1884 Perron map SHIRAZ AND PERSEPOLIS, IRAN, #40

Description: Perron09_040 1884 Perron map SHIRAZ AND PERSEPOLIS, IRAN, #40 Nice small map titled Chiraz et Persepolis, from wood engraving with fine detail and clear impression. Overall size approx. 19 x 16 cm, image size approx. 11 x 10 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron. Shiraz, capital, Fars ostan (province), south central Iran, within the Zagros Mountains on an agricultural lowland at an elevation of 4,875 ft (1,486 m). Famous for its wine, it is both a historic site and an attractive modern city, with gardens, shrines, and mosques. Shiraz is the birthplace of the Persian poets Sa'di and Hafez, whose garden tombs, both resplendently renovated, lie on the northern outskirts. Despite calamitous floods (1630, 1668), pestilences, famines, and earthquakes (chiefly 1824, 1853), remarkably much of the city survived. Shiraz was important during the Seleucid (312-175 BC), Parthian (247 BC-AD 224), and Sasanid (c. AD 224-651) periods. In the early 13th century the Mongols built the New Mosque and the fortress Bagh-e Takht. In 1387 and again in 1393, Timur (Tamerlane), the Turkic conqueror, occupied Shiraz, which, with its Congregational Mosque (894), Shah Cheragh shrine (1344-49), and Great Library (later the Madrasseh, or theological school; 1615), had become a Muslim centre rivalling Baghdad. In 1724 the city was sacked by Afghan invaders. Shiraz became capital of the Zand dynasty (1750-94), whose founder, the vakil (regent) Karim Khan Zand, adorned the old city with many fine buildings, including his mausoleum (an octagonal tiled kiosk, now a museum); the Ark, or citadel (now a prison); and the Vakil Bazaar and Mosque. Buildings in the new city include the Persian Church of St. Simon the Zealot and the university (1945). The city, a trading and road centre for the central Zagros Mountains, is linked to Bushire, its port on the Persian Gulf. It has cement, sugar, and fertilizer factories and textile mills, and traditional inlay work flourishes. Pop. (1976) 416,408. Shiraz rug, handwoven floor covering made in the district around the city of Shiraz in southern Iran. The best known are the Qashqa`i rugs, products of nomadic tribesmen. A group of tribes--some Arab, some Turkish, forming the Khamseh Confederation--weaves rugs somewhat similar to the Qashqa`i pieces in a variety of patterns, as do the inhabitants of certain Iranian weaving villages in the locality of Shiraz. They usually use Senna (Sehna) knotting, whereas the Qashqa`i use Ghiordes. Shiraz rugs frequently display rectilinear medallions in polygonal or diamond form, often with three diamonds connected by a "pole." Arrangements of manifold narrow stripes and small geometric figures are also common. The strong colouring of the rugs has been described as sombre. The foundation is of wool, and the pile may consist of wool softer to the touch than is common in other parts of Persia. Persepolis Old Persian Parsa, modern Takht-e Jamshid, or Takht-i Jamshid (Persian: Throne of Jamshid) an ancient capital of the Achaemenian kings of Iran (Persia), located about 32 miles (51 km) northeast of Shiraz in the region of Fars in southwestern Iran. The site lies near the confluence of the small river Pulvar (Rudkhaneh-ye Sivand) with the Rud-e Kor. Though archaeologists have discovered evidence of prehistoric settlement, inscriptions indicate that construction of the city began under Darius I the Great (reigned 522–486 BC), who, as a member of a new branch of the royal house, made Persepolis the capital of Persia proper, replacing Pasargadae, the burial place of Cyrus the Great. Built in a remote and mountainous region, Persepolis was an inconvenient royal residence, visited mainly in the spring. The effective administration of the Achaemenian Empire was carried on from Susa, Babylon, or Ecbatana. This accounts for the Greeks being unacquainted with Persepolis until Alexander the Great's invasion of Asia. In 330 BC Alexander plundered the city and burned the palace of Xerxes, probably to symbolize the end of his Panhellenic war of revenge. In 316 BC Persepolis was still the capital of Persis as a province of the Macedonian empire. The city gradually declined in the Seleucid period and after, its ruins attesting its ancient glory. In the 3rd century AD the nearby city of Istakhr became the centre of the Sasanian empire. The site is marked by a large terrace with its east side leaning on the Kuh-e Rahmat (Mount of Mercy). The other three sides are formed by a retaining wall, varying in height with the slope of the ground from 13 to 41 feet (4 to 12 m); on the west side a magnificent double stair in two flights of 111 easy stone steps leads to the top. On the terrace are the ruins of a number of colossal buildings, all constructed of a dark gray stone, (often polished to the consistency of marble) from the adjacent mountain. The stones, of great size, cut with the utmost precision, were laid without mortar, and many of them are still in place. Especially striking are the huge columns, 13 of which still stand in Darius the Great's audience hall, known as the apadana, the name given to a similar hall built by Darius at Susa. There are two more columns still standing in the entrance hall of the Gate of Xerxes, and a third has been assembled there from its broken pieces. In 1933 two sets of gold and silver plates recording in the three forms of cuneiform, Ancient Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian, the boundaries of the Persian Empire were discovered in the foundations of Darius' hall of audience. A number of inscriptions, cut in stone, of Darius I, Xerxes I, and Artaxerxes III indicate to which monarch the various buildings are to be attributed. The oldest of these on the south retaining wall gives Darius' famous prayer for his people: “God protect this country from foe, famine and falsehood.” There are numerous reliefs of Persian, Median, and Elamite officials, and 23 scenes separated by cypress trees depict representatives from the remote parts of the empire who, led by a Persian or a Mede, made appropriate offerings to the king at the national festival of the vernal equinox. Behind Persepolis are three sepulchres hewn out of the mountainside; the facades, of which one is incomplete, are richly ornamented with reliefs. About 8 miles (13 km) north by northeast, on the opposite side of the Pulvar River, rises a perpendicular wall of rock in which four similar tombs are cut at a considerable height from the bottom of the valley. This place is called Naqsh-e Rostam (the Picture of Rostam), from the Sasanian carvings below the tombs, which were thought to represent the mythical hero Rostam. That the occupants of these seven tombs were Achaemenian kings might be inferred from the sculptures, and one of those at Naqsh-e Rostam is expressly declared in its inscriptions to be the tomb of Darius I, son of Hystaspes, whose grave, according to the Greek historian Ctesias, was in a cliff face that could be reached only by means of an apparatus of ropes. The three other tombs at Naqsh-e Rostam, besides that of Darius I, are probably those of Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II. The two completed graves behind Persepolis probably belong to Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III. The unfinished one might be that of Arses, who reigned at the longest two years, but is more likely that of Darius III, last of the Achaemenian line, who was overthrown by Alexander the Great.

Price: 25 USD

Location: Zagreb, HR

End Time: 2024-11-26T16:47:21.000Z

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