This excellent volume represents an important, sophisticated, and most welcome contribution to approaching an archaeological site in Iran. Containing ten individual chapters, the publication is successful in many aspects: the well-balanced chapters offer a refreshingly contemporary perspective, and they adopt interesting anthropological, ethnographic, intellectual, and sociological approaches while treating a place, past scholars, and, most importantly, the current population with deep respect and care. The volume invites its readers to engage further with contemporary ideas of place and time, the role of tourism development and management, as well as current museology in heritage debates, and a sense of belonging in the contemporary Iranian society.

Pasargadae, ancient Batrakatash/Basrakada, played an important role in the Achaemenid Persian Empire between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. Festivals conducted here involved large food distributions among participants, and epigraphic sources refer to a “treasury” (kapnuski)Footnote ¹ on the site. The Tomb of Cyrus has been a prominent feature since the late sixth century BCE. Registered on the list of Historical Monuments in Persia in September 1931 (Boucharlat in this volume, p. 37: note that it was Persia then, not Iran), UNESCO world heritage professionals acknowledged the uniqueness of the site by adding Pasargadae to the list of World Heritage Sites in 2004. The village closest to the site today, Madar Sulaiman, counts some 1,700 inhabitants (p. 140) to which one would have to add 7‒8,000 tourists on an average day, totaling some 350,000 tourists in 2011 (pp. 159‒60). As we learn in the volume, this growing tourism provides approximately forty jobs for inhabitants (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

A “Welcome to Pasargad” panel is greeting tourists at the entrance to the site at Madar Sulaiman in May 2016.

Source: Author's photograph.

In the first chapter, Mozaffari offers what he refers to as an “account of transpositions of Pasargadae,” setting the stage for the relevance of his approach of “an idea of place” (p. 14). He introduces an array of modern stakeholders particularly invested in the preservation of the site, which he divides into “state actors” and “non-state actors.” The terms “actor” as well as “place” account for the most neutral word-choices here. For Mozaffari, Pasargadae is a “microcosm, indeed a metonym, for the current situation of collective identity in Iran” (p. 19), “a microcosm of the Iranian society at large” (p. 23). In fact, one of the locals who has been interviewed for the volume refers to Pasargadae as “a small Paris, a compressed Tehran” (Parise kuchak, Tehrane feshordeh) (p. 139).

Although written as an introductory essay, to a certain extent Mozaffari goes beyond, and provides more detail even than some of the following chapters. I would have wanted to learn more about the role of Ali Sami (1910‒89): of all modern archaeologists, it was Sami who spent the longest time working on the site after 1949. Sami’s career and work on the sites of Pasargadae and Persepolis has since 2008 featured well in the Museum of Regional History in Shiraz, where a diorama with a wax statue of Sami greets the visitor. This chapter and the volume would perhaps have benefited from more insights into Sami’s relationship with Reverend Ralph Norman Sharp (1896‒1995). This could have better explained the involvement of the British during a crucial period in fieldwork on the site during the 1950s and 1960s which remains otherwise unexplained in the volume.Footnote ² Important information is sometimes hidden in the footnotes of Mozaffari’s introduction. The reviewer hoped to learn more about the whereabouts of the archives of Ali Sami and the “older settlement” of the twentieth century on the site (p. 11), and the reason for demolishing it, for instance, particularly since this is the only time this older settlement is mentioned in the volume: if we cannot document aspects of site preservation strategies and historiographic aspects of an important local archaeologist only one or two generations ago, how difficult would it be for more remote periods in time? In this chapter (also only in a footnote) we learn that an elder of the village received the title “honorary guardian of the site for saving valuable artworks from the hands of an illegal English treasure hunter” (p. 11).

The second chapter (pp. 29‒59), by Remy Boucharlat, deals with “Archaeological Approaches and their Future Directions at Pasargadae.” Boucharlat has been known for his long-term involvement and his excellent publications on the fieldwork conducted at Susa, another major archaeological site in Iran, which also became inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site after this volume was published in 2015, and conducted fieldwork at Pasargadae between 1999 and 2009. He is particularly well qualified to address aspects of long-term historical information on the site. The surrounding landscapes of the Dasht-e Morgab (“Plain of the Waterbird”) underwent major changes in layout, particularly through the creation of canals for the gardens under Cyrus and successive rulers from the mid-sixth century BCE,Footnote ³ according to Boucharlat, many key questions remain unanswered: what did the settlement pattern in the surrounding plain look like before, during, and after the Achaemenid Persian occupation? Also, what was the function of the monumental buildings identified during excavations in the twentieth century (p. 37)? Boucharlat rightly cautions once more their labelling as “palaces.” Naturally, the application of the modern English term “palace” to pre-Islamic Iranian monuments is problematic.Footnote ⁴ Highlighting the advantages of modern geo-spatial analysis in approaching the site, the reader learns about exciting discoveries being made in recent years, including a monumental building complex immediately adjacent to the so-called Zendan-tower, the function of which is still unclear (pp. 46‒7). In summarizing, Boucharlat questions the necessity of extensive large-scale excavations on the site in the future, stressing that it is much more important to preserve and protect what remains above ground. Indeed, plundering around the site continues today.Footnote ⁵ Rather, Boucharlat stresses the importance of a continuation of geo-magnetic surveys, and calls for further investigations of the gardens and the environment, encouraging palynological research, as “Pasargadae is a benchmark for the garden in the world cultural history” (pp. 55‒6; also p. 40 footnote 7).Footnote ⁶ Too late to be included in Boucharlat’s article, animal bones retrieved from recent excavations conducted near the Takht have been analyzed in recent years.Footnote ⁷

In the third chapter (pp. 61‒89), Mohammad-Hassan Talebian consequently puts emphasis on the preservation of the current cultural landscape and monuments (Figure 1), stressing that “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 importance” (p. 66). In a very honest evaluation, in which Talebian points out the complexity of the issues before and after inclusion in the UNESCO list in 2004, Talebian’s contribution is perhaps the best and most relevant in the volume. Given his role as director of the Parsa-Pasargadae Research Foundation, Talebian notes that “despite positive developments, such as job creation and increased interaction between people and site, cultural and tourist infrastructures are far from optimal” (p. 84). This chapter lends voice to the Iranian state-level involvement, showing that—contrary to public opinion in the West, even in 2017—there is amazing work and diversity as well as grounded methodological theory behind management and site preservation in Iran; and that Iranian scholars know very well how to address challenges posed in site preservation and sustainable tourism-management of archaeological sites.Footnote ⁸

In a sharp break from previous chapters, William Taylor’s “Archaeology and Useful Knowledge: Pasargadae and the Rationalities of Digging ‘Real’ Places” introduces a very different theoretical mindset and background by discussing such diverse and now classic texts such as Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), Le Corbusier’s Le Voyage d’Orient (1966), and Martin Bernal’s Black Athena (1987). Taylor questions the notion and the practice of acquiring and using knowledge through practical fieldwork—“digging”—by disclosing the notion of archaeology bearing the “imprimatur of scientific certainty” (p. 96). This chapter is first and foremost an inquiry and critical review of the discipline of archaeology, or rather “digging,” and a critique of breaking through the ground to reach distant pasts. While Pasargadae is in the title, the case-studies discussed by Taylor include sites such as Jerusalem, Athens, or Rome, and the reviewer wondered at times why interesting approaches were not developed further in the context of Pasargadae. While it is fascinating to read about politics and archaeology in general, one misses depth when it comes to the politics of archaeology in a volume focused on Pasargadae. Future generations might ask what motivation lay behind the British involvement in excavating on the site post-World War II? How is it that the University of Sydney as well as many other “foreign” institutions such as the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and others provided grants towards the excavations?Footnote ⁹ The chapter would also have benefited from at least recognizing the growing number of publications in recent years dedicated to “Islamic” Archaeologies. Overall, this chapter made clear that theory and practice can be considered very different things in approaching heritage.

In a similar theoretical framework of a tension between theory and practice, Riccardo Baldissone addresses “The Costs of Paradise: Temporalisations of Place in Pasargadae.” It is in this chapter that Mozaffari's concept of place returns as determent. Baldissone is introduced earlier in the volume as a human rights specialist. Developing trajectories and theories around paradise, this chapter looks first into the history of modern appropriations in Pasargadae, focusing on the removal of Islamic-period monuments from the site, on the role of the gardens and the site as a temporary area of occupation of the constantly moving itinerant state of the Achaemenid rulers (p. 122), before introducing more concepts of a rather philosophical approach to the site, often based on explaining word etymologies. As other authors in the volume indicate, the modern use of the Tomb of Cyrus in public events forms part of a continuing and even spiritual tradition, which is, in fact, common to many sites in Asia.Footnote ¹⁰

I personally found Soheila Shahshahani’s “Pasargadae: Madar Sulaiman and Leila: Placing Pasargadae within its Present Rural Context” among the most inspiring and fascinating reads in this volume. Based on interviews conducted with some of the citizens in the four villages within the Pasargadae zone—Madar Sulaiman, Kordshul, Abolvardi, and Mobarak Abad—it is here that the actual people, the local population, gets a voice. Shahshahani, a cultural anthropologist, introduces the readers to the importance of the site for local families and individuals, stakeholders including nomads and Zoroastrians, the history of the village and the tribes, before continuing to write on current family and social relationships in the village which should benefit from the attention the site receives through its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Shahshahani offers a forum for the local people, “the unnamed guardians of the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae” (p. 139). The head of the village, Haj Hossein Khan Saidi, is introduced as honorary guardian of the Tomb of Cyrus, and an important figure in establishing the first university on the site, while Hedayat ol-Saltaneh established a factory producing canned food from local products, employing some 2,000 workers. Leila Saidi (Shirvani), referred to in the title of this contribution, is the head of the village council of Madar Sulaiman and head of the local girls’ high school, who has long advocated for the establishment of a University in Madar Sulaiman. Tensions between state actors and non-state actors are introduced in the case of the parking lot next to the Tomb of Cyrus, and the reader is asked to take a position between the local council and Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism Organization (ICCHTO) when it comes to the planned museum and cultural center. The reviewer was reminded of some early letters, written in 1928 by archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld (1879–1948) to his mentor Eduard Meyer (1855–1930) in Berlin, detailing how Herzfeld came to an agreement with the local owners of the site, “Familie Hedayet,” three brothers, all of whom had been educated in Germany, and one of whom became a minister in Tehran.Footnote ¹¹ Hedayat ol-Saltaneh, from the Basseri pastoral nomads of the area, is introduced again in Shahshahani’s paper (p. 141). The Basseri tribe and families continue to be among the most important local benefactors, and even today, as Shahshahani notes, the family is dedicated to the well-being of the area (p. 141).

In chapter 7, Mohammad Hassan Talebian returns, this time in a co-authored paper with Tod Jones, entitled “Perspectives and Prospects for Cultural Tourism in the Pasargadae Region.” This chapter is a logical follow-up of Talebian’s previous chapter and seems to be an extension of the first. While his first chapter focused on site preservation, here the authors explore how the relationship between site preservation and tourism can be managed. First, the authors provide a necessary brief overview on the tourism industry of Iran. Since 1999, there has been a steady growth in tourism, both domestic and international; and it is still interesting to note the different audiences formed by domestic and international visitor groups. In 2012, there were approximately 3 million international tourists compared to 52 million domestic tourists in Iran (p. 157). Since 2008, some 310,000 to 330,000 visitors frequent Pasargadae in an average year, and most come during the Nowruz Festival in March. Among foreign tourists, European, particularly German, tourists constitute the majority. The authors then introduce the main trends in the academic literature on the subject, and conclude by assessing and engaging with the current management of cultural tourism at Pasargadae. It should not come as a surprise after reading the previous chapters that “relations with local communities are problematic, as conservation measures have placed restrictions on development opportunities” (p. 170). At the same time, “local communities are starting to become engaged with heritage and heritage tourism, including education and training” (p. 170).

Next, Jennifer Harris discusses “The Past in the Present: Using Poetics as an Interpretative Strategy at Pasargadae,” and in chapter 9, co-authored by the volume editor and Nigel Westbrook, the reader learns about the project of an “(Unfinished) Museum at Pasargadae” some 500m northwest of the tomb of Cyrus. The literature on museums in Iran, the Arab world, and beyond has kept growing in the last decade. The imbalance of site repositories and museums based on building (and growing) private collections, however, has rarely been discussed, and is not discussed here, either. Questioning why there is no museum at Pasargadae, the authors review past failures in constructing such a museum. Prior to 1978, the Iranian-Canadian architect Hossein Amanat (born in 1942) was asked to develop the design for such a site museum. Constructed entirely in massive, reinforced concrete, the museum became a “modern ruin,” yet construction was resumed in 2011. The authors conducted an interview with Amanat, who reflected on his visions for the museum. Rather surprisingly, we learn that “identity politics and ideology were not a major concern in the design process” (p. 198). Mozaffari and Westbrook assume that this would have been the first time a museum was designed for Pasargadae. However, the French architect Andre Godard (1881‒1965) had envisioned a museum for the site. His plans are preserved among archival documents at Harvard University (Figure 2). In contrast to Amanat’s three-courtyard system, Godard had envisaged a simple square building combining a research library, research facilities, storage, and a museum. Amanat’s design featured a sunken, square courtyard, with a fire altar exhibit as the main center, as such altars are frequently depicted on the facades of the tombs of Achaemenid rulers at Naqsh-e Rustam and Persepolis (p. 205). The chapter would also have benefited from a comparison with other earlier site museum constructions in Iran, such as Susa in 1965, or Haft Tepe in 1972.

Figure 2.

Sketch of a ground-plan of a planned museum of Pasargadae by André Godard, unknown date.

Source: Harvard University. Fine Arts Library. Records of Marie-Thérèse, Baroness Ullens de Schooten (1905‒89). Harvard University Archives.

Another important contribution is the final chapter in the volume, an English translation of a Persian paper on “Antimonies of Development: Heritage, Media and the Sivand Dam Controversy” by Elham Shamoradi and Ebrahim Abdollahzadeh, both experts in media and communication (pp. 225‒53). The authors are to be congratulated for discussing the role of controversies and misinformation in modern communication strategies and social media. In times when “fake news” can decide the fate of people, sites, and entire governments it is not surprising that heritage sites become frequent targets. Dams have been built over archaeological sites worldwide and there is a growing literature reviewing the reactions by local populations and stakeholders involved.Footnote ¹² What is remarkable is the consistency with which the case of the Sivand Dam was brought into the media machine, and how it created a complex contest involving the Iranian diaspora outside of Iran, and the people who were directly impacted. Despite the notion that a dam was planned 17 kilometers away from the Tomb of Cyrus, activists used all their energies on discrediting the project. Shamoradi and Abdollahzadeh analyze the media data “within the context of development journalism and media and falsification of truth” (p. 226). The reviewer found it interesting to learn that the first time the notion of any flooding of Pasargadae was popularized began with a UN report (p. 234), which led later to the “Save Pasargadae” campaign, first operating from Denver in Colorado (p. 235).

What remains in a general assessment after reading the volume? The chapters exhibit the highest caliber of scholarship, and Mozaffari is to be commended for presenting a well-rounded approach to what will remain an iconic place in the memory of Iran. What was missing, and what could go into a second volume? Surprisingly, the reader learnt very little about the actual collections that would go into the museum. It is true that material left Pasargadae already much earlier, not only since its “discovery.” Pottery was picked up by Ernst Herzfeld and soon after by Myron B. Smith (1897‒1970), which resides today at the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin and in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; cuneiform inscriptions from monuments on the site are kept at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem, a limestone fragment depicting a human ear at the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago; a set of jewelry, allegedly from Pasargadae, is today in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.Footnote ¹³ In addition, as we learnt in the preface of David Stronach’s 1978 Pasargadae volume, a large number of expedition photographs were taken between 1961 and 1963, particularly by expedition photographer Olive Kitson. Will all the photographs, drawings, rubbings, and fragments taken from the site still be around in hundreds of years? How do we preserve the photographs that were taken on the site? Can local residents be involved in what happens to the materials from the many sites in the plain of Pasargadae? In a letter by Ernst Herzfeld, written from Pasargadae on 17 June 1928, today preserved in Berlin, Herzfeld mentions that the French archaeologist Roland de Mecquenem (1877‒1957) visited Pasargadae while Herzfeld and his assistant Friedrich Krefter were excavating at the site. De Mecquenem suggested a series of collaborations.Footnote ¹⁴ Given the important role Cyrus and Pasargadae had in world history and their central role in both the Median and Achaemenid Persian empires, the reviewer looks forward to more such studies. I would therefore envision a second volume adding further aspects of the amazing legacy of Pasargadae, focusing on views of Pasargadae around the world, introducing the role of the Polvar River in ancient society, and more. Mozaffari is to be congratulated for producing the best introduction to a complex heritage site available to an English-speaking audience.Footnote ¹⁵ The authors take refreshingly different approaches and this combination is perhaps one of the strongest contributions of the volume. A remarkable and thoughtful collection of papers, all of which can be warmly recommended.