Firuzabad, Fars
- For the city in Uttar Pradesh, see: Firozabad
Firouzabad or Firuzabad (Sassanid Middle Persian Ardasher-Khwarrah اردشيرخوره, or The Glory of Ardasher, post-Arab invasion Fīrūzābād فيروزآباد) is a city in Iran. It is located in Fars province south of Shiraz. The town is surrounded by a mud wall and ditch. It had an estimated population of 67,909 in 2005.[1]
Alexander of Macedonia destroyed the original city of Gōr. Centuries later, Ardashir I, founder of the Sassanid Dynasty, revived the city before it was ransacked in the Arab invasion of the seventh century.
Firuzabad is situated in a low-lying area of the region, so Alexander was able to drown the city by directing the flow of a river into the city. The lake he created remained until Ardashir I built a tunnel to drain it. He founded his new capital city on this site.
Ardeshir's new city was known as Khor Ardeshīr, Ardeshīr Khurah and Shāhr-ī Gōr. It had a circular plan so precise in measurement that the Persian historian Ibn Balkhi wrote it to be "devised using a compass". It was protected by a trench 50 meters in width, and was 2 kilometers in diameter. The city had four gates; to the north was the Hormoz Gate, to the south the Ardeshir Gate, to the east the Mithra Gate and to the west the Bahram Gate. The royal capital's compounds were constructed at the center of a circle 450m in radius. At the center point of the city was a Zoroastrian fire temple 30m high and spiral in design, which is thought to have been the architectural predecessor of the Great Mosque of Samarra of Iraq.
The city's importance was revived again in the reign of Azud al-Dawla of the Daylamite dynasty, who used the city as his frequent residence. It is at this time that the old name of the city--Gōr, is abandoned in favor of the new. In New Persian spoken at the time Gōr had come to mean "grave." King Azud al-Dawla, as the story goes, found it distastful to reside in a "grave." Per his instruction, the city's name was changed to Peroz-abad, "City of Victory." Since then, the city has been known by variations of that name, to include Firuzabad (Middle Persian Fīrūzābād).
Among the attractions of the city are the Ghal'eh Dokhtar, the Palace of Ardeshir, and the fire temple tower among the remains of Gōr.
The people of modern Firuzabad are mostly descendants of the Qashqai. They used to live along the Amu Darya River before fleeing before Genghiz Khan to Fars.
See also
- Fars Cultural Heritage Organization
- Ghal'eh Dokhtar in Firuzabad.
- Palace of Ardeshir in Firuzabad.
- Bishapur
External links
- Firuzabad entry in the Encyclopædia Iranica
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Gōr city. The circular plan of cities was a so called trademark of Parthian architecture and planning. -
At the center of the circular city was the spiral fire temple tower, the architectural precedent of the great spiral of the Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq.
