Recorded: April 12, 2023
Event: Achaemenid Workshop 1
Citation: Daryaee, Touraj. "Persepolis: The Persistence of Achaemenid Memory?" Pourdavoud Center: Achaemenid Workshop 1 (April 12, 2023).
by Touraj Daryaee (University of California, Irvine)
This paper discusses the importance of Persepolis/Parse as a location of memory of the past in the province of Persis/Fars. While written documentation memorializing the Achaemenids by subsequent dynasties on the Iranian Plateau is meager, there is meaning about the attachment and use of Persepolis as a place of respect, honor, and worship by the post-Achaemenid dynasts and rulers such as the Fratarakas, Sasanians, and Buyids. The proximity of the Frataraka temple and the possible location of the Anahita Sanctuary, as well as the idea of the importance of Persepolis and Istakhr by the later Sasanians, are all signs of the importance attached to the monument. Lastly the Buyids and other rulers in the region continued the attachment to Persepolis as a reservoir of history and memory, albeit in a different context.
About the Speaker
Touraj Daryaee holds the Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and is the Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of several works, including Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (IB Tauris 2012). He serves as editor of the Oxford Handbook of Iranian History (Oxford UP 2014), and Iran and its Histories (Otto Harrassowitz 2021). He is also the series editor for the Ancient Iran Series (Brill) and as a co-editor of Sasanian Studies (Harrassowitz Verlag).