176–7 Old Persian 40, 50, 115, 123 classical references 62 Olmert, Ehud 105 conservation 37, 56, 68–9, 73–6, 168 orientalism, and archaeology 92–3, 94 action 74 funds priorities 75, 75 Pahlavi zones, monitoring 76, 76 Mohammad Reza Shah 104, 107, 156 core zone Reza Shah 102, 107 map 81 Pahlavi era 11, 15, 202, 212 regulations 80 paradidam, etymology 115, 118 see also County of 146 gardens cultural landscape 7, 21–2, 62, 158, Pars 62 167–8 Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation and identity 175 (PPRF) 24, 35, 69 Cyrus the Great, foundation by 32 communities, engagement with 169 Darius’ intervention 40 funding 167, 168–9 education and training 78, 79, 169 Pasargadae management 166 and employment, local 169–70 sites managed 158 as ethnonym 121 staff 166 etymology 120–21 Parthenon (Elgin) marbles 109, 110 excavations 37–41, 68–9 Pasargadae French monopoly, early 34 abandonment of 29 illegal 168 Achaemenid finance art 65 international, need for 170 era 87 stability 170 origin 10 foundation 29 actors garden-city 62 network 19, 20 gardens 4, 6, 36, 48 non-state 16 aerial view 42 state 15–16 and Cyrus’ military conquests 120 aerial photographs 35 hydraulic techniques 119 archaeology 21, 22, 68–9 orthogonal layout 40, 119 goals 54–7 ‘paradise’ 50, 54, 55, 84, 199 archives/information system 72, 73 and place 120, 121 Base and sedentary paradigm 130–31 administrative chart 70 Stronach’s reconstruction 38, board of trustees 72 39–40, 39 management team 72 in world cultural history 55–6 organization chart 71 Gate R 30, 37, 38, 40, 43, 45, 48, 99 technical committee 72 aerial view 103 260 World Heritage in Iran

heritage societies 18 study 35 heritagisation 2, 22 Stronach’s plan 43, 44 Herzfeld’s surveys plan 33 archaeological 43–9 study of 34–5, 35–6 geomagnetic 46, 56 housing developments 16, 17 Takht-i Solaiman fortress 6, 31 and identity politics 198 Tall-i Nokhodi settlement 32 interpretations 176–8 Tang-i Bolaghi route 32, 63, 83, 84–5, Islamic stratum 10, 14 85, 226 landscape 82 grape juice workshop 86 local residents 23–4 nomadic migration 85 location 3–4, 5, 29, 62, 63, 167 rock-cut passageways 51 management 168–9 temperature 50 pre-World Heritage status 66–9 tent, nomadic 182 problems 67–8 as time-creation 23 market analysis 168 as toponym 121 marketing 169 tourism 83, 158–62, 166–70 museum see Pasargadae Museum accommodation 161 (unfinished) domestic and foreign and national identity 2, 198 admission charges 167 necropolis, lack of 49 numbers 159–60, 160 Palace P 6, 40, 41, 42, 42, 45, 183, 192 potential 24 Palace R 37 prices 161–2 Palace S 30, 37, 40, 45, 47, 48 revenue streams 161 perimeter wall 10–11 sanctions, effects 168–9 Persepolis, road link 32, 167, 229 visitors’ views 161, 167 and place 3, 8–9, 14, 20 transpositions 9–14 Plain 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 84 water courses 6, 37, 38, 50–51, 199 villages, building restrictions 81–2 canals 53 poetics 24–5, 181–2, 185–90 management 86, 87 and centring of visitor 182–3, 184 World Heritage list 1–2, 6, 21, 29 dynamic site processes 186 criteria, qualifying 66, 176, 197 and past/present links 183 cultural diversity, qualities 176, and visitors’ imagination 188 178 pool, with sluice gates 47, 47 and European values 175–6 PPRF management 166 funding resources 77, 78 rainfall 50 management plan 69, 87–8 region, Stein’s map 35, 36 management strategy 69–70 representation of 24 as metonym 19–20 research 168 multidisciplinary activities 77, 79 Royal Road 51, 63, 229, 234 registration 53–4, 56–7, 61, 62, rural façades 82, 83 65–8, 118, 170 Sa’adat-shahr mountain strait 84 Zendan-i Solaiman 38, 41, 41, 45, 46, separatist groups 18–19 47, 55, 186, 189 settlement periods 32–4 see also Cyrus the Great’s tomb significance of 65 Pasargadae Museum (unfinished) 153, Stein’s 197–222 map 35, 36 and aesthetics 25 Index 261

architect’s narrative 205–6, 208–9, 221 and visitor engagement 191–2, 192–3 and architectural culture 215–18 see also Pasargadae, poetics architecture, syncretic 201 poetry, as ‘presencing’ 190 budget 204 Polvar river 35, 45, 48, 50, 62 completion plans 222 dams 51, 52, 53 courtyard 203 Pope, Arthur Upham, Survey of Persian curatorial narrative 205 Art 214 design 204–11 PPRF see Parse-Pasargadae Research cultural context 211–15 Foundation entrance 217 extra-territoriality 222 Qader-abad 65 heritage value 221 Qashqai people 49, 131, 142 Le Corbusier’s influence 215, 216–17 main gallery Rafsanjani, Ali-Akbar Hashemi, President longitudinal section 206 232 section through 210 Ross, Mark Howard 105, 110 view through service passage 211 Rothenberg, Jerome 191 view toward 217 Rouhani, Hassan, President 157 mimetic strategies 208, 222 ruins model 201 aesthetic qualities 184 as modern ruin 221 definition 189 and monumentality 218–20 experience of, and senses 188 peripheral modernity, condition 221 impact on visitor 189 plan 207 life in 186 psychological effects, interior 209 modern, Pasargadae Museum as 221 site 200, 205 Western fascination with 183–4 spatial scenario 208 stones, from local quarry 208–9 Sa’âdat Shahr village 149, 151 Pasargadae Site 199–203 Girls’ High School 149 general layout 199, 200 hospital 148 peripheral modernity Said, Edward 94 concept 220 Orientalism 91, 99 and Iran 220 Sa’idi, Haj Hossein Khân 142 Persepolis 14, 32, 104, 107 Sami, Ali 10–11, 37, 68, 91, 93–4, 94, 96, Darius’ palace 29 176 excavations 37, 108 Achaemenid Civilization 92 Fortification Tablets 32, 50 Sardis 65 Pasargadae, road link 32, 167, 229 Sargon II 118 Persian Kingship, 2500th Anniversary Sayyah, Hajj 101–2 (1971) 11–12, 38, 104, 116, 117, Schindler, A.H. 101 142, 202 Schmidt, E.F. 35, 37, 68 Plato, archetypal forms 127 Schmitt, R. 123 poetics Seyhoun, Houshang 214 and bodily responses 189–90, 191 Shahbazi, Alireza Shapur 69 of heritage sites 190–92 Sivand Dam project 13, 18, 25–6, 49–50, 102 history, relationship 190, 191 construction costs 231 and politics 192 Cyrus the Great’s tomb as representation 190, 191 humidity problem 247 262 World Heritage in Iran

proximity to 225–6, 230 Susa 38, 63, 229 diversion tunnel 232 Swarbrooke, John 163–4 goals, non-achievement of 248–9 history 231–2 Tall-i Takht-i Solaiman platform see under justification for 226, 233 Cyrus the Great’s tomb location 229 Tange, Kenzo 213 media Teheran Museum of Contemporary Art management 232–3 212 performance 249–51 Teheran University and nationalist sentiments 248 Fine Arts Faculty news items, quantitative analysis 243–8 1960s 213–15 opposition activities 232, 233–5 Le Corbusier’s influence 215 arguments 247 foundation 213 blogging 237 Teige, Karel 215 fake images 242, 242 Temple Mount (Jerusalem), excavations, law suits 242 controversies 105–6 meetings/street protests 240, 241 Texier, Félix Marie Charles 30 open letters 239–40 Tilia, Ann-Britt 124 outcome 249 and Joseppe 41, 69 public statements 238–9 Timothy, Dallen, and Boyd, Stephen 163 text messaging 236–7 tourism websites 235–6 heritage, tension 162 public relations 233 sustainable, definition 162–3 purpose 231 see also heritage tourism; Iran, repercussions 248–51 tourism; Pasargadae, tourism specifications 231 Turkel, G. 98 supporters 233 Sivand River 149, 231, 249 Veronese, Paolo, The Wedding at Cana 125 Smith, L. 109 Vidal, John 234 Stein, Aurel 32 map of Pasargadae region 35, 36 Weld-Blundell, Herbert 108 Stolze, Friedrich 31 World Heritage list Strabo 121–2 diversity values 174–5 Stronach, David 34, 37, 65, 68, 118 and European values 173–4 The Garden as a Political Statement 55 monumental concept 174, 175 Pasargadae see also Pasargadae, World Heritage gardens, reconstruction 38, 39–40, list 39 Parterres and Stone Watercourses Xerxes I (the Great) 121 at Pasargadae 55 plan 43, 44 Zendan-i Solaiman see under Pasargadae