Takht-e Jamshid (Persepolis)تخت جمشید
Persian tradition gave the ruins of Persepolis to Jamshid, the radiant king of the Shahnameh's golden age. The poem never names the site; the connection was made by the people who lived beside it.
The Shahnameh atlasاطلس شاهنامه
Ferdowsi's Book of Kings is a story told across a map: mountains where demons are chained, rivers that mark the edge of the world, and cities that still stand. This atlas follows the epic from place to place, from the first kings to the fall of the Sasanians. Some of these places you can visit; some exist only in the poem; many sit somewhere in between.
The Shahnameh, the "Book of Kings", is the national epic of the Persian-speaking world. Its author, Abolqasem Ferdowsi, was a landowner from Tus, near today's Mashhad, born around 940. He worked on it for some three decades and completed it around 1010, drawing on an earlier prose Book of Kings compiled in Tus in the 950s, on a thousand couplets left by the poet Daqiqi, and on the stories that Iranian gentry families kept alive. The result runs to about 50,000 couplets, depending on the edition. It is written in Persian with remarkably few Arabic loanwords, and readers have long credited it with helping to keep the language alive.
Three ages
The poem moves through three broad ages. The mythical age begins with Kayumars, the first king, and runs through the Pishdadian kings who bring fire, iron, writing and Nowruz, ending with Fereydun and the division of the world among his sons. The heroic age belongs to the Kayanian kings and above all to the house of Sam, Zal and Rostam, the champions of Sistan, and to the long wars with Turan. The historical age begins with Alexander, passes briefly through the Ashkanians, the Parthians, and then follows the Sasanian kings, in detail and with real affection, to the death of Yazdegerd III and the Arab conquest in the seventh century.
Iran and Turan
The epic's geography is shaped by one border. When Fereydun divides the world, Iraj receives Iran, Tur receives Turan and Salm the lands of the west. Tur's line becomes Iran's great rival, and the boundary between them is usually the Jayhun, the river the Greeks called the Oxus and which is today the Amu Darya. Much of the heroic age is a story of crossings: armies, exiles, lovers and princes passing over that river in both directions. Turan in the poem is a literary realm, not a modern nation or people.
The places in the poem are a mixture. Some are real cities that Ferdowsi's readers knew well, such as Balkh, Kabul, Herat, Merv and Ctesiphon. Others are legendary lands, such as Hamavaran or the fortress of Gang Dezh, whose location was never fixed. And many are legendary places that tradition has attached to a real site: Damavand, where Zahhak is chained, or the Alborz, home of the Simorgh. This atlas marks each place as real, traditional or legendary. Many identifications are traditional rather than certain, scholars disagree about some of them, and points for legendary places are approximate.
The mythical ageدوران اساطیری
From Kayumars, the first king, through the Pishdadian rulers who win fire, iron and writing, to Fereydun's victory over Zahhak and the division of the world among his sons.
The Arvand (Tigris)اروند
On his way to overthrow Zahhak, Fereydun reaches the Arvand, which Ferdowsi explains is the river the Arabs call the Dejla, the Tigris. When the ferryman refuses him, he rides straight into the water.
Kang Dezhhukhtکنگ دژهوخت
Zahhak rules the world from a palace city that the poem calls Kang Dezhhukht, adding that in Ferdowsi's own day it was known as Beyt al-Moqaddas, Jerusalem. Here Fereydun frees Jamshid's daughters and confronts the tyrant.
Mount Damavandکوه دماوند
Iran's highest mountain is the prison of the serpent-shouldered tyrant Zahhak. Fereydun chains him in a cave inside it, and folk tradition still hears him in the mountain's rumbles.
Tamishehتمیشه
After his victory, Fereydun moves his court from Amol to Tamisheh, at the eastern end of the Caspian forests. The name survives in a long Sasanian defensive wall near the coast of Golestan.
The heroic ageدوران پهلوانی
The age of the Kayanian kings and of Rostam, Zal and the heroes of Sistan: Siyavash's exile and death, the long wars with Afrasiab of Turan, and the coming of Zoroaster's faith.
Mount Alborzالبرز کوه
On the heights of the Alborz the Simorgh raises Zal, the white-haired child his father abandoned. The poem's Alborz is a mountain at the edge of the world, traditionally identified with the range north of Tehran.
Kabulکابل
Kabul frames the life of Rostam. His mother Rudabeh is a princess of Kabul, and it is in the hunting grounds of a later king of Kabul that Rostam is betrayed and killed.
Zabulistanزابلستان
Zabulistan is the realm of the house of Sam: the court where Zal rules, Rostam is raised, and Esfandiyar comes to put Rostam in chains. Tradition places it in Sistan, around today's Zabol.
Kuh-e Khwajaکوه خواجه
A flat-topped black hill rising from the Hamun wetlands, crowned with the ruins of a Parthian and Sasanian palace that local people call Rostam's castle. It is the closest thing Rostam has to a home on the map.
Amol and Arash's shotآمل
Amol appears in the Shahnameh as a seat of the early kings. The highlands around it, the old Tabaristan, are where medieval writers set the story of Arash the archer, whose arrow fixed the border between Iran and Turan.
Mazandaranمازندران
In the Shahnameh, Mazandaran is a beautiful country ruled by demons, the goal of Kay Kavus's reckless invasion and of Rostam's Seven Labours. Tradition identifies it with the Caspian province, though scholars have long debated where the poem meant.
The White Div's caveغار دیو سپید
In the seventh and last of his labours, Rostam enters the cave of the White Div, the great demon of Mazandaran, and kills him in the dark. The poem gives no place that can be found on a map.
Hamavaranهاماوران
Hamavaran is the kingdom where Kay Kavus wins a bride, Sudabeh, and loses his freedom. Many scholars identify it with Himyar in Yemen, but the poem's geography is vague.
Samanganسمنگان
Searching for his stolen horse, Rostam comes to the city of Samangan, where the princess Tahmineh visits him at night. Tradition places it at Aybak in northern Afghanistan, where a rock-cut Buddhist stupa is known as Takht-e Rostam.
The White Castleدژ سپید
On his march into Iran, Sohrab attacks the White Castle on the frontier. Its defenders include Hojir, who is captured, and Gordafarid, a woman warrior who rides out in armour and nearly defeats him.
The Jayhun (Oxus)جیحون
In the Shahnameh, the Jayhun, the Oxus of the Greeks and today's Amu Darya, is the frontier between Iran and Turan. Siyavash crosses it into exile, and his son Kay Khosrow crosses it home.
Siyavashgerd and Gang Dezhسیاوشگرد
In Turan, the exiled prince Siyavash builds two cities: Gang Dezh, a paradise fortress in a remote land, and Siyavashgerd, a city of gardens. He is killed nearby, and Gang Dezh later becomes Afrasiab's last refuge.
Bukharaبخارا
In the Shahnameh, Bukhara is one of the cities of Turan. Its own historians remembered Siyavash as the builder of its citadel and kept a yearly rite at his supposed grave, and its Samanid court nurtured the Persian revival that made the epic possible.
Afrasiab (old Samarkand)افراسیاب
The ruins of ancient Samarkand, abandoned after the Mongol conquest, are known as Afrasiab, after the Turanian king who is Iran's great enemy in the Shahnameh. The poem mentions Samarkand itself among the cities of the east.
Azar Goshnasp (Takht-e Soleyman)آذرگشسب
In the Shahnameh, the young Kay Khosrow captures the demon-haunted fortress of Bahman Dezh and founds the fire temple of Azar Goshnasp. The historical fire burned at Takht-e Soleyman, the royal sanctuary of the Sasanian kings.
Bijan's pitچاه بیژن
Caught with Afrasiab's daughter Manizheh, the young hero Bijan is thrown into a pit in Turan and sealed under a great stone. Rostam, disguised as a merchant, rescues him.
Balkhبلخ
In the Shahnameh, Balkh is the seat of King Lohrasp and his son Goshtasp, and the city where Zoroaster brings his faith. It is also where Lohrasp dies, defending the city against a Turanian attack.
Kashmarکاشمر
In the part of the Shahnameh written by Daqiqi, Zoroaster plants a cypress from paradise at the gate of a fire temple in Kashmar. Medieval writers said the tree stood for centuries until an Abbasid caliph had it cut down.
Darabgerdدارابگرد
Darab, the foundling son of Queen Homay, becomes king and founds the city of Darabgerd in Fars. Its ruins, inside a great ring-shaped wall, lie near the modern town of Darab.
The historical ageدوران تاریخی
Alexander, a brief passage through the Ashkanian (Parthian) kings, then the Sasanians from Ardashir to Yazdegerd III and the Arab conquest, told with real history and legend interwoven.
Babylonبابل
In the Shahnameh, Eskandar (Alexander) returns from his travels to Babylon, where omens foretell his death. He dies there, and his body is carried to Alexandria.
Estakhrاستخر
In the Shahnameh, Babak, the ruler of Estakhr, takes the shepherd Sasan into his service, dreams of his royal destiny and gives him his daughter. Their son is Ardashir, founder of the Sasanian dynasty.
Gur (Firuzabad)گور (فیروزآباد)
After his victory over Ardavan, Ardashir founds a city in Fars that the Shahnameh calls Khurra-ye Ardashir, the Glory of Ardashir. Its perfectly circular ruins, with palaces and a fortress nearby, still survive near Firuzabad.
Kajaran, Haftvad's fortressکجاران
In one of the Shahnameh's strangest episodes, Ardashir fights Haftvad, a lord of the coast whose fortune comes from a magical worm found in an apple. Ardashir kills the worm with molten metal.
Shushtarشوشتر
In the Shahnameh, Shapur, son of Ardashir, captures a Roman commander and sets him to build a bridge at Shushtar. History agrees in outline: Roman prisoners taken by Shapur I worked on the great weir and bridge there.
Al-Hiraحیره
In the Shahnameh, the young prince Bahram is sent to be raised by Monzer, an Arab king, and with his help wins the throne by taking the crown from between two lions. Historically, Bahram V grew up at the Lakhmid court of al-Hira.
Ctesiphon (Tisfun)تیسفون
Ctesiphon, which the poem calls Tisfun, is the capital of the later Sasanian kings: the court of Anushirvan and his minister Bozorgmehr, of Khosrow Parviz and his musician Barbad. Its great arch still stands south of Baghdad.
Heratهرات
Herat appears throughout the Shahnameh as a city of the eastern frontier. Its most famous moment comes in the reign of Hormozd IV, when the general Bahram Chubin defeats the invading Saveh Shah in the country around it.
Reyری
Rey is one of the oldest cities of Iran and appears often in the Shahnameh. It is the home of the general Bahram Chubin, who rose from the provinces to defeat Saveh Shah and then claimed the throne itself.
Qadisiyyahقادسیه
At Qadisiyyah, the Iranian commander Rostam, son of Farrokhzad, leads the Sasanian army against the Arab Muslim forces. The Shahnameh gives him a long, prophetic letter foreseeing the fall of the empire.
Mervمرو
Fleeing the Arab armies, Yazdegerd III reaches Merv, where its governor Mahuy betrays him. He hides in a mill and is killed by the miller. With his death, the Shahnameh's long history of kings ends.
Tusتوس
Tus, near Mashhad, is where Ferdowsi was born, wrote the Shahnameh and was buried. It was also where the prose Book of Kings he worked from was compiled, and where readers still gather at his tomb.