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Pasargadae: seeking the origins of a garden palace
On the plain of Pasargadae, Cyrus the Great founded a spectacular garden palace. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the region before, raising questions about where the idea came from, how the garden was maintained, and even where the inhabitants lived. Recently, an Iranian-French team under Rémy Boucharlat went in search of the answers, as Andrew Selkirk reveals.
Pasargadae is not as well known as it ought to be. Pasargadae was built by the first great Persian king, Cyrus the Great (c.600-530 BC), as his palace and showpiece. It was a totally new concept of a garden city that established many of the principles of what became Persian architecture. But the trouble was that Cyrus’s successor Darius built an even bigger city 48km to the south, which the Greeks called Persepolis, and this city became the centre of the great Persian Empire. Even though it was spectacularly destroyed by Alexander the Great, 15 pillars still remain standing today, making Persepolis one of the greatest visitor attractions in the world; Pasargadae languishes.
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