Renowned for its Persian lyrics, roses, cypresses and nightingales, Shiraz is the capital of the southern province of Fars and a former national capital. Little is known of Shiraz is the capital of the southern province of Fars and a former national capital. Little is Known of Shiraz’s pre-Islamic past except that the Sassanian king Ardashir I (A.D.212-241) held court there .

Shiraz’s modern history is closely associated with the zand Dynasty and its founder karim khan zand. The most famous relic of this era is the impressive Vakil Mosque on the city’s old zand Avenue. Another Shiraz landmark of the Zand period is the Arg-e-karim khan, which in the middle of the town, resembles a medieval fortress.

Shiraz is renowned for its many beautiful gardens, including the Eram, Narenjestan and Afif-Abad, each with a richly decorated pavilion set among graceful cypress trees. Shiraz is also the birth place of the nation’s two greatest poets saade and Hafez, who are also buried there in two beautiful mausoleums, and who devoted so much of their poetry to the idolization of the city.

Religious activity in Shiraz centers on the glittering Shah Cheragh (King of Light) shrine, where the remains of Seyyed Amir Ahmad, the brother of the eight Shi’ite Imam is buried.

Nasir-ol-Molk of Qajar period is another mosque not to be missed. The province of Fars has a lot more to offer than its capital Shiraz. Some of Iran’s and, indeed, the world’s most important archaeological sites are located all over the province:

  Takht e Jamshid

Archead    

PASARGARDE: The capital and last resting place of Cyrus the Great is situated in Dasht-e-Morghab, some 110 miles north of Shiraz.

Here Cyrus fought and won his last battle against his former suzerain, the Median king Astyages, in or near the year 550 B.C. and Passargadae, named for the chief tribe of the Persians, was built as strabo relates, as a memorial to that epic victory.

Pasargadae is an extensive site containing the remains of a massive platform. The tall-e-Takhte the majestic tomb of Cyrus himself. Its foundation taking the form of a high plinth of six receding steps, upon which rests a gabled tomb chamber; two palaces; a monumental gate marked by a winged genius. With Egyptian crown; a royal garden, and an enigmatic stone tower known as the Zendan-e-Sulaiman(Prison of Sulaiman).

PERSEPOLIS Darius I, the great Achaemenian king, created and reframed and unified an empire which eventually was larger and more efficiently ruled than any other the ancient world had yet seen.

Darius conceived persepolis, its unmatched splendor still evident today, despite the ravages of foreign invaders and centuries of exposure as the spiritual hub of the empire. The building program begun by Darius I (522-486 B.C) was carried on by his two immediate successors Xerxes (486-465 B.C.), and Artaxerxes (465-424 B.C.), remaining a magnificent memorial to the achievements of the Achaemenid kings.

The most important buildings at persepolis were crowded onto a terrace of natural rock (Takht-e-Jamshid) that rises 12 meters above the plain on three sides and abuts a low mountain on the forth side. There are about fifteen major buildings, including the Apadana, the Hall of Hundred Columns, the Gate House of Xerxes, the Treasury, the ‘Harem’, the socalled central building and the majestic palaces of Darius the Great, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I and Artaxerxes III.

Persepolis was the site to which the Achaemenid kings came to celebrate the Iranian New year (Now –Ruz), and the achievements of their ancestors in religious ceremonies, to receive foreign delegations, and to be buried until it was burnt to the ground by Alexander of Macedonia in 330 B.C. The existing remains consist of stone columns with elaborate bases and capitals, stone door and window jambs, and facades and staircases, many with splendid bas-reliefs and relief sculptures. They make persepolis one of the most impressive sites, not just in Iran but in the whole of the ancient world.

NAGHSH-E-RAJAB Four more Sassanian reliefs are hidden inside a rocky recess at Naghsh-e-Rajab near Persopolis. One of them shows Shapur I mounted on his royal charger, with nine figures often identified as his sons. 

BISHAPUR A most interesting site, located west of Shiraz, in Iran’s archaeological belt, where so much history has been revealed as a result of extensive excavations and restoration. Bishapur, meaning the beautiful city of Shapur, was built by Shapur I (241-273 A.D.), the second sassanian king, who threw back the roman invaders and captured the Emperor Valerian in Edessa. From then until its capture and destruction by the Arabs around 637 A.D., Bishapur was and important Sassanian city. 

The building complex includes a central chamber, a large courtyard, which had been covered with impressive mosaics, plus the remains of a temple dedicated to Anahita, the goddess of water and fertility.

At Bishapur, on either side of a narrow gorge, there are also six Sassainian rock relief's, commemorating Shapur’s victories over the Romans, for which the site is justly famous.

FIRUZABAD In 220 A.D., Ardashir I, having defeated the Parthian king, Artabanus, became king of all Iran. He then needed a new royal residence which he built at a place known today as Firuzabad, calling it Ardashir-Khurra, the ‘Glory of Ardashir’. The walled city was circular in shape, with four gates located at each cardinal point. A square minaret of rubble stone rose to almost one hundred feet in the center of the city remains of which is all that survives. Nearby stood the enormous palace of Ardashir, built on the plain with a view over a small natural lake. Which has played such a key role on the understanding of the development of Persian architecture. Ardashir also built a fortified residence on top of a mountain, overlooking the plain, at a place known today as Ghal-e-Dodhtar, which is set out on three levels.

SARVESTAN Now no more than a large village in the midst of orchards, was once another sassanian stronghold in the south of Iran. The domes of the fifth century A.D. building thought by many to be a hunting lodge or small palace built by Bahram V (420-440 A.D.), is visible from a distance.

Constructed of stone and mortar, the façade has three Ivans pointing outwards, behind which lay a square hall with long narrow rooms on either side, and a central courtyard with other rooms grouped around it. Its unique aspect lies in the springing of the vaults which are supported by thick, rectangular columns on short round columns.