The Birthplace Of The Persian Empire

Most empires in history ruled out of a single capital city, but the Achaemenid Persians were rather unique because they officially had several capitals, each serving a different purpose. This is a series about these capitals, and in this video I'll be talking about Pasargad, the very first one, and the site connected to their origin story. Pasargad was established by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty. Cyrus was the king who transformed the Persians from a more pastoral people into an imperial superpower. In a remarkably short period of time, he conquered vast territories, and the first major power he defeated were the Medes in a major battle in 550 BC. According to tradition, that decisive battle took place on the plain where he would later build Pasargad, and Cyrus may have chosen that location for this reason, perhaps to commemorate his pivotal victory and rise to power, and it's where he chose to be buried. So the site had a symbolic connection to the birth of the Persian Empire. Pasargad was not really a city. It was more of a royal complex set within a vast cultivated garden. It contained a palace, an audience hall, gardens, water channels, a large hilltop fortress protecting the site, and the tomb of Cyrus, which still stands today. Archaeologists often see Pasargad as an early stage in the development of Persian imperial architecture, before the more monumental style later seen at Persepolis and Susa. The Persians themselves did not come from a long architectural tradition like the older civilizations of Mesopotamia or Egypt. Instead, Persian imperial style developed by drawing on craftsmen, artistic traditions, and architectural influences from the cultures they absorbed. Even after they developed larger and more monumental capitals, Pasargad may have remained a sacred site, and the symbolic birthplace of the empire. A kind of spiritual heart strongly associated with Cyrus and their origin story. Later traditions also claimed that every new Achaemenid king was crowned here. Out of all the Persian capitals, Pasargad was the smallest, probably too small to house the entire royal court, which may have had up to thousands of people working in it at the peak of the empire. The infrastructure was simply not there to function as a major residential capital, but it remained an important ceremonial and dynastic center. Let's look at the site in more detail. We'll start with the most famous and visually striking monument, the tomb of Cyrus. It stands at the southern edge of Pasargad, somewhat isolated from the rest of the complex. The tomb is a small stone chamber set on a stepped platform, built from large limestone blocks. The interior chamber is empty today. It's a very modest tomb for the founder of one of the largest empires of antiquity, especially compared to the monumental cliff tombs of later Persian kings near Persepolis. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is simply that it survived. For more than 2,500 years, this structure remained largely intact, despite how easy it would have been to dismantle its stone and reuse it elsewhere. After Alexander conquered the Persian empire, ancient sources say that he visited the tomb of Cyrus, perhaps to pay his respects. According to Arrian and Strabo, the tomb had been plundered shortly before he arrived, and Alexander ordered it restored. So even after the Persian empire had fallen, Cyrus still mattered enough for Alexander to care and preserve his tomb. In many ways, it's amazing that it survived at all. Sometimes, it's sheer luck that plays a role in whether an ancient monument disappears forever or endures into the modern world. Pasargad was never built over, so the site still preserves its ancient layout, even though most of the buildings survive only at foundation level. The structures were spread out across a large garden complex, connected by stone water channels, which archaeologists have uncovered. They can even be seen on Google Earth. Rather than a dense urban center, Pasargad was designed as a quiet, royal landscape of gardens, pavilions, water channels, and open space. A mini-paradise. In fact, the word paradise ultimately comes from an old Persian word referring to a walled garden or enclosed park. These gardens may represent some of the earliest examples of the Persian garden tradition. This is a reconstruction of the palace of Cyrus the Great. Some inscriptions found here actually identify Cyrus by name, helping archaeologists connect the building directly to him. In the distance is the audience hall where the king likely received visitors and envoys. It may have been an early precursor to the much larger Apadhanas later built at Susa and Persepolis. And perhaps this was the hall where the Achaemenid kings were crowned as well, but the exact location of where these ceremonies took place is not known. Compared to the later palaces in Apadhanas at Susa and Persepolis, the buildings at Pasargad were much smaller and simpler, but they already show the early development of Persian royal architecture. Now that you've oriented yourselves to the monuments, this wider view will make more sense. We can see the palace of Cyrus, the audience hall, and in the distance, the tomb of Cyrus, which in antiquity was surrounded by an enclosing wall. This reconstruction is facing south, and the mountains in the distance are based on the actual topography of the region. The pass cutting through them leads towards Persepolis, the later ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. Travelers moving between Pasargad and Persepolis would have crossed these mountains. The two sites are about 80 kilometers apart, a journey that took a few days on foot. If you'd like to virtually go to Persepolis yourselves, I made an entire documentary about the site, its architecture, and how Alexander the Great destroyed it. And if you'd like to learn about Susa, the administrative capital of the Persian Empire, I made a video about that as well. My name is Jordan and thank you for watching.