Pasargadae

Pasargadae was the first capital of the Achaemenid empire, founded by Cyrus the Great in the mid-sixth century BCE on a high plain in Fars. Cyrus died in 530 BCE, and the city he left behind was a scattering of palaces, pavilions and gardens rather than a walled town. Today most of it is low ruins and column bases spread across open grassland.

One building stands almost complete: the tomb traditionally identified as that of Cyrus himself. It is strikingly plain, a small gabled stone chamber on a stepped plinth of six tiers, no larger than a modest room. Greek writers recorded that Alexander of Macedon found it looted and ordered it restored. In the Islamic centuries, local people called it Qabr-e Madar-e Soleyman, “the tomb of the mother of Solomon”, which may have helped protect it.

Elsewhere on the site, the palace gardens are thought to be among the earliest examples of the Persian four-part garden, the chahar bagh, their stone water channels still traceable in the ground. A single relief of a four-winged figure survives on a gate pier. Pasargadae was inscribed by UNESCO in 2004, and on and around the date given as Cyrus Day in late October many Iranians gather at the tomb.